The Gatepost

CSA 2012, Part 2: The Long Distance Option

2012-01-30T22:57:00.000-05:00

So we've had a good response for the Rettland Farm Chicken Subscription Arrangement since word of it hit the streets last week.

But a few of our followers from outside the immediate area have contacted with their regrets at not being able to participate because of the distance from their homes to the farm here in Gettysburg. So, that got the wheels turning again here at Idea Central.

And this is what I've come up with:

To make the trip more efficient for the long haulers, I will offer a Monthly CSA Share option. This option will be for people who can only pick up their shares once per month because of distance. The quantity of chickens will still be the same, one per week. The chickens will still be the same type, size, and form (whole, halves, etc) as the weekly share. The shares will still be picked up at the farm in Gettysburg, also on Saturday.

The difference however, is that these chickens will be cryovac packaged in plastic and frozen. And, as a result of this packaging cost and the freezing, the Monthly share will cost $15 per week. This brings the total cost of the share for the season to $450.

For obvious reasons, the egg share isn't available for Monthly subscriber.

This option is really intended for folks in York and Harrisburg, PA or Baltimore, Frederick, or DC. For those of you in the Hanover area, Rettland Farm chickens will still be available for retail sale at The Carriage House Market. As an added bonus, if you buy our chickens there, you have access to Rettland Farm pork products, beef from Sheppard Mansion Farms, and lots of other products from local growers.

Hope this helps some of you decide to join us in the inaugural Rettland Farm CSA. If so, drop me an email at farmer@rettlandfarm.com , and be sure to mention the Monthly option.

Chicken CSA, 2012

2012-01-27T01:19:00.004-05:00

So today I'm going to roll out a new (to us) marketing idea, a new way to get our products onto your tables.

For 2012, I'm going to start a CSA.

Yeah, that's pretty confusing. CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture", (not Confederate States of America, for all of you Civil War buffs out there..) That's not much help either.

Basically, a CSA is an arrangement between a farmer (me) and a group of members or shareholders (hopefully some of you) where the farmer grows products for the members, and there is no middleman or other steps in the distribution chain. Other terms to describe it are Buyers Clubs, or Food Co-ops, or Subscription Services. The concept is pretty much the same.

Members go to a central location on a regular basis to pick up their "share" of the farm's bounty. Pretty simple. The payment for the food occurs in the beginning of the season, and then the group shares in the success of the crops or products that the farm produces over the growing season. No money changes hands at the time of sale--it has already occurred long before the delivery of the product.

Typically, CSA's are vegetable or fruit based. I don't grow fruit or vegetables, other than grass or livestock food, mainly because my thumbs are NOT green. They're black. I grow meat.

Soooo....my thought was to form a meat CSA, specifically chickens. And since we don't really like the nebulous phrase "Community Supported Agriculture", let's change it up and personalize it. From now on, on my farm, CSA stands for "Chicken Subscription Arrangement". Cool? Good.

Here's the plan:
1. Why are we offering our products this way? I want to operate a CSA that provides fresh chickens and eggs for my members on a weekly basis. I think that this arrangement will strenghten relationships between farmer and eater, which is something that is important to me. It also ensures my members a supply of fresh food, and provides me with a stable, known quantity of products that I have to grow.

2. How does it work? Each "share" in the CSA will entitle the member to 1 pastured broiler chicken each week, usually unfrozen, usually whole, and packaged in a manner to be determined. We will also offer the option of adding 1 dozen eggs from pastured hens, also available for pick up weekly at the same time as the chicken. Each share will have a total cost for the year, and will be prepaid before the foods are produced.

3. What are the specifics on the products? This CSA will produce pastured broiler chickens, weighing approximately 4.0 lbs or more, but not less than 3.5 lbs. These chickens will typically be commercial white broiler chickens, with occasional heritage breed chickens provided as available for variety. The diet for the chickens, besides pasture, will contain whole grains (excluding corn), oilseeds, and vitamins and minerals. All processing of the chickens will occur on the farm, and be done by the farmer and/or farm employees.

The optional egg share will be made up of one dozen typically brown eggs from pastured laying hens. The eggs will be ungraded, but egg size is typically large or greater, and will not be smaller than Medium.

4. When will the CSA begin? End? The CSA will provide fresh food to the members every week from about May 15, run for about 30 weeks through the summer and end around late November or early December.

5. Where is the pick up location? The member will pick up their share at the farm, located outside of Gettysburg, PA once per week, usually Saturday. (However, if we have a concentration of people interested in becoming CSA members that live in other areas, we may have other pick up points--please ask if you think this is you, especially if you are from the Baltimore, Frederick, or Washington DC areas.) Our pickup hours will closely match the Adams County Farmers Market hours at the Gettysburg Outlets, which is only about 2 miles from the farm. That way, you can pick up your CSA share and then stop at the market for other great Adams County products, all in one trip!

6. What is the cost? The cost for 1 share in the CSA for 2012 will be $14 per week for a period of 30 weeks, for a total cost of $420. An optional egg share can be added for an additional cost of $4.00 per week. The total cost of the share will be paid by April 15, 2012, with a minimum 50% deposit due by March 1, 2012. (There may be a few limited opportunities for individuals to exchange labor doing light farm tasks in exchange for a CSA share. If you would prefer to exchange labor for a share instead of cash, please contact me.)

7. One share not enough? So your family eats more than one chicken a week, eh? OR, you are a planner and want to stock up on chickens for the winter while we are actively growing them in the summer? Good for you. Simply order as many shares as fits your needs.

8. Other benefits? Some CSAs do cool things like share recipes for harder to cook items. I'd like to teach people how to break down chickens into pieces, as some families prefer. Share tips for making stock (a must when you have access to fresh, flavorful whole chickens). Spend an hour with us on a harvesting day. Get a personalized tour of the chicken pastures. I'd be willing to do any or all of these things, if the interest was there. Anything to build a food community around our humble little chicken enterprise, and a sense of ownership for the members. What ideas do you have??

OK, team. I think I've thrown enough info at you for one sitting. Mull it over with your families this weekend. Decide if it's right for you and yours. Feel free to contact me with questions in the comment section--chances are, if you have the question, someone else does too.

If you decide you'd like to go ahead and join the inaugaral Rettland Farm Chicken Subscription Arrangement, send me an email at farmer@rettlandfarm.com . We'll work out the specifics from there.

Thanks for your consideration. This is gonna be fun.
　
　
　
　
　

Has it really been that long??

2012-01-24T23:13:00.002-05:00

Has it really been that long since I posted? June? Wow.

So my poor blog has been neglected for awhile, I know. I've been just a little busy with farm stuff, and family stuff, and any other kind of stuff that has come along that kept me from keeping you loyal blog readers up to date.

To be honest, I've also been lured into the ease and simplicity of Facebook and Twitter. It seems much easier to fire off some quick update and a picture to one of these sites than to sit down and write more than 140 characters to create a coherent post on the blog.

That's not really right, so I've made a few changes to keep the blog updated, and to make it easier to follow the blog, too.

First, you'll notice my Twitter feed in the left column. Now you can read what I'm posting to Twitter without subscribing to it yourself. You'd thank me if you knew how dumb Twitter really was. Really. You're not missing anything.

Second, just below the Twitter feed is a place to enter your email address, so you will receive anything I post here in your email inbox. No need to check here every day to see if I've updated the blog, a task which I would imagine was pretty fruitless over the last SEVEN MONTHS!

Finally, I'll try to be a little more diligent about posting here. I've got a few ideas rolling around in my head that might really benefit from the use of the blog.

I'll keep you posted. Honest.

**If anyone has any idea how to link my Facebook page to the blog, I'd really be grateful for the tip.

Poultry Processing, Rettland Farm Style

2011-06-28T19:02:00.008-04:00

So tell me. What do you see here?

"Well", you say, "I see a U-Haul truck that rolled off the assembly line sometime back when Milli Vanilli was a really cool music act, ole Ron Reagan was riding off into the sunset, and Freddy Kreuger was scaring the hell out of a whole generation of pre-teens. Oh yeah, and the aforementioned truck also looks like someone spent a little quality time gettin' jiggy with a DeWalt sawzall..."

Um. Okay. Correct on all counts.

But dude. Let's take a look in the box, that's what really matters. Come on, walk around back here with me...

So, whaddya think is behind the door? An ultimate party wagon complete with big screens, leather recliners, and multiple beer meisters to be used for hardcore tailgating at PSU Football games this fall, you say? No. But a damn good idea though....(stroking chin thoughtfully...)

All right, all right, enough suspense. Let's take a look. That's it, roll up the door, and feast your eyes upon the interior...

Tah. Dah.

Welcome to the Rettland Farm Mobile Poultry Processing facility, or MPU for short. This is my solution to the problem of finding local, reliable, sanitary facilities to slaughter the poultry that is raised on small farms like mine.

I wanted to build a facility that met a variety of needs. First, I needed a place that matched or exceeded any food processing facility in cleanliness. I needed to be sure that the integrity of every chicken was as high when it came out of the facility as it was when it went in. So we needed washable floors, walls and ceilings. We needed bright lights so we could see what the heck we were doing. We needed REALLY hot water. We needed LOTS of stainless steel.

Second, I wanted a facility that could be used to educate the public in general, and my loyal customers in particular, about what went on behind the closed doors of a facility that turns live animals into food. I think it's highly unlikely that the public would ever be given that opportunity to "peak behind the curtain" at a large scale, commercial slaughterhouse, and I think that's unfortunate. For my operation, I wanted to literally throw open the door, and shed light on the whole process, from the kill to the chill. To welcome and even encourage the presence of those people who are the ultimate end users of my birds.

Lastly, I wanted this facility to be a resource for other small farms like me, who may otherwise decide that the rewards of selling amazing, wholesome poultry to people and their families just wasn't worth the hassle of getting it to them. I wanted them to be able to use this facility on their own farms, using their own labor and their own quality standards to process the food to which they affixed their names. Take the abattoir to the animal instead of the other way around, so the animals died where they were raised, and didn't spend their last day (or two) crammed into a cage on a fast moving truck.

So enough background. Ready for a tour?

First stop for the birds: the kill station. The birds are placed head down in these stainless steel funnels, and their heads protrude from the bottom. One quick, small cut with a sharp knife, and they bleed to death.

Just across from the kill station are the defeathering machines. The machine on the left is a scalder. The scalder is where the dead birds are placed in scalding hot water, which they rotate through for about a minute or so. This process loosens the feathers.

The chickens then go into the machine on the right, called the picker or the plucker. This has about 1oo rubber fingers inside it, and a rotating disc on the bottom that spins the birds around for another minute or so, until the feathers are gone.

Next stop is the eviscerating (a big word for "gutting") rail. The shackles you see hanging on the rail hold the birds, so there is no surface contact that could be a source of bacterial contamination. At different points on the rail, the birds are alternately hung by the neck or the feet to allow the worker to remove the entrails and wash the carcass thoroughly. After all other unusable parts have been removed, the feet and the neck come off, and the result is a bird that looks like...well, like the raw bird that we're all accustomed to seeing.

The carcass now spends about a half hour in a cool bath of tap water to start the chilling process.

But after that...

...it's into the chill tank. This to me was a critical piece of equipment. It was very important to me to have a reliable way to chill a large quantity of chickens to a safe temperature very quickly. I think this tank serves the purpose. The tank will hold up to 500 gallons of water, at least 200 chickens, and chill it to 34 degrees F, and keep it there indefinitely.

The bird spends about an hour or so in the tank, but it is usually chilled to below 40 degrees F in a half hour. Not much chance for bacterial growth there.

After the bird comes out of the chill tank, it hits the table. Here it can simply be bagged whole, ready for delivery to the customer, or it can be broken down into breasts, wings, leg quarters, whatever we have a need for. This is a new service that we couldn't provide before, and based on the way these parts are snatched up, it is definitely nice to have this ability. I also don't use any machines, other than the knives you see here, to break the birds down into parts--we don't need them. How do you break down a chicken with just a knife, you ask? Come see us sometime. We'll show you.

