Blog with photos

May 24, 2008
We're too lazy to mow the lawn, so we exclusively use organic, self-fueling, not-made-in-China lawnmowers, AKA our dairy cows!
 

May 10, 2008:
Hurray!  One of our favorite annual milestones:  getting the meat chickens out of the barn and onto the pasture!  Look at all that lush green grass for them to eat!



April 15 2008:
Beautiful sunset, laying hens outside in the late afternoon light.

 
View west to the coast range....                   View north/east to the town of Yamhill.

 
Hens think about whether to lay eggs in the straw ...    late afternoon in the Coast Range.

April 2008:
My favorite flowers are daffodils because the cows and goats don't eat them!

March 31, 2008:
Chrissie fainted this morning, landed on her chin, and broke her jaw.  It took us almost two weeks to figure out that it was broken and not just bruised or dislocated, after which her jaw was wired shut for five weeks. 

March 30, 2008:
At today's Hillsdale Farmer's Market (www.hillsdalefarmersmarket.com) we will have fresh whole chickens, frozen whole rabbits, chicken stock kits, and chicken organs.  We will also have chicken eggs and duck eggs.  We do not have any cut-up chicken parts this week.  We are already taking orders for Bourbon Red heritage breed turkeys for Thanksgiving 2008 - the baby chicks will be on the ground within a couple of weeks.  (Babies for broad-breasted turkeys go on the ground in July.)  Upcoming poultry specials:  We expect to have squabs (young pigeons) for the April 13 market, and chukhar partirdges for the April 27 market.  Quails are coming in late April or early May, and we'll have one small batch of guinea hens at the beginning of July.  Lambs will be available by the half starting in May.  We are presently sold out of our lovely natural grass-fed beef but should have another animal available by mid- to late-April which can be bought in 1/8th shares.  Interested in some other poultry?  We welcome your inquiries.

March 25, 2008:
Our Jersey cows have been moved onto rapidly-growing lush pasture, and we are all tasting the difference in the milk.  Unfortunately, it doesn't start as a good difference!  Cows which just eat lush-growing grass pasture actually produce milk with an off-flavor.  An annual phenomenon is that when the cows' diet changes from dry hays in winter to lush grass pasture in spring, (and again in the fall when the diet changes back from lush grass to dry hay), the enzymes and other flora and fauna in the cow's rumen have to adjust to the change in diet. During the one-to-two-week adjustment, milk is famous for having off flavors which can vary significantly day-to-day. This is a normal part of the annual milk cycle. We anticipate that within two weeks at most, the cows' digestion will settle down and the milk will once again be sweet and mild.  We apologize for any inconvenience, but this is real nature at work here.  You can read about this on Claravale Dairy's website as well:  http://claravaledairy.com/faq.html

March 1, 2008:  Subsidized farming is not what you think.  Read this op-ed piece by Jack Hedin, an organic vegetable farmer from Minnesota, and be amazed by our ridiculous laws...  (by the way, Kookoolan Farms receives no government subsidies and we do not politically agree with subsidized agriculture).  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hedin.html?_r=1&ex=1205298000&en=3e157aac557a11db&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

Feb 12, 2008:  Green chicken is safe to eat!

A customer emailed us today that her roasting chicken had an area in the breast meat that was "leaf green, but otherwise normal in texture, odor, and appearance."  This is a phenomenon known as "green muscle disease."  You can easily search on Google for "  "green muscle disease" + poultry  " to find out more about it, but basically it's a lack of oxygen to the pectoral muscle, always occuring in the deep layer of breast meat near the breast bone, caused by the combination of large size and the chicken getting lots of exercise.  It rarely occurs in commodity chickens because they are typically grown to smaller sizes and are raised in comfinement.  It also only occurs in large-breasted hybrid varieties of chicken and turkeys - never in slower-growing, single-breasted, heirloom poultry varieties.  Kookoolan Farms will always replace your chicken at no charge if this occurs in your bird, but please be assured that such meat is perfectly safe to eat - both the "normal" parts and even the green part.  To date we have brought to market a lifetime total of about 5,000 birds, and this problem has been reported to us exactly four times.  Here is a picture of green muscle disease that another customer emailed to us in 2007.



February 11, 2008:  Our first goat kid was born Saturday evening, February 9th, while we were packaging chickens for market the next day.  (This was also the first evening this spring for hearing frog songs from the creek.)  She's a lovely little doeling with a white start on her forehead (like her mother) and a brown coat (like her father).  Unfortunately for her, her young mother rejected her, and so "Starla" has moved into our 7-year-old's bedroom.  Liam says "This is the best thing that has ever happened to me," and "thank you for letting me sleep with the little goat, Mommy."  He wakes up twice during the night to give her a bottle, and still goes to first grade in the morning.