Born and grazed right here in North Carolina

I've met a number of farmers now who have come from non-farming backgrounds, folks who have chosen to embrace humble but fulfilling lives as organic produce and pastured meat farmers for all kinds of reasons. For some it's a sense of food injustice and a determination to make healthy food available where they live. For others, it's a distrust of the mainstream food industry practices (or the American consumer culture in general) that sets them on a path to sustainable farming. And for others, it's something they read that lights a fire under them: for Michael and Christy Underwood, it was an article in Gourmet Magazine (R.I.P.) on farmer Joel Salatin written back in 2002. To my former students who argued that something you read can't change your life, here's another example to the contrary.

Michael was finishing up a degree in History about seven years ago when he came across a feature in the now defunct food magazine. He was all worked up about what Salatin -- who has since been catapulted into farmer rockstardom when he was featured in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (aka Ibti's Food Bible) as well as the documentaries "Food, Inc." and "Fresh" -- was doing in western Virginia. Michael wanted to be a part of this new, whole-ecosystem style of grass-based animal farming and broached the topic with his wife Christy, who was working on her own degree in English at UNC at the time, and she agreed it was a worthy pursuit. A farm internship at Polyface Farm (Salatin's operation) didn't materialize, but instead they worked with a farmer in Fairview, NC to learn how to raise pastured meat animals in their home state. A few years ago they began renting a plot of land and a house in Lawndale, NC and started raising pastured pork, lamb, and beef. And after I met Christy at the Charlotte Regional Farmers' Market last Saturday, they kindly agreed to let me work at their farm for a day or two as I made my way through western North Carolina (toward my impending third date with the Appalacian Mountains).

It's some intense work, especially in the southern summer climate, but Christy and I, and her two boys, Isaiah and Jeremiah, managed to water and feed the pigs before the real heat started. (Here's a pic I snapped of their boar as we went about our morning routine. He looked rather menacing at first, but then I sprayed a little cool water in the mud and I daresay he started smiling as he flopped over to wallow.) Then it was time to move portable electric fencing and herd the sheep and cattle to a new pasture. I tell you, anyone who complains about the higher price of pastured meat (vs. conventional feedlot fare) would sing a different tune if he had to trudge through tall grass and thorny blackberry patches in a pool of his own sweat to pull up and refence new paddocks every few days. (Yes, in case you're wondering, we did periodically stop to sample some wild blackberries as we fenced. It is *me* we're talking about here.) I was excited to at last see and help with a rotational grazing system that I'd heard and read so much about, and hot and tired as I was I felt rather proud when the ruminants calmly sidled into their new grassy salad bar. Our animal chores were, thankfully, completed by lunchtime, and after a lovely, veggie-filled meal the boys invited me to join them next door for a swim in the pool. Ahhhh.

Did I mention how HOT it was? I wimped out of helping Michael with tilling and weeding some of the vegetable patches in the stifling heat when he returned from working at his construction job midafternoon. I mean, how often am I around a swimming pool? But I did help Christy with dinner, which included a scrumptious, slow-cooked, herb-rubbed Underwood pork roast. It might have been even tastier than the stew I made with some Underwood beef last weekend at Laura's, but it's tough to tell. I think I was a bit biased by the lavendar-and-honey roasted carrots and homemade mead that their friends Jamie and Sara Jane -- the charming farming couple of nearby A Way of Life Farm -- brought to the meal. (More about my work with Jamie and Sara Jane coming soon.)

I can't help but marvel at the devotion and slow (but growing) success of these passionate entrepreneurs. They clearly love the land, the animals, and each other. Each day brings new trials but also new joys. And though it is not a glamorous or easy life, they seem happy. "At the very least, we eat well," Christy smiled during dinner. "It's one of the perks of the job." No kidding... Yum!

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For whom the dinner bell tolls

Disclaimer: this post is not for the faint of heart.

