-Keep yourself hydrated! Butchering takes energy and time. I have participated in some long days of preparing and transporting meat from live animals to the freezer and it can really take it out of you if you don’t take care of yourself. Drink lots of water, with electrolytes and bring some snacks that don’t require clean hands to eat, like granola bars, bananas, sandwiches (things you can eat with a wrapper on so you don’t have to worry too much about the absolute cleanliness of your hands). Wear a good hat and bring sun-protection for your neck and arms if you are processing in the summer or on a hot day. It’s easy to get carried away with what you are doing and end up with a decent sunburn by the end of your processing project.
-Low-stress is best: when it comes to dispatching domestic animals, there are two ways I prefer to do it, that are both pretty low stress. 1- Use a bullet- I prefer a 22 mag- in the kill zone of the head (the intersection of two lines drawn from each ear to opposite eye) 2- Tie the legs, cut the jugular vein (the artery along either side of the windpipe) cleanly, and kneel on the animal’s rib cage until they drift into eternal sleep. Either way, you need to bleed the animal as much as possible so you must cut the jugular vein either after you use a bullet, or as the method of dispatching.
-Clean then sanitize. I keep dish-soap and vinegar on hand while I butcher to continuously clean the surfaces I cut on. Vinegar is a very effective sanitizer and is safe to use directly on meat surfaces in a 50% solution with water, if you have any portions of meat you are concerned about contamination with. It is a good idea to batch your work so you have periodic cleaning sessions to break up bacteria build-up opportunities. One example of this would be cleaning your work area and tools every time you finish cutting a quarter off the bone. Or cleaning your workspace between each chicken you process. Or cleaning and sanitizing your area and tools every time you fill up another metal bowl, full of meat.
-Sharpen your knives! Using sharp knives increases accuracy and prevents injury. Educate yourself on how to sharpen a knife efficiently before you get to the site of butchering, and bring a knife sharpener with you when you are going to be breaking down an animal.
-Anticipate slip-ups. Try your very best not to cut across your self. I like to get myself in the habit of asking whether the cutting motions I am using would end poorly if I slipped. I ask myself that constantly, and eventually this builds habits of cutting that prevent injuries when you get tired or are trying to cut quickly.
-Cool it out! Getting the meat cooled down as quickly as possible is a major factor in how the finished product will taste. The faster you get your meat cool, the less “gamey” it will taste, and the less opportunity any bacteria that may be present, will have to multiply.
-Fridge then freezer… This is one concept I wasn’t aware of until after I had worked at a meat processing facility. You can actually rot meat if you freeze it without cooling it down first. This is counterintuitive- I know, but it makes sense if you think about it like this. If you stick a very large piece of meat in the freezer that is warm in the middle, it can freeze on the outside and trap heat on the inside, causing the inside of a large cut of meat to cool down a lot slower than the outside. This can lead to rot in some extreme cases. So, don’t take an entire animal or an entire quarter and stick it in the freezer from warm. Take time to cool it out first, or cut it into smaller pieces before you put it in the freezer.
-Paper is great! Lots of folks tend to think that vacuum sealer bags are much better than wrapping with waxed paper. I have actually found the opposite to be true. I get better results when I double wrap with waxed paper, rather than using plastic. Plastic always seems to bust, or the seal breaks somehow-leading to freezer burn. Paper does not have this problem.
-Prevent freezer burn. I have done a previous blog post on this topic, but for brevity-sake here are a couple of reminders to help you prevent freezer burn. Keep an open container of water (which will become ice, but will still sublimate) in the freezer to help increase humidity. Minimize the amount of times you will need to shuffle around in your freezer so you won’t have to knock frozen packages against each other as much. I layer my chest freezers with a variety of cuts so I don’t have to dig very much when I am looking for certain things.
-Make it fun! Processing meat with friends is much more fun than doing it alone. When I must do a lot of meat processing by myself, I make sure to play music or podcasts I enjoy and keep my mind active so I don’t lose focus- this prevents mistakes.
-Don’t worry about doing it perfectly. Cutting up meat is an artform. It takes practice. To be honest, meat is still so very edible and quite delicious regardless of how pretty your cuts are. Don’t worry about being perfect. Just prioritize cleanliness and getting things into the fridge/freezer as efficiently as possible and you will be happy with your work!
