Grains, II

Some more discussion on the grain front....

Chris and Katie chimed in on the Grains post of last week, talking about the challenges of small scale grain growing, which are significant to say the least.

Chris also linked to a great article by Anthony Boutard on the new blog Grains and Pulses, listing their trials and tribulations over the years of growing grains for the small market.

And finally, Throwback has some interesting posts about how grain prices have and are affecting their operation. Here she discusses their phaseout of laying hens for the same reasons as ours, and here discusses the feed price increases since last fall for their broilers.

Spring Newsletter!

Greetings! A few weeks back we emailed our newsletter to folks on our mailing list, and now we're posting it here. Our hamburger recipe is included... yum!

SpringNewsletter

Grains

News sure happens fast. No sooner did I read that analysts are getting nervous about this years corn crop that I read that US acreage planted will be down from last year and people are predicting corn rationing.{The numbers in this link turned out to be bogus; assuming 100 bushels per acre yield the nation will produce 4 times what the analyst recorded. She must be a commodities trader.} In response, Gene Logsdon comes through with another great post about raising it yourself.

His key point...

In an economy ruled by interest on “pretend” money, as I call it, about every ten years there has to be a shakeup to bring the dreamers of riches, floating around in their bubbles, back down to earth again

Even if the weather holds in the midwest this year, food prices will continue to head up, and high-grain foods, like feedlot beef, chicken, and pork will lead the climb. Farmers...time to look for alternate feed sources for your grain eaters.

If you're interested in Gene's book, it's available for free from the Steve Solomon's Soil and Health Library.

Update: Bucking the trend towards inflated food prices, I should mention that we've lowered our beef prices. Some production efficiencies, notably our new fences, allows us to do more with less time commitment...

Hail to the Chief

Val's too modest to announce it, but we just spent the weekend in Cottage Grove, Dalton and I staring out a hotel window at the rain and snow while Val attended the board meeting for the Oregon Farmers' Markets Association. Somewhere along the line she got herself elected to President of the Board. Congrats, sweetie!

I know she'll do a great job of leading, and most importantly, of delegating :)

More heifers

Like what happened in October, our neighbor has a nicely fattened heifer that he'll be harvesting soon. If your freezer is empty, and you can't wait for our July or October harvests (or didn't get in line early enough), drop us a line and we'll give you the details.

We kept back a quarter of last fall's heifer for ourselves, and were very happy with it. The steaks needed to be cooked with care, but the roasts were excellent and there was an abundance of ground beef. Mmmm.....grassfed burgers.

Pot roast recipe!

For a long while, I've been meaning to post some of our favorite recipes here, and I'm finally getting around to it. The first one is below. We're including our hamburger recipe in our Spring newsletter which will be posted in the next day, and I'll try to post recipes with greater frequency from here on out!

Mossback Pot Roast

1 pot roast, or other roast, with most fat trimmed off
Separate roast into multiple large sections if necessary to better fit in the pot
1 package fresh mushrooms, washed, dried and quartered
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 package pearl onions (frozen), or the local cooking onion of your choice
3-4 carrots, chopped on the bias
~2 cups beef broth or water
5-7 cloves garlic, minced
~1/2 C hoisin sauce
spices - thyme, oregano
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
optional: swiss chard, with stems chopped like the onions,
and leaves chopped or torn into ~2 inch pieces.

In a large pot, saute onions, carrots, mushrooms, and chard stems on medium heat until onions just start to soften.

Add garlic, cook ~30 seconds.

Remove all veggies from pan, and add some olive oil to the pot (remove excess moisture first if necessary to avoid splattering oil).

Heat the oil, and add the roast. Brown ~5 minutes, turning a couple of times to for even browning.

Add cooked vegetables, plus spices and salt and pepper to taste.

Add water or broth - it should come up to the level of the top of the meat, or just slightly below.

Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.

Quickly reduce heat to low, add hoisin sauce and pearl onion, and stir.

Simmer on low for about 1-2 hours, until meat is very tender.

Add chard greens about 10-15 minutes before you turn off the heat.

Serve with rice and salad... yum!

Greenhorns

Check out the trailer for a "still-to-be-completed-pending- scrounging-sufficient-funds" movie about new farmers and the next back to the land movement.

They seem to be pretty heavy on CA and Northeastern farmers; they have no idea of the epicenter of the farmer revolution that they're missing here in OR.....

Greenhorns website
Drop them some change to see how it ends