During my first afternoon helping out at Green Meadows Farm, the farm manager (Andrew) had proposed that I stay for chicken processing day. I had intended from the outset of my journey toward a greater understanding of food on its way to my plate to participate in one of these events, I explained, but hadn't planned to investigate this piece this early on. I'd read about the whole process in some detail in The Omnivore's Dilemma -- a method considerably more humane than traditional slaughterhouses, but something which would nonetheless require a good bit of psychological preparation on my part beforehand. Also, I offered, I was planning to leave Monday morning, the day scheduled for slaughter. And... I balked. But Andrew ultimately convinced me to stay. And it wasn't just the friendly conversation and tasty food on Saturday afternoon (or, as Andrew jokingly referred to it, "the lobster payoff" technique, though the local lobsters were delicious). As I got to know the knowledgeable and friendly crew at the farm, I felt more comfortable with the idea. If I meant to really learn about what goes into sustainable food production -- all of what I eat, including animals if I am to continue consuming them -- then this farm, modeled closely on Joel Salatin's methodology and managed by thoughtful, compassionate folks was the place to face the prospect of taking full responsibility for my food (including taking its life).

I was still pretty anxious on Monday morning when I showed up for the chicken crew pre-brief. Perhaps in an effort to help me mentally prepare for the event, or perhaps to utilize my kitchen prowess, the farm manager asked me to sharpen and sanitize the knives. Good, I can do that. Sharpen knives. Yes, just like a regular run-of-the-mill day in the kitchen, no problemo. A bit later, over iced coffee and muffins -- not a bad idea in case I lost my usual appetite later -- Andrew talked the assembled team through each station, each role. There was the chicken wrangler (who chased the chickens around the yard and brought them to be processed), the killing cones (where chickens clucked their last cluck), the scalding tank (that loosened feathers of the expired birds), the defeathering machine (kind of like a kinky washing machine with water jets and lined with rubber fingers), the chopping block (where each defeathered bird lost her head and feet), and the evisceration table (after which the chicken is identical to what you buy at the market). Evisceration?! I opted to be on scalding and defeathering. Pretty innocuous, considering my other options.

The group of six -- half experienced, half newbies -- formed a circle and held hands as Andrew offered thanks to the animals for giving their lives to nourish us. Then we got started. I watched as Jim brought a bird to each of the four cones and pulled their heads down to cleanly, swiftly sever their throats. At least I knew the knives were razor sharp, so the animals didn't suffer. I got a little choked up watching Jim's steady but compassionate hands take each life and hold each bird's head so that it didn't flail and alarm the others while it lost consciousness and bled out. Once he gave me the sign that each bird was ready, I transferred it by its feet to the scalding tank. The scalding was harder than I had anticipated, as too short of a dunk time didn't adequately loosen the feathers but too long would melt the fat and begin to cook the bird. Had the full impact of the life-taking not been so omnipresent, the next step -- the defeathering process -- would have been downright comical. As it was, I did catch myself laughing when I once started to say something while switching the machine on and dripping chicken feathers flew into my mouth. Talk about centrifugal force. (Or is it centripital? I mix them up. Anyway: feathers everywhere.) Muddy, sopping feathers tasted pretty bad.

Near the end, after watching each of the other stations, I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle the killing cones, but I did want to try my hand at the task most akin to my cooking experience. Andrew had mentioned that my hands, relatively smaller than those of the rest of the crew, would be well suited for evisceration. Previously, the word "eviscerate" always conjured up images of velociraptors disemboweling their prey. This process hasn't really dispelled that association: to be honest, it was pretty gruesome, especially since the birds were still warm. Sarah talked me through the process of removing all of the internal organs and we practiced together. I did it, with only one major intestinal-slicing mishap, and found myself oddly proud of making it through without an emotional meltdown or nausea. Am I more callous than I thought? Could I do this every time I had the urge to eat poultry? Would I ever have the urge to eat poultry after this? I wondered.

As each crew member parted with thanks and a freshly processed, free-range organic chicken, I decided to make a curry dinner for my wonderful hostess and her grandson Ingmar who was visiting from Germany. Ingmar was an amazing assistant chef and merrily chatted away as I sipped a beer and assembled an impromptu chicken curry, chickpea curry, rice, and raita with fresh mint from the garden. (Aha, all of those spices stockpiled in my pannier came in handy!) It was a delicious end to an intense day learning about the meaning of life (and death) and I was elated to share it with my new friends. I don't know that I'll be eating a lot of chicken from here on out, but I now have a very real understanding of what it takes to bring it to my plate.

