Farm To Fork Wyoming Series Premiere
Don't miss the premiere episode of Wyoming PBS's Farm to Fork at 7pm on Tuesday May 14th! This half hour feature explores some of the surprising bounty harvested from Wyoming's "Zone 4" landscape. Join producer Stefani Smith on a trip to Hadderlie Farms of Star Valley to meet owner/producer Curtis Hadderlie. You'll learn a little about the valley's agricultural past and what makes a farmer rethink the conventional approach to food production in Wyoming. From Star Valley, we'll follow the harvest of Curtis' farm into the kitchen of the Teton Village Four Seasons Resort Hotel. We'll meet Executive Chef Michael Goralski and Sous-Chef Erik Sakai to learn about their inspired farmer/food connection as we see the bounty delivered to plate!
This episode of Farm to Fork is the first in a series that will cross Wyoming to learn about this burgeoning "direct to market" economy. We'll meet eclectic thinkers and ingenious ranchers, growers and herders, learn from experts around the state about food and agricultural trends, and meet local chefs and market places where this bounty is shared.
View more information and a preview of Farm To Fork Wyoming here.
Don't miss the premiere episode of Wyoming PBS's Farm to Fork at 7pm on Tuesday May 14th! This half hour feature explores some of the surprising bounty harvested from Wyoming's "Zone 4" landscape. Join producer Stefani Smith on a trip to Hadderlie Farms of Star Valley to meet owner/producer Curtis Hadderlie. You'll learn a little about the valley's agricultural past and what makes a farmer rethink the conventional approach to food production in Wyoming. From Star Valley, we'll follow the harvest of Curtis' farm into the kitchen of the Teton Village Four Seasons Resort Hotel. We'll meet Executive Chef Michael Goralski and Sous-Chef Erik Sakai to learn about their inspired farmer/food connection as we see the bounty delivered to plate!
This episode of Farm to Fork is the first in a series that will cross Wyoming to learn about this burgeoning "direct to market" economy. We'll meet eclectic thinkers and ingenious ranchers, growers and herders, learn from experts around the state about food and agricultural trends, and meet local chefs and market places where this bounty is shared.
View more information and a preview of Farm To Fork Wyoming here.
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NEWS FROM THE LOCAL FOOD FRONT – 20 APR 2013
Farmer Steve and the Magic Milking Machine When DeeAnn, my lovely wife, and I settled down on this worn out farm, she began her search for a milk cow. DeeAnn, being from Wisconsin, couldn’t imagine a farm without a spindly legged, fat Jersey, or a statuesque Brown Swiss grazing somewhere off her back porch. With big bells hanging from their necks, clanking peacefully away as they slowly and contentedly wrapped their tongues around bunches of grass here and flower petals there, they would provide the essential ingredient for cheese; cheese which provides Wisconsin folks their essential reason for being. Me, I was not sold on the idea of milk cows. My dad, who had visited a farm once when he was growing up in Tacoma, had instilled in me a zest for life and fun, living in the moment, spontaneity. This was definitely not the lifestyle of a dairyman as far as I could tell, and there were folks who would back me on this. I once heard that in some religions there were three stages of hell. For those people who were bad but redeemable, purgatory was an option. There was standard issue Hell, of course, where they sent the usual bad lot. And for those guys who were really bad, well they were sent to work for eternity on a dairy farm. Dairying was not for me, this I knew and it was clear I needed to put my foot down. And I did! Three months later DeeAnn brought home a milk cow. I’ve helped DeeAnn milk her Jersey, Donalac, now for some four years. It can be a long 20 minutes at 6 PM when the winter sun had long ago dipped below the horizon leaving the mercury to settle down in those nether regions of the thermometer. Donning 25 pounds of clothing and making the 50 yard trek across the dark frozen barnyard can be a drag, but it’s far from being an interminable chore. In fact, I was getting quite used to it all. Then, DeeAnn brought home a second milk cow and I began wondering if I might have been a real jerk in my prior life. I found myself contemplating that abstract concept we call “eternity”, except it was becoming less abstract with each passing day. This second cow was no Donalac the Jersey. This was a big Brown Swiss with bags the size of watermelons. Her name became Poppy (named after the flower) and she was a sweetheart, but…well, allow me to tell the story, a story that would be a Groundhog Day event for me for well over a month: Twice a day I led Poppy into the milking parlor (that’s a euphemism for the used skid structure that we drug into the corral) and she went willingly. After all, there was hay in the manger and a bit of grain as well. I washed her business parts, I dried her business parts, and then I started the milking. With each hand I firmly grabbed a teat. I gave each teat a good solid squeeze and slow tug, alternating from port to starboard as I had been trained. I am of average strength, but Poppy’s teats were designed, apparently, for somebody built more like Arnold S. I gave it all I got and with that first tug a single drip of milk was produced. Bink, it echoed from the bottom of the pail. After a few more pulls, several drops were produced. Just this side of five minutes, a thin film of white liquid spread over the bottom of the stainless steel milk pail, and several gallons remained locked up in storage somewhere in those magnificent udders. Fifteen minutes having passed, Poppy and I had transferred maybe a quart and a half from her to the pail with maybe eight or ten more quarts to go. Thirty minutes and I could clearly feel the early onset of carpal tunnel and wiped the tears gathering in my eyes. It wouldn’t be long now. Poppy is a big animal and can eat a prodigious amount of grass, maybe 50 pounds a day, and that stuff moves through fast. It was inevitable, as the milking slowly drug on, that we would have an “event” in the milk parlor; the questions were when and whether I would receive any prior notice. So, with one eye