An organic farm in Central Alberta. Certified organic heirloom and ancient grains and legumes. On-farm stone-milled flour products. Cooking, baking and strawbale house living. Farm life.
Meet the girls. My favorite bovine girls...Missy and Miley. These are our two purebred Galloway cows. Actually, Miley is a heifer...a girl cow who hasn't had a calf yet. She will this year though. Miley is on the left.
Missy has had three calves now. She always throws docile calves that gain well and are healthy. Miley is Missy's second calf. Her calf last year is a steer that we will process this coming fall.
As you can see, Galloways are quite hairy. This sure helps in our climate where the extra insulation allows them to eat far less and still gain weight. Cindy came across some publication just the other night that she read out loud to me. It said that in coat density, the Galloway finished second only to Bison. Galloway are an ancient breed that originated in the highlands of Great Britain/Scotland. There are references to the sweetness of the meat from the 1500's.
They are so gentle and friendly. Always welcoming a neck scratch from their favorite local farmer.
It occurs to me that now that I have delivered most of our beef for 2010 that I did not include any instructions for preparing this beef. I guess I took it for granted that everybody knows how to cook beef. But our beef isn't just any old beef from the grocery store. It is gourmet beef.
To enjoy your grass-fed, heritage breed beef to its fullest you need to cook it low and slow. It is best enjoyed when it is cooked to medium rare at most. If you enjoy your steaks well-done, you will need to prepare it a little differently prior to grilling. Try marinating your steaks in milk or other favorite marinate. Of course if you enjoy your steak medium rare, as I do, just sprinkle a little salt and pepper and gently place it on your wood fired grill...mmmm. Propane will work too, but not as nice as wood!
The exception to this rule is for your roasts. Grass-fed beef loves slow cookers! Pick your favorite recipe and put your roast in the cooker and let the aroma waft through the house all day...you will love how this beef just falls apart and melts in your mouth.
Not sure how to tell if your beef is medium or well-done? Try this easy trick. Touch your thumb to each of your four remaining fingers and feel how hard the thumb muscle is. Compare the feel of your muscle to the feel of the meat cooking. Thumb to forefinger is rare. Thumb to pinky is well-done. This way you don't need to prick the meat and dry it out as it cooks...slick!
Well, we have slaughtered our one and only steer for 2010. Everything went smoothly and the sides of beef are now hanging in the cooler at Cardiff Meats and Sausage. The beef will be cut and wrapped sometime around the 18th of November. I didn't take any footage of the slaughter process. It is something that I may consider in the future, but for me the whole process has a lot to do with respect for the animal and is not something that makes me want to stop to take pictures.
I missed the best light this morning, it was just beautiful though. Quite chilly at 8C, but the cows were lounging; quietly chewing cud and resting for a day of grazing. Skipper was giving me the stink eye in this picture. I am always a little cautious around him. These are his girls after all and I can imagine him getting aggressive when called upon. I always get after him when he postures to me, but I would always prefer to avoid a confrontation if given the choice. Skipper belongs to friends of ours, but he has spent a good portion of his life with our little herd. We take care of him and share him with another bigger cattle farmer in exchange for his services. Bulls are dangerous animals...we've been to rodeos and have seen what they are capable of. The white faced cow belongs to friends of ours and is on our farm with her 2009 calf. We have tons of pasture and hay so we offered to take care of them this year while they fix fencing. Our friends live in an acreage subdivision and only have the two cows.
This is "Henny". She is the first cow we ever owned. Henrietta is now almost 8 years old I believe, but she is in tremendous health and always delivers us a healthy calf. We have never attended any of her calving events. Henny is a Galloway/Highland cross. One of the calves in the picture is hers...I think it is the closest one. The back one belongs to my favorite cow "Missy". Henny's calves are always the psychos of the herd...constantly escaping whenever the chance presents itself and wild. Missy on the other hand, along with her calves, are very placid and tame...the labotomized cattle. They always come up for a back scratch and are very affectionate. Missy's 2009 calf is "Miley" and she will be bred by Skipper this year. This year both Henny and Missy had bull calves...lots of meat in the freezer next fall.
Even though all of our efforts seem to be focused on building the new farm we still have farming activities ongoing. The cows have all calved out now...for us that only means three of them. But still, it is the beginning of our little herd of Galloways. This year we lost the first calf...from our heifer. We simply lost him...looked for days. The other two, more experienced cows had no problems and delivered two healthy boys. These two along with our 1 year old steer mean that we have no short supply of beef in the coming years. Right now our freezer is empty and he is starting to look mighty tasty out in our pasture. The two little guys are very cute and now that they are around a week old you can see them playing with each other from the distance. Running and bucking and driving moms nuts with their head butts to the udder at feeding time. Calving season is a fun time of year for us.
We are also still producing wheat berries and flour on a weekly basis. I love this picture. This is what I view on a regular basis as I get told what I am doing wrong. It looks like Mrs. S is giving me a piece of her mind...I forget what she was talking about, but she wasn't angry. You can see the mill in the background and our little milling room where we mill flour and weigh and package. It is actually a relaxing activity away from the tedium of building and planning. Here, Cindy is just applying the labels to the bags that I have filled and sealed.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Feeding cows....during the winter months on our farm things are a little relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed. I feel lazy in the winter and I don't really like it. We still don't have a heated shop, so I cannot really spend much time outside dealing with machinery maintenance or repairs. That sort of stuff has to wait till March at the earliest.
So, now all we have to do is make sure that the stupid cattle waterer stays ice free and the cows and chickens are fed. I would comment more on our cattle waterer but I fear unwanted attention from the manufacturer should they see what I have to say about it. Suffice to say that at one point in time, I called in complete frustration to complain about the ongoing problems with a frost-free livestock waterer that was anything but frost-free and I was told something rude and hung up on. I certainly won't be buying another Nelson Waterer anytime soon. I've said too much now so I may as well just keep going...just make sure that if you are in the market for a freeze-proof waterer that you do your own extensive homework. A badly designed waterer will cost you a significant amount of money and much headache. Our waterer was designed with the heating element above the valve, immediately below the bowl...heat rises so needless to say the valve freezes. The bowl of water stays nice and liquid right up until the cows drink it...then, because the valve is frozen the bowl stays empty. Another problem we had was that the bowl of water easily splashes over when thirsty cows or horses are jostling around...the water then dripples or slops down the outside of the bowl and lands on the heating element assembly...blown heating element in about a month and a half even with the water level significantly reduced in the bowl. The waterer was installed as per the instructions. We haven't had any problems with lines to the waterer freezing or anything else...just the waterer itself. We should have simply purchased a livestock waterer from the local UFA store. They have been selling the same brand for decades...parts are easily available locally and they appear to be ok in our area because everyone has one...except us.
Now I have the waterer rigged up to work as long as the light bulb inside stays on. I installed a socket below the valve level. It works well now except when the bulb burns out from time to time as light bulbs do, but we'll limp along until we move when I can buy a proper livestock waterer.
Feeding the cows is pretty easy. As I mentioned before we are moving the feeder each time we bring a new bale. The field is getting manured up nicely and I am already cherishing the fact that I don't have to haul and spread manure this spring.
