Growing a Farmer

by Kurt Timmermeister

  Here at the farm, I would like to thank Matt Lawrence both for being a part of this farming enterprise in its early days and for reading my very rough drafts and providing insight on the book’s agricultural accuracy. His encouragement along the way was essential. Without Jorge Garnica, I never could have completed this book. Throughout the winter months, as I sat in the warm, dry kitchen, writing, pacing and talking out my ideas, Jorge would attend to the cows, the sheep and the pigs, keeping the farm running when my attention was kept more on my laptop than in the barnyard. I thank you, as do the beasts of Kurtwood Farms.

  Glossary

  Acre—43,560 square feet of land.

  Artificial insemination (AI)—To breed an animal with mechanical means; generally to inject a cow with frozen semen from a remote bull.

  Bacteria—Small one-celled microorganisms, some beneficial, some benign and some pathogenic.

  Bee frame—The wooden rack that holds the bee foundation; nine inches by eighteen inches.

  Bee hive—The wooden structure that contains the bee colony.

  Bell scraper—A small hand tool consisting of a half dome, sharpened on the leading edge for scraping the hair from a slaughtered pig.

  Bloat—The condition when the stomach of a ruminant is unable to process new grass, resulting in extreme fermentation and the production of gas trapped in the stomach.

  Boar—A male pig, used for stud.

  Brine—Heavily salinated water. Used to season hard cheeses and meat products such as hams by immersion.

  Brooder coop—A small box for baby chicks in their first few weeks, designed to protect the chicks from predators and cold drafts.

  Casein protein—The primary protein present in milk. The addition of rennet in milk precipitates the casein proteins, creating curds that will become cheese.

  Caul fat—Thin gossamer fat that surrounds the internal organs of a pig, cow or lamb.

  Charcuterie—The processing of products (generally pork) for later consumption. Standard final products include: hams, bacon, sausages and pâtés. Also the French term for the store where those items are sold.

  Chicken vent—The anterior hole of a chicken where the eggs exit.

  Chinoise—A fine sieve used to strain liquids—named after the shape it resembles—a Chinese hat.

  Coliform—Bacteria present in the intestines of animals; not necessarily pathogenic, although many are. Their presence is indicative of poor hygiene in food products.

  Colostrum—The first milk product that a mammal produces to feed her offspring. Thicker and richer than the eventual milk; full of nutrients needed for the baby’s first days.

  Community-supported agriculture (CSA)—A sales program in which small, primarily vegetable farms pre-sell an allotment of their produce for weekly pick up to their customers.

  Cornish X—The standard chicken breed used for meat birds.

  Crème fraîche—Fresh cream, traditionally the cream that cultures naturally with flora present from raw milk.

  Curds—The solids in milk that are separated from the whey of milk to produce cheese.

  Drone bee—The male bee. Except for the role of inseminating a bee that will become the new queen, the drone has no role in the hive.

  Ewe—A female sheep.

  Foundation—The flat sheets, generally made of beeswax, that form the basis of a beehive. Commercially indented with the outline of the hexagonal shape that the bees will transform into honeycomb.

  Freemartin—The female offspring of a cow who was born with a twin sibling. Contains both characteristics of male and female. Generally unable to be bred.

  Gambrel—A metal bar, approximately fourteen inches across, that holds the rear tendons of an animal when the animal is hung for gutting.

  Guanciale—The jowls of a hog, cured in salt, air dried and aged.

  Grade “A” license—The federal license that confers the right to sell fluid milk for human consumption; includes both pasteurized and raw milk.

  Hay—Feed for animals. Grass cut and air-dried and bound into bales for feeding out of season, different than straw.

  When I am feeling like I have learned little over these many years of becoming a farmer I look at the tall stack of bales of hay stored in the hay room of the barn and realize that I have made great strides. When I got those first sheep years ago and brought them back to the farm, I needed to feed them and went to a local feed store in search of food. What I wanted was hay, but as straw was cheaper, I asked for a bale of straw. I had no idea what either one was. The sheep were not happy with my mischoice.

  In popular culture, the two words are interchangeable. A bale is used as a prop for a school play, or propped up by the front door for a Halloween theme, or possibly laid out for seating at that hoedown party.

  Although both hay and straw are packaged in the form of a bale, and both have something to do with agriculture, they are vastly different. Hay is cut grass. It is food. The grass is cut and dried in the field and then meticulously harvested to capture the proteins in the grass that are easily lost if mishandled. Well-made hay is green, bright-smelling and full of nutrition. Poor-quality hay is dull brown, moldy and of no nutritional value whatsoever.

  Straw is also baled, but is the by-product of grain production. When a field of rye or barley or wheat is harvested, the grain is removed. The tall stalks remain in the field. The stalks are cut and the baler is run through the field to pick up those stalks and bale them. Straw bales are lightweight, a collection of brittle stems, golden brown. They have absolutely no nutritional value. We buy straw bales now for bedding. It is spread out over the floor of the barn for the cows to sleep on, to soak up the urine. When the barn is scraped clean of the cows’ manure, the straw is mixed in, creating an ideal base for the composting of the manure. The straw lightens the manure, adds the carbon necessary for the compost to break down and brings air into the manure pile.