Sooo, this concludes your nickel tour of the Rettland Farm MPU. If you'd like the chance to see the facility in operation, please contact me--we'd love to have you come out and look over our shoulders for awhile. If you're a small farmer who is looking for a way to process your poultry in a safe, reliable way, I'd like to hear from you too. This old U-Haul truck holds a lot of opportunity for everyone.

Now, about that PSU tailgate mo-sheen...

Note: I owe an incredible amount of gratitude to my cousin, Marc Barron, who is a skilled electrician, and who generously gave me many of his Saturdays off this winter and spring to help me wire this baby. I am many things, but an electrician isn't one of them, I discovered. If it weren't for him, I'd be in the fetal position in the corner of a padded room right now, muttering incoherently about wire gauges and full load ampacity, with my vision for this MPU laying in tatters with the rest of my sanity. Thanks Ned. You rock.

Thanksgiving Turkeys, 2011

2011-06-08T06:15:00.005-04:00

Yep, it's time to think about Thanksgiving turkeys already.

The Background:

As you may recall: Last year, Rettland Farm raised pastured turkeys for Thanksgiving on a preorder basis. We got the turkey poults on the farm in early July, and raised them until the week before Thanksgiving. We then harvested the turkeys the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and some of our loyal (and adventurous) customers even came out to the farm to help butcher their own turkeys. That day, and the entire experience as a whole, was really enjoyable for me, so I decided to do it again this year.

The Details:

1. All turkeys will be a heritage variety, most likely Bourbon Reds, but we may have a few other rare breeds mixed in for kicks, just to see how they perform, and more importantly--to see how they taste. By using these heritage breeds, we'll have birds that have different composition than commercial turkeys, i.e. more proportional bodies, with the breasts and thighs being closer in size and weight. You can also expect a deeper, richer flavor from the heritage turkeys, as compared to a commercial turkey.

2. I'm estimating the weight of the dressed turkey will be 20 lbs, give or take 5 lbs. If you order a turkey, I'll try to keep you posted of their projected finished weight as the summer goes on, so you can plan your Thanksgiving meal accordingly. If in doubt, order two turkeys--you can always freeze the second one for Christmas!

3. We WILL be doing the Turkey Butchering day again this year, because I thought it was an overwhelmingly positive experience last year. We will be doing the processing in our brand new on farm processing facility. This day will be the weekend before Thanksgiving, date TBA. Anyone who orders a turkey is welcome to attend, and bring their friends, families, etc. While this day has been a great outing and an educational experience for all who attended in the past, you do not have to participate in the butchering day if you don't want to.

4. All turkeys will need to be picked up the weekend before Thanksgiving. Again, details for the pickup will be announced later in the season.

5. The total cost for the turkeys will be about $70.00, or about $3.50/lb. The reason for the increase in price over last year is the result of a drastic increase in feed costs, the slower growth rate of the heritage breeds, combined with the increased price of the heritage breed turkey poults.

6. New this year: I am asking that if you order a turkey, that you put a deposit of $35.00 down on the turkey. You may mail your deposit, payable to Rettland Farm LLC to: 920 Barlow Two Taverns Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325.

7. The number of turkeys will be limited, so orders will be taken on a first come, first served basis. If you are interested, please don't delay in placing your order.

So, if you'd like to have one of these great turkeys on your Thanksgiving table this year, please respond with your order no later than this Friday, June 10, 2011. Email your order to farmer@rettlandfarm.com . I will confirm all orders within a day or two of receiving them. Please contact me by phone or email to place your order first--we can then get your deposit in the mail in the following days.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Introducing...Cheese!

2011-02-08T19:02:00.005-05:00

So, are you ready for a whole new product line from Rettland Farm?

CHEESE, BABY!

The Background:

Some of you may know that I have pretty extensive experience in the dairy industry. My dad has been a dairy farmer for almost 40 years, and I have been milking cows on his farm since I was twelve years old. After spending my childhood on the farm, I took the next step and acquired a degree in Dairy Science from Penn State. Finally, I decided to make dairy farming a career after I graduated. I have worked full time on the dairy since then.

The Milk:

The milk for the cheese comes from my family's dairy farm, which is operated by my dad, my brother, and myself. We milk about 75 cows twice per day. During the grazing season, from April until December, we graze the cows on grass pastures. Through the winter, we feed them stored feed, harvested off the farm during the summer.

Our milk is not "Organic", but we don't use antibiotics on any animal unless it is sick. Every load of milk that leaves the farm is tested for the presence of antibiotics in the milk, and for high levels of bacteria. If either would be found, the milk would be rejected.

Most importantly, our cows have NEVER been treated with the artificial hormone known as rBST, and they NEVER will be.

The Cheese:

We have been very fortunate to find a processor that uses his amazing artisanal skill to make cheese from our milk. The cheese plant is located in Eastern PA, and specializes in high quality, delicious, old style farmstead cheeses.

By using this custom processor, we are able to concentrate on producing high quality milk, and not needing to spend time, money, and labor developing and outfitting our own cheese plant. This synergy allows everyone to do what they do best, resulting in an amazing product.

Our initial varieties? How about Cheddar, Gouda, American, Muenster, Colby, and Farmer for starters? We are also considering a Feta, and maybe a Mozzarella. If you have a suggestion for a favorite cheese of yours, I'd love to hear it.

Where to Find it:

For starters, our cheeses will be offered at the Carriage House Market in Hanover. I will also have it for sale this summer at the Farmers Markets in Gettysburg. For those of you in the Harrisburg area, our cheeses can be found at Olewine's Meat and Cheese House. When our cheeses can be found in other places, we'll be sure to publicize that fact here and on the Rettland Farm Facebook page. As always, if you can't find these amazing cheeses, contact me directly and I'll FIND a way to get you some.

So, there you have it--a variety of delicious new products from Rettland Farm that can be an incredible addition to any meal. Try all the varieties, then tell me which one you like best!

Chicken Plans, Part 1

2011-01-13T22:05:00.006-05:00

Here we are, fresh into a New Year, and things here at Rettland Farm are already shakin'. So much for winter downtime, huh? Since we have the holidays behind us, I've been busy getting the wheels turning on some pretty big changes here at the farm, changes that are going to make the RF product line bigger and better than ever.

So let's talk about the biggest change first.

Those of you who have been with me since the beginning of RF (the Littles, the Moores, the nee Sheppards) might remember the early days of the pastured broiler program when I butchered the birds right here on the farm. Every Sunday afternoon, all summer long, I would break out my knives, my feather picker, and my giant gas burner, and butcher the chickens that I needed that week.

I ended up with sore feet, aching back, sunburn, and absolutely phenomenal chicken.

Ohh, what memories!

But for several complex reasons, it became necessary for me to hire out the butchery of the chickens. For the past year and a half, a small butcher in a neighboring county has done all of the processing of the pastured broilers. I have been mostly satisfied with the performance of this butcher and the care they took in processing my chickens.

The problem is, I think that there is room for improvement in our broilers. In an effort to constantly improve the taste, texture, and quality of the chickens that we produce, I've decided to bring the butchery back home.

Here's why: Despite the relative short distance between me and the butcher, it still takes about an hour to drive there. So, my chickens are caught, placed into crates, and the crates are put on a truck. That all takes about 30 minutes. Then I drive them to the butcher as quickly as possible, (the hour, as mentioned), and then they wait their "turn" once we get to the butcher. This wait can be as much as another hour.

Reducing that two and a half hours is where I am going to improve the quality of the meat.
Crating the birds up and then driving them down the road creates stress in the birds. It is a new, unfamiliar process to them, and chickens like monotony (as do most animals). The longer they are stressed before they are killed, the less desirable the meat becomes. (Which, incidentally, is one of many reasons that commercial chicken is unpalatable.)

By eliminating the drive, and most of the wait time immediately before slaughter, you, the loyal Rettland Farm chicken lover, end up with a chicken on the table that is more flavorful, moister, and more tender.

So, how am I gonna do the butchery, now that I am producing about 10 times the birds that I did back in the good ole days? Still gonna have my little table and my little bunsen burner on steroids??

Nah...we're going state of the art, baby.

Stay tuned for the unveiling of the all new Rettland Farm slaughter facility, coming soon.

Husbandry, not Industry

2010-12-08T22:44:00.002-05:00

Like my new catchphrase?

It just kind of stumbled into my head while I was making a point in a e-discussion group that I participate in.

It sums up, in three words, how I think modern, progressive farms should be run.

Husbandry. Not Industry.

As in--using knowledge and experience to care for animals, not electronics and shiny metal.

As in--treating farms like biological systems, not factories churning out widgets and doodads.

As in--making use of an animal's natural tendencies, instead of forcing them to change their behavior to fit a production model.

As in--understanding that there is a difference between a professional farmer, and a low paid "technician" with no stake in any part of the operation, other than a menial paycheck for his menial labor.

As in--realizing that at some point in food production, scale and quality become inversely proportional.

As in--believing that "food security" is defined by more than abundance and low price.

Husbandry. Not Industry.

Food as a Priority

2010-11-28T22:52:00.004-05:00

Recently, I had a pretty nice article in our local newspaper, about our harvest of Thanksgiving turkeys, and some unique opportunities it offered to us and to the buyers of those turkeys.

The article was published on the papers webpage, and most of the comments posted about the article were extremely positive, and supportive of me and what I try to do for a living. There was, however, one naysayer who thought that the price that I charged for the turkeys was a little high, to put it lightly.

Let me say this right now: I don't give a damn about this guy, or his opinion of me. I live by Abe Lincoln's admonition about not being able to please all the people all the time, and that philosophy serves me well. In my mind, if I produce food that only one person in this whole wide world appreciates, then my life and my life's work has purpose. Period. I'm not running for Homecoming King, and popularity has never appeared on any list of my goals. Ever.

But as a result of this heckler, I've been thinking again about the stereotype that people who seek good food for themselves and their families are painted with: Elitists. Food snobs. Tree huggers. The Haves, not the Have-Nots.

I think the labels are bullshit.

I think that the desire and the willingness to seek out and pay for decent, honest, wholesome food boils down to nothing more than priorities.

People who buy from me, and other farmers like me, place a value in the role that food plays in their lives, beyond simply providing protein, fat, and carbohydrates in order to maintain their existence. They value the relationship and interaction that can be had with people who grow their food, or prepare it in a restaurant kitchen. They recognize the fact that, through their purchase and careful preparation of food, they can influence issues ranging from family cohesion to environmental protection, from foreign policy to public health. And they recognize that their influence can be positive.

Others don't hold food or it's producers in such high esteem. To them, every dollar spent on food is one that takes away from their entertainment budget, or their cigarette money, or the weekly bar tab, or the new car that they buy every two years, or the NFL channel, or whatever other IMPORTANT things exist in their lives, besides food. So therefore, food expense is something to be minimized, to be reduced to as close to zero as possible, and by default, food itself becomes a sterile, meaningless necessity, and those that are involved in food production are no longer professionals or artisans, but instead technicians or laborers.

I proudly consider myself a member of the first group, and I feel nothing but pity for those who are members of the second.

　
　

First Annual Turkey Day

2010-11-21T18:00:00.004-05:00

Another post where I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

As a brief background, I started raising turkeys in July. They were sold on a pre-ordered basis, and as part of the deal, I offered to let people come out and take part in the harvest of their Thanksgiving turkey. Sort of a hard core twist to the "pick your own pumpkin" or "choose your own Christmas tree" idea.

In reality, I wanted to offer people the chance to see one more step that their food must take from farm to table, to completely close the circle. I wanted it to be an educational opportunity for adults and children alike, and I wanted to recreate some of the experiences I had as a child at similar community butchering days.

In the end, the butchering day was everything I wanted it to be, and more. We had LOTS of interest from the turkey buyers, and they came with a lot of really valid questions about my small scale butchering techniques, and how they compared with large scale slaughterhouses. Many of these folks rolled up their sleeves and stepped in to harvest and clean THEIR turkey, and that gave me satisfaction that I can't put into words.

