Visit
May 25th, 2007 by Jim VThis past Wednesday and Thursday we were blessed with around 2 inches of rain. The rain was much needed and I am very grateful God graciously sent this rain. The rain started out as some heavy thunderstorms and then progressed to a steady light rain that continued through Wednesday night. Even before the rain started and anybody heard thunder, our dog was trying to get into the house. She is not allowed in the house, but when there is thunder she gets desperate for shelter, and the barn doesn’t seem to be good enough for her. When she was trying to get into the house we figured that some nasty weather was coming. It is funny how animals can sense things like a coming thunderstorm. I suppose their better hearing enables them to hear the thunder before we can.
I have been trying to catch up with the work needed on the farm. Being gone for two weeks out of three has put me behind on a lot of fronts. Fortunately, though I was able to spend last weekend with my son at Polyface. When I arrived at Polyface last Friday night, there were 7 young men sitting at the supper table with Joel and Teresa Salatin. Two of the young men are currently apprentices, three are working at Polyface for the summer to help with chicken butchering and one was there exploring the possibility of coming to work for the summer. I spent the weekend working with these young men. All of them seem to be hard working, diligent men. Mealtimes were never dull, with lots of lively discussion. I don’t think any of these young men come from families that have a lot of land. Some of them are from families that have small acreages – like 10 acres. As I watched these young men work, I wondered how many were going to be able to start their own farms (and how many would actually want to farm full-time). I would certainly wish the best for each one since they seemed to be very competent and diligent. It was interesting to watch the adjustment to farm life that was occurring in some of them. One of them was crawling under a trailer that was placed in a field where cows recently grazed. He (Jacob) managed to crawl through a cow pie, getting it all over his pants. He was concerned about the best way to get his pants clean and was asking everyone how he should get them clean. We kinda gave him a hard time and told him that the manure had not even gone all the way through the fabric and that he should just wear them again. Since he was going to be crawling under the trailer again, I think he opted to wear them again.
At one point we got talking about Meat processing plants. Polyface uses a custom processing plant that is run by a 76 year old man. Apparently most of the workers in this processing plant are older and they don’t move too fast. But because this plant is close and because they are flexible, Polyface would be in a difficult situation if this plant was to stop operating. Polyface also uses a second USDA inspected facility, but the USDA facility is a lot less flexible than the processing plant owned by the 76 year old man. We have a similar situation in our area, where the USDA inspected plant closest to us is booked months in advance and less flexible. We have a smaller local processing plant that is very flexible, but it is run by a man who is probably thinking about slowing down. If we lose the smaller processing plants, things will get more difficult for those of us livestock producers who want to market directly to consumers or those of us who just want our own meat processed. We talked about what it would cost to purchase a small meat processing plant. The dollar amounts that were bantered about are not the sort of debt that I would want to take on at this stage of my life. During the discussion about processing plants, I asked Joel Salatin if he thought that it was worthwhile for farmers to learn how to cut meat. He responded that he wished he knew how to cut meat. He said that with the extra help they have for the summer, they might be able to arrange for some of their apprentices to learn how to cut meat. I think a stint working at a processing plant is in my son’s future …
Jim V