Busy Week

Happy Friday Everyone! 

It's been a busy week at the Pastures of Rose Creek. After two full days filled with many long hours and lots of hard work, we have  succeeded in working ALL the new cattle. 

What does "working" mean you ask? Working cattle means assessing each cow's health and well being and learning as much about them as possible. 

With the assistance of four wonderful vet students, a professor, and several family members, we had to accomplish a handful of things:

We checked each cows age by assessing the condition of their teeth. 

We vaccinated them to help them stay healthy. 

We had a lot of great help from friends and family!

We checked to see who was pregnant.

And which calves belong with which mom.

 We issued fresh new tags to help identify who is who among our cows. 

Overall, it was a lot of hard work, but we are extremely grateful to everyone who pitched in to make this possible!

Nearly a Chicken Nugget

Hey Folks,

We posted some pictures on our new Facebook page of some of our farm animals. Living on a farm we enjoy being constantly around animals. While some of them provide for our livelihood, others are pets or guardians. Occasionally these lines become blurred.

Case in point, Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, or “Dumplings” as our grandmother called her, was a poultry chicken. Her origins are not completely clear, but she probably grew up in a chicken house and was on a truck bound most likely for a processor the fateful day she fell out of the truck and bounced onto the road in front of our house. When we found her, she had wandered in our front yard, undoubtedly confused but cheerfully optimistic about the fortuitous circumstances that had helped her escape fate as a drumstick.

At the time we had a flock of bantam hens and roosters that roamed freely all over the yard, their metallic-hued feathers reflecting in the sunlight. Compared to the others, Ferdinand’s plain white feathers made her easy to spot. At first, we weren’t quite sure what to do with her, surely she wasn’t smart enough to stick around, not wander off into the woods, or into the jaws of some lucky coyote. In the very least we hoped she would at least lay some eggs for us.

Contrary to our skepticism, we noticed that Ferdinand had taken to her newly found freedom with what can only be described as “zest.” This chicken was a real risk taker. Dad, who loves hanging out in the back yard in a lawn chair, sat down one summer evening with a slice of warm pizza and cold beer. Not realizing he was being stalked, Dad sat the plate down on his lap to take a sip of beer. When BAM! In a flash of feathers, Ferdinand reached out with her long neck, yanked the pizza of his plate, and took off with dad’s slice of pepperoni pizza dangling out of her mouth running just as fast as she could go.

Another time Ferdinand got an eye infection that made her really sick. Dad who has touch with animals that rivals a university-educated veterinarian performed a delicate, but necessary operation to remove the infected eye. Not only was dad’s surgery successful but after only a few days in a cardboard box and some antibiotic ointment, Ferdinand was back in action.

Though she was tough, she was the only chicken of ours to let you pick her up, or keep you company as you walked around the yard. When she wasn’t plotting to steal your food, she would even hop up in your lap and let you pet her. And when you stroked her feathers she would coo.

I only have one picture of Ferdinand, but it is a great one. In the photograph, she is sitting on her tree stump and is nestled against her boyfriend, one of our bantam roosters. The two of them look like one of those content older couples that have celebrated many wedding anniversaries together.

Ferdinand was part of our family for many years before she passed. She showed us that chickens can be warm and friendly and funny and definitely provide more than just a source of protein. Ferdinand also demonstrated that relationships can occur in the most unsuspecting of places among the most unlikely of creatures - something we would have never known had Ferdinand not escaped that produce truck.

Thank you for reading and we hope you have a great week!

Turning Back the Clock on Farming

Hi Friends,

We wanted to share with you a great article about young farmers featured in the New York Times. According to the Times, young people disenchanted with sitting in a desk all day, are picking up a pitchfork and choosing the farming profession instead.

And surprisingly, many of these young farmers have decided against industrialized farming. Like us, they are working to embrace many of the same small-scale farming methods used by their grandparents and great-grand parents before them. 

Can you believe that it has actually been less than a century since conventional farming methods merged with modern industry?  

As a means to combat rising food prices during the Cold War, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz began a large agricultural subsidy program. This subsidy program pushed farmers to maximize their crop yield by planting their crops “fence row to fence row.”  The U.S. Department of Agriculture then compensated these farmers by buying whatever they couldn’t sell on the open market.

While the subsidy program had the desired effect of bringing down food prices across the United States, as the individual calorie became cheaper and cheaper to supply, farmers had to plant more and more to make up for their falling crop prices.

Inadvertently, quantity of the yield became the modern farmer’s new focus of attention, and in order to stay competitive in this new market farmers were forced to divert more money, time, and finite resources on techniques and equipment that would maximize the volume of crops their land could produce. 

Many farms today rely on specialized equipment; indomitable GMO seeds that come with non-negotiable patent protection clauses, and lots chemical fertilizer - anything to bolster volume and gain an edge in a highly competitive, industrial market.  