Thanks to all who participated for making this a great experience. The wheels are already turning for next year...

A handsome turkey. Oh yeah, and the bird about to be butchered...

Turkeys, 2010 edition.

Making the selection.

My butchering facility. Notice the window with the scenic view, and ample spectator room...

Turkey, knife, right hand, blue sky. Just thought it was a cool picture.

A customer, hands-on in the process. Awesome.

Finished product, just chillin'.

Autumn Splendor Sausage

2010-11-18T00:16:00.003-05:00

So, it's back to the future here at Rettland Farm.

No, I'm not talking about a visit by Ol' Doc or Marty McFly, or the arrival of Flux Capacitors by UPS or Stainless Steel Doloreans in the barnyard.

I'm talking about the latest addition to the Rettland Farm Original Sausage line, called "Autumn Splendor." This apparent new kid on the block is actually the grandaddy of them all. A little over a year ago, when I started exploring the idea of producing original sausages using our own meats as a way of showcasing the "taste" of Rettland Farm, I knew that the sausages had to be unique in concept and flavor. So, I started to experiment with different ingredients that were unique to the season at the time, which happened to be autumn.

The result of hours (and I mean hours) of messing around in the kitchen more than a year ago, before I ever produced a sausage for retail sale, yielded the basic recipe for the sausage we rolled out today, affectionately called "Autumn Splendor." But poor little Autumn Splendor had to wait a whole year, while the rest of the RF line hit the streets.

So why wait a whole year to release this sausage for public enjoyment? Well, for a couple of reasons, the first being seasonality. The ingredients are very much FALL ingredients. I wanted to use fresh fruit in season, not fruit from cold storage and ABSOLUTELY not fruit imported from some foreign country, essentially driving another nail in the coffin of American fruitgrowers. In Adams County, PA, fruit is harvested in the fall.

In addition, the sausage has a sort of FALL taste to it--it's just not something you'd want to eat watching fireworks on July 4th, or something you'd whip up for your sweetie on Valentine's Day. It's just...autumnal.

What are these magical FALL ingredients? Besides the ever present, ever reliable Rettland Farm Pork, I used some pretty awesome Adams County Bosc Pears, the kind that have rich mahogany colored skins, so fresh that a few of them still have a leaf or two attached to the stems. Next comes dried cranberries, which obviously didn't come from Adams County, but I happen to like them very much, and what they added to the sausage overcame any pangs of guilt I felt for not using super local ingredients.

After that, we've got a few spices thrown in that will remind you of apple pies, and the smells around grandma's house on Thanksgiving.

One other thing--this sausage is packaged and labelled as a "Breakfast" sausage. It's been stuffed into smaller diameter casings, making it possible to cook the sausage in less time. But, Autumn Splendor will work in lots of different scenarios, so don't be afraid to try. And as usual, if you come up with a really cool way to use the sausage, I'd love to hear about it in the comment section.

Autumn Splendor is available exclusively at the Carriage House Market, 117 Frederick St. Rear, Hanover, PA. Please make plans now to stop in and get some, because it will only be available for a limited time, for reasons you probably understand by now.

Happy Autumn!

I Need You to Pencil in a Date

2010-09-23T01:12:00.004-04:00

Got your social calendar handy? Could you get it that way?

I need you to mark a date for me. October 5. 6:00 pm. Hanover PA. What, you may ask, is happening then and there?

It's the annual Sheppard Mansion Harvest Dinner. If you've never been, it is this fantastic gathering of Sheppard Mansion patrons and some of the local farmers that supply the restaurant with their wares that end up as amazing food on the Mansion tables. We all mix and mingle, we spend the evening with old friends (Hi, Beldens!) and make some great new ones.

Still haven't called, huh? Well, then read on, friend. Just for you, I've compiled the...

Top 5 Reasons you should attend the 2010 Harvest Dinner at Sheppard Mansion!:

Number 5. Vino: This meal is going to be 6 courses, and EVERY COURSE HAS A WINE PAIRING! Oh yeah, lots of wine. But the actual consumption isn't the whole story folks. Here's the best part: The wines will be presented by a professional sommelier, so when you stroll in to work the next day, you can be in your Hotshot Wine Connoisseur mode. You can say things like "Well Nancy, at the Harvest Dinner last night, we had the most delightful Napa Pinot Noir from Erba Mountainside. It carried nutty tones and a citrus finish, which was the result of a combination of the drought in Napa in 2004, and the sea breezes coming off the Pacific. It was a masterpiece." Even if Ol' Nancy has a clue about wines, you're still going to sound AWESOME!

Number 4. Food: By now, you know that I'm a Chef Andy Groupie (T Shirts pending), so you won't be surprised when I tell you that the food that comes out of that kitchen will blow your mind. As I mentioned, we're looking at 6 courses, which can be seen here, and your tastebuds will discover things they never knew existed. Combine a discussion of Chef Andy's thought processes with a little background on the raw materials that go into the dish from the producers, and you'll be looking at dinner with a whole new perspective.

3. The Carriage House Market: I've kept pretty quiet about this until now, but there is going to be a very cool sneak peak before the actual dinner kicks off. This will be the first look at the Carriage House Market, located right there on the Mansion grounds. This market is the answer to all of you who longingly, impatiently, fervently wait for 6 long months through the winter until the farmers markets open again in the spring. Guess what: NOT THIS YEAR! The Carriage House Market is going to be open 4 days a week to feature all of the products that you've come to know and love from local producers, plus a whole bunch of other Food related goodies.

Number 2. Haiku: I heard a rumor that Chef Andy will personally present each course in the form of Japanese poetry known as Haiku. But this is a small town, and you know how rumors are...

Finally, the #1 reason you should attend the Sheppard Mansion 2010 Harvest Dinner: The Wager.

Chef Andy and I have a friendly little wager going. You see, he bet me that I couldn't get 10 reservations for the Harvest Dinner. I emphatically assured him that I could. So here's the bet: If 10 people call the Sheppard Mansion and make a reservation for the 2010 Harvest Dinner, and mention that they are with "Team Ramsburg", Chef Andy buys me a fifth of Johnny Walker Black Scotch. If I don't reach the 10 res. mark, I buy Little a bottle of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. Now here's what's in it for you--that bottle of Scotch? I'm gonna share it with the rest of Team Ramsburg. If Little wins...well, I just can't make any guarantees...you know how he is with his Bourbon...

Sign up now folks! Don't make me start calling you out by name, which I WILL do! Get the Details Here! See you there!

Hog Heaven

2010-09-14T22:59:00.007-04:00

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking this time. I started grazing a group of pigs in a standing cornfield this week, and the results have been amazing, more than I ever expected. This exceedingly simple method of feeding these incredibly adaptable creatures has proven to be very rewarding, for both farmer and beast.

Do the pigs from which your pork is derived live this well?

Cornfield, Pre-Pig Pillage

The pigs, just tearing into a new strip of corn. A little spooky, if you didn't know the pigs...

The pigs arrange themselves by pecking order--the boss pigs get their choice of feeding locations. This guy must be low man on the totem pole.

The pigs grab the stalk, and snap it off to get the ear...

...Because the ears are the first to go, cob and all.

Berkshire X Tamworth Crossbred pigs. The mud is their cooling mechanism--I purposely provide wallows for them to keep themselves cool in. An overheated pig is a dead pig.

The corn leaves are also highly desirable to the pigs, as long as they are still green.

'Nuther pig.

If you look very closely, you can see a very thin orange wire horizontally across the picture--this is electrified, and it is usually all that's necessary to keep the pigs where they are supposed to be. (Unless it's Labor Day, at about 8:00 pm, and you are a half hour away at a picnic--yep, except for then...)

Finally, this is what the corn looks like after the pigs have had access to it for 24 hours. Maybe not quite as clean as harvesting with a machine, but orders of magnitude more efficient.

So, hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into a day in the life of a pig at Rettland Farm. If you ever need a little therapy, come on out and just sit and watch them in person--you'd be amazed at how good you feel afterwards.

Dead Canaries

2010-08-24T23:58:00.002-04:00

So, I've managed to keep quiet about the outbreak of salmonellosis associated with eggs. At least, until now.

No, I'm not going to beat the drum for small, independent egg producers like yours truly, though I know we produce a superior product in both taste and quality. I'm not going to jump up on the soapbox and howl about how something like this would never happen on a small farm, because it could. Is it likely? No. But possible? Yep. Anyone who claims otherwise is very seriously tempting fate.

No, I'm disgusted by other details that have come to light.

I am completely awestruck by the number of eggs potentially infected with Salmonella--500 MILLION. Can you imagine?? If you took those eggs and laid them end to end, they would stretch 15,782 MILES. Mind boggling, right? But here's the real kick in the pants:

All of those eggs came from two farms.

Which brings me to the point. Through consolidation of farms and food processors, the base of our food production system has become perilously narrow. As the numbers of farms, and more importantly farmers, has dwindled, so has the diversity and stability of the food supply. When a bacterial infection on TWO FARMS leads to thousands of sick people over a range of thousands of miles, it exposes ugly vulnerabilities in the system. We literally have too many eggs in one basket, pun intended.

We ended up here because we demanded cheap food. The titans of industry were happy to oblige, and found ways to put a dozen eggs in the grocery case for a buck or less. But those ways involved creating massive egg operations with millions of birds producing a mediocre product in both taste and quality; automated management systems; questionable animal husbandry practices; and low paid "technicians" to monitor it all.

And eggs are just the latest food on the Grocery List of Shame to have their safety called into question. Spinach, alfalfa sprouts, peanuts, tomatoes, peppers...all have had their own moments under the Cruel Spotlight of Infamy in recent memory. They all share a common denominator though--massive operations that either can't effectively monitor their product quality because of the sheer size of the operation, or won't monitor it because of the effect on profitability.

These food scares amount to a whole stack of dead canaries in the proverbial coal mine, folks. They should be serving as a warning of the dangers of a vertically integrated, centralized food production and distribution system controlled by corporate, profit-centered bohemoths. Sadly though, our poor dead canaries are too often forgotten, once the evening news moves on to other tragedies, and the allure of 89 cent a dozen eggs proves too hard to resist.

Thinkin' about Thanksgiving...In July?

2010-07-08T23:06:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know it's a little early for most people to be thinking about Thanksgiving, but I am. The reason I'm thinking two whole seasons ahead comes down to this: The Turkey. The whole centerpiece of the Thanksgiving tradition, right? And I'm thinking that I'd like to raise a small flock of really special turkeys for the holiday this year.

Methods: These turkeys will be large white turkeys, raised on pasture with methods similar to those used for our pastured broilers. They will have access to plenty of pasture and the associated treats (bugs, etc), and will be supplemented with whole grains and roasted oilseeds.

Harvesting: I am thinking that I want to butcher these turkeys right here on the farm. And I really like the idea of having some of you experience that with me.

(First, some background: I grew up in the midst of an Amish community, and one Amish farm was literally my second home. I have a whole childhood of memories with those folks, but one that stands out is Butchering Day. This was the day that the whole Amish community (and us) came together to do the butchering before winter set in. This was usually beef and pigs, but I'd like to recreate those days with turkeys.)

So, towards that end, I propose we have a Turkey Butch'rin Day. It will only be open to those who are buying turkeys. I'd like Butch'rin Day to serve first and foremost as an educational opportunity for you, and your children if you have them and you think they would appreciate it. (I'm not out to cause nightmares or lifelong vegetarianism, though!) The primary focus that day will be the task of turning live turkeys into food, but I can think of a whole bunch of other "perks" that you, as a participant in Butch'rin Day, will enjoy, like those Amish neighbors did all those years ago--Food, Family, and Fellowship. All that in one afternoon--does that interest you?

Other Perks?: I'm thinking about a how-to class on turkey cookery, including what the heck to do with all those leftovers, to be done in early November or so. I'll work on fleshing that out. I've also been given some really great ideas by a loyal customer about some other perks, that will make for a great experience all around.

