urban predation

September 29, 2011

by Trace animalia Durham farthing farm

In almost three years of living in the country with chickens, we had minimal problems with predation. We lost one rooster to a hawk, one turkey to a black snake; that is all I can remember. Contrast that with a few weeks in the city – we lost two chickens in two consecutive nights.

In doing some research I found that the two nights were probably different predators. The first chicken I found had its abdomen chewed open and all the entrails were gone. Looking into the aspects of the kill, it looks to be the work of a possum – “One or two birds killed; mauled, abdomen eaten.” The body was right by the fence. Curiously, the next day’s egg was not eaten and remained intact in the body.

Last night we woke up to the hens going on and on with a sustained amount of squawking. I wasn’t much interested in going out there since they sqwauk every damn night, but something seemed a bit different this time. Kristin was also persistent. I tried to get 80 to help me out, but she was too busy sleeping on the couch. When I got out to the coop, part of the door covering was ripped. The chickens were huddled in a corner of the coop, off the roosts. A quick count showed one was missing.

There was no sign of the body, a small clump of feathers right by the door, and part of the fence was down. Again, going to the Internet – “One or more birds dead / missing; no more than one removed; pile of feathers” – it appears to be the work of a fox.

While our coop is not pretty enough to be on the Durham tour of chicken homes, Kristin is reinforcing the door today and hopefully making the coop a decent and dependable fortress. There is no doubt that these critters will come back.

About Trace

Trace lives in Durham, NC with his partner Kristin. They were joined by baby Tennessee Lynn in April 2012.
Trace is not a talker. Trace also thinks it is a little weird to talk about himself in the third person.

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, Durham. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.

the bowling ball

April 27, 2011

by Trace animalia biographical circle acres

The bowling ball

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Trace

Things are sometimes difficult at Circle Acres. Just the fact that there are ten different people going in ten different directions at ten different times of the day is enough to make things a bit of a mess. Add two or three WWOOFers, dogs, cats, chickens, and various other components and you have yourself a pretty good stew.

I am the first to admit that I am sometimes very cranky to deal with especially if I get woken up. A few weeks ago, Brother was analyzing his bowling ball fetish at 11:30 at night. The backstory is that Gray found a blue bowling ball in the dumpster, brought it home and gave it a roll across the grass. Brother immediately took a fancy to it and began making a very strange sort of noise that no one had heard him make before. The strange thing is that he does not make the noise with any other type of ball or stick or animal. Only the bowling ball provokes this response.

So back to a few weeks ago. The sound of Brother’s yipping echoed through the trees, through the grass and through the tarp that covers the area behind my pillow. I calmly put on my head lamp and rubber boots, walked down the path and past the trampoline where Gray and Adah were giggling, found Brother’s glowing eyes and squeals of joy, took his bowling ball from him, threw it into a ditch full of water and quietly went back to bed.

Now the bowling ball lives in the ditch full of water, waiting for the summer drought. Brother also awaits the return of the romance.

About Trace

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, biographical, circle acres. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to The bowling ball

Linda Welborn says:

April 28, 2011 at 1:37 pm

Brother is my grand dog and I’ll tell Gray that he needs a curfew
Marlow says:

May 25, 2011 at 8:41 pm

This is hilarious! Much like Hazel and her exercise ball! ALSO, there’s no way that you’re grumpier than I am when woken up. It scares even me.

life in reverse

December 11, 2010

by Trace animalia circle acres food sources foodshed

Life in Reverse

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Trace

We raised turkeys this year. What started in April ended a few weeks ago. We started with 26 birds and ended with 15, the biggest loss of animals we have experienced. The process was long, the costs were high and I made up my mind to not raise up turkeys for sale ever again. I might like to raise up some free roaming meat chickens in the future, but meat is not something that we have trouble finding.

Kristin and I kept one turkey to eat for ourselves. It was a big one for the two of us, probably 16 pounds. It was the bird that Gray and I practiced the slaughtering process on, hoping that things would go smoothly when it was time to kill the rest of the birds.

There were a variety of sizes, anywhere from 5 pounds to 18 pounds. We had thought that the birds would be much bigger given how long we had them and how much food they ate, but it just didn’t work out that way.

We decided that we would ask that the people who bought the birds to come out and help with the processing. Pretty much everyone was willing, so we had plenty of people out to help and even a few folks who just wanted the experience.

There was a lot of teaching going on as well as a lot of specialization. Rob, Jennie and I did most of the gutting while Gray, Noel and Ben took care of the killing, scalding and de-feathering.

