I (Miriam) will be at the Mrs Flannery’s Robina store on Sat 7th November for tasting our delicious Certified Organic Ham and New Certified Organic Salami Range and answer all your curly questions about how we grow our certified Organic Pork and then how it is made into such delicious and nutritious treats as the certified Organic range of smallgoods that we make. It will be great to see you there!!
Mrs Flannery's Robina store, Lazy T Center, Jusfrute Drive, Robina
Then on Sunday the 8th, I will be back at the Northey St Organic Markets with Alaringa Organics. I had a heap of fun meeting you and catching up with some past clients (I still can’t believe it has been about 3 yeas since I was travelling up to Bris Vegas Every weekend for the Farmers Markets)
The drive home this time was pretty eventful with the car deciding it wanted to stay a little longer in the big smoke. Luckily I have some great friends who helped me find a mobile mechanic (or helped him find me) and we got the parts and got me back on the road by lunchtime.
Things are really starting to look good on the farm with the Pigs and the Pastures responding really well to our grazing management. Butchers are really happy with the product as we now have a bigger loin muscle (The main meaty part of a chop) and a lower fat score.
Sows and piglets seem much more content with the higher green diet and the piglets are growing much more evenly. Seeing the piglets playing and hiding amongst the greenery is a real treat too.
This has been the best year we have ever had for dung beetles as well. You may well ask what am I talking about bugs for, but they are an integral part of a healthy grazing system. Many environmentally trained people cringe at the thought of having our pigs grazing right on the catchment of a really clean and beautiful river, but the dung beetles truly have done an amazing job of incorporating the poo into the soil and removing the potential for a nitrate/phosphorous laden runoff into the river. My sisters have a good laugh at me with my monitoring camera taking photos of the dung beetles decimating the poo, but it is one of the keys to a good grazing system. I remember when Jack and I went to Africa and came back with the photos, they asked to see them and next thing they were up me because of Elephant and Rhino Poo shots I had taken (you should see the size of those Dung Beetles!!)
Also we have had a film crew out here recently so hopefully I can update some of the videos that we have soon. It helps so much when you can see just how the pigs live here and how well the paddocks and pastures are doing. I didn’t know how tiring it would be standing out in a paddock and answering questions, but when you need to cut each time a fly lands on you or the pigs walk out of shot it can drag on a bit. Jack (AKA Brad Pigg) did really well also although he says I totally hog the camera.
We have had some great wwoofers here helping as well. We were lucky enough to get an entire family from the UK that had an organic farm but were now travelling in Australia. Amazing people! Also I got Jamie back for a day. (Jamie foster mother of Lucy the pig) She brought her parents along as well and it was really good to catch up.
In the News
Wellbeing Food Magazine featured an article by John Newton about our farm and our piggies. Thanks John for a fantastic article!
Vogue Entertaining + Travel Food Awards 2009. We have been notified that we are finalists in this years paddock section of the food awards. It is so exciting to have our certified organic small goods up there with the best of Australian Produce.
The Marketplace
New Distributor in South East Queensland Tomewin Farm is making it easier for you to get the Pasture Perfect Certified Organic small goods In Brisbane and On the Gold Coast.
New Distributors in Victoria Original Foods and Cherry Tree Organicscan supply your local Melbourne gourmet deli, organic store or Health food Shop with our certified organic small goods.
Fresh Pork can also be found at :
SYDNEY Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats
For More info on where to find our Organic Pork Products please CLICK HERE
Other Interesting Bits
I was very fortunate and honoured to be invited to a producer luncheon Hosted by Christine Manfield of Universal Restaurant. It was truly amazing to be able to sample such incredible food made from the Base Ingredients that were provided by Producers at the table. It was pure pleasure. Great also to meet other fantastic chefs like Martin Boetz from Longrain (whom I was lucky enough to be sitting next to), Peter Gilmore of Quay and Alex Herbert of Bird, Cow, Fish. For someone who doesn’t get off the farm much and eats out very seldom, it was the best! Thank you so much to Christine for the invitation and for the best eating experience of my life so far!!