What else would you add? I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to comment on this blog post or email me BJ@tasteofthewind.com.
Happy meat cutting!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
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Expiration dates, proper cooking temps, and refrigeration are all tools we are probably using on a daily basis to keep our food "safe" for consumption right Jamie?
Which of these are truly important and what are we missing?
That's what I want to talk- well, actually, write- about in my next couple of emails.
It's sort of exhausting to keep up with all of the things we "must" do to "stay safe" when it comes to food, according to authorities.
The list seems to get longer every day.
I recently attended an online webinar about the PRIME Act, which is a proposed piece of legislation that- if passed- would make it legal to sell cuts of meat processed in a Custom or State-Inspected meat processing plant. Currently in most states, only the owner of the animal can pay for meat processing and receive the meat back from an animal cut and wrapped at anything less than a USDA Inspected plant.
In Wyoming, it is legal to sell down to the 1/4 of a beef through a Custom/State Inspected plant. With the PRIME act, individual cuts would be legal to be sold under this level of inspection also.
The biggest difference between a Custom Plant and a USDA Plant is that there is no inspector on site. If you have ever been in a USDA inspected facility, you may have noticed that there is always a USDA employee, with a hard-hat, a hairnet, and a clipboard- watching what the employees are doing, taking notes and moving around the plant all day.
When I worked at 307 Meat Company for a few months (to help fill in the gaps so I could get butcher dates when there were no available slots during the COVID shutdowns) it seemed like the inspector had a new problem for us to solve daily. It was frustrating for all of the staff. Especially when it did not seem very relevant to food safety...
I appreciate the level of cleanliness USDA plants like 307 Meat Company maintain, but as someone who butchers most of the meat my family consumes, myself, I can tell you those high standards are not 100% necessary to stay healthy and safe.
I definitely take every possible measure I can to ensure the food we sell through Taste of the Wind is clean and safe.
Food safety tools are great, but when you consider how inside-out the food system is in our country, you may want to reconsider your actions when it comes to your food.
Instead of fretting over possible recalls and bacterial contaminations, consider the fact that heat kills bacteria.
If you are following recommended cooking temperature guidelines, all bacteria should be killed by the time your food is ready to consume.
One topic covered in the Webinar on the PRIME Act is that it is a "right of passage" for employees in a poultry processing plant to contract a Campylobacter infection, which is an infection accompanied by typical food-poisoning-type symptoms.
I have probably butchered close to a couple thousand birds in my life by now Jamie, and while that may not be close to what a poultry processing plant employee butchers in their lifetime, I have NEVER gotten sick from processing poultry, even though I have not been in a refrigerated building, not wearing extensive PPE, not continuously dousing all surfaces in copious amounts of antimicrobial disinfectant, and the processed birds are not submerged in a chlorine solution as they are in big industry plants...
So why haven't I gotten sick?
Why hasn't anyone I know- who has eaten pastured poultry from operations just like ours, who are processing their birds outside, with minimal equipment, just like we do- gotten sick from processing and/or eating pastured broilers?
Why is processed poultry commonly found to have salmonella and campylobacter, but outbreaks only happen every once and a while?
One theory expressed in the book Big Chicken by Maryn Makenna is that antibiotic use has a big role in causing employees, and animals to become infected with super-bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
Folks who have recently taken antibiotics are also more susceptible to bacterial infections because their gut microbiome has been disrupted, and it takes time to build that mini-ecosystem inside our bodies back up to full resilience.
Why is this not considered a major step in food safety?
Building our own bodies' resilience by increasing our exposure to good bacteria, so when we are exposed to bacteria that can cause more harm, we are not as affected by it.
Along with cooking poultry products to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, or washing our birds with a 50-50 vinegar and water solution, or cleaning surfaces that raw meats have touched, we should be making sure to eat fermented foods like yogurts, kefir, kvass, kombucha, kraut, and kimchi, on a regular basis, so when our bodies are exposed to bacteria that could cause harm, there are not big holes in our own gut microbiome for these bacteria to conveniently move into and overpopulate.
What is your favorite fermented food or drink?
It is a tie between home-made yogurt, kimchi, and beet kvass for me!