  It is remarkable for me to think there was a time when I used these two words interchangeably.

  Heifer—A female cow, before she has had her first calf. Like the mistakes I made with hay and straw, heifer also proved to be a difficult term for me to master. Before I saw it written, I heard the term. Unfortunately, the word Hereford sounds very similar. A Hereford is also a cow, but is a breed of a cow, specifically a meat cow and of either gender.

  Holsteins—The primary breed of milking cow in America. Large, black and white, heavy producers, low in butterfat.

  Homogenize—To break up the fat in milk by forcing the milk through very small holes. The result is milk that does not separate into cream and milk.

  Honey extractor—A centrifuge that spins the frames of beeswax containing honey. The honey is expelled by the centrifugal force, hits the sides of the extractor and accumulates on the bottom, where it is collected.

  Hoop house—Large, temporary, portable greenhouses made of aluminum or PVC and covered in plastic sheeting.

  IM; intramuscular—The method of giving an injection into the muscles of an animal.

  Inflations—Flexible rubber tubes that slip over the teats of a cow or goat. Together with the vacuum pump and pulsator, the inflations open and close, simulating the motion of a suckling calf on the mother’s teat.

  IV; intravenous—The administration of medicine directly into the vein of an animal.

  Jerseys—Breed of milking cow known for their lower milk volume and higher butterfat content. Curious, gentle, generally fawn-colored and smaller than Holsteins.

  Kosher salt—Salt used to kosher, or preserve, meats. Does not refer to a blessing by a rabbi.

  Lactation—The period when a mammal produces milk.

  Lactobacillus bulgaricus—The culture generally used to thicken buttermilk, to create Hungarian buttermilk.

  Legumes—A type of plant that produces pods, including alfalfa, favas, peas, and lupines with the ability to fix nitrogen from the air; part of pastures.

  Loafing shed—A separate building or a part of a barn where
the cows rest after milking and after eating.

  Louis Pasteur—The Frenchman who discovered the process of heating wine to kill harmful bacteria; the process was later used to make milk safe to drink.

  Mastitis—An infection of the udder of a cow, primarily due to dirty milking conditions, which results in high somatic cell counts and poor-quality milk; difficult to eradicate even with the use of antibiotics.

  Milk can—The vessel of a small portable milking system where the milk accumulates.

  Milk fever—Hypocalcaemia, the disease of dairy cows in which their inability to produce calcium immediately after calving results in an immediate collapse of the animal.

  Milk room—The area of a dairy where the milk is cooled and stored, and where the milking equipment is stored and cleaned.

  Milking parlor—The part of a dairy where the cows are milked.

  Offal—The organ meats utilized for culinary uses. Includes kidneys, hearts, livers, spleens.

  Package bees—Boxes of bees, generally three or four pounds in weight, that are collected at a large apiary and shipped to small beekeepers to start a new bee colony; the boxes contain hundreds of worker bees and one queen bee.

  Paddocks—Pastures enclosed by fences and gates to house animals. Generally smaller than open pastures and used to contain animals for a specific purpose or time.

  Pasteurization—The process of heating for a specified time to a specified temperature with the intent of killing all bacteria present.

  Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO)—The federal legislation that governs all dairies.

  Pathogen—A bacterium that harms the human body rather than either assisting or remaining neutral.

  Pig tape—A small paper ribbon used to gauge the approximate weight of a pig by measuring the distance around the pig’s chest.

  Pink salt—Salt cure that contains a small percentage of nitrites, to aid in the curing of meats; not naturally pink, but rather it is dyed pink to distinguish it from common salt.

  Propolis—The sticky substance made by bees to glue their hives together.

  Pulsator—The part of a milking system that interrupts the vacuum surge during the milking process, creating an on-and-off pulse on the teats of the cow.

  Queen bee—The matriarch of a beehive; the female leader that lays all of the eggs for the continuation of the colony.

  Raw milk—Milk that has not been pasteurized, that has never been heated to kill any bacteria.

  Rennet—The substance that causes milk to break into curds and whey; derived from the stomach of a day-old calf.

  Rumen—The first stomach of a cow, followed by the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum.

  Ruminants—Those mammals that have multiple stomachs and that chew their cud; primarily cows, goats and sheep.

  Somatic cell count (SCC)—The laboratory count of the leukocytes present in milk in order to give an indication of the relative health of the cow’s udder and therefore the milk as well.

  Sow—A female pig after she has had her first litter of piglets.

  Stanchion—An apparatus, generally of strong metal, that holds a cow in place during milking by closing loosely around the neck of the cow, although tight enough to not allow the cow to pull her head through.

  Staphylococcus aureus—Bacterium that causes essentially incurable mastitis in cows.

  Steptococcus thermophilus—A benign organism that is generally used to culture milk to produce yogurt.

  Stray voltage—An errant electrical charge, imperceptible to humans, that is perceptible to animals, especially cows and pigs.

