And the winner is . . .

Momanna98 is the winner of the soap giveaway. Drop me an email, deborah (at) Antiquity Oaks (dot) com, with your address and whether you want the animals or the Christmas soaps. Also let me know if you need unscented, or if a variety of scents is okay.

Thanks to everyone for your comments. It really helps me to figure out what to blog about. Sometimes I write about things, thinking that no one really wants to hear about this, and then I'm really surprised by the comments and the number of visitors to that post. Who knew that people were so interested in pigs and nuts or the relationship between pigs and chickens? It was especially nice hearing from those of you who don't comment often, so I have a better idea of what you like to read. Thanks again to all of you!

Our first cria: here and gone

Saturday morning I was dressed up and ready to leave for my nephew's birthday party when Jonathan walked in and said that he had found what looked like half of a dead baby llama. What? How? We only have one female llama, and she shouldn't be having a cria until next April, since llamas have an 11-month pregnancy. We bought her in May, and she was not supposed to be bred. I pulled on my farm boots and coat, hoping I had completely covered my clean clothes.

Everyone ran outside and through the barn and to the far pasture where we saw Sovalye, the livestock guardian dog, standing over something in the grass. We smelled the cria about the same time we saw it. Clearly it had been dead for quite some time. It smelled like rotten meat, and Sovalye was very interested in it. We had no idea whether it was a boy or a girl, because the back half of it was completely missing. We knew Sovalye was not to blame, because he had not been in that pasture for weeks. It was hard for us to believe the llamas would have let coyotes in the pasture to eat their young one, even if it was dead.

Only one thing now made sense to me -- now I understood why Katy looked thin when I was in the pasture a week and a half earlier. Two Wednesdays ago, I was taking pictures of all the animals with the fall foliage. When I saw Katy, I thought she looked thin, but when I compared her to the other llamas, I couldn't say why. When I downloaded the pictures to the computer, I had to say that she looked like a perfectly normal llama. Now I realize that she must have recently given birth, which was why she looked "thin" to me.

I contacted the breeder we bought her from, and she said that another llama had unexpectedly given birth two weeks earlier. She concluded that one of the boys in their mama-baby pasture had reached sexual maturity a little early and got the two pregnant. Luckily their baby survived. We will probably never know why ours died. Perhaps the mama gave birth in the rain, and the baby died from hypothermia. That's about the only thing that makes sense to me. Considering how many other animals the llamas have saved from coyote attacks, I have to believe that they would have protected their own young one.

Holidays, blogging, eating, and soap

If you live in the U.S., today isn't just Halloween, it's the beginning of the crazy holiday season. For the next two months, we'll be thinking about food and parties and food and gifts and food. Did I mention that we tend to eat a lot of food in the last two months of the year? As you know, I love food. I'm starting to think about what I want to bake for the holiday season this year. So, you'll be seeing a lot of food posts in the next couple months.

But before we bid adieu to October, I thought it would be fun to have a little give-away. If you'd like to have three bars of my goat milk soap, just leave a comment letting me know which October post was your favorite -- or what you missed and want to hear more about. And I'll try to keep that in mind and not talk too much about food in the next couple months. I'll choose the winner randomly, and you can choose either the animal soaps or the Christmas soaps. Let me know if you need unscented. Otherwise, it will be a mix of fragrances. And be sure to leave your comment by midnight U.S. central time Monday. I'll announce the winner Tuesday on the blog, so be sure to check back and see if you won.

I make square bars of soap for most of the year, but at holiday time, I make some pretty soap in molds, mostly for gifts. If you were thinking of buying some of my soap for gifts this year, and it's more than a few bars, be sure to place your order by mid-November. If I have to make more soap to fill your order, it has to dry for a month before it's good to use. You can place your order through my website, and don't hesitate to email if you have questions. There's an email link on the Ordering page.

Yes, pigs are omnivores

Trust me, you don't want pictures with today's post.