I was having a search around the net the other night and came across a SMH Blog, Chew on This that had a post about the ethics of eating/shopping. I thought it was great that people were getting on there and discussing the matter. I does concern me though that so many people are trying to eat as well as they can, but are being misled or should I just say lied to.
Some things that Certified Organic means:
Never in its lifetime has that animal been treated with chemicals, Never In Its Lifetime has the animal been treated with or fed antibiotics, Certified Organic Produce is free from GMO’s, Certified Organic Animals are not treated with Hormones for growth promoting or reproduction. Free to range on Pastures.
A few years back (before we were certified organic) Jack and I ran our pigs “Free Range” but we preferred to call it pasture raised as our pigs spent their whole lives out on pasture, and other free range pigs had varying amounts of time outdoors, but most are confined to a shed (or ecoshelter) for at least half of their life. We didn’t use chemicals on the pigs or land, and although I had a good friend and a brother in law that were vets, I stopped using antibiotics as well and opted for Homeopathic treatments. When we went to the Farmers Markets people would say ”Oh, you are the organic pork people.”, but we would let them know that, no we were not organic, as at that stage we did not feed organic feed, or have any form of organic certification.
Even in our first year of organic certification we did not claim to be organic (It’s actually part of a contract that you sign when you sign up to be certified, that you cannot claim that you are organic, even though you are running your farm to all of the standards required) Even in the following year, you can only sell your produce as “In Conversion” Organic, In fact for 3 years you need to run your whole farm as certified organic, but cannot claim to be fully organic until this 3 year period is up. Let’s just call it an apprentiship.
So there is a whole lot of investment of time, energy and money for the 3years leading up to your being “A” grade organic. This is why it gets me so mad that other farmers, butchers, manufacturers out there claim organic for just about anything. It’s an incredible relief to me that Standards Australia will hold the organic standards for Australia in just a few short months. I have seen a bit of griping on other blogs that it is unfair that only certified organic should be called organic, but the analogy that I see it as is that of the apprentice and the Tradesman.
You need to be commited (no, not to a mental health facility, but sometimes I wonder) to be organic, you need to be dedicated. You need to have put the time and effort in on your trade. You then need to be a diligent caretaker of the land and animals that you care for and are responsible for. Prevention is better than a cure in Certified Organic farming. So careful planning is very important.
Ensure that you are truly getting certified organic produce by asking for the producers organic certification number.
There was a bit of a scare this week. Jack’s parents were involved in a collision with a truck on the haul road that we need to cross to exit and enter our farm. Luckily it is only the vehicle that was seriously damaged!! His parents are both fine, but were quite shaken (as you would expect)
Our pigs are loving the pastures that we have put in for them, we are in the process of planting another 50 acres as well so soon you probably wont be able to see pigs for all of the green feed!! That is our plan anyway.
In the Media:
I have been contacted by an amazing woman Letitia Lee, who is making a documentary about the benefits of eating right and having a great attitude. Thinkin Trim Taut Terrific. Our farm and pigs will be a part of it, so that is very exciting for us. The Pigs will probably Hog the camera though!!
Markets:
Pasture Perfect® Pork will be a the Good Food Affare21 – 23 November 2008 so those of you who have not tried the amazing taste of our certified organic pork and small goods should drop in and check it out. For those of you who love food and wine, I am sure that it will be an event not to be missed.
We have a new distributor for NSW and ACT. Affineur, 02 9313 4955 Unit 3/25 Ossary St, Mascot. Affineur is excited to present the range of Certified Organic Small goods. From Mid October It will be available from David JonesFoodhall, Thoms Dux Stores, Wholefoods House and Macrostores as well as a range of other gourmet and quality food outlets. If your local fine food store or organic store would like to contact Affineur, they would be more than happy to send details of the whole range of Pasture Perfect® Certified Organic Smallgoods available.