I'm also planning on raising a few extra turkeys, and donating them to local food banks for Thanksgiving. I feel very strongly that access to good food shouldn't limited by income level, and this will be one small way of helping with that problem. All of the turkeys will be donated in the names of Rettland Farm, plus the names of all of the members of the "Turkey Club".

Cost: I would estimate the cost of the dressed turkey at this point to be in the $70 range, give or take. The amount will vary depending on the number of turkeys I produce, the breed of turkeys, their final weights, etc. This is only a guess! Please understand that I'm new to the turkey game, so I need to research some of the costs associated with raising them.

In summary: So what does that $70 buy you? Lets review. It buys you a delicious, pastured, antibiotic free turkey that will be butchered absolutely stress free on the farm on which it was raised. It buys you members only access to an educational experience with friends and family on Butch'rin Day. It buys you some tips on how to cook your bird, and serve it to your family on Thanksgiving, and the days thereafter. And it buys you the satisfaction of sharing with others less fortunate, on a day when we realize how fortunate we all are.

So what do you think? Are you interested in being a member of the "Rettland Farm Turkey Club"? If so, shoot me a quick email (farmer@rettlandfarm.com) BY JULY 15 to become a part of what is shaping up to be a really cool event.

A Somber Quote

2010-07-04T16:09:00.003-04:00

So, maybe this isn't the most chipper quote for America's birthday. After all, July 4th is supposed to be about really bitchin fireworks, and drinking lots of beer, and having a day off work to recover from it, right? Sacrifice? The costs of Independence? What the hell do they have to do with July 4th?

However, since I'm spending like the 20th consecutive day watching my pastures and my crops literally french fry for the lack of rain, and since I'm feeling just a shade grumpy about it, maybe letting some cynicism leak through my usually impenetrable veneer is okay after all. I guess if you find this quote a little too somber, and it puts a buzzkill on your 4th celebrations, then please accept my apologies in advance.

This came through a farmer discussion list that I subscribe to.

[The farmer] needs, like the working man, the reality- not the illusion -
of economic security. Until a good deal more than half the population acquires
that security which is based upon thrift, self-reliance, and the earth itself,
we shall never know security as a nation. We shall go on having fantastic
depressions, distorted and exaggerated by our own follies, whether of high
pressure, installment-plan selling, or of fantastic, moon-eyed economic
juggling. And each depression will be followed by more and more destructive
taxations, as the whole economic structure of the nation grows weaker and
weaker, and sinks to a European, and finally to an Asiatic standard of
living.
--Louis Bromfield, "Pleasant Valley" 1945

Blissful Barbecue Sausage

2010-06-11T01:03:00.003-04:00

Time for another new Rettland Farm Original Sausage! Are you sure you're ready for it?.

What is It?:
The latest sausage in the RFO line is called "Blissful Barbecue".

Now, I need to explain "Blissful" as it's used here. No, I don't guarantee that consuming this sausage will instantly transport you to a lounge chair on a beach surrounded with blue water, with a cold alcoholic beverage in your hand, and with attractive members of the opposite gender alternately fanning you with those big old tropical leaves and feeding you peeled grapes. If I could guarantee that, friends and neighbors, I wouldn't be here...I'd be eating this sausage.

No, "Blissful" here means that this sausage is nice and mild, just flirting with the spicy side of barbecue-ness. I didn't want (and don't like) a sausage that is so damn hot that it burns the hair off your toes, so I took it easy on the heat. Just enough to accent the pork and to give some street cred as actual "barbecue".

Oh yeah, and another little detail to round out the whole barbecue theme? It's smoked. With real Hickory. Yeah, I thought that would appeal to you.

The ingredient list is a little longer for the Blissful Barbecue sausage, but I think I can still sleep at night. There are no "modified this or thats", no "artificial flavorings", nothing that sounds like it's from your kids Chemistry set. And the sausage is also Nitrate Free, if that's a concern for you.

Just Pork, Water, Kosher Salt, Sugar, Chili Powder, and a handful of herbs and spices. That's it.

How to Cook It:

You HAVE to grill this one! Over lump charcoal if you can swing it timewise, or over gas if you can't.

And yes, YOU STILL HAVE TO COOK IT FULLY TO A SAFE TEMP!! This sausage is not fully cooked, even though it's smoked. So cook thoroughly! Attentively sear the sausages on both sides, and finish them over indirect heat. I'd recommend cooking them to at least 175 degrees, checked with a instant read thermometer stuck in the end of the sausage.

My choice for some background music while your cooking Blissful Barbecue sausages? I'd go with something twangy or bluesy, like some old school country. I'd recommend Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River", or Hank Williams Jr's "Outlaw Women", or something along those lines. (I'm adding a song selection to my cooking recommendations now--I think you can tell a lot about someone by their musical tastes! Plus, music fulfills the last of the five senses when you're cooking and eating, and just completes the experience.)

How to Eat It:

Okay folks, I need help in this department. All of you cooks out there, professional and otherwise, need to tell me the best way to eat this sausage. Please! My old standby of the bun, cheese, mustard routine is starting to get a little monotonous, so send me suggestions!

Besides my old standby, I think that this sausage would also work very well as a pizza topping, as long as the pizza sauce was a little more sweet and a little less spicy, like Tommy's in Gettysburg. On that note, whaddya say Tommy's? Wanna give it a try??

How to Get It:

Come see us at The Farmers' Markets at the Outlet Shoppes at Gettysburg, on Fridays and Saturdays, 9:30 am til 2 pm. Also come see us at our newest market stand, at the North Market Farmers Market in downtown Frederick, MD. That market runs from 3pm til 7pm on Wednesdays.

As usual, I'd love to hear your feedback. You can let me know your opinion either here in the comment section, or privately at farmer@rettlandfarm.com.

Cheers!

A Call to Action

2010-05-14T22:52:00.003-04:00

I know it's summer, and I know you're busy. I just need a minute of your time...

I came across this post written by one of the co-owners of T&E Meats in Harrisonburg VA. I sort of follow this slaughterhouse (do you know anyone else who's a butcher groupie?), and so when I saw it referenced in the story, I had to take the time to read it. I hope you will too.

Please take the time to read this blog post and submit your comments to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. Don't let USDA regulate the meat industry with a one size fits all regulation. Your ability to access affordable, locally raised meat may depend on it.

Herb and Onion Sausage

2010-04-28T00:54:00.007-04:00

Ready for the next Rettland Farm Original Sausage?

Thought so.

What is It?:

I call this sausage "Herb and Onion". And it just screams summertime...

That wasn't really my intention at first, to come up with a sausage for summer use. It just turned out that way. During the development phase, the combined aroma of the herbs and the onions just put me in a summer state of mind.

My choices for herbs this time around were a little off the beaten path. Sage always seems to be the go-to herb for pork sausages, so I decided to skip it. Ditto on the thyme. Are those two omissions committing some kind of culinary sacrilege? Probably. But I think the end result still turned out Okay in the taste department.

As before, the herbs came from the folks at Alloway Creek Gardens and Herb Farm.

Other ingredients? Water, Kosher Salt, Onion, and Black Pepper. That's it.

How to Cook It:

Grill baby, grill!

Use whatever you're comfortable with, gas or charcoal. My personal preference would be lump charcoal, or gas if time or lump availability is an issue. I'm not a huge fan of charcoal briquettes, but they'll do in a pinch.

Whatever your fuel, get a good sear on both sides over medium heat. If you get in a big hurry and try to push these guys too fast, you'll split the casing. While they'll still be delicious that way, you may lose some street cred as a backyard grillmaster. Just relax, imbibe some carbonated barley water, listen to music that lifts your spirits (tonight it was Chris LeDoux for me--miss you Chris!) and take pleasure in the anticipation of eating this sausage.

After you sear both sides, move them off direct heat and let them cook slowly. I cook them to at least 175 degrees, and yes I use a thermometer. Unless you're a professional cook, you should too. Just be sure to stick the probe into the end of the sausage, not through the casing. Don't want to lose all that delectable moisture by punching a hole in it.

How to Eat It:

Yeah, you guessed right--these unpretentious little beauties are another for the old bun, mustard and cheese routine. Will we ever get to a sausage that I don't think is best served this way? Maybe. I'll be sure to let you know if it happens.

For variety, try them with pasta, or even with your eggs and toast in the morning. It would work there too.

Have a serving suggestion? Share it in the comment section, please.

How to Get It:

The Farmers' Markets open May 8 in Gettysburg, and that is prime time for you to stock up on the Herb and Onion sausage. (Details on the markets will follow very shortly.)

As usual, I'd love to hear your feedback. You can let me know your opinion either here in the comment section, or privately at farmer@rettlandfarm.com.

Welcome to summer!

Don't Take My Word for It...

2010-04-05T12:32:00.003-04:00

Regarding the Easter Hams from my hogs...

Everyone was in agreement-that was the finest ham ever!

Just the right smoke, outstanding texture and flavor...baked at a 350
oven for 4 hours-PERFECTION!

(T)here is a batch of ham and green beans in the making with the left
overs, love the bone for stock!

Thank you for providing such outstanding meats, we are fortunate to have
such a farm right in our Adams County back yard!!!"
--J.F., Fairfield, PA

Though I appreciate the kudos (very much), I have to give lots of the credit
to Chas. Nell's Meats who did the curing and smoking; and especially
to the pig, for being so damn delicious. I'm just the guy who made
the introductions.

By the way, I also have a couple left...

Open Minds, Please

2010-03-28T00:35:00.003-04:00

Maybe it's because I have kids, and the fact that their generation will lead statistically shorter lives than mine, as a result of their diet, is absolutely harrowing to me.

Maybe it's my ongoing frustration with the current commodity based food system, and it's governmental enablers, that automatically makes me cheer for someone who tries to change it.

Maybe it's because I think it's a big step forward to have someone criticizing "Big Food" in primetime on a major network, even though "Big Food" was happily featured on the commercials during the shows.

Maybe it's because I've heard about health care ad nauseum in the past year, and the largest contributor to the future costs of said healthcare will be obesity. (Aside: In light of that little factoid, wouldn't it have been wise to address the food system as part of health care reform? Not according to our fearless leaders...or their puppetmasters)

Whatever the reason, I think Jamie Oliver deserves some appreciation, some attention, and maybe just an ounce of respect, for tackling America's obesity epidemic.

Yeah, I'm talking to you, lunch ladies of Huntington, WV. He's not going to put you out of a job, or cut your pay. If anything, his way might give you all opportunities to show your real culinary skills, beyond opening boxes and adding water. Quit being so damn stubborn and self concious.

And you too, DJ Whatever-your-name-is. The whole "I have a God given right to eat crap if I want to" tough guy routine looks fake--if anybody is pandering to their audience for ratings here, it's you. Oliver isn't making you look dumb--you're doing it to yourself.

So, thanks J.O. You wouldn't have been my pick to deliver this message, but I sure am glad you're delivering it.

Extreme Makeover, Rettland Edition

2010-03-25T00:59:00.006-04:00

"We're a-movin' on up! (Movin' on up!)
To the top! (Movin' on up!)
Of a De-Luxe apaht-ment, in the sky-hy-hy!"

Yup, that's what my broilers are singing this week. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that my chickens are singing the theme songs of sitcoms from thirty years ago, but when they caught a glimpse of their new digs, they just couldn't help but channel old George and Weezy...

For two years now, I've been raising pastured broilers in what has become the "standard" housing model for pastured poultry, most commonly known as a "Salatin Style" pen, named after the Godfather of pastured poultry, Joel Salatin. And as much as I admire the beautiful simplicity of Joel's portable pens, I saw room for some improvements. So I redesigned it a little. Ok, I redesigned it a lot. But you're still the man, Joel!

Raisin' the Roof...

I needed to add height to the Salatin pen (which are only about 2 feet high), for a few reasons. Most important was air circulation. During the summer heat, especially when the birds were fully grown, the air inside seemed stale and stagnant. Since the goal here is to provide a better environment than a typical confinement house, I needed to improve air flow.
Another issue with the low height occurred when it was time to catch the birds on slaughter day. Picture me, army crawling inside the pen, among 100 freaked out chickens, at 6 am, on dew covered grass, trying to catch birds. Yeah, not a day at the beach for me, but even worse--it was VERY stressful on the birds. It seemed really dumb to spend 8 weeks trying to keep stress to negligible levels in these birds, and then blowing it by having them go completely nuts during the last hour of their lives.