I always think that I want to know everything -- and I really mean everything! But every now and then I learn something first hand, and I think, you know, it was really okay not knowing that. Such was the case of the pigs and the chicken.

Before I ever thought about getting pigs, a neighbor said to me, "You don't want pigs. They'll kill your chickens." I didn't think much of it at the time, because I didn't want pigs. We'd been vegetarians for 14 years, and I was perfectly happy with my goat cheese and fresh eggs. But after we ate a chicken and then a steer, I started to think about bacon. Well, there's only one way to get bacon -- pigs.

So, I searched all over Illinois for Tamworth piglets that weren't vaccinated and drugged up, and I found a farmer two hours away with weaners to sell -- that's what they call feeder pigs that are weaned and ready to be "finished." Geez, it's nearly impossible to explain this without a bunch of jargon. Okay, I bought two piglets that had just been weaned from their mother. And that's how we got into hogs.

Anyway, our first pigs were practically perfect in every way -- even by human standards. Looking back on it, they weren't very piggy. They didn't root up their yard. They ate the grass. They were even so sweet tempered, I hated sending them down south. I wasn't even sure that I would ever want to raise pigs again, because it was tough at the end to send them away. But then the meat arrived, and it was delicious. The chili reminded me of the what I ate at the local Mexican food restaurant where I grew up, not too far from Mexico. So, we did pigs again.

Each batch had its challenges, but just when you think you've got something figured out, life throws you a curve ball. Of course, that was my mistake -- thinking that we had this pig thing all figured out after five years! So, two days ago, Jonathan comes in and says, "Mom, I think the pigs killed a chicken."

"What? Why?"

"One of them is running around with a chicken foot in its mouth."

Okay, as horrified as I was at the thought that they'd killed a chicken, I was even more disturbed to think that a chicken was flapping around out there with only one foot. If he'd told me he saw a dead chicken, I'd have been content to live with his report. But I didn't want some poor bird out there suffering, so I pulled on my coat and went to see what I could see. It wasn't pretty. The chicken was quite dead and not resembling any chicken that I'd ever seen before.

But, why? Why did they kill her? I've always thought that if I kept my animals happy, they wouldn't do things like that. Well, the roosters were the first to prove to me that I could not make them happy. No, the only way a rooster is happy is if he has about 15 or 20 hens all to himself. Then he's happy. If there are too many roosters -- therefore not enough hens -- the boys start killing each other. Why can't they just get along like the hens do? But I digress . . .

Okay, back to the pigs. We've raised a dozen pigs now, and not one of them has even looked at a chicken cross-eyed. The chickens, being free-range, can go into the pig pen whenever they want. Normally, they even eat corn along with the pigs. So, I just don't understand why these pigs would decide they want chicken for breakfast one day. I'm leaning more towards the idea that they did it for sport, since their feeder had plenty of food in it, and they didn't even eat most of the chicken. I hate wasting food.

Just when I was thinking that maybe we'd try raising a gilt (girl pig) again and have babies -- I'm reminded of our one and only experience with that, and it wasn't pretty. Maybe we should just stick with getting weaners every summer and finishing them in the late fall or early winter. Having pigs for six months a year is challenging enough.

Stop the insanity!

I'm borrowing today's title from a 1993 anti-weight-loss book about weight loss, an industry that has always been about extremes. I'm sad to see there is a segment of sustainability heading in that direction. According to Publisher's Lunch, we will soon be able to read

W. Hodding Carter's WITHIN OUR MEANS, in which the author and his family of six aims to live on their actual yearly income instead of the more than three times that amount they have been, growing their own food, raising chickens and goats, hunting and fishing, converting their car so that it runs on French fry oil, chopping wood to fuel a stove and giving up luxuries like coffee, wine and processed foods . . . .

Of course, we all know that we only have two choices -- a life of total excess or complete deprivation, where we can't even have a cup of coffee. Seriously . . .

