I know it's been a while since I've updated.  A good six months, in fact.  It just goes to show you how fast life moves around here.  The boy and I both have self-employed day jobs, which means we're continually on the go.  But that's not what I'm here to talk about.Today, I am extremely disillusioned about the whole local food movement.  Fuck it, I say, fuck it right in the ear.

Cue gasps of horror.  And y'know what, that's okay.

Those of you who are gasping are, I'm sure, the same people who feel good spending their money at Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, and the like.  You're the people who buy the Safeway O Organics (when you shop there) and support fair trade coffee.  You may have a little garden--container or no--and understand the benefits of raw milk versus pasteurized.

In short, you are exactly the sort of people that Portlandia mocks. But you're okay with that.

I want to know, though, how many of you have plucked a chicken (or turkey, or duck, or goose) by hand.  How many of you have cut that bird's throat and watched its blood drip into the bucket beneath its neck stump?  I want to know how many of you have spent the money to feed your goats alfalfa hay at $7-12/bale and milk them twice a day, calling out the vet for a multi-$hundred bill when one of them gets mastitis.  I want to know how many of you have spent sleepless clear nights when your livestock guardian dog has spent the entire goddamn night howling--whether at coyotes or traffic--only to STFU at 9 am the next morning.  I want to know how many of you have hauled 5-gallon buckets of water (all hail the 5 gallon bucket!) to your stock through multiple feet of snow.  How many of you, I wonder, have had to run the heat lamp out to the half-assed pen in the middle of winter to keep your stock from freezing?  Who else has funky buckets of hides in their living room, planters in front of their wood fireplace, electric fencing buried underneath snow and frozen into the ground, poultry shit building up on their decks, rabbit shit mounding up underneath (and in!) hutches, baby whatevers freezing to death in the middle of the night so you have to feed them to the dog instead of anticipating any sort of sustainable profit, hay stuck in your bra and fingers freezing off even though it's only late October oh my god and I have to keep butchering every weekend for the next two months, when your entire.fucking.kitchen smells like turkey guts, when you pay $50 for a large roll of freezer paper and $3.99-$4.99 for a goddamn roll of freezer tape that doesn't last nearly as long?  How many of you have ordered feed by the pallet or driven nearly an hour round trip to the local feed store (if you manage not to get sucked into conversation!)?  How m should bany of you have butchered so many animals that the skin of your hands grows soft with the absorbed fat?

I'll tell you, my skin is like buttah.

I've spent the last hour and a half bent over out kitchen sink with a pair of flat-nosed pliers, yanking pinfeathers out of one of our ducks.  We butchered 5 turkeys and 3 ducks today, bringing our total to 8 goats, 20 turkeys, and 3 ducks.  We still have 5 rabbits to go.

People ask us if we sell our birds.  The past three years, I've said yes.  From here on out, I have a feeling that the answer will be: a) no, unless you are willing to pay an exorbitant price, or b) unless you're willing to assist/butcher them yourselves.

I feed my turkeys organic feed, because I like eating food that has no GMOs or unnecessary antibiotics designed to help a bird survive in counter-intuitive circumstances.  Even being free-range and having their diet supplemented with kitchen scraps, each bird consumed roughly $50 worth of feed.  Things being as they are, the turkeys averaged out as follows:  8 lb/hen, 12 lb/tom.  I sold them at $8/lb.  None of this takes into account the cost of the poults, getting up at 4 am to drive into Steamboat to fetch them; the cost of the heat lamps and trough for 2 weeks; the cost of the 10' x 10' coop they stayed in until big enough to reasonably fend off predators like hawks, owls, and foxes; the cost of feeding Ben, our giant livestock guardian dog (a year-round expense, don't forget!); supplies such as the feeders, waterers, syringes, electrolyte solution, specialized bird feeders (before I realized that 3 gallon buckets would do the trick just dandy); the tin needed to make the killing cone; time and effort involved in butchering, and so forth.

$8/lb was a steal of a deal, and barely covered our costs.  Even so, most of the hens butchered out at 8/lb, as mentioned.  A whopping $14/bird does not cover the amount of effort needed to raise these babies and take care of them; putting in the $10/poult fee, that leave $4/bird for watering, electricity, general labor, and butchering time and supplies.

In short, fuck that shit.  No one is gladly going to pay for the amount of time put into these birds (or any other animals on our wee farm); one woman who bought a T-day turkey this year described it as "decadent, but more than we should probably pay."  Another called me up on Thanksgiving Day, concerned about the pinfeathers present in the skin; this, after I had sent out an email stating that all the birds would be home-butchered.  I get her concern, I really do, but I have a hard time when someone tells me, "I don't think they're supposed to be like that."  Y'know what?  Come over and butcher for a day.  It's not the most pleasant of experiences, I won't lie, but you learn a fuckton of information, stuff that you might never learn otherwise.

This has been a really hard year, and I think I'm done with raising turkeys for anyone other than those folks who are willing to do/pitch in on the butchering.  I know what my time--and these birds--are worth, and if no one else agrees with that, then fuck 'em.  I'm happy to put everything in the deep freezer myself (and let's not talk about how much those cost to purchase, and run, nor the price for the saran wrap, butcher paper, and freezer tape needed to wrap those suckers).

