Sunday, January 9, 2011

Cane Creek Farm

Derek and I recently decided to attend a sale our local meat farmer was hosting. We invited some very good friends and all piled into the car to drive almost an hour to Cane Creek. I had a flashback to kindergarten when we went to a dairy farm and got to milk a cow. We were going to see where our meat was being grown! I love farms and as an archaeologist I have spent a good deal of time on them. Once, in Tennessee, I destroyed 3.5 acres of mass produced soybeans with my GPR antenna.

Cane Creek is not really mass produced type farming. All of the animals are pasture raised and rotationally grazed, like the farm in Omnivore's Dilemma.

The day started sunny and beautiful.

Shortly after we arrived at the farm it started snowing.

After we bought the meat in the store we decided to go on a walking tour of the farm. In the snow.

So far in my life, I have noticed that all farms have a pack of happy dogs that follow any sort of human around. One time at a farm in Utah, I had a golden retriever sleep outside my tent for my entire stay. Cane Creek Farm had a happy pack of black labs that came with us on our short walk.


We visited the pigs. They lived in big fields, in these little huts. In this picture most of the pigs were in the huts (it was cold outside). There were these giant sows with little piglets following them around, moving from hut to hut.


Some of the pigs did come and visit us, they were very pretty speckled pigs. This farm specializes in heirloom varieties. They all have their tails (factory pigs get their tails cut off).


We met some chickens too. The chickens at this farm live in mobile coops, so they roam the farm. Pretty rooster.


4 comments:

  1. Bet this was interesting and fun

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  2. Pig huts - so cute! What a fun activity for a snowy day! I love the pack of friendly dogs. They really are a requisite presence on any real farm.

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  3. So, how long until the pigs rise up and overthrow the cruel human masters? Sorry, couldn't resist... [This comment proves that I, too, read this blog]

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  4. Hopefully before they are slaughtered! Then the pigs can make those cute, friendly, and less intelligent dogs their pets, as well. Maybe the cats, too. Sorry, couldn't resist... [This comment proves that I, too, read this blog]

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