Okay, in case you want to know more about the author, here is his announcement to the world from February about his great plan to spend a year living within his budget. I am not at all against living within your means, but it doesn't have to be about deprivation and killing your own supper. People living in the suburbs and cities are perfectly capable of living within their means. It actually costs us more to raise our own chicken and turkey than it would to buy it at the store, especially when they're having those loss-leader sales for 59 cent a pound turkey in November. Last time I ran the numbers several years ago, it was costing us about $3 a pound for our turkey -- but we're not doing it to be thrifty.

It is also not cheaper to have chickens for eggs. You really can't compete with factory egg production. Carter says the kids will be able to sell extra eggs and keep the profit. If he sticks with that plan, it's going to be a long time before those kids see any money. Pullets cost about $2 each X 25 = $50 + $15 shipping = $65. Feed is around $10-15 a bag, and the chickens will go through six to ten bags (depending on how much access the chickens have to the outdoors) before they even lay their first egg. And if they got their pullets in the spring, they won't get many eggs at all that first year. Again, we don't have chickens because it's cheap; we have them because I won't eat factory-farmed eggs. Even before we moved out here, we bought eggs from a small farm near us where the chickens ran around freely.

So, I've read a few of his posts. He writes well, of course. He is blogging for Gourmet. His posts are interesting. I'm just annoyed at the way this is presented. And why are so many people being presented as celebrities and experts after doing something for one year? And why does it have to be so extreme? Someone just told me about No Impact Man, the book and the movie. Colin Beavan decides to live a life of total deprivation in New York City, dragging his wife and toddler along for the ride. According to the film's website:

It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.

I am completely in favor of reducing the amount of energy we use. We keep the thermostat at 63 F in the winter to save energy, not because my husband loves the feel of my icicle nose against his cheek. But a lot of these extreme actions are meaningless. Fine, he turns off his refrigerator, but I'm sure he's buying some foods that have been in someone's refrigerator. And my refrigerator is the thing that allows us to not eat out as much as most Americans. It doesn't take any additional energy to make bigger servings at dinner, and then I can save the leftovers for my husband and daughter to take to work and school the next day. If you don't have electric lights, you're using oil lamps and candles, and I have a hard time believing that's better -- especially if you're not vigilant enough to get non-toxic candles and oil.

But I digress. My point is that no one takes these things seriously, which is sad. We all lose, because people look at this type of thing as a publicity stunt. It's just a gimmick to make money, write a book, or produce a movie. It's not the way real people live. They've lost the opportunity to educate people about important issues. These two men are being paid to live an outrageous life for one year. It has nothing to do with promoting sustainability or frugality, and it has everything to do with the voyeurism to which Americans seem to be addicted. Someone in publishing once told me that books follow television, so it shouldn't be surprising that after a decade-long diet of reality TV shows, we're seeing books in the same genre. Supersize Me had some great information in it, but I knew very few people who would even consider watching it. Most people just said it was stupid and unrealistic. No doubt people will respond to these two books the same way, even though they probably have some good information hidden beneath the manure and the glitter.

Foodies have a song!

Someone once said that to have a movement, you have to have a song. Well, now we have our song! About a week ago, I heard Million Dollar Nile's, "What You Don't Know," a song that basically sums up everything people need to know about their food -- and what's behind the subversive eating movement. The song talks about corn -- how it's in pretty much every processed food in the supermarket, how it's fed to livestock that can't digest it, how sugar and fat are subsidized by the government (through corn), and how it's leading to all kinds of medical problems.

I got so excited about the song, I played it for everyone in the family, and then I thought, why stop there? And besides that, we had a few questions that I really wanted to know the answer to -- and I thought that you, my real-food-loving readers, would love the song and want to know more about the band that came up with this amazing idea!

Band members Matt Swanson, Dan Stonington, and Nicole Comforto agreed to be my guests on Antiquity Oaks today, so in addition to answering my questions below, they're graciously agreed to drop in a few times in the next 24 hours to answer your questions!