Seriously.  I'm done with this.  I'm taking the year off turkeys next year, and anyone who wants a turkey from here on out will need some hands-on practice to understand the rates we charge.  If they don't want to pay that, fine, I'm done.

So. Fucking. Done.

Brandie took this shot late in the evening, using her headlight for illumination.  The babies (one boy, one girl) are a few hours old at this point.

Brandie's daughter Codie the next day, holding the twins, as mother Avalon looks on.

The Toggs were bred to one of Brandie's cashmere bucks.  He's a solid black, so I suppose that's where their body color comes from.  The light-colored stripes down the face and pale feet, though, are pure Toggenburg.

Was just in communication with Brandie from Idlewild Ranch, where my milk does have been bred and wintered.  Avalon just gave birth to twins!  

Aieeee!  I have goat babies! :D

It's been a busy couple of months--it's mud season, and things haven't really slowed down at all.  We've a couple of interns that will be living with us this summer, but more about them later.

In the meantime, I wanted to share my response to a potential CSA member, asking about the increase in buy-in price from 2010 to 2011.  I think it's important that people realize just how much time and money goes into raising your own food, whether it's meat or plant-based.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yes, the fee has increased; let me tell you a little bit about it and why.

Last year was the first year we sold our turkeys in a CSA format.  The year prior was the first time we'd had turkeys at all, and we expected a pretty sharp learning curve.  We started out with ten; only five survived til fall.  Last year, our survival rate increased to eight.

Between the first and second years, we had to expand our infrastructure.  The first year, a friend had loaned us a couple of small coops, which she took back the second year.  That meant that we had to have a larger coop built for the birds--neither myself nor Greg had the time or the skill level to build the frame for a coop that would be sturdy enough to outlast weather and resist predators.  All in all, we laid out a few hundred dollars in materials and labor, even though we found a local handman and used mostly recycled materials.  It was a necessary cost, but one that was greater than anticipated, and it came entirely out of our own pocket.

This year, there is more infrastructure that will require expansion--namely, portable electric fencing to allow the birds to free-range.  This should greatly cut back on feed costs, but it's an up-front investment of (at bare minimum) nearly $500-600 or so.  There are also feeders that need replacing, a larger brooding box (the ones we've used for the last two years have been woefully insufficient, even at such a small level), and so on.  I don't charge for water, bedding, or my time feeding, watering, fetching supplies, cleaning the coop, checking the birds, or any of the other details that most people don't think about.

The remainder of the cost is reflected in the butchering process.  Last year, due to time constraints, I had to take them to Brothers Processing so members would have their turkeys in time for Thanksgiving.  As a result, there was an extra fee that all the members had to pay.  

However, as I stood there and watched my birds die, I didn't like the distancing effect that it had.  The men who were performing the slaughter, scalding, plucking, and eviscerating were good at their jobs and very efficient, but there was no heart to it, no soul.  I raised these birds from 2-day-old chicks, hand fed them via syringe during their first several hours with me, took responsibility for their lives--keeping them warm, fed, watered, safe from predation, and so forth--and it felt far too easy to have someone else do the real dirty work.  

The first year we'd had turkeys, they had all been home-butchered.  It's harder, both physically and emotionally, but I believe that it should be hard.  It should be difficult to look a living being in the eye and make the decision to take its life, even in the name of feeding oneself and one's family.  

So we stand in a foot of snow, fingers fumbling in the cold, our noses running and breath coming hard.  Our shoulders and arms ache from lifting the weight of a 35-lb bird on and off the rack to the table to the cooler.  We wait as blood runs out and death throes subside before moving in to quickly strip the cooling carcass of its plumage, trying to get all the little pinfeathers without tearing the skin.

Three birds in a day is hard work.  And you know what?  No one wants to help.  People are too squeamish, or have done enough of it before, and are glad to pay someone else to do that work.  

But with more than a couple of birds a day, we simply can't do it all without assistance.  However, the way the law is written, I cannot charge a butchering fee when it's done at home.  I cannot even sell you a processed turkey.  No, what you get is a live bird . . . processed for you as a convenience.  This year, I will have to hire help, but I cannot charge extra for it.  So what I have done is build the fee into the buy-in price; if people are willing to come help with the process--not even do the actual killing, just help with the plucking and cleaning--we will credit $15 towards next year's bird.

I would like to see people be more active and aware of their food sources, of what it really means to raise an animal, kill it, and eat it.  It is literally one of the most sacred, intimate things we can do--turning the body of another life form into the very cells of our being--but I have yet to find a lot of people who are willing to go that far.  We encouraged members to come visit the farm last year; only a single person did, and she lives 3 houses down the road.