Quality is often sacrificed in order to meet the demands of an industrial fostered market.  The practices that once helped farmers make names for themselves as having the plumpest tomatoes, the biggest watermelons, or the sweetest, crispest, onions now lag behind on the list of priorities. 

We really hope that more farmers and consumers alike can work together to change this practice. It would be wonderful to once again see farmers storing heirloom seeds from their best plants, or experimenting with soil and compost to grow the better tasting crops.

In the meantime, at the Pastures of Rose Creek, a new truck can wait and we are very thankful our old farm tractor is working just as hard as it did twenty years ago.  So, this week we are giving many thanks for the fortunate condition of our farm and the wonderful community we live in.

Well, back its back to work, those fences certainly are not going to build themselves(Moo.)

Daffodils and Baby Cows

 

  We are starting to see our front yard populated with the same daffodils that our great grandmother planted at the farm over a half-century ago. Though short-lived, the daffodil’s beautiful yellow blooms are always the first to arrive and usher in new life on the farm. 

For us, daffodils are both a reminder of our family’s history in this place, and a welcome sign of our farm’s future potential.     

And so when three calves were born this week, the significance of daffodils and springtime on our farm took full effect. While, two of the babies were anticipated, the last birth took us by complete surprise. 

  We are all very happy to see so much new life on the farm and hope that the good fortune will continue. Besides being just plain adorable, there is something encouraging and uplifting about watching a newborn baby calf learning to walk on its wobbly legs. 

What we learned from Polyface.

Have you ever had an Aha! moment that challenged your way of thinking? We had this happen to us two years ago at a small family farm in Swoope, Virginia called Polyface Farms. From his vast understanding of animal life cycles and the eco-system of his home in Virginia, Joel Salatin and his family have created a marvel of a farm.

Three days after his cows graze on an acre of land, Mr. Salatin pulls up with his portable hen house called an egg mobile and a multitude of chickens descend on the land pecking away happily at the cow pats that are by now bursting with insect larvae – a chicken’s equivalent to filet mignon. 

Not only do the chickens receive a hearty meal, thanks to the ample fertilizer provided by both cows and chickens, when the grass grows back, it is healthier and heartier than before – eliminating the need for modern, chemical fertilizers.

As you can imagine, the trip to Polyface left us spell bound and transformed the way we view farm production. Not only is Mr. Salatin’s approach to farming a viable business model, the farm itself enhances, not compromises, the bio-diversity and sustainability of the land.

Click here to see a great video of author Michael Pollan talk about his week at Polyface Farms.

Keeping all of this in mind, last night during our family meeting, we made the decision to purchase a respectable herd of 97 cows from a local farmer. While our intention is to establish a smaller cattle operation, this will be a great learning experience until we can introduce more animal and plant variety to our farm. Like the Salatin’s farm in Virginia, we are striving to find that unique balance between plants, animals, and the earth.

Welcome Alrigo!

Today we would like to formally introduce you to our Piedmontese bull Alrigo. Alrigo is Italian for “Ruler of the Estate.” Alrigo or ‘Al’ as we fondly call him is quite a handsome fellow. We think our farm’s lady folk will fall head over hooves (ha ha!) for this dashing young Italian. So far, Al has demonstrated little of the fiery temper legendary with bulls. Various members of our family have had to clear a few fences on this farm to escape the horns of a furious bull. I think everyone around here hopes that Al's family tree contains more Ferdinand’s than   "Inferno’s." Time will certainly tell. 


Piedmontese is known as one of the most “complete” cattle breeds of today. Alrigo’s ancestors were bred over 25,000 years ago in Italy, but weren’t introduced into the United States until the 1980’s. Grass-fed Piedmontese beef is lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken, but remarkably tender and delicious. We think this beef will be a favorite among individuals who either just love a steak rich in flavor or those who are looking for a lean, high quality beef, healthier than the variety sold in most grocery stores.


Al won't be lonely for long, as we will soon be purchasing our first herd of cattle to join him here at the farm. 

Getting Started

Hello Friends,

It’s a new year, a time for change, and for our family farm we have some BIG changes in store. We have always harbored dreams of slowly restoring our family farm to the viable, productive enterprise it once was. For many years, we lived among dust-choked machinery, silent cattle stalls, and a dormant granary. We missed that certain joie de vivre farm life produces.

When it seemed profitable to sell, rather than surrender our farm to those titans of subdivisions and shopping centers, we held firm. We finished other obligations such as nourishing our education, and working far away from home, and waited.

Somewhere along the way people began questioning the quality of their food. Whether the production processes of big growers were ethically unsavory, environmental concerns made them rethink the long distances most foods travel, or they simply hungered for a quality of food produced honestly and locally, folks once again yearned for family farms. We know that nothing tastes better than a fresh-picked heirloom tomato, in the way that nothing tastes quite as good as beef raised right down the road from you. 

So after much thought and careful planning, we believe the time is right to begin anew. A wise Chinese philosopher once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We hope that you will follow along with our family as we undertake this adventure together.