Pigs in the pasture

Can you spot them? So cute!

End of October garden?!?

We've had some amazing weather this month. Not the usual northern Iowa late-October cold and chill. Here's a pictorial tour of our garden right now. I can't believe how much food is out there still. There have been some cool nights lately, we haven't covered anything, and it's all still doing remarkably. We've got to make time this weekend to get everything harvested.


Kohlrabi and snapdragons


Chile peppers


Brussel sprouts




Paste tomatoes


Carrots


Cabbage

There's also sweet potatoes to be dug, and more drying beans to pick.

Beans beans the magical fruit

Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous fall day. A good day to get out and pick the drying beans. I had my nephew here, and he and Rafe were busy digging holes and hauling loads of dirt around the garden. (I think they were "harvesting", after getting to "help" my brother and dad in the fields the last few weeks.) But curiosity got the better of them and they came over to help me.


Soldier


Black Turtle

I think I like growing drying beans even better than heirloom tomatoes. So many pretty colors!

And such good helpers.

It's National Pork Month, after all

Matt says it's time to put some beef on this here blog, but I've just got too many cute pig pictures to share! This is the litter that was born last Friday. How cute and shiny are they?!


And I thought nursing was tough! Makes my nips hurt just looking at this picture.

Thanks to everybody that left a comment for my Blogiversary! If you haven't yet, please leave one here. I've loved reading them! I don't get a ton of comments normally, so sometimes when I hit 'Post' I swear I hear an echo.

To wrap up this Blogiversary Celebration, here are my favorite posts from 2006:

Matt's 2005 year in review

Commotion in the coop

Barn Fire

What's in your butter dish

Sugar Creek Farm goes Hollywood and What a Trip

62

Spring tree

Clutzy with a capital C

Look what I found

Well that was interesting

Initiative

Overheard

So tired

Anticipation

Random gardening advice

Chickens have taken over my garage

Our chicken setup: A novel

Nerve wracking and 111 and Fret, fretted, will fret

Still life

So much for quiet

Pigtails

Holy cow, er, pig! Yesterday's post was my 500th! As a "Happy Blogiversary" gift, would anyone still reading this little blog please leave a comment?

Here's the very first post.

Some other favorite posts from 2004 & 2005. I'll post 2006 and 2007 favorites tomorrow.

2004 Recap

One of these things (part 1)

Ike

Good news

Free range pork

Why we do this

Head to head

Bad morning and 44

Optimism

Ouch

Oink

The 6-week-old piglets have had free range of the farm, and you just never know where you're going to spot them...out in the pasture, in the corn crib/chicken coop, in the corn field. Matt got a pen built for them this weekend so that they can be weaned from their mama now. I'm sure she's relieved.

Our second sow farrowed on Friday. She had 12, layed on 3, and the remaining 9 look great. Pictures to come...

Quick update

Breakfast of champions - a Sugar Creek Farm breakfast sausage patty topped off with homemade syrup :)

Just a quick product update:

Chickens are sold out for the year! I only had about 29 extra's out of 146. I took them to the Farmers Market and they sold like hotcakes. I'll be raising a whole extra batch next year, so we will have chicken available in June, July and October. But please please pre-order if you can, as early as you can. You can pre-order now for chicken next year! Pre-ordering with any of our products helps us so much with planning. If I get a lot of chicken pre-orders early in the year I will still have time to add a fourth batch for September.

Pork is sold out for the year! So we will now start taking pre-orders for the next batches, which will be ready in March and April.

Beef is also sold out for the year! We still have slots available for February & March butchering, but only 6 quarters left at this point. So let me know if you want on the list for any of those. Otherwise we are taking pre-orders for Fall '08. Yes, I've already sold beef for Fall '08 :)

If you aren't on our mailing list for our yearly newsletter, but want to be, just email me your mailing address. The newsletter comes out February-ish to let you know what will be available for the year at what prices, and includes the pre-order form for all of our products. But we do take pre-orders any time, by email, in phone, or in person.

That's it for now! Thank you to all of our loyal "old" customers, and the many new ones that have given us a try this year. Your support for our farm and local eating is so appreciated!

Adventures in horseback riding

Duddy

A friend of ours invited Olivia on a trail ride this past Saturday, out at his in-laws' farm. Sounded nice. Just so happened that the guy who sold us Star had mentioned the week before that he had another horse to sell us, and he'd be happy to bring him over and let us try him out for a week or two. So I called him up and asked to borrow the horse for the trail ride.