Deborah: What inspired you to write this song? Have you read Michael Pollan's books or seen "King Corn"?

Matt: During the summer of '08 my wife and I spent two weeks kayaking in Glacier Bay, Alaska. After long days of paddling through the wilderness, we would kick back on the beach, cook a leisurely dinner, and read out loud. The book of choice was Michael Pollan's “The Omnivore's Dilemma.” In packing meals for the expedition, we had of course been concerned largely with weight, bulk, and cost, and thus had ended up with a disproportionate number of dried soup and stew mixes made by Bear Creek and the like. So as Michael Pollan launched into a critique of the industrial food system, one of us would follow along on the breathtaking lists of ingredients that adorned our discarded 'food' packaging. It was a horrifying experience--there were regular shouts of disbelief as Michael revealed yet another disturbing secret of the food industry. Each progressive ‘Progresso’ meal became harder to stomach, and the unbelievable dichotomy of pristine wilderness mixed with the daily ingesting of polysyllabic corn derivatives made a deep imprint in both of our minds. The song “What You Don’t Know” shortly followed our return home from this trip.

Deborah: That's so exciting that Omnivore's Dilemma made such a difference in your life! You mention a lot of health conditions in the song that are caused by a modern diet. Did any of you have health issues that served as a wake-up call?

Matt: I think we’re all fortunate to be young and relatively healthy, but just looking around it’s hard to miss the manifestations of our national eating disorder (as Pollan coins it). Obesity is the most obvious and prevalent affliction. One line of the song goes: “We’ve got diabetes and we’re chronically obese, from all this high fructose and all this subsidized grease.” I think this gets to the heart of the matter. By subsidizing the corn and soy industries so heavily, we’re driven to astonishingly low prices on such ingredients as high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil. Soda, fast food and other such low cost/high calorie foods are a logical outgrowth of such subsidies. The people who truly depend on such cheap options are in the low-income bracket, where obesity is most rampant. Thus, this becomes an issue of social justice, and I believe that what is happening is wrong.

Deborah: You have a long list of multi-syllabic ingredients that are in food. Are they all derivatives of corn? Did it all come from a particular label, or did you just pick a few random ingredients?

Matt: They are indeed all derivatives of corn which I tracked down on a corn allergy website. On it a woman by the name of Jenny Connors has assembled an extensive list of ingredients to be avoided by those with corn allergies. From this huge list, one can assemble most of the packaged food products sold in the supermarket.

Deborah: How has the song been received? Do people know what you're talking about? Do they care?

Matt: The song has been quite well received, and we often hear people referring fondly to “the corn song”. With the explosion of farmer’s markets and local, organic producers, this has been a really hot topic, and I think people appreciate our humorous portrayal of what can be an overwhelming and disturbing issue. In fact Michael Pollan himself came across this song and featured it recently in his newsletter.

So yes, I do think people know what we’re talking about, and they care deeply. We may be preaching to the choir at this point with our progressive-minded fans, but we’re hoping to broaden our audience and extend this message to more and more folks. In fact, to expedite this process, we are donating all the proceeds from our CD to non-profits focusing on sustainability. Here’s how it works: Anyone can go to our website, buy our CD for $10, and then nominate an organization that they think should receive the money. We’re hoping to start a ripple effect with this, so that lots of people get to enjoy our music and we get to donate a sizeable sum to a good cause. It’s a win-win (especially since we all have day jobs) so help us spread the word!

Deborah: Gladly! What's your diet like? Any tips for people attempting to navigate the food jungle and eat healthier?

Dan: Grow your own! One of my favorite lines from Matt's song is "if you really like organic then don't make it transatlantic" - so true. This summer for the first time in several years, I had a housemate with an avid green thumb. Nothing quite beats the convenience, health, and deliciousness of coming home after a busy day, being hungry, and needing to only skip into the backyard for a head of lettuce, a tomato, some kale, and strawberries. Add a bit of goat cheese and dressing and you're set for a fresh dinner salad.

