A sad dog

It’s still dry, but we have lamb and goat

Farmers like to talk about the weather, like, a lot. The weather controls many aspects of farm life but perhaps most importantly: how tall the grass grows. We've been in drought conditions in our corner of the northeast this summer and unfortunately the grass is shorter than our sheep and goats would prefer. When we say "shorter," what we actually mean is there isn't really any grass left for them to eat. As responsible livestock farmers we looked at our land, evaluated the lack of rain, and made the decision to bring all our lambs and goats to harvest 3-6 months early. They were super tiny and really could have used a few more months of growth on nice pastures, but our land could not support it. The grass growth was just too slow, so instead we decided to see what micro lamb chops would look like.

On that note we have goat and lamb for sale! They were small, so we don’t have much but grab a leg roast, shanks, or some stew while you can. We also have a few lamb/goat organs and bags of bones!

PF leaves, SF becomes APF, Pup is sad, Reinforcements arrive!

If you've ever had a dog, cat, or parakeet then you know that animals require feeding/care several times per day. Farming livestock the way we do is a year-round venture that involves being out in all sorts of weather, storms, etc. including weekdays, weekends, those bad weather days, the depth of winter when you don’t want to even leave your bed, and every other days of the year. The good thing is our Primary Farmer (PF, Nick) really likes his farming job and thrives off getting outside on the farm all year long. Others including Secondary Farmer (SF, Danielle) think vacations are good and everyone should get away at some point. So every once in a while, PF leaves the farm to visit family out of state, but someone has to take care of the animals. 

Since we don't have any farm employees or nearby and/or nearby farming-inclined family who knows the farm systems well enough to take over for a few days or a week, both PF and SF can't be gone from the farm at the same time. Since PF is visiting family right now, SF has been promoted to Acting Primary Farmer (APF). Pup usually stays also, she doesn’t really like traveling -- no vacations for her.

Congrats to PF: after a nearly-three-year stint on the farm, PF is getting away for a few days this week. SF decided it would be nice to have company while PF was gone so her family is visiting the farm. Everyone will have a good time except Pup. She does not like when her pack splits up, so she will be sad until everyone is reunited.

More pigs than we know what to do with… maybe

A pig in the bush is worth two in the hands, and piglets are skittish. Never count your bacon packages before they hatch. Here at BOTL Farm, we have been steadily ramping up pork production for several years, starting at ~30 pigs per year and now ramping up to a projected ~80 pigs per year. Honestly, this volume of pigs makes us simultaneously a little nervous and excited. The chest freezer space in the universe, and more specifically in our garage, is finite. The past few years we have always run out of pork by early fall and this year we are on schedule to run out again, but this fall and into next year we should have more pork than ever before. Every year so far we've had the issue of 'not enough pork,’ so we're looking forward to trying on 'too much pork' for size.

We anticipate having a large inventory of our BOTL Farm pork "boxes" during winter and spring this year. These include our grill boxes, 1/2 and 1/4 hog equivalent boxes, bacon box, soup and biscuits box, or our personal favorite, the mystery box (these are our favorite because they are the easiest to put together).

To see more information about the box options see our bulk meat. We are now taking preorders for meat boxes that will be available at the end of December into early January. Email us for more details or to reserve your box now.

Midnight store hours?

BOTL Farm has a store! You've likely visited our store between eleven and thirteen times so far. You probably have your smart phone calendar updated with our store hours on Tuesday 12pm-2pm and Sunday 2pm-4pm. These hours were initially picked at the convenience of PF (Primary Farmer). Honestly, he was not really anticipating people would show up, but they did! Thanks for showing up and making our on-farm store sales a success. We are looking to expand our store hours and want suggestions on what times work best for you. A weekday morning or evening? Some other time on the weekend? The second and third Thursdays of the month at midnight? Hopefully not that last one, but let us know. We want to expand our on-farm sales and we will see what we can do!

Yasigi and Ogo

Some of you may be familiar with how we name our breeding animals and some of you may not. Most years we pick a theme and name any animals that year according to the theme. We did Norse mythology so we have pigs named after Valkyries, Hild and Mist, along with goats named after goddesses, Freyja and Frigg. We've also done Jewish mythology, so we have pigs named Leah and Rahm plus sheep named Leviathan and Golem. You get the idea. So this month when we got two new breeding Kiko goats, a buckling and doeling (farmer-jargon for a young male goat and a young female goat), it was back to the naming drawing board. The theme this time is Dogon mythology of the Mali people in west Africa, so the buck is named Ogo and the doe is named Yasigi. Welcome kids!

We're pleased to have been able to source Yasigi and Ogo from the same Kiko farm that we got our original goats from. So our whole herd of goats is descended from animals from PJM Goats in Pottsville, NJ. PJ is a meticulous breeder who routinely has prize-winning Kikos in different national and international competitions. Kikos are known for being independent, hardy, large, meaty goats and our herd is no exception!

New Country Organics feed

Prices of New Country Organic feed have (thankfully) (mostly) stabilized! After what seemed like continuous and never-ending increases this spring into summer, we finally can see a horizon. This year's harvest of peas and wheat is coming in (all grains used in NCO feeds are North-American-grown) and we hope this is the end of price hikes for a while. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with this high-quality, certified organic feed for your backyard flocks! And as always, remember to get your feed orders in early as we typically are 3-4 weeks out on deliveries.