Amber, Chris and Will each processed their own birds. Jeremy and Matt helped in the gutting even though they would not end up taking a bird home.

The whole process took about four hours, from start to clean up. The entrails went to the pigs to eat, the feathers went to the compost and the birds went home with their eaters.

By the end of the day, the turkey pen was disassembled, all the posts put up and the water and feed buckets emptied.

We raised Midget White and Burbon Red, both heritage breeds.

Hard to believe that we got the turkeys when they were just one day old. They lived in the brooder for six weeks before moving into their “training” pen which we moved every few days.

Usually folks would start with the poults and move to the finished meal, but I think the story does better in reverse. I welcome your thoughts on that…

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, food sources, foodshed. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Life in Reverse

Kyle Lee McKnight says:

December 20, 2010 at 10:52 am

The pictures of the process make me happy. In my opinion, most individuals that consume the “Traditional Holiday Bird” have no desire to know where, how and what all goes into raising it. I did the same thing as ya’ll, but at a friends property. The only quam I had with my process, is that I stressed it out a little to much before slaughter. I stiil feel a little bad about this. The bird I did this year was allowed to truley free roam around. This in turn made it a little more tough. I did brine the bird for 2 days, but it was not enough. I should have then broke down the carcass to apply seperate cooking aplications. The flavor on the other hand was unmatched by any commercially raised bird.
I truley respect what you all are doing at Circle Acers. Please don’t hate on me for my spelling and grammer. hehe….Keep on Keepin’ On!!!
Eliza @ Appalachian Feet says:

December 31, 2010 at 11:19 am

I’m so impressed that the people purchasing the birds were willing to be part of the slaughter! Good for you and them for respecting the source of your food. Very interesting photos, too.

the eyes of food

December 10, 2009

by Trace animalia biographical food sources

The eyes of food

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Trace

I grew up knowing that November meant there would be a deer hanging somewhere in the front yard, probably by the antlers or the neck and probably from the branch of a tree. Or maybe hanging out of the bed of the pickup truck. Or from a rafter in the dirt floor garage.

I knew that the stories of how that big buck came to be dead would be floating around the house until they could be recited, with all the groan inducing embellishments, by people in the house who were trying hard not to listen. I could probably dig deep enough to remember one or two of those stories, but who gives a shit really?

My grandfather also told stories, the ones that I have forgotten, the ones about how the deer tricked him or showed him up or maybe never even existed. He never seemed to be about the perceived glory of shooting something in the face; when a deer was in the freezer before December he seemed satisfied with the knowledge that, with the deer’s help, he and his family would have food for the Winter. He didn’t regale in the winners and losers of what most sane people would see as a wholly lopsided conflict heavily subsidized by civilization and its tools – a heavily armed human against an unprepared, unwilling and unaware opponent.

My grandfather’s task was brutal regardless, but maybe less so as there were no mounted heads on the walls of his home like there were in our home. The need for those stuffed and preserved reminders is something that I couldn’t explain back then, but know now is an indication of small mindedness, a dedication to the outward projection of dominance when you know that you are inescapably weak inside. You are a collector with no sense of how to interact with the dead or the living, both phases of life simply reminders of inadequacy, weak interpersonal skills and low self esteem. If you have a deer head or a stuffed fish on your wall, go look at it and ask yourself what reminder it serves that could not otherwise be captured by a photograph or poem. Is it there to show your friends and family what a hero you are?

When I was younger, I volunteered twice to travel with a New York DEC deer ager on their rounds. For fourteen hours we visited deer processing places as well as any house that had a deer hanging in the front yard. My job was to write while the ager examined teeth and called out the ages of each dead deer.

I think it was during this time that I became permanently desensitized to the sights and smells of dead non-human animals. At each processor were dozens of barrels and drums and tarps full of various parts; piles of legs next to buckets of guts and tails; lines of deer carcasses waiting to be disassembled by hacksaws, band saws and reciprocating saws, mostly frozen in rigor mortis or by the depth of cold in the evening air. Steam escaped from some of the recent arrivals, a sign that they were less than an hour dead.

*****

There can be nothing more brutal or common or necessary than taking a life in order to eat and sustain a body. Non-human animals do it without question, without any perceptible remorse or hesitation. What makes our actions so much different?

