• Pork…with a little help from our friends….

    ….as Thistle Hill pork aficionados have learned, it’s a waiting game!  Fattening pigs mostly on pasture takes a long time.  But now we think we have found “the trick”.  Or tricks! Organic, non-GMO feed, is twice as expensive, but Rich Hamilton of Elim Springs farm convinced us, on a recent visit, to triple the daily allowance.  It takes about 6 pounds a day just to maintain a pig so every ounce over that is what adds the weight.  We had them at maintenance….wasting time. And then Reality Farms’ John and Terry Guevremont made available the left-over raw milk from their grass fed dairy cows and the pigs are practically exploding.  As you…

  • Jack London: did you know….

    ….he got there first.  (Well, sort of) Back when I was writing as “ED” for the old NADA website I re-discovered Louis Bromfield.  As a little city boy in Chicago I can remember my parents reading aloud Malabar Farm.  Clearly it meant a good deal to them since they not only read it to each other but to their kids.  And we couldn’t have been farther from farming.  But we all sat around the kitchen table after dinner and speculated about a life we’d never know. Fast forward another 50 years and a time when Wooz and I determined to be better stewards of the land.  I came across Bromfield once again and quoted him often in…

  • Summing it up….

    ….something to share with your meat customers.  It’s been around for awhile but powerful testimony.  Thanks to Dawn Gerrish for telling us about Beyond Organics Ranch. http://draxe.com/discovering-beyond-organics/

  • Pity the farm kids….

    ….they miss out on all the sophistication and stimulation of urban life.  They even think playing with a new calf is fun. The picture is on a Tennessee farm.  We could have titled it our “Alumni Club”….the baby bull (a Devon cross) is backed with Thistle Hill genetics.

  • On pork….

    ….we took guests this weekend to a nearby farm store.  As fellow pig breeders, I thought they would be interested in another approach to marketing pork. We’d tasted the sausage before and appreciated the flavor but without endorsing the management technique of using regular genetically-modified grain, plus day-old bread from a bakery (not only GM flour but other unknowns including chemical preservatives and flavoring) and finally “scraps”. Still this is the typical way most farmers raise their pigs in the local ag community and it’s certainly better than the industrial pork that makes up the sausage you buy at the store or eat in restaurants.  Here’s an excerpt from the “River…

  • Thistle Hill alumni club….

    ….in fact, a family reunion in Tennessee.  The cow, P1, performed beautifully for us here….went on to Tomina farm….and is pictured here at her fourth home with her latest daughter, Annie.  The young bull recently lost his mother but P1 has taken over.  The scene is Tim Morrison’s farm in Cookeville, Tennessee.

  • Running in more posh circles….

    ….our English colleague, Gavin Hunter, is congratulated by HRH Camilla at the Royal Show in Devon.  Gavin’s  newest young bull took second place at both the Devon and the Bath and West shows….and his Tilbrook Thomas finished first at Bath. Gavin tells us plans are being completed for the next world Devon tour in England in June, 2016.  Apparently Camilla invited Gavin and 50 of his closest friends to drop by Highgrove during the tour.