Honestly, we don't make any money off of this.  We're lucky if we break even and maybe have a bird or two to put in the freezer ourselves.  Farming takes a lot of hard work and a goodly amount of money, but Greg and I do it because we believe it's important to know where our food comes from.  We believe that it brings us closer to the land, to nature, and it makes us value life--all life--to a greater degree.  We are more in tune with the turning of the seasons, with the variations of the weather, with the foxes that prowl the edges of the trees looking for an easy meal.  In turn, we hope to foster some of that and pass it on to our members.
I realize that this is a much longer email than I'm sure you expected, but the answer to your question is not a simple one.  It can be simplified, yes, but as mentioned, we feel strongly about what we do and why we do it.  I hope the explanation has helped you understand a bit more about where we are coming from.

Lavender laid a second egg!

Down in Denver, I got a call from Greg.  The gist of it was this:
   
                        Um.  Your turkey laid an egg, and I don't know what to do.

Like I do? o.O

Apparently, he put the egg in a Rubbermaid bin with some sawdust and put the heat lamp on it, as both turkeys were completely ignoring it.  Guess it's time to research homemade incubators!  In talking with my friend John, he asked, "What makes you think it's fertile?"

Um . . . the ongoing presence of giant fucking male turkey in the same coop as the female?  The obnoxious teenage calling and strutting?

Upon further reflection, it's unlikely that the egg is viable, due to the fact that it's February (and thus still cold and snowy as fuck) and that the hen doesn't seem to have any maternal inclinations whatsoever.

Know what this means?

BREAKFAST!

I'm pretty sure the turkeys are reaching sexual maturity.  How do I know?

Well, the other day I went out to feed them, and Crooked Toe (the tom) was strutting all over the place, calling and puffing up and turning blue in the face.  It was really quite hysterical:  he'd make these quiet sounds, then sound off:

    pew-pew-pew-BLLLLLLBBBLBLBLBLBLLLLL-pew-pew-BLLLLLBLBLLLBBBBLLL

So, being the evil person I am, I started calling back to him:

Me:  pew-pew-pew
Crooked Toe:  BBLLLLLBBLLBLLLLLBBLLLLL!
Me, dying laughing:  pew-pew-pew
Crooked Toe, puffing and turning blue:  BBBLLBLLBLLLLBLLLBBBBLLLLL!!
Me, dying some more:  pew-pew
Crooked Toe, horking his neck out and looking like he's about to have a stroke:  BBBBLLLLBLLBLLLBLLLLBBBLLLLBLLLLL!!!
Me:  *falls over laughing*

Dude, seriously.  Cheap entertainment!  (Get it? :P)



(Not only this, but our mornings are punctuated by Crooked Toe totally going off every 5-10 seconds for, oh, an hour and a half or so.  Yes, EVERY morning.  o.O)

Tuesday was Greg's first day off in . . . well, I don't know how long, but at least a month.  I'd talked with him about dealing with all the individual water bowls for the rabbits was becoming a horrific chore (frozen solid, and we have no hot water with which to warm them).  We knew that we needed to drastically reduce our livestock inventory, so he took it upon himself to do the killing and butchering.  He managed to get three rabbits done--the hard part, as I knew it would be, was the actual killing.  The first and third, apparently, did not want to go so gentle into that good night.

He skinned them, removed heads and feet, and parted out most of the internal organs.  Greg did ask that I go through the remaining gut bucket and harvest whatever other organs I wanted, but I was too whupped that night to deal with it.  I've been putting it off for the last few days, but even with our garage as cold as it is, leaving organs to sit is not the best of ideas.

I bagged the pelts, tossed three of the feet into Ben's dish with his breakfast, and brought the two covered bowls up into the kitchen to sort.

The first bowl, of course, was the "keeper" bowl.  Three rabbit heads, along with some livers and assorted bits, stared back at me out of the bowl.  One of the heads still had its eyes open and mouth parted slightly, showing the front teeth.  The rich smell of blood hit me, strong and earthy, and I tried to breathe through my mouth.

I grabbed the second bowl, the gut bucket.  Barehanded, I sorted through with kitchen shears and trimmed gall bladders and excess fat (rabbits keep their fat around their internal organs, rather than in the muscle tissue; there is no "marbling" when it comes to rabbits).  Formed pellets in the lower guts were visible.  A snip through the organ wall confirmed the identity of the stomach.  The smell of feces combined with the blood smell as I combed through, removing hearts and/or kidneys.  Even with my strong bio background, I didn't look closely enough to identify either, nor the lungs and trachea.

I thought about taking a picture of the "save" bowl, but figured that most people would be a bit oogy about the heads.  I do find it astounding how much essence is reduced, though, so I took a slightly more obscure photo of the results.  The bag on the left is the heads (feet to be added shortly); the right-hand ziplock is the valuable internal organs.  The discarded guts I didn't figure anyone would want to see.

I need to leave soon to see a client.  Although I've washed up, I can smell the faintest hint of blood on my hands.  I doubt anyone else will notice, but I will know.

Turns out, of the three rabbits left in the double-decker cage, one was a female.

I was greeted this morning by the sight of a bunch of rabbit fur and several dead wee ones.  They were good-sized, but cold and stiff.  Unfortunately, mother rabbits don't sit on their young like hens.

She'd plucked a good-sized bald patch on one of her hindquarters.  I'm temped to keep her, because I know she'll at least be a prolific breeder.

So sorry, mamacita. :(