Matt: I second that completely. The summer after our fateful kayaking adventure, we turned every inch of our backyard into a garden, and we’re still harvesting mountains of produce from it. I like Michael Pollan’s distinction between industrial organic and small scale producers. We’re often faced with the dilemna of buying organic produce from some mega farm in California versus non-certified produce from uncle joe’s farm down the street. I’m a big fan of local. Also as you move up the food chain it gets even dicier. Terms like cage-free and free-range can be really misleading, as it really means ‘access to a tiny plot of daylight that animal never really goes to’: I say if you can find a local livestock producer and have them slaughter an animal for you, then stick it in the freezer, that’s the way to go for meat eaters. And why not get your own chickens for eggs?

Nicole: I was lucky enough to be raised by a vegetarian health-nut father. I didn't appreciate his insistence on carrots instead of candy bars until I was in college and realized one day that junk food had no appeal to me. Since then I think I've found a good balance between eating healthily while also enjoying the occasional indulgence. I think that the first step to eating well is to find a regular source of good local produce (whether it be your garden, a farmer's market, or a produce delivery service) and then start experimenting with new produce. Soon you'll find new dishes that you love and start carving healthier foods.

Deborah: What's your favorite healthy food or meal?

Nicole: There are so many to choose from! Lately if I'm in the mood for something quick and healthy I'll saute up whatever vegetables I have around with cashews, organic chicken or tofu, a little sweet chili sauce and spices, and serve them mixed in with rice noodles.

Matt: My favorite breakfast: Homegrown red potatoes, sautéed up with fresh green onion, and garlic from the garden, served with eggs from backyard hens, and topped with salsa from garden tomatoes and chilis. Okay, I’m drooling now…

I'm drooling now, too! Okay, while I'm cleaning off my keyboard, you can listen to Million Dollar Nile's song. Just click below:



And remember, if any of you have questions for Seattle's greenest bluegrass band, just give 'em a holler in the comment section.

For more posts on real food, check out Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday!

Sick lambs

While we were separating the sheep into their respective pens Friday, I realized that two of the lambs had poopy butts. I was puzzled. In six years, none of my lambs has ever had diarrhea. "Usually, diarrhea in goat kids means coccidia," I explained to Mike, "but I can't imagine where the lambs would have gotten it." Then it clicked.

I am not that old, and I have absolutely no symptoms of menopause, except for this one little thing. Now if only I could remember what it was. Hmm . . . oh, yeah! My memory has been terrible the last few months! What was I talking about? Oh, right, lambs with diarrhea. I checked my records and realized I had made an incredibly huge, stupid, possibly life-threatening mistake. The sheep had just spent three days in an area where bucklings had been pastured only three weeks earlier -- bucklings who were moved to the barn to be treated for coccidia!

I thought they had been off that grass for at least a month or six weeks. I guess time flies around here. We practice rotational grazing to keep internal parasite loads down, but my stupid mistake did just the opposite. Three weeks is the absolute worst time to move animals into an area, because that's how long it takes internal parasites to hatch, so there was a brand new batch of parasites just hanging out on the grass waiting for a ruminant to come along and eat them. (They're microscopic, which is why we can't see them, and they don't get chewed up.)

In addition, coccidia is a single-cell organism that causes diarrhea and then death by dehydration, if not treated. No one has even really given me a good number on how long it takes coccidia to be eradicated from pasture, so I really should not have put any sheep or goats on that grass again until next year. How could something so simple and obvious escape me?

Mike and I picked up the two lambs, which were not hard to catch as they were laying in the shelter. Mike took the little ewe because she was older and heavier. I took the little ram, who is two months old. He didn't feel too heavy as we headed towards the barn. About 100 yards later, I leaned against a dog house to catch my breath. At least every minute the little ram seemed to feel some obligation to kick as if he were trying to escape. My panting and gasping sounded like a marathon runner at the finish line as we finally reached the barn five minutes later. I can't believe I used to carry around a wiggly, 15-pound baby all day, but the last time I did that was 16 years ago, so I guess I'm out of practice.

