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A new arrival…
…a young lamb Church came up with in his part time veterinary work. She has a hairline leg fracture but Church is determined to nurse it back to health. And he seems to have the willing assistance of his dog Nala. A friend who raises sheep thinks this is probably a Suffolk but suspects it’s been crossed with Hampshire. David
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What’s the difference…
..between Grassfed and grass-finished beef? From time to time we allude to the benefits of Thistle Hill’s grass-finished beef…but the labels are confusing and the USDA does it’s utmost to confuse the issue to the benefit of Big Ag. So we thought we’d reprint an article that does a fair and balanced treatment of the subject by food writer Nathan Phelps which was recently published in the US Wellness newsletter. David
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Free at last…
…with everyone in the family safely vaccinated, I was finally able to escape my senior residence for the first time in almost exactly a year. Naturally it was this year’s calf crop that interested me most. They’re five months old now and a rewarding bunch of prospects. Church’s favorite is THF 3…the daughter of TDA Cashtiller 4 and our Essington bull. She’s the latest in our line of pure traditional English calves. I was taken by this Bribery heifer..a combination of four great English herds. She’s two-years old…and perhaps in-calf. And she was the last mating Wooz and Church selected on our final visit to England. We were in agreement…
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A new wrinkle…
…to cooking steaks. Church introduced me to grilling on a soap stone. It’s pretty simple and pretty much guarantees even cooking. We cooked a filet and two boneless strip steaks…all from a 10-year old cow. Tenderness and the flavor could not have been better! We have pretty well satisfied ourselves that for our personal eating we’ll stick to the older cows. Will the day ever come when the government does away with the 30-month nonsense? The rule that older cows cannot be butchered goes back to the “mad cow” scare in England. Just what caused it was not conclusively proven but millions of cows were slaughtered “just in case”. In…
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Fugitives from our storm…
..for a nice set of Thistle Hill steers. They had just been shipped to Jimmy Acres Farm near Semora, North Carolina when the snows hit. Brother and sister Jake and Anna Tommerdahl originally were going to fatten the steers for us but I guess they fell in love and immediately offered to buy them! That’s the way it is with Devon. Church met the Tommerdahls when they and he were Fellows at a Grassfed Exchange meeting in California. Until now they’ve been farming produce and chicken and pigs. This is their introduction to bigger livestock though Jake had interned in cattle operations before. Perhaps best of all it’s confirmation of…
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This is SO important…
…we all have chemicals in us that weren’t around a hundred years ago. Even in the smallest of quantities these endocrine disrupting compounds can lead to major health problems like diabetes, obesity, and infertility. The end of the article has some tips on how to limit your exposure. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/sunday/endocrine-disruptors-sperm.html David