We pull carrots from the soil, ending their run from gravity, ending their gathering of sugar and all the processes that made them a living thing. They may not scream or run or struggle much, but a carrot is a living thing nonetheless and we must kill it in order to eat it.

Eating a carrot is nothing like eating an animal, which is why many choose not to eat the latter at all. I respect that choice; it was a choice that I had once made as well. As with eating it, killing a carrot is nothing like killing an animal. Animals articulate their disappointment in our choice to kill them in blood gurgles, screams and the twitches of ending nerve impulses. We destroy them in order that we can live; we destroy them for other reasons as well, reasons that have no bearing on survival. If you do not believe that then you deny that your meal had any previous life beyond its packaging. I apologize, but I can’t let you do that.

About Trace

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, biographical, food sources. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to The eyes of food

Camille says:

December 12, 2009 at 10:30 am

Another outstanding piece, beautifully knitting a wide range of thoughts and feelings about how we choose to think about our food!

I too, have seen life drain from the eyes of animals who were killed so that I might live. I have experienced the range of emotions involved in transforming carcass into meat – from sorrow, to revulsion, to scientific objectivity, to mind-numbing work, to pride. I know how it feels to butcher, grind, can and freeze meat which would feed me until next year’s harvest.

I’ve since drifted away from a meat-based diet and consider myself lucky that my body functions well on beans, grains and vegetables. I like to think that my ecological footprint is smaller than it was when I ate meat. Inspired by “Diet for a Small Planet” I decided it would be more efficient to eat lower on the food chain. Rather than feed protein to animals, I skip the middleman and feed those calories to myself.

On the other hand, I have work to do reining in the distance traveled by some of my food. Obvious targets would be the olive oil from Greece and the coconut milk from Thailand that I can’t seem to do without. And then there’s the Midwestern soybeans and California Vegenaise.

Your writings reaffirm my decision to eat locally grown food and support my farmer friends as they expand into beans, wheat and rice. You are, as always, an inspiration!
Kristen says:

December 18, 2009 at 5:52 pm

Thank you bro! I have never understood why we always seem to have to declare that we think we are so superior to the animals that feed us. It is why I groan during the fall as our local airport and grocery stores are filled with arrogant, camo-wearing Americans and Germans who paid absurd amounts of money to hunt (and I use that term loosely as they pay someone with extensive backcountry experiences to GUIDE them to the animals like big-horn sheep) and shoot an animal as trophy so that they can go back and brag to their friends as they break out the ruler stick and measure their manhood. It’s sick!
FoodFitnessFreshair says:

December 22, 2009 at 10:16 am

Wow, insightful post. I often wonder if those carrots we pull from the ground actually do scream, but we just don’t hear it. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about hunting and how I feel about it as a vegetarian…If you have the time, here’s the http://foodfitnessfreshair.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/open-fire-opening-day/
Bradford says:

December 28, 2009 at 2:34 pm

So many things about this post are great.

workshops

November 19, 2009

by Trace animalia food sources photo essays workshops young farmers

Category Archives: workshops

It takes a village – part three

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Trace

A few weeks ago I traveled to Tivoli, New York to photograph and participate in a hog butchering workshop presented by The Greenhorns. The workshop was presided over by Bryan Mayer, a butcher with The Greene Grape in Brooklyn New … Continue reading →

Posted in animalia, food sources, photo essays, workshops, young farmers
|
1 Comment

It takes a village – part one

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Trace

Last week I traveled to Tivoli, New York to photograph and participate in a hog butchering workshop presented by The Greenhorns. The workshop was presided over by Bryan Mayer, a butcher with The Greene Grape in Brooklyn New York. Day … Continue reading →

Posted in biographical, photo essays, workshops, young farmers
|
4 Comments

Pastured chicken field day at Perry-winkle Farm

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Trace

One of the benefits of living in Chatham County is the access it provides to workshops, classes and visits to sustainable farming and other operations. Debbie Roos, our extension agent for sustainable and organic agriculture, is the force behind many … Continue reading →

Posted in workshops
|
1 Comment

2nd Annual Be Your Own Hero Fest

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Trace

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Hero Fest! Be Your Own Hero Festival Now Accepting Submissions The 2nd Annual Be Your Own Hero (BYOH) Festival will be taking place in Wilmington, North Carolina September 27th and 28th, 2008. Submissions for workshops, … Continue reading →

Posted in activism, biographical, workshops
|
Comments Off

Cape Fear Regional Beekeepers Association

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Trace

A newly formed beekeepers association is starting up in New Hanover and adjacent counties. The first meeting is Tuesday February 19th, 7:00pm at the Arboretum (County Extension). In addition, there will be an eight week beekeepers school starting on … Continue reading →