The good news is that we have not noticed any other sheep with poopy butts, and these two seem to be on the mend. After the first day of medication, they were pooping little logs, and yesterday they were pooping pebbles again. Today will be their last day of medication, and they can rejoin the flock.

And I just realized that little ewe needs a name. Her mother is Ophelia, so I was thinking something else from Shakespeare. Any suggestions? Life doesn't seem to be very good for her so far. In addition to getting coccidiosis, she also ripped out her ear tag, so it looks like she has a double ear.

Rams will be rams

After Mike got home from dropping off the two sheep at the processor Friday morning, we all headed back to the pasture to take care of more sheep business. First, we had to separate the rams from the ewes. Yeah, I know we're about a month late. We haven't seen any ewes in heat yet, but that doesn't mean much. To make sure we know what we don't know, we're keeping the ewes separate from the rams for at least two weeks. In other words, if any ewe gives birth five months from now or sooner, we'll know that we have no idea who sired the lambs. At least, we're hoping we can keep them separate. We had so many accidental breedings last year in spite of our best efforts. If a ram senses a ewe in heat, it sometimes feels futile to even attempt to keep them apart.

We have livestock panels as gates between the two pens, and knowing that a ram can bust through not only one, but TWO, we've added some reinforcements. We put a four-by-four post across one, and we put an old metal t-post across another. We knew just where to put it, thanks to Teddy. As soon as we locked the gate behind him, he rammed it with his head, so that's where we put the t-post. He hit it once, and I guess it didn't feel too good, or he realized it would be a losing battle. In any case, he started hitting the gate below the t-post. I don't think he'll make any progress because he can't seem to get up much steam before hitting something that low.

I am happy to report that the boys and girls are still in their respective pens, although Teddy is not a happy ram. He pretty much spends his time pacing the fenceline, looking for a weak spot. He doesn't seem to care that he has the company of two other rams. In fact, he's downright nasty to them and rebuffs their attempts to socialize. I remember clearly from last year, when we tried to keep him apart from the girls, he took out his sexual frustrations on me. After four years of being my sweet Teddy Bear, he had a go at me and gave me a couple of nasty bruises on the kneecaps, so I will not be turning my back on him again!

Hickory nuts, acorns and pigs

When Jonathan went to collect acorns from the big oak tree in the front yard earlier this week, he came back with an empty bucket. Between us and the squirrels, they are all gone. We do have other oak trees, but they're out in the pastures. We'll have to start collecting those now, but I'm amazed and impressed that the pigs have been feasting on acorns for a few weeks already. They've also been getting some corn, but the acorns have definitely cut down on the feed bill, and we have several large bags saved to ration out over the rest of the fall.

We also have a couple of hickory trees in our front yard, and I looked around the ground to see if I could find some hickory nuts for the pigs, since they are also a good source of nutrition. Unfortunately, I only found about a dozen. Shagbark hickory trees are on Slow Food's Arc of Taste, and the nuts are very tasty, although small, which is why they'll never be a big commercial product in this country. None of our hickory trees look all that healthy though, so I also wonder if they are just not very hardy.

Moment of serendipity: I'd never heard of mast-finished pork until this summer, and then a couple days ago, I received my newsletter from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving heritage breeds of livestock that are in danger of extinction. (They're the big reason we moved out here!) Anyway, right here on page 5 is the cutest litter of piglets, and the caption says,

The characteristics of the Tamworth reflect the breed's centuries of selection for an outdoor life. Pigs of this breed were expected to find their own food, especially mast (or acorns) of oak and beech forests. Long heads and impressive snouts enable these pigs to be efficient foragers. Long, strong legs and sound feet give Tamworth pigs the ability to walk for considerable distances.

Our Tamworth pigs are pictured above, eating acorns.

