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A refresher course…
In grass finished versus grain finished beef. An increasing number of people seem to be turning away from industrialized beef and trying the grass finished version. Farmers too are increasingly marketing their own products…not willing to accept the take-it-or-leave-it pricing of the national processors. Just a few…like Walter Jeffries in Vermont, Joel Salatin in Virgina and Greg Gunthorp in Indiana…have gone all the way and have vertically integrated their operation, including everything from production to processing to direct marketing. At the forefront of that group is White Oak Pastures in Blufton, Georgia…a giant operation with 150 employees and 10 different kinds of animals under production. Its webpage includes a review…
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Fall at Thistle Hill…
…is the most beautiful time of year. Well, except for the dogwood and rosebud trees in the Spring. Mackenzie Mason used Church’s new drone to check out our 200+ acres of woods and captured some of the colors. There’s a brief glimpse of their home about halfway. David
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The three latest…
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We’ve calved 21…
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Falling behind…
…with calves coming faster than we can post them…or tag them! THF 15 (top photo) comes jammed with many of our best pure traditional English genetics…Ashott-Barton, Goldings, Cutcombe, Essington Park. He’s a 75-pound bull calf out of our English herd. THF 16 (middle photo) is a 65-pound heifer destined for our American herd. Her dam traces back to the Lenoir Creek and Lakota herds…sire is English. THF 17 (bottom photo) is a cross pairing we really like for our meat production…a combination of Devon and Senepol. The quality and yield just can’t be beat! David
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Another convert to…
…sous vide cooking. The young son of a friend recently was given a sous vide cooker for his birthday. His very first attempt at a ribeye steak (grass fed if not Thistle Hill) was a smashing success. Incidentally, if you’re one of those who prefer your meat more well done. Your just increase the settings We were late to using the sous vide method. Son-in-law Curt introduced it to Thistle Hill about two years ago. Being a traditionalist, it took awhile for me to be converted but there’s no doubt this technique of slow-cooking guarantees a perfect steak every time! Heating in water results in a more tender, moist steak…
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Making it hard on us…
…this veteran cow went to the farthest point of the farthest pasture to have her calf. Riparian areas are great—and we have them all over Thistle Hill—but it makes it tough to find new calves. The mothers are often no help…looking in a direction away from their baby, I’m sure to mislead us! This dam, X2a, has since moved all the way around the herd and some distance away in the other direction…the baby bull trotting right along. After a few days when she’s sure she has her baby well-disciplined, X2a will rejoin her herd. And Carolyn just brought up something I had forgotten…when it came time to have her…
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In support of a 50-year farm bill…
…by a giant in the field of regenerative agriculture. No one has better captured the beauty of farming in sync with nature than Wendell Berry. The Kentucky farmer, poet, writer and environmentalist writes in the Atlantic in support of the 50-year farm bill. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/the-50-year-farm-bill/265099/ While Berry may stand alone in his wordcraft, I do want to mention an even earlier writer I think qualifies as the father of the sustainable ag movement: Louis Bromfield. His Malabar Farms had a big impact on even my city anchored family in the 40s. I still recall my mother and father reading aloud from Malabar Farms at our dinner table. Still on my personal…
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An overnight delivery…
…not sure how Church managed to find this one in the dark, but he did! And he’s special too. His working number is 12 and he’s out of Church’s personal cow…a gift from his grandmother on our last trip to England. The original dam was Ashott Barton Tulip, purchased by Wooz and then taken to Bovine Genetics where Stella Scholes bred and flushed her. The embryos were implanted here at Thistle Hill. And now those calves are having their calves…pure traditional English Devon here on American soil. Sorry for the color quality but the original is so dark nothing really shows. If it were a negative and not digital I’d…
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Multiple blessings…
…7, 8, 9! These three came in a bunch a week ago. But THF 7 was camera shy and we waited until we had pictures of all three. THF 7 and 8 are bull calves…7 out of a cow in our American herd; 8 is traditional English. So is 9…a smallish heifer. All three were sired by our Essington bull…a proud graduate of Brian Drake’s legendary herd. In addition to contributing his best cow to our partnership, Brian was always generous with his wisdom and hospitality. For those who have asked: we do raise our English and American animals together and will use an English bull with the American cows…but…