Category: All Cairncrest Farm Posts

Yesterday Alanna was looking out the window when she noticed an animal running down the stream bank. She called me over in time for me to get a look at the black, serpentine creature galumphing along over the snow. We’ve seen mink in our stream before - I even caught one in a cage for...

The bacon Garth cured is done now. The smokiness of the bacon is a little more "grill" than is ideal, but the meaty flavors are top-notch. We just had a friend stop by for two days and he used three superlatives to describe how good he considered it. Perhaps not a completely unbiased perspective since...

I don't have any photos of my pigs grazing. They mostly rooted when I rotated them around the pasture last year and there is still snow on frozen soil here today. For a whole host of reasons I don't like bare dirt, and the pigs I have now are quite skilled at creating it. I...

Note: If you don’t understand what’s happening here, this post will bring you up to speed. As if the endless winter wasn’t punishment enough, the north has now begun bombarding me with cheap boxed pasta. That’s right, Mark, a presumed reader of this blog/listener of John Hodgman took it upon himself to mail us a box of Kraft Dinner....

The bull hardly came to my waist, a good foot shorter than the cows beside him. As they stood in a tight ring, peeling flakes of hay off of a sorry looking round bale, the sod beneath their hooves was slowly churned to mud. The cows looked like regular Jerseys to me, maybe a bit...

I'm getting ready to go in the garden even though it was only 13 degrees this morning and the forecast still calls for temps nearer February's average I till most of my garden. I'm open to the idea of no-tilling, and plan to trial a no-till section of the garden this year. I get good...

It’s easy to complain about the homogenization of culture. As much as the internet allows niche communities to thrive, these are divorced from a specific geographical region. The monotony of strip malls and chains restaurants lining congested four lane highways must send an existential shudder down the spine of even the most devout techno triumphalist....

In the paleo diet world much is made of the essential fatty acids omega 6 and omega 3. In case you don't read Mark's Daily Apple assiduously, these fats are found in plants and animals. The term "essential" means that humans must ingest them because we physiologically cannot produce them. It is therefore essential that our diets...

I just finished attending a two day workshop with Dan Kittredge of the Bionutrient Food Association. In the past five years I’ve gone to a number of alternative agriculture functions, and I am always interested by the claims made and the evidence offered to support them. I’ve gone to lectures in which I’ve bought most of what I’ve...

As promised last Tuesday, I'm going to continue with the pig theme for a few long posts. I hope you'll stick it out as I could use your help at the end of my next piece, and you will better understand the issue after reading this one and the upcoming installment. I wanted to get...