The lamb who lived

It was a busy, blustery morning Friday. First, we had to catch a ram and two wethers to take to the processor. Since we're trying to keep our flock around 20 sheep, we butcher wethers as yearlings. And we finally decided that it was time to call it quits for Albus, a ram with horns that have been trying to grow into his skull, well, forever.

He was a year old the first time we cut off a couple inches from the end of one horn that was headed towards his jaw. We cut off a couple more inches the second and third year. Then last year, his other horn became problematic. This year at shearing, we couldn't fit a finger between his horns and head, so the decision was made to butcher him after his fleece had grown out enough to make a nice pelt.

A lot of shepherds would have butchered him as soon as they realized his horns were going bad. After all, that's not the type of genetics you want to pass on. We were still new to sheep and homesteading when we first faced the problem with Albus, so the idea of butchering him was something that we were not quite comfortable with yet. But each year, the horns grew thicker and closer to his head, and the job of cutting them off with a saw became more difficult and a little scarier. Cut too far into the horn, and you hit blood vessels. And it's a little nerve wracking to use a saw near an animal's eyes.

Even though I felt comfortable with the decision to send him down south, I found myself choking up as Mike put him in the trailer. Perhaps to make myself feel a little better, I gave him some hay for the trip.

As I looked at the gray wether in the pasture, I noticed his wool was parted down his spine. That happens when it rains. And I saw the most beautiful silvery blue fiber. We only have two gray sheep in our flock, one that is much darker and one that is much lighter. After Mike and Jonathan caught the black wether and put him in the trailer, they asked me which other yearling was going. Whether I was feeling a little guilty about Albus, or whether I was so seduced by the gray wether's gorgeous fiber, I said, "That's it. I changed my mind about the other one. Just take those two."

Pictured above is the wether who now needs a name. Maybe Lucky?

Let's talk turkey

I've been sitting here with my roasted turkey breast, gravy, baked sweet potato, and hot, crispy bread, trying to figure out what to write about for Fight Back Friday. I haven't baked anything lately, other than bread, and I shared that last week. I am not going to talk about the fact that my son made chocolate chip cookies a couple days ago, although it is very rewarding to teach your children to cook. And although I've been thinking about starting my holiday baking, I haven't started yet. What could I possibly write about?

Sigh. Hold on while I grab another piece of this heritage turkey breast. It is really delicious. Seriously, it is way better than the broad-breasted turkeys that we raise. Holy smokes! This is the most delicious turkey I've eaten in years. Hmm. That sounds familiar. Oh yeah, John from Milwaukee said the same thing to me a couple years ago after he bought one of our heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving. Even though we raise heritage turkeys, I haven't had one in a couple of months, because last year we raised a few broad-breasted for customers who wanted naturally raised turkeys, but they wanted one in the 20-25-pound range, and our heritage turkeys just don't get much bigger than about 16 pounds. We did have an 18-pounder once, but I'm not making any promises based on an Arnold Schwartzeturkey. But I digress. The last couple turkeys we had were broad breasted. The big boys are good, but they just don't compare to the flavor of a heritage turkey. We are only raising heritage turkeys this year, a decision that makes me very happy as I savor the amazing flavor of this turkey.

So, what exactly is a heritage turkey? Well, it's a turkey that can fly and mate naturally. Yes, I am saying that supermarket turkeys cannot fly, and they cannot mate naturally. (If you want me to be blunt, yes, they are all the product of artificial insemination.) Big Ag has developed a turkey with a breast so large that it can't lift its body off the ground to fly like a real bird. And its breast is so big, the male can't get close enough to the female to breed. Talk about unsustainable agriculture. These birds would be extinct in one generation without the help of humans to reproduce. Since they're big and lumbering, they also can't protect themselves from predators. It's all about $$$. Americans like white meat, so Big Ag is just giving the people what they want -- more breast meat. As one man said, "Who cares about turkeys' sex life," when I told him about the origin of supermarket turkeys.