My goal with this topic is not to spread fear, but to share knowledge and skills.
I hope this discussion has informed you about some of the things to look out for when it comes to food safety. But, most of all, I hope it has given you a sense of peace and a way forward with a list of tools we have to prevent foodborne illness in our homes and communities.
I hope you feel better equipped to improve your own health and keep your own home and family safe and healthy in your own cooking endeavors.
What I'm Bringing to the Farmer's Market this Week!
My friend Helen, from Wheatland! She will be bringing some of her free-range eggs from her beautiful chickens (since we have been selling out before the end of the market every week, I hope this gives some folks who cannot make it to the market as early, a chance to get some really tasty eggs!)
Helen will also be bringing Fresh Goat's Milk from her nubian goats.
I will also have Fresh Cow's Milk with priority given to those who pre-order by replying to this email.
I will also have Grill Bundles again this week.
Beef Snack Packs- including Jerky, Snack Sticks, and Summer Sausage.
and Beef Bouquets with handmade Wildflower Mugs from Sadie Winters here in Laramie.
If you have any special requests, please send me an email and I will do my best to accommodate them!
Until next week, when I will write some more about a couple other food safety strategies, what they are missing, and what is maybe a bit irrelevant... In the meantime I would love to hear your thoughts.
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Cibophobia is the fear of food, and for me it always seems to strike at get-togethers with a meal involved.
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What a gesture it is, for our families and friends to offer to feed us!
Food has always linked us together as a cultural glue, and to refuse to eat at a gathering would just come off as an insult, wouldn't it?
So foregoing the meal or even worse, vocalizing your dietary restrictions, just makes you come of as a control freak...
Neither of these seem like viable options without crumbling the very foundations of jovial family cordiality at annual get-togethers-to-come...
BUT, you have worked so so so hard towards feeding your gut microbiome, avoiding certain ingredients, and you are finally feeling the amazing effects coming through, and just one evening spent with the people you love eating the very foods you have been avoiding at all costs swoops in to level your efforts...
ARGH!!!!
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I get it!
I have been living this reality right along side you for the past several years and it can be such a tough balance!
Luckily, you are not alone.
There is a world-wide tribe with the same priorities and struggles and I want to make sure you know how to connect with more people just like us!
Have you heard of the Weston. A Price Foundation?
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If you have been getting my emails for a bit, you have probably realized how much I rely-on and recommend books like
and
These are my two favorite Gut-Whole Health Bibles.
Sally Fallon Morell and Dr. Thomas S. Cowan MD are members of the Board of the Weston A. Price Foundation and they have been doing some very important work, linking integral-human-nutrition back to indigenous and traditional diets and educating folks like us who live in a culture that is devoid of traditional and cultural health-based practices.
WAPF releases a quarterly journal, they have a local food guide, a podcast, as well as food product and restaurant reviews, and they have informational pamphlets that talk about nutrient-dense eating and why certain common claims about food and health are just so far off...
You can access all of this on their website HERE.
I was searching for a local WAPF Chapter and realized the closest ones to Laramie are Fort Collins CO, and Buffalo WY.
So I am starting a WAPF chapter in Laramie to help connect folks with local, clean, nutrient-dense food in their area.
I'm excited to help make this info more accessible to locals, because Food is Medicine, and we do have the power to influence our own health for the better using our dietary choices.
I appreciate having an entire foundation behind the way I eat and the health/lifestyle choices I make.
It eases my "Cibophobia," gives me resources to fall back on when I have to educate and support myself and my family in our decisions, and pushes me to routinely examine my choices and adjust what I am doing so I can work towards better health.
Not to mention, the scores of awesome recipes woven into WAPF resources!
I recently tried out making some Beet Kvass using whey from the milk from my sheep after reading this WAPF
article on Fermented Sodas and Beverages.
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I can't wait to taste it!
So, what shall we do to eat well this Easter Weekend???
I found this awesome guide to dying eggs without food coloring.
It uses food ingredients like tea, onion skins, beets, turmeric, spinach, and blueberries instead of food coloring.
Did you know that many food colors that are permitted to be used in foods in the US are banned in other countries such as Europe?