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Feats of Dairy-ing Do

As fate would have it, my plans to check out farms in western Massachusetts fell through just when a number of folks started sending me information on amazing farms further east in the state. (Thank you, Mike, Daniel, and Mother Margaret Georgina!) Ollie and I conferred and agreed that rerouting made sense. So after a few phone calls, we began to head east from Southwick to Foxboro, where I was to learn all about raw milk, the dairy industry, and the Farm Bureau from the friendly and knowledgeable Terri, her parents, and her sister. (I also learned a lot about sharks and dinosaurs from Terri's son, Joseph, but since you can't milk them, I won't go into detail here.)

I arrived at the Lawton Family Farm on Saturday morning, catching a ride from Warren, MA with Terri's sister, Danielle, who had kindly hosted Ollie and I (and our ridiculous amount of gear) the evening before, and who filled me in on the family's history of dairy farming. She and Terri -- the driving force behind Oake Knoll Ayrshires (a raw milk production operation at her family's farm in Foxboro) -- had always been around farmers, been actively involved in their local 4-H organization, and since the 80s when their father converted the farm to a dairy, been around cows. This family knows dairy. (If ever there's a farm trivia night at Wonderland when I get back to DC, I know who I want on my team for the round on bovines.) Terri's degree in Animal Agribusiness and her time as a state dairy inspector have informed her professional practice, but she also clearly really cares for her cows. She names every cow and is acutely aware of the quirks of each; the cows, in turn, seemed comfortable and even a bit curious around various members of the family, and me when I made my way to the pre-milking area. The milking routine moved like a well-oiled machine: the cows waited outside the milking barn until the gate was lifted, then they marched in, found the nearest empty spot, and poked their heads through one of the 12 headgates to nibble on a small pile of grain. The milkers -- Ed and Nancy -- cleaned and sterilized the udders and teats, then hooked the cows up to the milking machines. When the whole group was done, the teats were disinfected once again, the cows unhooked, and everyone marched out the far end of the barn to make room for the next cadre. Amazing.

Terri is very much connected not only to her cows but also to her community of raw milk drinkers who regularly come by the farm to pick up their pre-ordered fresh milk. One afternoon, she told me of a recent time when the price of organic oats and grain (which she uses to supplement the cows' main diet of forage -- grass and hay) rose sharply from $5 to $30 over the course of two months: she took a poll among her loyal customer base to see what they wanted to do. Of the options -- 1) start feeding the cows conventionally grown oats and grain, 2) start feeding them organic corn and soybeans, or 3) let the cows attempt to subsist on a diet of grass and hay alone (which, it turns out, means that they lack key nutrients) -- the group as a whole decided to abandon the organic feed (option 1) in order to keep the cows happy, healthy, and productive. Democracy in action.

I was surprised to learn from Terri's mom that, contrary to what I'd read in books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, cows actually love corn. They will seek it out. If they get loose in a field, I was told, they will always go for the sweet-tasting, easily accessible calories of a corn stalk over the usual grass. (Yes, I know corn is a grass, technically, but there are different chemical things going on that make corn especially appealing... and complicated. There is a good deal of debate among those who raise cattle as to whether chopped corn stalks -- a common component of the diet of conventionally-raised cows -- count as "grain" or "forage" or some combination of the two.) This doesn't mean cows *should* eat corn, or if they do, certainly not anything close to what they are stuffed with when crammed into the typical beef cattle feed lots. For her part, Terri avoids feeding corn products to her herd, a practice which is both more expensive and requires more work to locate appropriate alternatives for her cows. But the decision has philosophical and financial underpinnings for her business, and Terri continues to nourish her cows without corn products.

Speaking of nourishing, I was put on calf-feeding patrol the last morning at the farm. Apparently Ed and Nancy thought I could hold my own after Nancy and I had successfully fed the group the previous morning, so they sent me into the calf barn with a big bucket of fresh milk and a bottle. (In retrospect, I think they might have been mildly hazing me.) Hilarity ensued as the calves proceeded to knock each other (and me, almost) over in the feeding frenzy. I tell you, those little guys are hungry. Whitey got his head stuck in the bucket at one point, while one of the other calves tried to headbutt the bottle out of the mouth of the calf I was feeding as another of the calves jumped on his back, the last little guy nibbling on my fingers and then, when that didn't work, my pants. Total chaos. I was seeing the "suck or die" instinct in action. I'd heard about this principle of calf behavior -- not to be confused with the Republican Party's motto -- during my time at the Abbey, and have found the aggressive nursing instinct to be pretty intense. But I made it out alive and all five calves were fed. Whew!