  Sub Q—Abbreviation of subcutaneous, meaning below the skin; to inject medication below the skin of an animal.

  Suckling pig—A small baby pig that is still nursing.

  Sustainability—For a system to be in balance of its needs and its ability to replenish.

  Swill dairies; slop dairies—Early milk-producing factories connected with whiskey distillers, which fed the cows the waste from the distilling process.

  Tamis—A round sieve or strainer, made of a round wooden band and a fine mesh base of brass or stainless steel.

  Three-point hitch—The mechanism on the rear of a tractor that allows implements to be raised and lowered by hydraulics. An important tractor innovation from 1949 that moved tractors from pulling implements in the same way as a draft horse had, to a modern farm tool. The three points are in the shape of a triangle. The two lower points are the hydraulic lifts; the third point, the upper middle point, is a stabilizing bar.

  Vinegar mother—A thick, jelly-like substance that transforms alcohol to acid, creating vinegar from wine, hard cider, or other fermented product. The mother is introduced into the wine, sinking to the bottom and remaining there as it slowly replaces the alcohol with acid over many weeks. The container of wine, with the mother introduced, is intentionally left with the lid slightly ajar, allowing oxygen to help feed the mother. The result is the vinegar—tart yet no longer alcoholic. The mother can be removed when the process is complete or continue to reside in the newly created vinegar. Although the continued presence of the mother will leave the vinegar cloudy, it does no harm to the taste of the vinegar. The mother is generally removed from the vinegar, part to be saved for the next batch and part passed on to others who want to create their own vinegar. The primary agent in the vinegar mother is acetobacter, bacteria that have the ability to colonize wine and change the ethanol in the wine to acetic acid. Although these bacteria are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and able to affect any wine left open to the air, it is only with a cultured, controlled mother that a high-quality vinegar can be created. Wine is kept sealed from the air at all times to prevent the accidental and ruinous colonization of wild, airborne acetobacter.

  Weaner pig—A small baby pig that is no longer nursing. Generally eight weeks old. Also known as a feeder pig.

  Whey—The thin, liquid by-product of cheese making. When the curds are removed from milk during cheese making, the whey remains. Generally fed to pigs or used to make ricotta.

  Worker bees—The small female members of a beehive.

  The Farm Bookshelf

  Although I often refer to many books when confronted with a new challenge or simply looking for new ideas for the farm, these are the books that get the most use. They are all splattered with milk, dog-eared, their spines broken from use. All good reads.

  All Flesh Is Grass—Gene Logsdon, Swallow Press, 2004

  The Contrary Farmer—Gene Logsdon, Chelsea Green, 1994

  Gene Logsdon has written many books over his career; these two are my favorites. Both are series of essays that address the life of a small farmer in America today. Logsdon’s obvious familiarity with the subject and his great love of farming and his own Ohio farm are what make his books so pleasurable, inspiring and educational.

  Charcuterie—Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005

  Ruhlman and Polcyn have created a book explaining the preservation of meats for everyman in a simple and accessible manner while at the same time maintaining a depth of understanding of the processes. This is the book I grab when I need a quick refreshing on the making of bacon, the stuffing of sausage, the curing of salami.

  Cooking by Hand—Paul Bertolli, Clarkson Potter, 2003

  I distinctly remember the day when I found Bertolli’s book on the shelf at my local bookstore. After thumbing through it for a few minutes, I walked over to the owner of the bookstore and informed him that this book is important. After reading and rereading this textbook, I continue to value its importance. Bertolli’s essay to his young son on balsamic vinegar makes me sad and joyful every time I read it. Although Bertolli’s style of cooking is far more exacting than mine, I head to Cooking by Hand first when tackling a new charcuterie project, and only after trying his method will I begin my much more rustic approach. The gold standard for pork cookery.

  Country Life—Paul Heiney, DK Publishing, 1998

  A beautiful book fill
ed with photographs and that on first look appears to be a simple, pedestrian guide to small farming. In fact, it is chock-full of information on a myriad of agricultural practices. On dreary, wet winter days, I turn to Country Life for inspiration. Although I doubt I will ever cut grains in the field with horse-drawn implements, reading this book makes me think that I could.

  First Lessons in Beekeeping—C. P. Dadant, American Bee Journal, 1917

  Reprinted often for close to a hundred years, a true classic. Beekeeping has changed little over the century and this little volume has informed generations of beekeeping. Simple, straightforward and yet also remarkably complete, it is the only bee book I use.

  Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades—Steve Solomon, Sasquatch Books, 2000

  Although specifically written for the Pacific Northwest region, Solomon’s work is certainly useful for many parts of the country. Detailed instructions on growing vegetables both in small backyard gardens and equally applicable for larger market growers.

  Home Cheese Making—Ricki Carroll, Storey Publishing, 2002

  I love this quirky book with its how-to spirit and ease of instruction. The message is certainly that cheese making is for everyman. Limited to home cheese making, but the most accessible book available. When I want to set up a trial for a new cheese, these are the recipes I start with.