Posted in bees, workshops
|
4 Comments

CFSA Farm Tour – DIG and SEEDS

Posted on November 15, 2007 by Trace

The third and finally stop on the farm tour was the dual urban gardens of Durham Inner City Gardeners (DIG) and Southeastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces (SEEDS). The DIG program is youth oriented and works 1/2 acre of land. They … Continue reading →

Posted in farm tours, workshops
|
4 Comments

CFSA Farm Tour – Anathoth Community Garden

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Trace

The second stop on the farm tour was the Anathoth Community Garden in Cedar Grove, NC, a rural town of less than 1,000 people. Following the murder of a town member a few years ago, the community got together to … Continue reading →

Posted in farm tours, workshops
|
1 Comment

CFSA Farm Tour – Duke Forest Ecovillage

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Trace

Last Friday, as part of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference, I went on a farm tour focused on how agriculture and community can come together. There were three sites on the tour. This post deals with … Continue reading →

Posted in farm tours, food sources, workshops
|
3 Comments

Permaculture short courses in Wilmington

Posted on October 17, 2007 by Trace

I am not an expert, and I hope to never be one. The world has too many so-called experts and not enough people actually unafraid to fail. Failure provides education, something that cannot be taught by an expert or a … Continue reading →

Posted in permaculture, workshops
|
3 Comments

it takes a village part one

November 5, 2009

by Trace animalia food sources foodshed young farmers

It takes a village – part one

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Trace

Day one for me was actually the day before the workshop. I arrived at Smithereen Farm via an Amtrak train out of Penn Station then via a car ride with Severine and Anne from the Greenhorns project. Our first stop was an antique farm store called Hoffman’s Barn Sale, a large, wood-stove heated menagerie of rusty farm implements, old style canning jars and mid-70s classic rock albums. It was like a flea market except the store was filled with useful shit, not just beat up boxes of doll parts or piles of messed up Dokken tapes.

The mission at the Barn Sale was to pick up some last minute cooking implements. These implements included – what was described to me at the time – a pot big enough to fit a pig’s head. Not in itself all that interesting until you start to talk about what that means and why it means what it means. Yeah, we’ll just boil this pig head for awhile, you have a problem with that? It reminded me of a page from the Sandor Katz book The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved about processing pig heads –

We found that pot along with a giant stock pot, some Pyrex casserole dishes and a Dutch oven. Scattered among the purchases were the echoes of Severine shouting from every corner – “Anne, we need this.” Not having been in this dynamic before, I wasn’t sure if this was just how shopping with Severine was or if indeed we did “need this”. Severine also reminded us that her mother always told her to buy Pyrex when she could. So we did.

Back at the farm it was a breakfast of fresh eggs and coffee and toast with plum jam. It was playing with kittens and listening. It was coloring salsa labels and organizing stuff. It was digging a pit and splitting wood for the slow roasting of a pig side. It was getting the first sniff of a weekend’s worth of wood smoke. It was meeting new folks and trying to be a talker. It was a warm wood stove and giggles from grown ups.

It was the start of a pretty immense undertaking, this crash course in butchering and sausage making. I ended the day tired like I usually end my days, but this tired was an out-of-town tired. I didn’t worry about it much and prepared myself to go to sleep late and wake up early, getting back to work and getting back to tired.

4 Responses to It takes a village – part one

Logan MB says:

November 5, 2009 at 6:38 pm

You’ve got some great work in there Trace. Really nice stuff – esp love the reflection and the digging…
Kristin says:

November 5, 2009 at 11:08 pm

Oh T-race. I wish the PTA Thrift Shop in Siler City was that abundant. Maybe over the course of a few years.
Trace says:

November 6, 2009 at 11:40 am

Thanks Logan. Practice practice practice…

K-tron – when the PTA starts carrying butter churns and thimbles then they might be onto something…
Tom Tuttle says:

December 13, 2009 at 4:17 am

Right on, keep on keeping on….

it is the in between

August 25, 2009

by Trace animalia biographical circle acres

It is the in between

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Trace

I spend some days alone at our place, twelve acres of heat and humidity and chiggers and ticks and a rooster that won’t shut up. The animals don’t talk so much as scream at a person – feed me, get away from me, look at me, don’t chase me, where have you been all day…

When I wake up I have to clear my throat to get words to come out, words like “hey piggles, you wake up too!” or “get off the bed you lazy animals”.