on her udders, one eye on her tail, beads of sweat forming on my brow, my forearms reduced to noodles, my hands in searing pain, NPR having yet another stinking fund drive, I pressed forward into eternity: Morning milking, evening milking in a never ending circle. Then DeeAnn and I had the conversation; probably the same conversation that spouses on farms all around the country eventually have. It went something like this, “Baby, you better find yourself a milk machine and pronto, my humor is slipping and I’m seriously considering an apartment in town where even gerbils and parakeets are off limits, are we understanding each other?” Apparently we were. The Magic Milk Machine showed up last week. That was the day the clouds parted and the trumpets sounded and all became good in the world. Poppy’s teats were no match for the Binford 1000 Magic Milking Machine, and try as she might the white stuff flowed like, well, like milk. Milking was reduced to a few minutes a day as opposed to ninety minutes twice daily. I could hold a hammer again (once the swelling in my wrist went down) and laugh at funny jokes. What did we pay for that machine? I couldn’t care less. It was worth it. The Magic Milk Machine was my salvation. Maybe I wasn’t such a jerk in my past life, or at least I was a redeemable jerk. I may never know, but I can say that “eternity” has once again become an abstract thought. Thank goodness. Steve Doyle is a co-founder of Fremont Local Foods and owns and operates, along with DeeAnn, his wife, Doyle Family Farm north of Riverton. If you would like to join in this weekly conversation please contact him at doylefarm@wyoming.com |
NEWS FROM THE LOCAL FOOD FRONT – 14 APR 2013
Life, Liberty and the Mobile Chicken Processing Unit Fifty years ago, the USDA built into their chicken processing regulations provisions which exempted small farmers from the barrage of new safety and health requirements developed in response to the industrial chicken production model coming on line. The thinking, I can only assume, came down to this: Old McDonald’s model of production had not presented much problem in the past, so why should Old McDonald’s farm be regulated the same as Tyson’s chicken factory. And that is how the regulations stand today. According to the USDA, a small farmer may grow up to 1000 birds a year on his farm, process those birds on his farm using “sanitary practices and procedures”, and sell those birds to anybody willing to buy them. Well, I read the rules and regulations, and over the course of a couple years I engaged the Wyoming Division of Consumer Health (ConHealth) to see if I could help a friend of mine get a Mobile Chicken Processing Unit on the road (you can find more on the MPU elsewhere on this website). Turns out ConHealth hadn’t really looked into those USDA chicken regs too closely, and when I pointed out to them that under those rules our MPU would work, they balked. Then they drafted up a new set of rules for Wyoming. But, they left loopholes, and we happily exploited them. So, knowing this, they rewrote Wyoming’s poultry regulations. Well, we kept on processing, but we started getting a little cagey. Then I got a “cease and desist” letter, and we got very cagey. But we are far from throwing in the towel. So, you might ask, “What is this all about.” It comes down to this: When ConHealth sees “sanitary conditions and practices”, which is what the USDA requires for personal use, custom processing and 1000 bird exemptions, they think, “Ah, we shall require a state-inspected certified chicken processing facility”. Can one of those be built here? Sure, but it’ll run you upwards of $40,000, and it’ll pretty damn hard to finance that baby on the back of a thousand chickens. I think the USDA understood this. They required chickens processed for Personal Use Only be done using “sanitary conditions and practices”. Do you think they expected Ma and Pa Kettle to build a certified processing facility to dress out their Sunday chicken? Me neither. In that same light they must’ve figured small farmers, using the traditional processing tools of the day (stump and hatchet), could also process poultry safely. This simply does not work for ConHealth! By interpreting the USDA rules in as a restrictive a way as possible, our salaried employees at ConHealth have been able to keep Wyoming’s market free from locally grown and processed poultry…well, not exactly. You see, they are up against a growing number of citizens who think that ConHealth has gone too far in dictating what a farmer can or cannot do (actually, many of us question why ConHealth is a division of Wyoming’s Department of Agriculture anyway). So, instead of knuckling under, farmers are just skirting the rules. Some farmers are growing and processing poultry on the Wind River Indian Reservation where ConHealth has little jurisdiction. Many farmers, like myself, help our customers dress their birds using our processing facility – It is hard to imagine that ConHealth would make processing your own bird illegal, but who knows – and we, of course, help them with the chore. And we all know that the 4H kids are always expected and ready to butcher a chicken for the patron who supported him/her at the fair. Is ConHealth about to close this down too? So, where is this article leading to? To this: In Fremont County you can buy locally raised and processed poultry. But you got to look. You can find chickens that range free across farm yards and pastures, eat bugs and nibble on grass, and are free from antibiotics and chemicals. You might have to roll up your sleeves or take a drive, but that chicken and turkey is becoming more and more available, despite ConHealth’s worst efforts. One final observation: Today, if you look at Consumer Health Division’s website, you will find that they have removed the WY poultry processing exemptions. Only the USDA regs remain. Could it be they see how futile their efforts are in trying to reign in personal liberty and free enterprise is in this, the Cowboy State? One can only hope. Steve Doyle is a co-founder of Fremont Local Foods and owns and operates, along with DeeAnn, his wife, Doyle Family Farm north of Riverton. If you would like to join in this weekly conversation please contact him at doylefarm@wyoming.com |
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