We went and picked him up last week Thursday. That's him in the picture up there. His name is "Duddy". Half Arabian, half Quarter Horse, 6 year old gelding. A big boy! He's quite a handsome gentleman, I think, and very affectionate to boot.

Now keep in mind that though I've always wanted to be good with horses, I've always been quite intimidated and maybe downright frightened of them. I've learned a lot watching Olivia take lessons and calmed down considerably around them. But still, I'm a "beginner beginner".

Olivia's last words as we started the trail ride were, "Mom, I won't be surprised if you fall off today."

Not 10 minutes into the trail ride, my saddle slid off. A kind older gentleman held Duddy while I put it back in place and tightened it up again. This held up the trail riders behind me and we got separated from the other half of the group. Not off to the best start.

Not 10 minutes later, it slid off again. A kind gal got off her horse and put my saddle back on for me. However Duddy was not happy, because Olivia & Star had gone on ahead with the rest of the riders. He would not stand still and kept swinging his head at me. He gave the poor gal (and me) quite a hard time. But bless her, she got it fixed and I didn't have any problems with the saddle the rest of the ride.

But when we got back on the horses, Duddy decided he did not like that gal's horse and was bucking and kicking his back legs at her. I let them go ahead of me, and once we got caught up to Olivia & Star and the rest of the riders he settled down a bit.

His owner had told me that Duddy was so mellow I'd have a hard time getting him to trot. Um, I guess Duddy didn't get the memo because that's all he wanted to do. My arms were quite sore the next day from trying to hold him back the entire ride!

The trail wound along the river and through the woods. We came to a very soft, sandy stretch and all of a sudden Duddy stopped. He looked down and I thought, "Oh, he has an itch on his leg and he's going to scratch it." And 2 seconds later I realized, "We're going down!" I guess that sand just looked like a nice soft place to lay down to Duddy. I jumped off and wasn't hurt or anything. I got right back on and we finished the trail ride.

So it might sound like with all of this "adventure" I didn't have a good time. But I actually had a great time! I know horses are going to act up, especially when they aren't used to you as a rider. And especially especially when said rider is a beginner beginner. There was only one time, when Duddy decided to take off at a run uphill, that I thought Olivia's prediction might come true. And that a helmet would have been a good idea.

The experience was actually a confidence booster for me. Despite Olivia's prediction, I didn't fall off! I slid off twice, and jumped off once, but I didn't fall off!

We're taking Duddy back Wednesday night, and I will miss seeing him out there in the pasture with Star. As I said, he's for sale. I didn't mean to make him sound like a bad horse with my trail ride story - it's more about me being an inexperienced rider! He has a very sweet personality. So I can hook you up if you're interested. But I'm going to keep looking for the right horse for me.


Olivia & Star, who did awesome on the trailride

Clean up on aisle 7!

Apple picking

The kids had the day off school today so I took the day off, too, and we hit the Appleberry Farm to pick some apples. Appleberry is just west of Marshalltown, which is a couple of hours south of us. We'd never been there before and really enjoyed it!

The Golden Delicious apples were at their peak. A taste test in the field confirmed that they are indeed delicious - and sweet!





The kids really had a good time at it, especially learning to wield the basket picker. We came home with 2 bushels of apples and a gallon of cider.



Now to figure out what to do with them. I believe pie filling and sauce, as well as pie and crisp, are in the plan for the coming weekend.

Of course no trip to Marshalltown is complete without lunch at Taylor's Maid-Rite. I'm always amused at the people who just order it by the bowl, no bun.

And no trip to Marshalltown is complete without a stop at Gracious Acres, either. A too-brief visit, but still a treat.

"family time"

Yesterday afternoon's task was to sort 5 pigs...


from a pen of 14...right after a heavy rain.

And not just any 5 pigs. The 5 Chester Whites of the bunch. It was a little hard to tell which ones were white, let alone which ones were white Chesters and which ones were white crossbreds.

So we chased them through the mud, sorted off 7 or 8 that we thought were them, chased them through the mud some more, and then narrowed it down by size (the Chester Whites were slightly older and slightly bigger) and body type (the Chester Whites were longer).


The pigs sure enjoy the new mud a lot more than we did.

At one point Madeline and I looked at each other and said, "How's this for fun family time on a Sunday afternoon?" and rolled our eyes. A couple of hours and 5 showers later, we were done.

Saving the world

one brussel sprout at a time. Well, that may be a bit grandiose. But this quote from Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" (which I just finally started reading) really floored me:

"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast."

Isn't that crazy? 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. Every week!

The mind boggles.