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Baring their “all”….or almost all….
….a group of young farmers in southwest England got together for an unusual concept for a fund-raiser: a nude calendar. Don’t know what it is about the Brits and their nude calendars (remember the movie “Calendar Girls“? In Devon circles, about as racy as we get is a calendar featuring cows…unclothed…but nevertheless still cows. Warning: we’re about to show one of the pages so if you are easily offended, go away and come back in a few days. While you search for the “back button” we will fill with the report of the chap who put this all together. Rob Willcoxm, Somerset County chairman and now known as Mr December,…
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A few helpful tips….
….from our farm manager Duane Ard, who spotted this on Facebook and now has a few years of experience with an “Old Farmer”: Advice from an Old Farmer: – Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong. – Keep skunks and bankers at a distance. – Life is simpler when you plow around the stump. – A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor. – Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads. – Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you. – It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge. – You cannot unsay a cruel word. – Every…
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Getting to know you….
….our first English bull, TDA Churchill, is introduced to that mysterious creature…a female. In this case, this heifer is a Devon-Senepol cross. This will take some getting used to. Churchill is still young…just 17 months…and so we’ve put him in a pasture with just three females. They were all born late in our normal calving season, too late to be bred with the other heifers in their class. So Churchill has his own little harem to begin his education. He’s an extremely gentle bull, even for a Devon. Moderate-sized but beautifully proportioned. Exactly what the three Devon breeders who make up Traditional Devon America hoped for when they began their…
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What’s in a name….
….apparently quite a bit, according to “leaders” in the mainstream meat industry. Enough that simply “pork chops” will no longer do. Here’s the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-bye-bye-pork-chop-hello-ribeye-20130403,0,6636326.story We’ve found that, generally, our meat customers remain suspicious of anything that isn’t one of the most familiar steaks: NY Strip, T-Bone, Porterhouse, Filet Mignon. So we mostly grind the rest for hamburger, setting aside just a few cuts such as Silver Tip steaks for family use. On occasion a family that orders a side of beef will specify a rarer cut and our butcher can handle that. For instance, we recently had a request for “clod steaks”, a term we hadn’t heard before. But the…
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The “whole” truth….
….about fat-free skim milk. I’m still surprised that some parents continue to feed their kids skim milk, or use it themselves for weight control. The literature is pretty complete on the subject: skim milk actually will cause you to gain weight…it is usually combined with powdered milk in processing to get rid of its natural blue color and that injects toxins (and the government does not require they note that on the label)…and that Vitamin D they add, has no value at all. Skim milk is, in fact, a waste product that Big Ag discovered they could market as a health food after they had removed the fat to make butter. …
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A harsh life sometimes…even today…
….almost daily, we hear of heart-breaking stories of cattlemen who have had to give up because of the drought which has killed everything green in so much of the country. There is no magic or modern miracle to save them. And most of the country isn’t even aware of the tragedy. Nature really can’t be tamed. Easy to forget today in cities where everything is at the push of the button and the meat in the grocery stores comes from “animals that were not harmed” in the process. Easy to forget even at Thistle Hill, though we’ve lost calves on rare occasion in snow drifts or bitter cold. So we feel…
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Your reading assignment for tonight….
….if you’ve been wondering what the “gluten free” fuss is all about, this may be the best treatment of the subject. Technically, only a few percentage points of the total population are said to be gluten-sensitive but I doubt that. From personal experience, all the aches associated with being 78 years old disappeared from the time we did two things here at Thistle Hill: went to all grass fed meat and eliminated grains from our diet. Frankly, I wouldn’t bother with all the expensive testing. Just try it for a couple of weeks. (Warning: you’ll even lose weight!) http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Ditch-Grain-Brain-ebook/dp/B009QT5XBW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362492183&sr=8-1&keywords=lose+the+gluten+lose+the+gut+ditch+the+grain+save+your+brain
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A change of pace….
….first from Juliet Cleave, of Kew Herd in England, the belle of Cornwall. As you know, Britain has been hit with a horsemeat scandal. Horsemeat has been turning up in all the wrong places, like packaged lasagna. Then, a cartoon spotted somewhere on the internet. A spoof of the meaningless labels you now see in all the supermarkets.
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Just in time for the snow….
….please. On his last visit, pasture guru Jim Gerrish had recommended we try seeding some Italian rye grass into one of our pastures and here we go. A beautiful early Spring morning; hard to believe 8 inches of snow is on the way. But that’s perfect for new seeds. I sometimes think we should call this “Thistle Hill Experimental Farm” for all the things we try. But it is part of the fun. For our non-farm readers, we’re towing a “drill”. A row of blades cuts grooves in the sod and seed is carefully metered into the grooves. Rollers then pass over the seed, covering the hole. The seed, the…
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Old news butt….
….still worth repeating. Studies show that “processed” meats are bad for you. Processed, in this case, is any meat that has preservatives or flavoring or coloring added. Bacon and sausage, the kind you generally buy in a supermarket or eat at a restaurant, are the prime offenders, of course. Here’s the report on the British study: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21682779 We do love that British term, “fry up”. So well, in fact, that I plan to have one for lunch. Needless to say, but we’ll say it anyway, there are no additives of any kind in Thistle Hill sausages and bacon. For the observant, yes, the two “t’s” in the heading was intentional. …