So, I went with the hoop house idea that I saw on the web, and outfitted it for broilers. The almost-6 foot ceiling allows me to walk in almost upright (which the chickens are used to by slaughter day since I walk in every day before that to feed them) and calmly corral the birds in a corner. To solve the ventilation issue, the high ceiling, coupled with the open end and sides, draws fresh air into the house by a sort of natural chimney effect.

Unsafe at any Speed...

The other big issue was moving the old pen. The problem was that occasionally a chicken wouldn't move along fast enough, and would get pinched between the pen and the ground. I couldn't always see to be sure that the birds were out of the way, again as a result of the low height.

Well, the "Rettland Pen" is high enough off the ground that a slowpoke chicken won't get mushed by the pen--it will just pass over him. Rubber skirts keep the chickens in and the predators out while the pen is stationary, but floats over the lazy chicken while the pen's in motion. Even though the chicken is now out, and needs to be caught, at least he's not hurt.

Wet Weather Equipped

Lastly, I needed to be able to deal with wet weather, since Pennsylvania's new climate seems to include at least 2 monsoon seasons per year. When we have so much rain that the ground is saturated, the results are disastrous for the chickens. In the Salatin pen, they have nowhere to go. My choices at that point are to either let them wallow in the mud, or catch all of them and move them indoors somewhere. I usually opt for the latter. You can imagine how that goes...and the language involved.

So I added a perch that can fold down in wet weather, so the birds have somewhere to get out of the mud. When the ground is dry, it folds up out of the way, so the birds can graze as usual.

Time will tell if the "Rettland Pen" is a vast improvement over the Salatin Pen. I'm sure there will be bugs that need to be worked out, but this guy seems to be satisfied. For now.

Making a Break from GMOs

2010-03-21T21:31:00.005-04:00

Over the winter, I reached the conclusion that it's time for me to change the way I feed animals on my farm. Since I started raising critters for direct sale, I've maintained diets for pigs and chickens that were free from antibiotics and other growth stimulants. I've even replaced commercial worming medicines with all natural, organic clays that, as far as I can tell, do as good or better at keeping pigs worm-free than the toxic commercial stuff.

However, since I've depended on purchased grains for at least some of my animals' feed rations, I haven't been able to say with certainty that my products are raised without the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). And over the past year or so, that has really started to bug me...

What are GMOs?

In agriculture, GMOs are plants that have had their DNA modified by adding genes from other plants (or animals) into the plant's DNA to give it a trait that makes it resistant to herbicides or insect pests.

These transgenic crops have been in commercial use since the early 90s, and they have taken over the market so swiftly and completely that it is hard to find seed for things like corn, soybeans, cotton, even sugar beets, that aren't transgenic seed. So even if the farmer is uncomfortable with the idea of GMOs, he doesn't have a whole lot of alternatives to using them, if he wants to grow those affected crops.

What's my problem with GMOs?

I have lots of problems with GMOs. The one that worries me most, and the reason for my decision to go GMO free, is the safety issue. The manufacturers of transgenic seeds have gone through the motions and received approval to market them from the federal government, but that's absolutely no consolation to me. (An interesting aside--Europe and many countries in Asia ban the use and sale of GMO crops. Why not the US?) Even if their approval wasn't a result of more corporate-government hand holding, the amount of time spent researching the effects of GMOs was far too short to be conclusive.

The true effects of GMOs on the environment and ecosystem, on the health of livestock, and most importantly, on the health of humans, won't become known for decades. Like so very many things going on today, the truth will only become obvious when viewed through the lens of history. And I'm no longer willing to sit around and wait for that revelation.

So, as of yesterday, I began phasing out the use of GMOs in the diets of my animals. I started by planting oats, which I will use to replace some of the corn in my current ration. It will take me almost a year to become GMO free, since I will have to grow literally all of the feed my animals consume myself. I will need to formulate new diets that use things like oats, and also wheat, rye, barley, and GMO free soybeans for the pigs and chickens. This may mean that it takes longer to grow the animals to their usual slaughter weights, and it will definitely cost more to do so.

But it's the right thing to do, for them and those of us who eat them.

Rettland Farm Original Kielbasa

2010-02-18T23:12:00.003-05:00

Time for the big debut!

I'm thrilled to announce that the first Rettland Farm Original sausage is on the market.

What is It?:

The first sausage developed exclusively by Rettland Farm to showcase our Berkshire pork is a Fresh Kielbasa.

Kielbasa typically features garlic and marjoram, and ours is no exception. What is different, though, is that I spent a lot of time trying to get the garlic right. I hate garlic that overpowers everything, and I want the meat to stand out in the sausage, not the seasoning. I used Organic garlic, and prepared it in a such a way to take the bite out of it, so the garlic flavor is there without having it waft through your sinuses and ooze through your pores all day long.

The marjoram was purchased from a small herb farm about 3 miles from here, Alloway Creek Gardens and Herb Farm.

Other ingredients? Water, Kosher Salt, Onion, and Black Pepper. That's it.

How to Cook It:

I think that most sausage really benefits from being fried in a pan or grilled, to put a nice, caramel color on the outside, and to give a nice "crunch" to the casing. Since we are a long way from grilling season, let's focus on the pan fry.

I'd strongly recommend adding a fat to the pan before adding the sausage , to keep the sausage from scorching. My fat of choice to cook sausages is butter . It browns nicer, and more importantly, tastes better than vegetable oils on the sausage.

Once the pan and butter are hot over medium high heat, I add the sausage and immediately cut the heat to medium. After getting a good sear on the casing after a minute or two, I flip it and cut the heat again, to medium low. After the second side is seared, I reduce the heat to low, and leave it there for the duration. Usually one last flip is all that is necessary to finish the job.

I cook the sausages to an internal temperature of at least 175 degrees. Don't worry--it won't be all dried out at this temperature, like a commercial sausage would be. It will still be moist, tender, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Trust me.

How to Eat It:

I think these sausages are great on a bun, with a slice of good cheese (not the individually wrapped oil-infused garbage, but REAL cheese) and some good old French's mustard. Fancy? No. Incredibly tasty? Yeah, pretty much.

For a larger meal, I think the sausage sauteed with onions and served with pierogies would be really great. And really Polish.

Once you have a chance to try the kielbasa, please share your serving suggestions in the comment section. I think it would be great to hear how other people are enjoying their sausage.

How to Get It:

Until the Farmers' Markets open in May, the best way to get this sausage is to get in through the Member's Club, our monthly home delivery service. If you're not receiving our monthly email newsletter, send me an email at farmer@rettlandfarm.com to be put on the list.

So there you have it--the first installment in the line of Rettland Farm Original Sausages. Once you get your hands on some, I'd love to hear your feedback, either here in the comment section, or privately at farmer@rettlandfarm.com. Your honest opinions will help me put the absolute best product out there, for the eating pleasure of all.

Enjoy!

Rettland Farm Sausage--The Beginning

2010-02-07T00:06:00.003-05:00

This post signals the beginning of something new and exciting at Rettland Farm.

Those who have been regular readers may remember my interest in terroir--the concept of food or drink tasting a certain way as a result of the environment in which it was raised. Historically, terroir has been associated with wine, but recently it has been applied to broader categories of food by "food people".

In past posts, I've wondered about what influence pasture has on the taste of meats that we produce. While we're still developing and defining the effect on pork, I think it's safe to say that there is a noticeable influence of green grass (and all the other associated goodies) on our eggs and pastured broiler chickens.

But I wanted to take the concept of terroir further. I wanted a product that could, through terroir, sort of define the "Taste of Rettland Farm." This product would be firmly based on our meat products, but would also include other food ingredients besides meat.

So, the result of all this brainstorming, mulling and wishing is this:

Sausage.

In the very near future, I will be rolling out the first (of hopefully many) original sausages that will include our pork (and maybe chicken) and also other simple, all-natural ingredients. These sausages will serve as a kind of taste compilation of all things "Rettland", stuffed into a casing. There will be breakfast sausages, dinner sausages, grilling sausages--you name it. We'll have a sausage for every occasion. And since pork can now be considered a health food, you'll be able to eat a sausage daily...

The sausages will be hugely influenced by seasonality and the origin of the ingredients. In other words, the sausages containing springtime ingredients won't be available in November, and you can bet that there won't be many ingredients grown outside of Pennsylvania. There will also be some influence by holidays or other local events or celebrations.

The Rettland Farm Sausages will all have several things in common though:

1. The meat that we use in the sausages will be of the highest quality, and will include some of the best cuts of meat from the animal. Unlike commercial sausage, Rettland Farm sausage is a premium product, not just something to do with the leftovers.

2. All of the ingredients in our sausages will be used in a state as close to their natural state as possible. Aside from some grinding and perhaps some occasional heating, I don't expect or want a whole lot of processing.

3. There won't be many ingredients in the sausage. Some meat (usually pork), some salt, and maybe some herbs or other seasoning ingredients. Most importantly, none of the ingredients will sound like something you worked with in your college chemistry lab--that's a promise.

4. On a related note, my ultimate objective is to showcase the meat. This means that the seasoning ingredients will only be used to that end. I hope to have the supporting ingredients be just that--complementing and not overpowering the meat. Subtlety will always be the goal.

5. All of the manufacturing of the sausages will be done in a USDA and Pa Department of Agriculture inspected facility. Our good friends at Charles Nell Meats in Littlestown are going to be key partners in this venture by manufacturing the sausage for me to their own strict quality and safety specifications.

So that's the basics on the sausage. In the coming weeks, I'll feature each new addition to the sausage line right here on the blog, and I'll include some discussion on the ingredients and their origin, and the thought process behind the theme.

Check back often! This is going to be great!

A Fascinating Report on Dietary Fat

2010-01-26T23:46:00.002-05:00

I stumbled upon this incredibly interesting report on the myths of a low saturated fat (what you find in animal products) diet, and the scarier facts about diets high in polyunsaturated fats (the stuff you are SUPPOSED to eat.)

The moral of the story? Eat more Rettland Farm pork. It's good for you! And the second moral of the story? Don't believe anything that is supposed to be taken as gospel.

Seriously, though. Check it out. It's a little lengthy, but it is truly worth the read.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cardiovascular-disease/saturated-fat-and-heart-disease-studies-old-and-new/

We Need a New Word

2010-01-22T22:36:00.003-05:00

I took a road trip today to pay a visit to a prospective client. We had a great discussion about our respective businesses, and I came away really charged about the "food" movement, especially in the mid-Atlantic region.

On my way home, I recounted to myself parts of our conversation, particularly the part about our shared frustration over the overuse and corruption of "buzzwords" in the "local food" movement.

The new client (hey, I'm optimistic) related to me that it was especially hard for her to sort out the real deal of sustainable, local, humanely produced food--from those opportunists who put the right words and a pastoral logo on a box of shit so they can charge a few extra bucks for it.

I gave her my somewhat standard answer, that the best way to keep out the posers is to do what she and I were doing at that very moment: sitting down, face to face, and talking. We build trust, we build relationships, and we (well, me, as the farmer) start to display our integrity by sharing our philosphies and practices. You can't bullshit people when they ask you directly what your pigs eat, or what the procedure for slaughtering the animal is--you either know it or you don't.

We can take it one step further, and the client can come visit the farm, and see with their own eyes whether the farm is really genuine, or just a slick marketing campaign.

But every industry has buzzwords, so what's the new buzzword for this kind of business? How do we sum up what we do in a word or two, and yet keep the wannabes from usurping it for their own nefarious causes?

I've used the phrase "Real Food" in the past, but I'm not sure about that. I also came up with "Verifiable Food," but that sounds way too stuffy and sterile.

As I cruised up the road this afternoon, though, I came up with a few that had a nice ring to them...