I am ignored as the cat just twitches an ear, irritated but with a full belly and another eighteen hours of sleep to look forward to.

It feels like I just wander around on those alone days, tinkering around on slightly neglected projects, working from a list that has no written equivalent. It isn’t until everyone returns that I realize I have accomplished anything, making me realize that I do have a function even if no one is around to prove it to themselves or to report it to others. It is simply me moving through the life I have chosen.

It is those alone days that I know concretely that I have chosen well, that all five of us non-human animals have chosen well, that we are some of the luckiest people to ever sign a land title.

Watch out, we are just getting started.

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, biographical. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to It is the in between

gary phillips says:

August 25, 2009 at 12:08 pm

Very sweet essay, Trace. I resonate with it, every day.
Mike says:

August 26, 2009 at 2:19 pm

That 18 hours of sleep sounds pretty good…
Marlow says:

August 31, 2009 at 8:51 pm

Really love this bit of writing!!

milking floretta

April 14, 2009

by Trace animalia circle acres food sources foodshed

Milking Floretta

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Trace

So we have the eggs part covered. We are consistently finding five to seven eggs per day from our seven laying hens. This is plenty for now; one per person per day. On to the next piece – goat milk.

Floretta had her baby, Madeline, a few weeks ago. Madeline is growing her horns and is old enough to be separated from mom for the night. That means milk in the morning for the human animals on the farm.

The milking process starts out easy enough and gets progressively more interesting. Especially when one of the morning helpers (me) does something dumb. It goes something like this –

1 – Clean out the milk container and strainer. A glug of bleach will do it. Or a drop. Or a quarter cup. Or don’t worry about it. Sources of information vary as with anything else you attempt to research on the Internets and apply to do-it-yourself type situations.

2 – Fill up the feed basket with corn, oats and hay. Floretta really loves corn, so you have to hide it under the hay in order to slow her down. That said, she knows where the corn is from the moment it leaves the bag and will be ready for it whenever you are. And she’s feisty.

3 – Get Floretta onto the scrap wood milk stand. Fairly self explanatory but not necessarily easy.

4 – Lock the head gate and get the feed bucket ready. Floretta will want to get to the feed bucket before you are ready to give it to her no matter if she is attached to the head gate or not. If an eye pops out just stick it back in and put bleach on it. Or don’t.

5 – Lock in the feed bucket. Watch your fingers.

6 – Start milking and hope Madeline keeps quiet…

7 – Trace has disturbed Madeline, so she is getting very loud, and Floretta is getting antsy, so Noel milk faster! before she kicks the damn bucket of milk over, oh come on be quiet Madeline, sorry just isn’t good enough Trace, you idiot!

It didn’t really go like that, but it felt like it to me. Madi got very loud prompting Floretta to get agitated. The milking was cut short during this little demonstration session.

8 – Madeline won’t shut up. Reunite mom and kid before something breaks.

9 – Drink milk. Try again in the morning.

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, circle acres, food sources, foodshed. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Milking Floretta

Pingback: Milking Floretta
Ali says:

April 14, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Its like a whole ‘nother world out there & I am so thankful for the glimpses in.

This post warms my heart & I have to admit made me laugh. Poor Madi had no clue what was going on but you guys were stealing HER milk!

Love the pics. (& the pigs!) Congrats on all the good stuff you have going on. You are living the dream.

pig parade

April 8, 2009

by Trace animalia circle acres

Pig parade

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Trace

Saturday morning I went and picked up the newest addition to the farm – two pigs of mixed Gloucestershire Old Spot and Tamworth heritage.

The more I read about using pigs as tillers, the more I realize that they need to be in a smaller space for an extended period of time in order for the process to be effective. I may start moving them around in fifty by fifty sections in the larger fenced area. This will concentrate their rooting and digging efforts.

I’m thinking that if left in the large area, they will focus on the easy spots and basically defeat the purpose of having them on pasture. They may just wait for me to come feed them, loaf off the rest of the time, occasionally digging up a worm here or there to satisfy some instinctual piece of evolutionary memory.

But maybe I’m wrong and the pigs know what they are doing. I mean, they haven’t even been with us for a week, and I can already tell where they have been working.

