Weather records kept on the farm are fairly casual. A semi-frequent journal entry documenting temperature or precipitation is about the best I manage. Those entries are usually prompted by one extreme or another: “too hot” or “too cold.” “Just right” seldom warrants an observation. Thankfully, other, more consistent individuals keep closer watch.
The local weather keeper for Philadelphia, Tennessee, about 15 miles away, has so far recorded .15 inches for the month of May. My casual recordkeeping indicates closer to a half-inch. The average for the area for the month closes in on five inches.
How rain falls and how it is used is place based. How each farm uses the rain affects the productivity of the garden, the lives of the livestock, and the setting of the table. For maintaining an abundant garden, my preference is the slightly dry summer, as long as we have ample alternative sources to water the veggies, and our fairly extensive rain harvesting system meets that need in all but the most exceptional droughts.
But pastures need rain to be productive for a small livestock farm. Ample forage now for everyday needs and stored forage in the form of hay for the winter are essential. And both are at the mercy of the weather.
The frequency of our rotational grazing system for the sheep currently outpaces the slow growth of the forage: a typical week’s worth of grass is now being consumed in three short days, leaving us scanning the western ridge lines for the approach of rain.
Unless we get ample rain in the next couple of weeks, we will need to reevaluate the carrying capacity of our pastures. This decision will not affect our small cattle herd, for they are on fields ample enough to support their numbers. The grazing options of our sheep, because they require special predator-proof fencing, are much more limited.
So as it stands now, we will cull more sheep than we had previously intended, perhaps reducing the flock by a third, from around 45 to 25 or 30. We cull for a variety of reasons besides grass availability: age, susceptibility to parasites, poor mothering, problems lambing, or because a particular sheep is a simple pain in the ass. Ideally, we would market the ewes as mutton. Direct marketing allows us to get a better price than through the stock auction and rest more comfortably knowing the future of the selected animal.
Mutton has, however, been out of favor in this country for a number of years. Which is a shame. The meat has a mature flavor for a mature taste. It is the taste of a food tradition of place-based eating, a culinary table set with the dishes rooted in necessity and seasonal availability–two traits out of step with our collective national taste, that of a 12-year-old for whom tenderness and immediacy are prized over flavor and quality.
I used to joke that it took 24 months to make my chicken and sausage gumbo. Because it did take two full years to raise out the rooster for the pot. In the meantime, the old boy had plenty of time to be useful to the hens. That utility is the hallmark of the small farm: everything has a place in the overall productivity.
Which is why we continue to try and market the mutton each summer. And not just out of a necessity brought on by a lack of rain. It is the natural ebb and flow of the farmer, farm, and flock–the necessity of an annual cull creates availability of a unique meat for a local cuisine.
But these efforts remain unsuccessful because, although the buying habits of the consumer have changed, they are still predicated on buying for convenience. And as long as the small farm has to compete with corporate farming over convenience, the small farm (and the consumer) will lose. A truly sustainable farm needs a sustainable food tradition with which to partner, combining geography and a people.
In a truly local food system, it is the culture that adapts to the foods’ seasonal availability. The annual coq au vin made from the culled rooster in the fall, the slow-cooked leg of mutton from the culled ewe at the height of summer, both are simmered in a sauce made of freshly grown vegetables, herbs, and garlic. Both meals are place based, with a personal relationship with the farmer, pasture, and garden and seasoned by the utility of the ingredients.
It is this place-based cooking tradition that has the potential to nourish our lives, build resilient communities, and sustain the planet. It’s a local table that speaks about the people of that place, a people who today are scanning the ridge lines for a storm’s approach.
I love lamb. I have been interested in trying mutton, but I have not yet found a source around Charlotte. You have inspired me to look again.
Great to hear from you. Been wondering what you were up to these days. Drop me a line some time. Good luck on finding the mutton.
I remember when I had my first taste of lamb, It was in a ” fancy” restruant, and I was in my mid 30’s. they didn’t have sheep in north Georgia in my early years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I found lamb in my local grocery store. bought a leg and then had to find a receipt for cooking it. so, we’re talking ignorance here. all this to explain why I need a few suggestions on cooking mutton. also need to clear up some room in the freezer, which is currently full of delicious beef and pork! I know how to cook those!