How about "Authentic Food?" "Give-a-damn Food?" Or maybe "Food Done Right?"

Are any of these winners? Any other suggestions?

Layin' Hen Blues

2010-01-14T22:19:00.004-05:00

The original intent of this blog was for me to talk about what I'm doing and the thought processes that I go through in the course of producing food on the farm. As I looked back over my 2009 posts, I realized that I didn't do much of that at all. Not surprising, if you know me. I'm not really into talking about me.

Add to that the fact that when I did post, I felt obligated to defend the world against vegans and rogue Texas History professors (did that twice), and I didn't really talk about the farm that much at all. So, I'll work on that. Starting today.

We have produced eggs from free range hens for about two years. If you've never had an egg that came from a chicken that ate lots of green grass and insects, then you haven't lived, friend. They are superb. I really like them, my family likes them, and most importantly, my customers like them. I actually had a customer tell me once that she dreamed about my eggs. Yeah, they're that good.

The problem is, this year has not been a good year to be an egg laying chicken on this farm. To put it briefly, we have become a Four Star Dining Mecca for every damn predatory species within a mile (or more) of this place. We had a major chicken slaughter in the early summer, and we have never really gotten our production back since then.

I hatched my own chicks and raised them.

I bought some really beautiful black hens from another small farmer.

And yet, every week, our head counts continue to decline, to the point that I have the fewest number of layers on the farm that I've ever had.

I have taken steps to protect the birds, but it's been difficult, and largely ineffective. I have (until recently) insisted that the hens be allowed free roam outside during daylight hours. This stubborn, but well intentioned position has resulted in big losses during daylight hours in the last few weeks, to the point that I'm now keeping the hens inside. I hate to do it (and rest assured, it is only temporary), but it's less cruel to leave them in a spacious, well bedded henhouse than to allow them to die a horrible death in the jaws of a cunning, greedy predator.

So, we have to change a few things. I need to change my management style with the hens. I am going to have to move from the laissez-faire approach that has given the birds minimal safety but maximum freedom; to a more hands-on, managed system that allows me to provide them with the protection they need, while still allowing them access to green grass, sunshine, fresh air, and bugs.

I have always said, "If I have to raise chickens indoors, then I won't raise chickens", and that maxim is still true. But I have a few ideas that I'm going to try that will still give the birds great lives, and keep most of them off the menu at the Fox Cafe.

I'll keep you posted.

Who's YOUR Farmer?

2010-01-03T23:54:00.006-05:00

So, Who's YOUR Farmer?

(That's how these T-Shirts are supposed to sound. Yes, I had multiple discussions with the printers, signed off on multiple proofs, and only after I took the finished product home, did I realize that I should've emphasized "YOUR"! On the shirts, it sounds more like "Who's your DADDY?!" than "What person do you entrust to produce food for you and your family?" Even a simple underlined "your" would have done the trick. Sorry. I'll know next time.)

Anyway, Who's YOUR Farmer?

Hopefully, if you're reading this blog with any regularity, the answer is an exhuberant, enthusiastic, "YOU are, Rettland Farm!"

The idea for this tagline comes from my belief that we all need a Farmer or two in our circle of people we rely on. We have our doctors, an accountant, maybe a lawyer, a mechanic, an insurance agent (if we actually care about quality service, and not just dirt cheap premiums, eh CBR? :) ).

Why not a farmer?

I would guess that 95% or more of Americans have no idea what country their food is grown in, much less the name of the guy (or gal) who's growing it. I think that should change.

I think that we should all have a few of the people that grow our food stored in our cell phones. If not that, then written on the door jamb by our home phone, or on the fridge, or in our email address book, or somewhere that denotes the importance of that person to our households.

But we can't stop with just posting the number. We need to use it.

We need to call our Farmers, even if it's just to chat. We should stop by the farmers' market just to maintain that relationship and that connection that we have both worked so hard to develop. We should fire off an email to see what's new on the farm, and how our future pork chops (or peaches, or brussels sprouts) are doing.

This person provides the third most important ingredient in your life and the lives of your family. Should that person be a nameless, faceless, stranger?

Who's YOUR Farmer?

The Ethics of Eating Meat

2009-11-25T00:24:00.005-05:00

I don't usually feel the need to rebut those who rail against the consumption of meat on grounds of animal cruelty. My general feeling is that we all have our preferences, and if you don't preach to me about yours, I won't preach to you about mine.

This case is really no exception, but last weekend the NY Times carried an Op-Ed (well written, I must admit) by a "strict ethical vegan," and I decided I had a few things to say, after all.

The standard argument against whether or not eating animals is ethical is the co-evolution argument. This says that domesticated animals, as species, found it beneficial to sacrifice individuals over time for the benefit of humans. Humans provided them with shelter, food, protection against (other) predators, etc.

I agree pretty strongly with this justification. While we're on the subject of evolution, though, let's take it a step further. (Aside: Happy Birthday, On the Origin of Species!)

As Homo Sapiens, we have clambered to the top of, and sit defiantly astride, the food chain due to our ability to adapt to a multitude of environmental scenarios. A significant evolutionary adaptation is that which makes us omnivorous, able to eat and survive on a wide variety of foods from both plant an animal sources.

One need look no further than the teeth in our mouths to see that we are predestined, by force of evolution, to eat meat as well as plants--sharp teeth in front for biting and tearing (gasp!) flesh, large grinding teeth in the back for...well, grinding.

Our forward facing eyes are more similar to other predator species than they are to the wall- eyed prey species. That didn't happen just so we'd look groovy in sunglasses.

Finally, consider both the anatomy and physiology of our digestive tracts. Our bodies need fats, amino acids, and vitamins that we are physiologically unable to synthesize, and therefore must consume from sources outside the body. Guess what? Some of those nutrients are only found in other animals.

The other issue that the author of the Op-Ed touches on is that a justification used by meat eaters is that animals aren't capable of abstract thought, and so therefore aren't able to predict or comprehend what is going to happen to them. Probably true. But what I think what the gift of abstract thought really gets humans is moral quandaries like the morality of eating.

Do you think that any other meat eating species on the planet refuses to eat meat because of the suffering of its prey? Does the bear let the salmon go, because the salmon shouldn't be made to suffer? How about the fox in the henhouse? Does he consider the terror he's causing the chickens by chasing them around and then killing them?

No. Both these predators kill, eat, and survive. In the struggle to survive and reproduce, they don't have the luxury of ethical eating. It's only through the abundance and availability of food that we do.

So go ahead and refuse meat on ethical grounds. I certainly admire your self sacrifice, though the air of moral superiority tarnishes it a bit.

As for me, I'll be over here, munching on a pork chop, fulfilling my predetermined biological destiny.

A Sign of the Times

2009-11-22T23:11:00.003-05:00

Recently, Rettland Farm was paid a visit by a member of the editorial staff of a regional newspaper. The subject of the piece was my good friend and loyal customer, Chef Andrew Little, and the relationship that he has with those of us who produce food for The Sheppard Mansion, where he is the Executive Chef. (As an aside folks, remember Chef Andy Little's name--you are going to hear it in some really cool places very soon!)

This wasn't the first such visit from a writer interested in the somewhat unique relationship that exists between Andy and his suppliers. We've been lucky enough to have been a part of several such interviews and visits this year.

What IS remarkable, though, is the type of publication this story was published in. You see, this publication isn't a "foodie" magazine, or a tourist feature, or any other periodical that you would expect to carry a story like this.

No, this was a FARM NEWSPAPER! The Lancaster Farming newspaper is a weekly newspaper with a huge (as a percentage of the target demographic) distribution in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Almost every farmer in the region, big or small, subscribes to this newspaper.

So why is our presence in these pages so remarkable?

Because five years ago, this article would have never been published in this newspaper.

Because it demonstrates the shift that is occurring in American agriculture, at least on the east coast, towards more sustainable, locally focused food production. Farmers in the region have apparently reached the point where these types of production and marketing are interesting to them.

Awesome.

Thanks to the author, Tracy Sutton, for a great article, and to Lancaster Farming newspaper for a fantastic publication.

Hail to the Lion! (Part 2)

2009-11-09T00:30:00.005-05:00

So, apparently my presence in Happy Valley for the first time in 10 years wasn't the good luck charm that I expected it to be.

I'm no sports analyst, so I won't even try to break down the game for you. All I can say is that a mediocre performance (at best) by one team was beaten by a mediocre performance by another. I'm not sure where they stand right now, but I'm pulling for Iowa to go to the Rose Bowl. They are hands down the best team in the Big 10 this year. Sorry State, but the truth hurts.

Before I move on to other topics, though, I have to throw out a big "Thank You!" to B.B. for her incredible generosity. Even though the performance on the field was disappointing, we had a fantastic view of it!

In my previous post, I had a whole laundry list of things that I wanted to do while in the State College/University Park area. To make a long story short, we were late getting up there (surprise!) so we had to shorten up the tour. A few notes:

1. The Meats Lab is still there, miraculously. I don't know how it hasn't been consumed for some athletic project or another, but it's still there.

2. The new Creamery/Food Science Building is absolutely gigantic. We walked there after the game to get some ice cream, but the line was probably about 2 hours long. We skipped the ice cream. (And also the moral dilemma I would have had about eating Peachy Paterno in November. Truth be told, I would have found some way to rationalize it--it was probably MADE in June, right?)

3. The highlight of the trip was lunch.

I had been tipped off that this place called Otto's Pub had "my kind of food", which I'll leave for you to define. We found Otto's and gave it a try.

I am also not a food critic, so I won't try to be that either. But I was pleasantly surprised at the menu, and impressed at the dedication to local farms. They even list the names of their producers on the menu! It takes a very dedicated restaurant and chef to do that...

My wife is a fan of Mexican food, so we started with nachos (a restaurant cannot exist in a college town without nachos on the menu, no matter how inspired it is). They were served with black beans that were delicious, in addition to all the regular "nacho" goodies. We ate it all.

Then came the main course. I thought about the "drunken free range chicken," or the Smoked Brisket sandwich, but when I saw the words "Pulled Pork Sandwich", I knew my search was over.

The sandwich was completely, utterly, shamelessly good.

It came with cole slaw on top of the sandwich, and a smoky barbecue sauce on the side for dipping, but it really wasn't needed--the meat was moist enough by itself. Through the moans of ecstasy I was making while eating it, I asked the server if the pork was local. She told me that it was, grown about 20 minutes west of State College, but I already knew that. There is no way commodity pork can be made to taste like this pork did.

We enjoyed ourselves so much there that time slipped away. We had to hurry out (which is hard to do with what seemed like 5 lbs of pulled pork in your stomach) and fight our way through at least 25,000 pedestrians (I am not joking) to get to our parking space. I was only called an asshole once (that I heard.)

If you are ever in the State College area, I highly recommend Otto's. It may even be worth a special trip. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I can't make the same promise for the football team.

Hail to the Lion!

2009-11-06T23:33:00.003-05:00

I. Am. Stoked.

Tomorrow, my little co-ed and I are venturing to University Park, PA, going back to my old stomping grounds for the first time in about 10 years. No, it's not a romantic getaway for two, considering the 110 THOUSAND other people who are going with us!

That's right. Penn State vs. Ohio State. At home. 60 degree temp and sunny skies forecast. 300th game in Beaver Stadium. The air absolutely humming, almost electrically, almost audibly with excitement. How can it possibly get any better....?

Can you say "LUXURY BOX??!" Thought so. I knew I could.

Yes, thanks to the generosity displayed only between members of the Blue and White Tribe, we are going to watch this game in style. No more ass frozen to an aluminum bench, so damn high that the birds are flying below you and you feel like you are going to start bleeding from the eyes and ears from the lack of atmospheric pressure. No sir. Just this once, we're gonna see how the other half lives.

We're going to head up a little early, though, and take a stroll through town and the campus. Things I'm thinking about doing...

1. Eat: Surprise here. I'm not sure where we'll go, but I hear a few of the old haunts are still open. And also a few new ones.