I purchased a small container of the farm's newly marketed fromage blanc and tossed Ollie into the back of Ed's truck: I'd managed to hitch a ride into Boston during Ed's regular brewer's grain pick-ups. (Hey, I'm biking *most* of the way around the country, but I'll hitch a ride here and there with folks going my way. And after the intensity of the morning's calf riots, I was glad for the rest.)


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Grow, Pittsburgh!

The past few days here in Pittsburgh have been packed. The weather has miraculously held out for the most part, allowing Ollie and I to venture all over the city exploring farms, gardens, fairs, and markets. Okay, and a few coffee shops. (What can I say - the 'burgh has a ton of fabulous independent java joints and I feel I would be remiss if I were to neglect these cultural centers. Also, they have free wifi and Will had kindly offered the use of his laptop for a few hours so I could do some online research without suffering thumb cramps trying to surf the web on my blackberry.)

Friday's action included an extended stop at the annual May Market, held on the grounds of the impressive Phipps Conservatory. There were dozens of garden clubs and urban farmers selling all manner of seedlings to throngs of local greenthumbs. It was also where I had a chance to meet Susanna, one of the Grow Pittsburgh movers and shakers, who gave me a rundown on some of the local gardening programs around the city. There's some great work going on here, including a fledgling Edible Schoolyard program (modeled on Alice Waters' famed Berkeley pilot project that integrates growing and eating healthy, sustainable food into the public school curriculum). Good stuff.

Saturday provided a chance to check out "Farmers at the Firehouse" - the farmer's market in the hip and happenin' downtown Strip. Unfortunately, my morning dilly dallying meant that Will and I arrived too late to get in on the wild mushrooms, which had sold out hours before our arrival. And my chat with the 2 Jonathans at the mushroom booth has not yet yielded an invitation to go morel hunting with them. I guess I shouldn't be surprised: Michael Pollan alluded in The Omnivore's Dilemma to the secret-of-life degree of guardedness among avid mushroomers. C'mon, I can keep a secret. Just toss me a few chantrelles and mum's the word.

After a sandwich and a stop by REI for the much-needed rain cover for my bike helmet and shoes (I had foolishly mocked helmet cover wearers in the past, but 6 days of biking in pouring rain changed my tune), Will and I poked around the Friendship neighborhood's Folk & Flower Fest. Here at last I met Barb, one of the founders of Mildred's Daughters, and managed to snap a picture of her and a few of the other workers and volunteers at their seedling stand. I had been to the farm earlier in the week and learned about the rare history of the 5 acre plot (which has been farmed since the late 19th Century) and working group alternative program to traditional CSAs. From here, we walked to the nearby Montessori school to check out their vegetable patch and then it was off to the Frick Greenhouse, where we encountered a good variety of seedlings and seasonal produce.

Ah, but the story of Pittsburgh was not over yet. Sunday morning found Ollie and I pedaling back to the Landslide Community Farm for - you guessed it - the brunch. Really, can I resist an opportunity to be around good people and good food? No, clearly I can't. They even let me into the kitchen, where I proceeded to sneak garlic into just about everything but the french toast. And I'm glad I loaded up on carbs because I needed them for the cross-town, hill-laden trek to Braddock Farms. (Oh my, did I say hills? I think I looked *down* and saw Mount Olympus from my vantage point on Forward Avenue.) The farm was alive with asparagus, garlic, lettuce, tomato plants, and strawberry shrubs. Pretty sweet, and oddly, but somehow fittingly, ensconced next to one of the city's few remaining steel mills.

I managed to navigate a different route back, with considerably fewer hills, that took me once more past the fantastic East End Food Co-op. I picked up a few last goodies and headed back to Steve's apartment. After dinner and a hot bath, I think it's time for a mug of tea and some flannel pjs. My legs are going to be sore tomorrow - I can tell.


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