Harriett,
You need to eat more and make some room! Although to be fair you really stocked up last go round. We are finally getting some of our own beef back in the freezer in the coming weeks. Looking forward to some nice steaks! Well, if you do want to try the mutton, let me know. I can give you some guidance. But to be frank the cooking times for the chops and steaks is comparable to lamb. A bit longer on the roasts.
Cheers,
Brian
The South Roane Agrarian. Nice. Very descriptive. Almost romantic. Peaceful with a side of Dixie. I like it.
Culling is much tougher with animals than with plants. I imagine it tougher for mammals than for chickens – though I could be mistaken here. Was once describing selection and breeding to an acquaintance who imagined me ‘a plant person’. She thought it would be difficult for someone who enjoys plants as much as I do to throw away the less desirable. I don’t find it difficult in the least. We have to eat. Best outcome – eat the culls. The difficulty typically comes from self doubt over making the close calls. Easy choices are just that. But choosing between two individuals with little to separate them, this can be tougher. Make the choice and get on with it.
Shall we look for TSRA on the typical weekend publishing schedule?
Perhaps a possible approach for you is to convert your lovely mutton into jerky – dried meat. This can be stored for ever in a dry place.
I dry beef and mutton with equal success. Take the piece of fresh meat (any cut), slice into strips as wide as a finger and a bit thinner. As long as the piece is.
You can salt it for a few hours to a day or so (lay the meat in a baking dish and sprinkle salt over it, shove it around occasionally), then brush off the excess salt before you hang it. Salting is handy if the drying is a bit slow (cooler weather or higher humidity) as it keeps the bugs and mould off the meat. But when the sun is high and the wind is warm put it out to dry fresh to get the full flavour.
I dry my meat in a simple rack with fly screen netting around it. I have some strong thread with a darning needle on it tied to one corner of the rack, and nails to weave the thread with the meat hung on it around. The rack sits on the deck in the full sun and wind. I dry it until the meat is stiff enough to snap. Going well that can take just three to four days, a week or more in colder conditions.
By not heating the meat at all I retain all the lovely stuff inside, and it’s a great chew.
I use some to make pemmican. A slow evening by the hearth bashing the stiff jerky with my favourite rock to break it up, then a knife to cut it small. Preferably almost to dust. Then on the fire top warm it in a pan, and when its warm melt lard or dripping into it until it’s flooded when you press it down with the back of a spoon. Bring it up to a temperature above boiling water for a while to kill any bugs, but don’t fry it. Spoon into muffin trays or any almost-as-deep-as-it-is-wide container and let it harden. Needs to store in a cool place where the lard stays hard. Lasts for ever. Tastes great.
With both jerky and pemmican you can mess about with the recipes all you like, but I keep it simple.
Using those sorts of methods gives extra legs to your meat in terms of its availability over the year. Doesn’t use any energy to dry it or to store it. Good to trade too.
Place-based meals here in the South are going to be a pretty tough sell to people who’ve grown up with salads that mingle lettuce and tomatoes. I am pretty sure that the only time such a standard-ingredient salad has come from my garden has been in late October, when the fall lettuces were just beginning to come in and the summer tomatoes were still clinging to life.
Most people I speak with who are not gardeners have no knowledge of “seasonality” in produce. The lack of knowledge about seasonality in meats must be even more widespread, because even fewer people are engaged in the rhythms of keeping livestock. No idea how to improve the situation. Is the new blog going to address that more?
Agreed. Veggies, as a seasonal aspect of a cuisine, is not a concept that far removed from most of us in the South. But we are much further removed from the idea of meat as a seasonal product. Although it wasn’t too long ago, when I was growing up, that we harvested and ate our seafood and game as part of a seasonal table: crawfish boils in April and May, shrimping and assorted dishes in the spring and fall, duck gumbos in November. And of course oysters in the months with “R’s”.
I don’t anticipate any real changes to the blog. I dropped our farm name as a simple way to differentiate it from the farm business. Not everyone who buys the products from the farm is interested in what I write. I wrestled with the name and still not sure it is the right one. But a casual survey of many of the topics shows a significant tilt towards the topics of agrarianism. And the South Roane designation reflects that this is a blog about a small farm that is of a specific place.