2. Drink: Yeah, Yuengling Lager tastes better in Centre County, for some reason. (I think they send the best stuff there.)

3. Maybe head out to the Finest Fraternity and say "Hi" to the current crop of Beta Boys. Maybe see if Room 3 still smells like cow manure.

4. Maybe I'll try to get a picture at the PSU Meat Sciences Lab (or the 'Slab, if you're in the know) before it gets deep sixed for some parking lot, or something. It's just a little nondescript cinder block building in the literal shadow of Beaver Stadium, but that little building probably has something to do with where I am in my profession right now.

5. While I'm thinking about places that had a lasting affect, maybe we'll run out to Haller Farm (PSU's permanent rotational grazing farm). If you ever happen to fly into University Park airport, you can see Haller if you...well...look down and left.

6. Although we'll be long gone before the bar scene gets hoppin', it might be nice to see the Shandygaff again. For those of you who aren't familiar, the entrance to the Gaff is on a back alley. 'Nuff said.

7. It would be nice to see some of the Ag School, since it has apparently changed a lot since I was there. A new creamery? Say it ain't so! And on that topic, would I be a hypocrite if I ate Peachy Paterno or Cherry Quist ice cream in November?

8. Oh yeah. Maybe we'll actually watch a little football, too. It would be nice to see the Lions beat the snot out of the Buckeyes, but you know what? I really don't care who wins right now.

I'll report back with the postgame.

It's All About Priorities...

2009-10-19T22:45:00.004-04:00

There was recently an Op-Ed in the New York Times by my old friend, James McWilliams about local food being “elitist”. While I’ll withhold my opinions on Old Jim and his motives (for now), I’d like to address the “elitist” issue.

Like all farmers, I take great pride in the ability to feed people. I also worry about those who go hungry, which I think is a shameful thing to happen in the wealthiest society in the history of the world.

Unfortunately though, access to food is not a right, despite all of our wishes to the contrary. Food, like shelter, freedom, and anything else in life that we treasure, is only attained through sacrifice and work, and the willingness to exchange that work for the other things that we place value in. The only thing that is truly an inalienable right, the only thing that the human species is guaranteed to acquire with absolutely no effort, is death. Hate to be crude, but that's the way it is. You heard it here first.

Buying real, locally and sustainably produced food is not an issue of economics for most people: it is an issue of priority. We as consumers make a choice when we buy a $4000 flat screen TV and the related goodies, and yet feel pinched when the price of milk tops $3.50 per gallon. We make a choice to build status symbol homes that are twice the size of the houses we were raised in, strap ourselves with mortgages and heating costs and property taxes, instead of focusing some of those financial resources on eating well, or more importantly, feeding our children well.

That said, we have an obligation to help those who really truly cannot access local food because of poverty, and not because of poorly chosen priorities. Slowly, we are making progress in that direction through public assistance programs that recognize the value of local food and enable the recipients of that assistance to shop at farmers markets. As farmers markets expand into more communities, the accessibility for these folks will continue to improve.

From my own experience, the typical farmers market patrons in the booming metropolis of Adams County, Pennsylvania share one common thread. That common denominator is NOT the balance in their checkbooks or the zeros on their balance sheets. It's not their age or ethnicity, or the car they drive, or their political beliefs, or any other characteristic used to stereotype the farmers market shopper by folks like Jim McWilliams.

Instead, they share the sense of value in the food they are buying; the feeling of community from being with other like minded people; and the importance of their patronage to the farmer and his desired way of life.

If those feelings and those values make them elitist, then sign me up.

Things to Worry About, Part 1 of many

2009-10-15T12:13:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the first installment of the series "Things you should be worrying about, but probably aren't aware of..." Yes, I plan on dumping things on your already overburdened shoulders that will hopefully make you take notice of some issues that probably aren't on the radar for most of you. In many cases, like this one, I won't have a really good solution for the problem, either.

I recently came across the results of the most recent ag census, which you can find here. Although the focus of this particular part of the section of the census was the AGE of US farmers, (which IS increasing dramatically, and which I DO think is alarming) I was most disturbed by some other data listed there.

The number of farm operators under the age of 45 in the United States that work off of the farm stands at a whopping 81%. Based on most farmers I know, they don't work off the farm because they want to, but because they have to out of financial necessity. The same graphic shows that only 22% of farmers in this age group derive more than half of their income from farming.

In what other profession would it be acceptable for those practicing in the profession to do it as a part time endeavor? How about your doctor that also stocks shelves in the grocery store? Maybe a lawyer who moonlights installing carpets? The chef who mows lawns on the side?

Is it right that farmers must find other work in order to pay the bills? Do they have the time and energy left when they come home to really be able to concentrate on the job of growing wholesome, affordable food? As someone who does farm full time, I can honestly tell you that I don't know how they do it.

Should producing the third most essential ingredient for human life really be reduced to a hobby?

I know that there is a group of supposedly "enlightened" people out there who think that this is progress, that having only a negligible percentage of the population "burdened" by food production for everyone else is a really great statistic.

I am, and will remain, one of the unenlightened.

Real Food, Done Right

2009-10-13T01:25:00.003-04:00

For the third consecutive year, we've had the good fortune to be invited to attend the annual Harvest Dinner at the Sheppard Mansion Restaurant. Thanks to the generosity of Chef Andy Little and the Sheppard Mansion management, several local farmers and growers are treated to a fantastic meal while having the chance to interact with other guests and explain to them our philosophies and production methods.

This event grows larger every year, and this year was no exception. It's increasing popularity is easy to understand: we enjoyed wonderful company, fantastic wine, and absolutely exquisite food.

I look forward to the Harvest Dinner each October. It's always rewarding to talk to people and to be reminded how important good food is to them. I always leave the Dinner with a renewed sense of purpose, reassured that what I'm doing is worthwhile and important...

Many thanks to Chef Little and his team at the Sheppard Mansion for including us in a truly memorable event. I think it is also fitting to express our sincere appreciation to the other guests for their continued interest in and dedication to real food, done right. Without all of your support and encouragement, our jobs become a whole lot less fun.

Sustainable Food on a Large Scale?

2009-09-29T01:02:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I had the distinct pleasure of going to a dinner function at a local organization that has decided, under the leadership of their newly elected social chairpersons, that the club as a whole is going to make a more concerted effort to source their food locally. This dinner was the kick off event to that end. I supplied pastured broilers and Clear Conscience veal for the meal, and then was kindly asked to come for dinner and take part in a panel discussion about local food. (Side note: a sincere thank you to the members of MCC and especially G.O. for requesting my attendance there!)

At the very end of the panel discussion, a member asked, "How do we make our food production systems more sustainable as a nation?" She directed the question more to the other members present instead of the panel, and the question was left largely unanswered.
I've spent the last week or so thinking about the answers to that question, and here's what I've come up with...

1. Buy American: To me, this is the absolute first step in any effort towards sustainable, local food production, and it should be non negotiable.

Recently, after years of stalling and ignoring it, the food industry has finally begun to comply with federal law requiring Country of Origin Labeling (COOL). When you go to the supermarket, almost everything is now required to have the country where that food was produced listed on the label, which makes "buying American" easier.

The meat department gets tricky though. You will see labels like "Origin: USA, Mexico, and Canada." That doesn't cut it folks. Leave the meat in the case, and head out to your local farmer, where you can see the animals in a field that is mere miles from your home, and buy your meat from them.

In the produce section, I'd take it one step further--try to buy produce grown on the same side of the Mississippi river as where you are. Nothing infuriates me more to be standing in a supermarket in the number one apple producing county in the number 4 apple producing state and pick up an apple that has "Washington State" on the label, while our local fruit growers push out orchards to grow row crops, or simply sell them for development, out of financial necessity.

In both cases, on your way out the door, be sure to tell the supermarket manager that you are not buying these things, and why. Fruit and meat are high profit items to a supermarket, and it won't take too many people leaving the store without these things in their carts before somebody starts to take notice.

As you learn where different foods come from, start to buy items that are grown closer to you geographically. It may be difficult to figure out what state this lettuce or that radish came from, and in that case, opt for ultra local (see numbers 2 and 3).

2. Grow your own: Take a greater role in your own nourishment. You don't have to produce 100% of the food you eat, or 50%, or even 1%. Just grow something with as few chemical inputs as possible, and then eat it. Tomatoes in a pot on your apartment balcony or herbs in a window box would be a good place to start. For those with larger residential lots, maybe you can go a little further and plant a few rows of beans or some cucumbers. You could get really serious and even try to raise a few pastured broilers, or maybe some meat rabbits.

The point is, anything you grow in your own personal space will be that much less that needs to be transported to you from elsewhere.

3. Shop Farmers Markets: And farm stands. And CSAs. And Farm Members Clubs. Farmers markets, in all their various forms, are popping up everywhere. The food you buy there will be unequaled by anything you buy at any supermarket, in both freshness and sustainability. The more people that buy their food from these sources, the more diverse and stable the market will become. However, without solid, continuous customer support even the best market will fail.

4. Eat in Season: Learn to pass up asparagus in December, and watermelons in April. Forgo the tomatoes when there is still snow on the ground, and the ears of corn on Valentines Day. By learning when certain foods are in season in your area, and buying them only during that window of time, you will almost guarantee that that food is grown somewhere close by.

5. Learn to Cook: Starting with one night per week, cook a meal. From scratch. Open a cookbook, find a recipe for something that sounds tasty, assemble the ingredients, and COOK IT. Make a whole meal without opening a cardboard box and stirring in a "seasoning mix" or "cheese packet".

After you've done this for awhile, move on to using some ingredient that you've never used before, preferably one that is not derived from corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, or potatoes. Make your children turn off the TV and the video games and come help you. By doing so, you will begin to influence their food preferences that will not only have a positive effect on their health in the future, but will create future consumers of sustainably produced food.

6. Make Food a Priority: I know all of these things take more time and effort than many busy families think they can afford, but in order to improve the sustainability of our food systems on a large scale, we must all take action as individuals.

Yes, it's inconvenient to have to buy your meat and produce from somewhere other than the supermarket, but take the extra 5 minutes and hit the farmers market on the way home.

No, it's just not innate for most of us to know what to do with parsnips, or swiss chard, or beef tongue, or smoked ham hocks, but buy them anyway, and research a way to prepare them. By doing so, you'll be making positive, incremental changes in food production systems encouraging people to continue growing these things the right way. As an added bonus, they will be absolutely delicious.

Take the time to research different foods, the farmers who produce them, and their methods of doing so. Develop your own philosophy about what issues are important to you, whether it is carbon footprint, pasture based, animal welfare, water quality, chemical use, etc. Once you have made these decisions, start to seek out food sources that meet your priorities, and reward them with regular purchases.

The Bottom Line: As consumers, we wield the most powerful tool in the struggle to change our food systems: the purse strings. By voting for our food preferences with dollars, we will do more to alter the way our food is produced than we ever will with hot air and spilled ink.

Changing our current food system to more sustainable models will not be either easy or quick, but it is critically important that we try.

Where does your feeder stock come from?

2009-08-26T23:18:00.003-04:00

This question was recently emailed to me, and I thought that it was worth answering in this forum.

"We just had your pork tenderloin for dinner and everybody is raving about it. Someone asked where your feeder stock comes from? Is that an appropriate question? Anyway, everyone said it was the best pork they ever had." --A Loyal Customer, Hanover, PA

My response:

It is an absolutely appropriate question.

My feedstock comes from one of two places:

First, I produce most of the baby pigs here on the farm, using breeding stock that I own. By doing so, I have absolute control of (and responsibility for) the diet and management of the parents and then the resulting pigs that will eventually end up on your table. As you can see, I don't use farrowing crates, but instead give the sow (the momma pig) a large, clean, well bedded pen to nurture her young pigs.

Second, I do occasionally purchase baby pigs from a small pig farmer in York county who specializes in the breed I prefer, Berkshire. I purchase from him only when I don't have baby pigs of my own. I have seen this farm's facilities and I have spent many hours talking with them about their practices, and I am comfortable with the animals that they produce.

