Farm News and Mary Ann's Blog

We are pleased to say that our new hens are finally laying quite well so we have an abundance of eggs again. They are for sale for $3 a dozen. You are welcome to be an occasional customer or set a regular scheduled pickup for a dozen or so. Whatever works best for you!  The eggs are $3 a dozen.

I know I keep saying it. I will blog more often and update the site. I see I haven't added content for 4 months...but today I can announce a birth! Hooray!

Our Jersey cow had a calf today! The great news is that it was uncomplicated. We marked the calendar the day the bull bred her, and today was the first day on the range of dates the book said she would calve. Shannon walked into the barn to do chores, and it was laying there curled up and being cleaned off by her mom. He came to get me...I dressed and grabbed a camera and made it in time to record it's first steps and first drink. Looks like all is well. A quick glance makes us think it's a heifer..but she was pretty wobbly and we just let the two be.  We'll take a good look later.

The other great news is that this means in a few days we can drink milk from our cows again! For those of you who don't really understand where milk comes from.... aside from the lower end of a cow...here's some info. A cow (like a lady) doesn't make milk until she has something (or someone) to make milk for! So, a cow is dry (not making milk) until she has a baby. A dairy cow will make way to much milk for her baby so families can drink her milk too. She will continue to make milk pretty much as long as we continue to take milk from her. But she will make less as time goes on. At some point we will have her bred, and 71/2  months or so after that we will let her dry up to prepare for the birth of her next calf. The cycle goes on and on...

Pretty neat, huh?

Tomorrow Natural Harvest ( you don't have to be a member to shop there!)  is having a meet the local producer/farmer event. I was there last year and had such fun meeting people! Normally I get to say hi to customers when Maggie and  I am at Farmer's Markets or when Shannon and I sell  the pork and beef and chicken directly to customers. But there is a whole group of people who buy our stuff at the Co-op and I never meet them...that it until Natural Harvest arranged this annual event. I will be cooking up pork cutlets for samples. Mmmm. Stop in a say, "hi". It's also member discount day! You can save big if you are a member.

Fall is here! And we are getting our beef orders all confirmed and getting our cutting instructions all lined up for the last beef butchering for a while. They have been on grass all summer and have had free choice of a nice clean all natural grain ration for quite a few months. So  now it's time to book a date with the custom processor.

 If you have been considering purchasing a 1/4 beef for your freezer, now is the time to call. We won't have any more beef for quite a while. We have been doing both spring and fall butchering, but are toying with the idea  of switching to fall only.

Call us at 218-984-3235 or email me at wycoff@frontier.com. We are happy to answer your questions. If you have never purchased a 1/4 beef before, we understand and will lead you through the process.

Anne Carter, the manager of Natural Harvest Food Co-op (you don't have to be a member to shop there!) in Virginia, Mn normally handles local chicken from south of Eveleth, but the Sopps were out of birds til the late summer or fall. So, Bear Creek Acres is filling the gap for a couple months.

The chickens are in the freezer case near all the pork products that we sell at the Co-op. After you try one, be sure and let me know how you fixed it. I love hearing all the fun ways people cook our meat. The other day one of our customers says she seasoned one up with herbs, split the chicken so it would lay flat (like an open book, I imagined) and then pressed it with a couple of bricks wrapped in tin foil! Sounded lovely. I generally just rinse it off, season it with garlic, pepper, and Season Salt, and toss it on the grill ....no trussing, no stuffing. Just a simple delicious meal a couple hours later.

Our chickens are raised outside on pasture. Their shelter are little portable huts called chicken tractors. They eat grass and bugs and run around. The feed they get is a nice clean grain with no antibiotics, hormones or animal products.

We raise safe, tastey,  humanely raised meat for your family and ours!

Hello! I am pleased to announce that we have a few quarters of beef available for purchase. These 1/4s are grassfed and grainfinished. The price is $3.30 a pound (based upon the hanging weight) once the processor's fees have been calculated in. A 1/4 weighs anywhere from 125-175 pounds but I think these will be on the lighter side. Call now 218-984-3235 or email wycoff@frontier.com. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

In the past we have only offered our beef for sale locally processed by the 1/4, 1/2, and whole.

We are excited to announce that now we have some beef that was processed for us by the great folks at McDonalds Meats in Clear Lake, Mn under USDA inspection.

 This means that you can buy local beef from us and not need a great big freezer.