Dluwich Hill Gourmet Meats 483 Marrickville Road, Dulwich Hill Now has the certified organic fresh pork cuts in stock. George is keen to show you his range of organic meats, from Wagyu Beef, to chicken, Duck and Pasture Perfect® Pork.
Byron Bay Area can finally get our certified organic fresh pork and certified organic smallgoods. From Oct 4 Wholly Smoked Butchery will be stocking Pasture Perfect® Pork. Thank you to all you dedicated Nourishers out there who have continued to support the way We grow organic pork.
By Jack and Miriam on August 9, 2007
John Denver had it all wrong! Life on the farm is not “kind of laid back”… well that is until you get laid back in a hospital bed from life on the farm! How dramatic does that sound?!
I am currently recuperating from trying to break up a fight between a couple of my boys (read boars). Silly, silly me. I thought I was doing such a great job of it too until I landed on my bottom with a hole in my jeans, and on further inspection, my leg. Not to worry, all is healing nicely. It didn’t even hurt very much. I am very lucky to live in a rural area because that means that I got great care from the local small hospital. (they don’t like to stitch up tusk wounds immediately becuase they are a bit messy and infection is a big issue) So I reckon that my boy (boar) was just collaborating with me to give me a few days off.
My big question to you all out there is… What are the best foods to eat for tissue repair? Apart from a couple of chocolates that I just had to eat so that I wouldn’t offend the lovely people that brought them, I have been staying away from all processed foods (of course), although I have to say, it can be a little hard to do that in a hostipal.
Enough on that topic though. Joanne and I had a little chat on the phone a couple of weeks ago and we were reminiscing about our respective childhoods. She had asked how it was that I was able to let my piggies go when it is time as it was pretty obvious that I loved them. I guess for me it is because I was brought up eating food from animals that we had raised as a family. We had our own chooks, ducks, geese, goats and my older brother raised king pidgeons for us to eat as well. I remember the birth of a baby goat was an education for the whole street as we would run around and tell all the other children that one was on the way and there were always the oohs and aahs and some poor kid nearly fainting at the sight the delivery of a little goat or set of twins.
I never really had dolls or toys but from the time that I could toddle down to the chook run, I used to gather the eggs that the clucky hen would abandon when most of the chickens had hatched. I would listen to see it I could hear the tapping of a chick and would take them and put them under my shirt against my body. I would keep them warm until they would hatch out and then give them their first feed and let them get strong before we would take them down to the mother in the night to get her to adopt them. I never really had a problem with clucky hens trying to peck at me when I would put the chicks back (I think she knew that I was there to help). These were the same animals that we would feed and care for, and yes I would play with and talk to them. It wasn’t a sad event when it came time to… now I am looking for a word that is less confronting for a lot of people than kill, but that is what we did. We would get out the chopping block and sharpen the axe, but it was not at all macabre. We simply knew that this was the end of one part of the animals purpose. I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings either, but I have never tasted a chicken as good as one that I have raised, loved and killed myself.
When we were growing up (6 kids in the family) we were very poor. Mum had a vegie patch that we all helped to tend and because one of my sisters was allergic to cows milk, we had a couple of goats that we used to milk every day for fresh milk. We use to tether them out every morning before school in a different area of park land or roadside. Then on the way home from school we would bring them back home. Every morning my brother would grind the wholewheat to make our porridge (which I have to say was definitely not a favourite of mine)
When it was dinnertime, there was never anything left on our plates and the saying “suck the marrow from the bones of life” has very real connotations for me as we would fight over who got the shank (and thus the marrow) from the lamb roast. Is was always just a bleached bone by the time that we had gotten through with it.
Now this may sound like a hard luck story to some, but as I am reminiscing about this I have a dreamy smile on my face. I am the only one in my family who is now in agriculture, but we all still eat well (whole food) and often when we get together the stories of what we did and ate (and Mums many unsuccessful recipes) are what we talk and laugh about.
I am so glad that there are so many people out there that really appreciate and show thanks for the way that good food is raised.
Its very nice to be appreciated. Take care and stay well. Miriam