I'm thrilled that the pork was a success! Thanks for your support!

Have a question you'd like to see answered here? Shoot me an email. farmer@rettlandfarm.com

Summer Squash

2009-07-28T23:27:00.002-04:00

Don't worry, I'm not about to take up food blogging. I'll leave that to those infinitely more qualified. ('Sup Little?)

But I've gotta say, after the third consecutive day of stuffing myself to gut-fill with fresh-out-of-the garden summer squash, I felt like I needed to voice my loyal support for the humble cucurbit. Some people salivate at the thought of the seasons' first sweet corn, or that first tomato, but not me. Squash is the King of Summertime Favorites with me. (And OK, truth be told, tomatoes are probably the Queen...)

And the delicious simplicity of squash makes it that much easier for those of us challenged in the culinary skills (and time) department. Salt, butter (if you're so inclined, but not absolutely necessary), and fresh ground pepper on top just before you fling it down your pie hole, and you're in business. Simple and sinful.

It's hard to beat, folks.

An Open Letter to James McWilliams, Texas State University

2009-07-09T22:16:00.004-04:00

Recently, a guy named James McWilliams has made it his business to criticize pastured pork in this online opinion column, among other high profile places. I took exception to a few of the points he made in this latest installment, so I sent him the following response. I also sent it to the online magazine who published the Op-Ed, but they apparently weren't interested. So, I present it for your consideration here...Enjoy!

An open letter to James McWilliams, History Professor from Texas State University.

Dear Mr. McWilliams,
Since you have done another literary drive-by on the pastured pork business, it seems only fair to address a few statements that you've made in your latest Op-Ed piece (Slate.com, June 29,2009).

I thought that I might provide some perspective from someone who actually raises pigs on pasture, since you apparently did not feel the need to interview a pastured pork farmer for your story. I'm sure that this rather glaring omission was just an oversight on your part, and not intentionally done to avoid clouding the waters in this latest installment of your indictment of pastured pork.

Let's talk about nose ringing first. It so happens that I agree with you that ringing pigs inhibits their natural foraging behaviors, and for that reason, I do not use rings on my pigs. On my farm, I have developed a management system that tolerates the inevitable rooting done by pigs in their natural environment and quickly repairs that damage to the pasture. I feel that this system is superior to a system that uses the ring to prevent rooting.

However, I do take issue with the fact that you reach the conclusion that "Ringing is nearly universal on free-range pig farms in the United States." Based on what data? Do you reach that conclusion because the most well known pastured pork farm in the country, Niman Ranch, allows it? Perhaps a citation of some quantitative measure of the use of nose rings on pastured pig farms would be in order here, instead of misleading your reader with relative terms like "nearly universal." I suspect that such data is very limited or nonexistent, and because of that I would challenge you, as an apparent academic, to take it upon yourself to design and execute a study to determine the actual prevalence of this practice.

Your second criticism deals with castration and spaying. Until now, I have never heard of anyone spaying a female pig for commercial purposes. I suspect that the mortality rate of such an invasive surgery performed by a layman would be very high, and the cost to have it performed by a veterinarian would be prohibitive. For these reasons, I don't think spaying would be commercially viable in the United States.

However, castration is an absolute necessity for all male pigs, regardless of production system or philosophy. Meat from an intact (uncastrated) male is inedible, due to the overpowering muskiness that is present in it.

If pain management in the animal is necessary, then what boundaries do we set for pain in the animal? If we are to use anesthesia, how should that be administered? If it is injected, is the pain caused by the needle acceptable? Would the pain of the needle be greater than the actual castration? You may answer no, but are you aware that dentists in the U.S. now fill cavities in children's teeth without anesthesia for this very reason?

On another level, many consumers who seek out and purchase pastured pork do so because of their desire to have meat free from chemical contamination. Would the use of anesthetics be acceptable to these people? How about analgesics (pain killers) after the procedure? Where is the line between the administration of adequate pain medication and overuse of drugs that pervades the commercial pork industry? This becomes a matter of individual choice to the consumer.

Conveniently though, the small, family operated, direct-to-consumer, pastured pork farm offers just that--individual choice. The relationship built between the farmer and the consumer allows the consumer to relay their feelings on these issues directly to the farmer. If enough of a farm's customers want the practice (non-anesthetized castration, for example) to change, it will. Quickly. In no other production or marketing system is this possible. I would highly recommend that you find a farmer of your own, and cultivate a relationship with him or her. You will be amazed at how powerful that connection is.

I hope that in the future you will include a farmer's perspective in your criticisms of pastured pork. I hope that you will do more investigating than the apparent cursory internet search that you based this story on. Finally, I hope you find a conscientious farmer of your own, and that you are able to build that relationship and experience pastured pork to the point that you can rethink your position that managing pigs on pasture is "far from the ideal that most people imagine it to be." Granted, producing pork on grass, like any human endeavor, is not a perfect system. But it is as close as we can get.

Sincerely,
Beau Ramsburg
Rettland Farm
Gettysburg, PA

Payback

2009-05-31T00:28:00.002-04:00

For those of you who live in a fantasy world where small, fuzzy...vicious...destructive little creatures don't need to die under any circumstances, please click the little "X" at the top right corner of your screen, and go watch Homeward Bound or something. Check back in a week or two for some other topic, because this post isn't going to be for you.

All the rest of you, let's talk about vengeance.

First, some history. For those that don't know, one of the foods we produce here on the farm are eggs. And due to my feelings on the subject, our laying hens are 100% free range. Let me put this another way: they can go absolutely wherever they want to go, whenever they want to go there. For reasons of biology and instinctive behavior, they don't stray very far, so it isn't the absolute economic trainwreck that it may sound like. They generally stick around.

Since chickens have horrible night vision, they do seek shelter at dusk. For this purpose, I have an old, straight-out-of-the-50's chicken house that most of them spend their nights in, as well as lay their eggs in. (Most meaning about 75%. The rest roost in the barn, trees, and I-don't-know where-the-hell. Ditto for the eggs. Every day is an Easter Egg hunt around this place.)

I have learned that the best way to deal with predators is to simply exclude them, so the chicken house has been made predator proof with wire mesh over the windows. The doors are closed every night after all the birds who want to be in are in. I check them out every night around midnight just to be sure everything is quiet. And it always is. Always.

So imagine my surprise when I stroll into the chicken house on a recent morning, and walk into a scene right out of a poultry horror movie. The entire floor of this building (I'd ballpark it at about 300 square feet) is covered, literally, with feathers. And strewn among this sea of feathers like so many macabre icebergs, are the carcasses of about 25% of my laying flock.

Now, I have come to accept and even tolerate a certain number of lost birds due to depredation. When they are managed in a totally free range system like mine, predators are going to be inevitable. Until this point, I have really only used exclusion and Darwinism as a remedy to the problem. But this was an entirely different situation. This massacre went down inside the birds' "safe haven". (I found that a very small corner of the wire mesh in one window had been pushed in to give the culprit access.) That fact was infuriating by itself.

But here is the real kicker: only one bird had been eaten. The rest had simply been killed for pleasure. They weren't eaten, or even really dismembered. Just dead. This is what drove me to the point of revenge.

I did some research on the internet and found a great website from Cornell about predators and how to (a) identify their crimes, and (b) stop them. From this, I figured that I was dealing with either a fox or a raccoon. I also know that once a predator hits the jackpot once, he will return to the same location to feed on subsequent nights. That little fact proved to be invaluable. The second night after the attack, he came back, and I got even.

I'll spare you the details, but the culprit turned out to be a fox.

I kept a trophy.

I take no pleasure in killing animals. I only do it so that myself and others may eat. This time though, I savored the feeling of justice. I liked the feeling of avenging not only my economic loss, but also the loss of those birds that had been killed merely for the sake of killing. An eye for and eye, and all that.

I have since fixed the damaged window, added a few more pieces of wire mesh to others, and have begun to search for new birds to replace the ones that I lost, which is not as easy as it may sound--You can't just stroll into Walmart and pick up laying hens. But I'll find them soon, and we'll get our egg numbers back up to where they need to be, and the egg customers who are now being deprived of eggs will have them again.

The debt's been paid. It's time to move on.

Pastured Pigs--Part 1

2009-05-19T00:29:00.004-04:00

So let's talk about pigs on pasture...

I know, I know, not exactly the hard hitting commentary that you would expect on a blog with such a pretentious title, but hey, I need to start somewhere. I thought that I would write about something neutral before I clamber up on my soapbox and start hurling down profound, unshakeable opinion that stimulates national discussion and shapes public policy...but stay tuned. We'll get there soon.

Today it's about pasture. And yes, I know those aren't pigs. Read on.

Really, since at least part of the vision of this blog is to explain the production practices I use at Rettland Farm and the thought processes behind them, we're right on track here.

Getting pigs on pasture has been on my mind since I started raising pigs for direct sale. I think the desire to get them out of the barn and into a more natural setting comes from a couple of different places.

First, pigs on pasture is 180 degrees from where the conventional pork industry is today, with gestation crates, concrete slatted floors and totally enclosed steel buildings. So doing the exact opposite of the Big Boys has an incredible appeal to me, given their image problems and lackluster product appeal.

Second, I have become intrigued with the concept of terroir, the effect that the conditions in which a food is produced have upon it's taste. Terroir is usually associated with wine, and it has recently been proposed by a local culinary expert that artisanal cheeses showcase the phenomena of terroir more than any other food, besides wine. Sounds good to me--I'll accept his well informed opinion as my own.

But how about meat? Does a pork chop from a pig who ate green grass and plants for the majority of his lifetime taste different (better?) than one derived from a pig raised on grains? I'm thinking it probably does. (Stay tuned for future posts on this very subject.)

Third, the evidence is pretty solid that meat and dairy products from animals whose diets are firmly based in pastures are very different from their conventional counterparts in the nutrient content of their meat, both in good stuff and bad stuff. Things like CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), a proven cancer fighter, and Omega-3 fatty acids, shown to improve everything from hearts to cognitive abilities, are both found at higher levels in grass fed animal products. So why wouldn't animal agriculture benefit from growing products packed with more of these desirables? Could pork from pastured pigs lose some of the negative stereotypes that commercial pork has received with regards to "healthy eating"? Maybe.

But probably the biggest reason for wanting to get pigs on pasture is the satisfaction it gives me. It's a rush folks, plain and simple. I can't describe what it feels like to see a group of animals (pigs or otherwise) moving across a green pasture en masse, heads down, grazing. I can't describe how it feels to look at a grazing animal and know that you are doing the absolute best job you can to care for that animal by letting it display natural behaviors and instincts on green grass. I can't describe the confidence I feel about my chosen profession when I get to experience these simple scenes. Honestly, there are some days when observing these things, if only for just a minute, is all it takes to make the day seem worthwhile.

This officially concludes the touchy-feely portion of today's post.

So now you know some of the "why" regarding pastured pigs. In future posts, I'll start to explain the "how" of our specific grazing system for pigs. Check back often!

The first post...

2009-05-03T00:18:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the first post of my blogging career! Please make yourself at home.

The blog is titled "Farmgate Philosopher" because the farmgate was historically the boundary between the farm and the rest of the world. Everything the farmer knew and owned existed inside that fence, with the only way in or out was through the gate. I envision the farmer of an earlier age standing at those gates, contemplating everything that happened on both sides. In these strange, uncertain, and yet exciting times for the American farmer, I share that feeling. I hope to communicate those feelings here in the weeks and months to come.

I hope that this forum will first serve to keep you informed about what is going on at Rettland Farm, as we go about our daily work of making food that people can feel good about eating. It is another way for you (the eater) and I (the farmer) to build and develop a mutual respect and rapport with each other.

In addition, I would like to discuss and debate current events that are happening outside my figurative farmgate (I don't really have a farmgate; in fact, even my fences are a little austere...) Most of them will relate to farms and food systems, but many of them probably won't. The only promise I can make is to give an honest opinion, and to try to stimulate some conversation. Please visit often, and feel free to contribute.

Enjoy!