We can sell it off the farm, at Natural Harvest Food Co-op in Virginia and at Farmers Markets by the individual package!

Please feel free to call us to purchase, catch me on a Market Day, or check the meat out at Natural Harvest.

We have :

Ground Beef 1# pkgs   $4.00

Boneless Ribeye Steaks (avg 1#)  $10.00/lb   sold out!

Beef Tenderloin Steaks (avg pkg 1/2 #)  $17.00 /lb

MSG and Nitrite Free Beef Weiners 1# pkgs  $6.00

MSG and Nitrite Free Beef  Sticks (8 oz)    $4

MSG and Nitrite Free Beef Jerky     $5   sold out ...but Natural Harvest in Virginia still has some available!

Bear Creek Acres had the honor of hosting a special group of visitors today. It was the Mesabi East Head Start class.  Teacher  Laura, Teacher Patty, Teacher Becca , and a  mommy and a daddy wrangled a delightful group of kids. 

We looked at the baby meat chickens, Roo our dairy cow, the beef cow mamas and babies, the beef steers, the horses, and the laying hens.

Wandering barn cats always steal the show from the farmer.

 This year we are between batches of pigs and sadly, had no swine to show off.

There was also time for tractor admiration.....we must allow time for sitting on tractors.

We are pleased to announce that we were finally able to replenish the shelves at  Natural Harvest Food Co-op (you don't have to be a member to shop there!) in Virgina!

  We brought bacon, sausages, pork chops, roasts, ribs (both country style and spare ribs), and pork cutlets.

I hesitate to brag....but I just have to! The sausages are even better than last year. Super moist and juicy. McDonalds Meat did a wonderful job taking our pork and making regular brats, wild rice brats (our top seller), Italian links, and little breakfast links. You won't believe how yummy they are.

New this year are pork cutlets. We hadn't had those made before. So we held back 3 packages before we delivered The Coop's meat so we could play with them here at home. Think of it as a pork minute steak. It's a small piece of meat that was run through the tenderizer. There is no waste and it cooks up super fast. Here are some photos.

You'll notice there are no images of the cooked meat. That's because the family gathered around and gobbled them up. Sorry.

Frankly, I lost my head, too.

All I did to prepare them was put a little olive oil in the bottom of a pan (I use cast iron...but you can use whatever you like). Fry on medium (or a smidge higher) heat 'til you see the blood rising to the top of the meat, flip over and brown nicely. You  only want to cook them  til there's no pink in the middle. They cook up super fast -And boy, were they ever juicy. Two of them I cooked plain, two I just salted and peppered, and two I sprinkled with garlic, salt, pepper and ground fennel. All were just great.

The bummer? We only had those made for the Coop, so our family has none for our freezer and none to sell at the Farmer's Market.

They are only available in Virigina, and I think that once people try them, they are going to sell fast.

I'm sorry I haven't been updating for a couple weeks. Thanks for keeping an eye on our blog. Spring has been sooooo busy! But it's been good busy...you know what I mean?

Here's what's been happening. I plan to blog about all of it in the days and weeks to come.

First, I'd like to thank everyone for the great feedback on the profile in Hometown Focus as well as the mozzeralla cheese article I wrote. It's been fun hearing from you! If you missed it, you can find it here. Lots of people have tried and succeeded! I acutally havent' heard from a failure yet.

We have just finished selling about 50 half hogs. They are all (but one) safely tucked away in their owner's freezers ( and tummies!).

Calving has started! Here's a photo....blogs are boring without at least one photo.

We took a bunch of hogs to McDonald's Meats in Clear Lake MN for USDA processing. That meat can (and will) be sold at Natural Harvest in Virginia, MN, Tower and Ely Farmers Markets, and right here off the farm!

 The first batch of baby chicks is in the brooder!

A winter's worth of manure needs to be scooped up and spread on the fields.

The fields need to be disced and planted.

We picked up the USDA meat in Clear Lake, delivered to Natural Harvest, and filled our freezers here at the farm!

On a personal note, we have our oldest graduating this year and are racing to finish an addition on our house.

We have a couple Head Start groups coming to visit again. This year, I swear I'll get photos!

Shannon still has to squeeze in a little firewood making....our wood shed in running low a bit too quick.

And we are still milking twice a day and dealing with all that milk.

Keep checking in...I'll fill you in on all the stuff I mentioned.