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, circle acres. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Pig parade

Joe says:

April 9, 2009 at 9:21 am

You are on the right track, confining them to a smaller area in order to get the desired rooting effect. A few pigs are a great addition to a small farm, nature’s garbage disposal. they will process all the kitchen scraps you can muster and turn them into porkey deliciousness and a wonderful soil amendment. I’ve even found them to be less work than broiler chickens, considering the meat supplied/hours worked ratio. I enjoy following your blog, this country needs more rural agrarian anarchists. Keep up the good fight.

a w buckner zoological park and madhouse

February 23, 2009

by Trace animalia circle acres

A W Buckner Zoological Park and Madhouse

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Trace

I was by myself at the farm for a few months, and during that time it was hard to get much of anything started. I can’t even remember what projects I finished. It just didn’t amount to much. Most of my time was spent wandering around looking at whatever. There were plenty of old junk piles to pick through and branches to break underfoot.

Kristin moved up in November, easing the loneliness and becoming an inspiration to get some things done. We split wood, carried cedar posts out of the forest and tried to get our little room in order. That continues as Kristin builds kitchen cabinets from scratch.

A few weeks ago, Gray came to live with us. Then Noel started living at the farm most of the time. In a few days, Danielle will be here and the farm will have its full crew.

The animal workforce – in addition to the human mules – is trickling in to the farm. A few weeks ago, Noel brought five barred rock chicks home. Gray built them a small chicken sled, which is a variation of chicken tractor but without wheels.

We use our daylight free time to watch the chicks’ evolution from little puffballs into dirt scratching, bug eating, fertilization helpers. Their first contribution to the farm is their crap, with eggs still months and months off.

Oh, and just so you know, the chicks are Bosco, Scritchy Scratch, Rufous Beaver, and Peachy Tips. One remains unnamed, but Kristin wants to call it Mike Slaton. I said it might be confusing when it comes time to put Mike Slaton in a roaster. People might get the wrong idea about us if they overheard the conversation…

Speaking of Mike, he is hoping to raise up turkeys on some adjacent land:

If you are interested in having a delicious, pastured, naturally raised, Heritage breed turkey on your table for Thanksgiving this year please consider purchasing one from me. Here is how we are going to do it:

In order to meet everyones’ demand for a turkey this year, a CSA type situation would work best. In order to help me as a farmer with the initial costs, including buying the poults, feed, structural needs, etc. These considerations and processes are starting now, because it can takes up to 7 months to raise Heritage breed turkeys to maturity. If you are interested please let me know and we can discuss the CSA process (which will more than likely be an initial $25 payment up front, and the rest being paid upon pick up or delivery). Depending on your desired weight, etc.

As of right now the breeds I am highly considering are:

Bourbon Reds (Originally bred in Bourbon County, KY. Bluegrass region in the late 1800′s)
Narragansett (Brought to America by English and European colonists in the 1600′s)
Black Spanish (Originated in Europe as a direct descendent of the Mexican turkeys carried home with explorers in the 1500′s)

Each of these varieties size up to be beautiful, heavy breasted table birds with a very rich flavor. Your interest and support in this venture will be helping to promote raising livestock sustainably, on pasture, just the way they were meant to be. While also supporting locally, environmentally responsible young farmers! Please feel encouraged to contact me with any questions about this CSA program, Heritage breeds, etc…

Mike Slaton – Sustainable Farmer – Pittsboro, NC

Last Sunday I helped Gray put in the last row of posts for the new goat fence. Floretta the goat arrived Sunday night, but the fence wasn’t finished for her arrival. It still isn’t…

Floretta is getting into her new surroundings and her new collar, eating up the tall grass and pine saplings.

She is also getting used to the dogs, which she has headbutted a few times. The dogs got the message…

View all posts by Trace →

This entry was posted in animalia, circle acres. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to A W Buckner Zoological Park and Madhouse

mike says:

February 23, 2009 at 8:18 pm

Hahaaaa! Mike Slaton in the roaster….love it…and our farming community!
Circle Acres rocks the house!!!
William says:

February 25, 2009 at 5:15 pm

“Wandering around looking at whatever” — what a great line. As a single male, I can identify with this classic single-male behavior. No wonder God said it’s not good for man to be alone! Great piece of writing.
lynn says:

March 2, 2009 at 7:53 pm

sounds like you guys are having fun! i need to come visit soon!
Hannah says:

March 3, 2009 at 4:32 pm

Wow, Floretta is gorgeous! Sounds like you have quite a crew gathering for the growing season. Spring is right around the corner . . I can smell it. Mmmmmm . . .