Heritage turkeys also happen to come in a rainbow of beautiful colors, but that's just gravy. Supermarket birds are all white, because you can't see any pin feathers that might break off under the skin. If a feather breaks off under the skin of a black turkey or a bronze turkey, it looks dirty, and American consumers can't handle it. Between you and me, if you ever were to get a heritage turkey, and it happened to have a feather or two under the skin, just take your tweezers and pull it out as if it were growing on your eyebrow.

But color does not make a heritage turkey. There are broad-breasted bronze turkeys; and there are midget white turkeys and white Holland turkeys, which are heritage breeds. The white heritage turkeys are really small though, which is why we've never raised them. Every now and then I see a small farmer advertising broad-breasted bronze as a heritage turkey, and that just ain't so. There is also a standard bronze turkey, so some people could be honestly mistaken about what they're raising. Although there is not a legal definition of heritage turkey, the American Livestock Breed Conservancy has defined heritage by the above criteria -- can fly and can mate naturally. Those big boys can't fly or mate naturally, regardless of what color their feathers are.

Okay, I am trying to resist the urge to slurp up this gravy. It looks like cream cheese frosting and is so tasty! I made it with the pan drippings and flour and goat milk -- that's it! I think this turkey might be especially tasty because he was a year old. He was hatched last summer and was much too small for Thanksgiving. We should have butchered him for Easter, but we didn't get around to it until summer. We took all four of those boys to Arthur and had the Amish do it for us. The sad thing about those supermarket turkeys is that they're practically babies. A 10-pound turkey in the supermarket is probably 2-3 months old, and a bird just does not develop any flavor in that short amount of time. It's the same thing with the chickens, but that's a post for another day.

You do have to know a little about cooking to deal with a year-old bird. You can't just roast the whole thing or you will do some serious dental damage trying to eat a drumstick. You can roast the breast, but the legs and thighs will need to be cooked in simmering hot water for a few hours. I only cooked the breast tonight. I'll do the legs and thighs in a couple days for casseroles and soups. One of the things that people love about heritage turkeys is the dark meat. People just rave about the dark meat. Even I like the dark meat. It's the color of milk chocolate, so maybe that has some mental effect on me?

So, what am I going to post for Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday? Turkeys? Nah. There's nothing to it. A spring-hatched turkey roasts up beautifully for Thanksgiving. I just pop it in the oven at 300 degrees until the internal temperature is about 160, and then I make the gravy by whisking together the dripping and flour (equal amounts), turn up the heat in the skillet and add milk until it reaches the consistency I want. (I like it pretty thick.) But this is hardly cooking at all. Tonight I baked some sweet potatoes and a loaf of that bread I mentioned last week. Even the "undomestic goddess" could handle this.

If you'd like to get a heritage turkey for Thanksgiving, it might be too late for this year, but you can always call farmers in your area. I'd suggest that you check out the list from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. They have a PDF on their homepage that you can download. I used to recommend Local Harvest but can't do that until they clean up an issue with the pictures some of their producers are using. I contacted them a couple months ago to complain that some people say they're selling heritage turkeys, but the pictures are clearly broad-breasted. The pictures are still there, which is very frustrating. A heritage turkey does not look like Dolly Parton, regardless of how you raise it. The breast bone is at least visible in the center of the breast of a heritage turkey; usually it's more prominent than the meat. And if they claim to have heritage turkeys over 20 pounds, I'm going to be asking a lot of questions.

I'm not even getting into the whole "free range" issue. (I can't believe some people call birds free range when they spend their whole life in a building.) That's a huge benefit of buying local -- you can visit the farm and see how the turkeys are raised. That's the simplest advice I have for you on that issue.

Well, look at the time. I've gone on and on about heritage turkeys and still don't have any kind of recipe for Food Renegade. Well, if you head on over to Fight Back Friday, I'm sure you'll find plenty of recipes and food chat from other bloggers.