Hello! Can you believe it’s almost September? The summer went by so fast! With a wedding, a pig roast, and a four year old grandson running around, it was kind of a “blink and you’ll miss it” type of summer. Soon we will be settling into cooler days and cozier nights with homeschooling our last child and all of those autumn activities.

I’d like to start by thanking everyone who came out for the pig roast. What an overwhelming time we had! We were clearly not prepared for all of the people who came out, but a grand time was had by most and there appeared to be just enough pork and brisket to feed everyone. Also, I was very proud of everyone who was brave enough to try rabbit. It is an exceptionally lean and high protein meat (less fat means more protein per oz.). It is also a great source of selenium, iron and b vitamins. I like it because super lean meats come out surprisingly tender and juicy in the crock pot, so it is very handy if you want to pop it in and forget about it until dinner time.

On the farm

Summer is a nonstop ride for me. I get up as early as I physically can and work as hard as I can all day. I have to be very careful not to burn out. By September, though, things are starting to slow down. The chickens are all in the freezer and the pigs will be going into the butcher by the end of the month. If you are interested in a pig, please see below. This year I didn’t have time to do a garden (a wise choice in the trying not to burn out department) so I don’t have tons of produce to preserve. This is a little sad for me because I love canning. It is a very therapeutic and relaxing activity for me. Normally right now I would be preserving lots of tomatoes, green beans, and beets, but this year my canner is pretty quiet.

September is also a very good time for evaluation. Summer is still very fresh in the mind so I can think about all of those little things that worked well or didn’t work at all. This year we lost a lot of chickens to a very large, very well fed hawk. I tried a lot of solutions, but discovered that the only one that really worked well was to put up fruit netting over the area where out meat birds are on pasture. The hawk’s eyesight is very good so we never had to deal with my greatest fear which was how the heck to untangle a hawk from this almost invisible netting. I am very confident that next year we will suffer far fewer losses.

Pigs Available

We still have a couple of pasture raised pigs available. These pigs are raised on love, sunshine and fresh air. They are rotated regularly and eat lots of grass. They dig in the dirt for minerals and get treats of the felled apples from our trees. When it is time to bring them into the butcher we simply leave the livestock trailer out in their pasture. They start to hang out in there and one day we just calmly go out there and shut the door. It is a very calm, stress free time. This means that the pig is not full of stress hormones from a life of confinement and darkness (most pigs are raised indoors in the dark so they don’t kill each other from the stress of being so confined). When you buy one of our pigs you choose your own processing. This means that you can do mostly whatever you want. You could have the whole thing turned into brats. You could smoke all of the cuts. You could have the side pork left uncured and cure it yourself. If you don’t like a certain cut, you can have it turned into breakfast sausage or ground pork. Personally, I love a nice BLT sandwich, so I will have the shoulder roasts turned into something called Cottage Bacon. This comes out like a wide slice of very lean bacon. It’s great on sandwiches.

If you are interested in a whole or half pig, please let me know soon. They are scheduled to go into the butcher at the end of September. The cost is $300 for a half pig and $600 for a whole pig.

Bulk Food Orders

If you are interested in ordering pretty much any type of food in bulk, you can do so by ordering off of the price list below. The orders are due in by 7pm on Friday, August 30th and your order will be ready here on the farm after 4pm on Thursday, September 5th. Our farm address is 2482 170th Ave. Emerald, WI 54013. If our farm is too far for you to drive to, let me know and I can put you in touch with a group that meets in Stillwater. If you would like to organize a group to meet somewhere else, I would be more than happy to put that information in the next newsletter!

To order please send an email to me at northhaus@gmail.com . In this email please include your list with the items you want, their item number, and the price. This way I can make sure you are getting exactly what you ordered. If you are more of a visual person, or you want to see an ingredient list, you can go to http://www.walnutcreekfoods.com and see what is available. I will warn you that you can really go down a rabbit hole there. There are fancy cheeses, chocolates, lots of gluten free items, bakery goods, snacks and beverages.

As always, you can feel free to come out and visit the store for shopping at almost any time. Just please send me an email or text to make sure that I am not at a farmer’s market or out milking the cow. The bagged items list is a little out of date at the moment, but I will try to update it in the next few days.

I hope to see you soon, but if I don’t, I hope this month is filled with blessings and wonderful surprises.

Kathy

Bagged Items

Laughing Duck Farm Meat List