Examples include Yellow 5, Red Dye 40, Blue 3 and 5- all of which are in food coloring you can find on the shelf at the grocery store.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel comfortable giving my child eggs laced with potentially harmful substances, for the sake of aesthetics...
Another option is to buy your eggs pre-colored!
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Our eggs are naturally varying shades of the earthy-spectrum without any dyes!
and
We are back to stocking them at the Big Hollow Coop in Laramie, on Mondays and Fridays!
Looking for a clean and hearty centerpiece option this Easter-Weekend?
Try out one of our Taste of the Wind
Pastured-Pork Shoulder,
Grass-Finished Beef Sirloin Tip,
or
Grass-Finished Leg of Lamb Roasts!
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You can order yours HERE. (Order today for Friday delivery!)
Don't forget our Bulk Meat Deposits are only open for a couple more weeks!
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Get in on our Meet-Your-Rancher Giveaway and some other goodies when you place your deposit by May 1st at midnight!
Don't miss out on your chance to stock up on sustainably-raised meats from Taste of the Wind in 2023!
Happy Easter, we hope you have a Lambtastic weekend!
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-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>The average age of farmers and ranchers in the US is 65 and climbing.
This means the art of farming and ranching is fading in our country, rather than being passed down to the next generation.
Some of the biggest reasons for this trend are:
-lack of access to productive land and water
-lack of available capital it takes to start up a conventional food production operation
-high risk associated with running an Agriculture-Based business
This past week I had the unique opportunity to participate in a Land Access Summit to help lay the groundwork for a Beginning Farmer/Rancher Program on private land in Buffalo, Wyoming.
My friend Caitlin Youngquist with UW Extension brought a group of professionals together with a facilitator, to discuss the logistics of such a program. These professionals included folks from community colleges, University of Wyoming Extension, Land Owners Alliance, and the Hughes Charitable Foundation.
I was invited in order to provide some perspective as a first generation farmer/rancher who built my own business from scratch, without owning any land, and also to represent the Wyoming Food Coalition's interests and supporting capacity for this program.
As someone who struggles personally with the land-access issue on a daily basis, I was very excited to be able to participate in this discussion. I can only hope that what we worked on will make getting into food production easier and more affordable for other up-and-coming producers in the future.
Wyoming currently doesn't have a solid system for bringing new food producers into our local market and economy. I can tell you from the past 10 years of working with farmers and ranchers across the state, raising and selling food in Wyoming is a nitty gritty business.
The tragedy of land in this state and others across the West, is that a lot of productive land is worth more as vacation homes or second or third residences than as an agricultural parcel.
When a large piece of land is divided up into tracts and sold, water rights are lost, cross-fences are sometimes installed, and ag-operations cease completely.
Farmers and ranchers are working on creative models to help put lands bought for secondary residences or vacation homes, back to work as ag-lands so that both purposes can be served simultaneously and in some cases synergistically.
Other states around the country have existing programs like land-links matching farmers and farms or beginning farmer and rancher incubator programs that help new producers get started with less risk.
Wyoming is behind the ball on this front.
At a conference about local food that took place about a year ago, Wayne Hughes of the Hughes Charitable Foundation heard that one of the largest obstacles for producers in the state is accessing land to grow food on, and he said- "well, let's change that."
He offered up three potential parcels of 40 acres on his newly acquired land in Buffalo, Wyoming to start a beginning farmer/rancher incubator program for three individuals at a time, with the goal of creating a program that could be replicated on private lands throughout the state. Caitlin Youngquist was up to the task of organizing this effort.
On May 11th our day began with a ranch tour of the property in Buffalo, with a focus on the three designated land parcels and the provided housing for the future incubator students.
We then proceeded to the Johnson County Public Library to hash out logistics and details for a little over 4 hours.
The day flew by!
What a room full of electric passion and ideas for the future of food and resource management in the state.
I felt lucky to be a part of it.
It feels good to hear others prioritizing the future of local food in our state.
I can't wait to see where this program leads!
On the way home I listened to Caroline Nelson's podcast episode of her podcast Chews Wisely on land access. I didn't plan to, it just popped up!
What a serendipitous surprise!
If you want to listen to the episode, it's called Ranching Without a Ranch and you can find it on most podcast host servers.
A lot of the challenges Caroline talks about are similar challenges to the ones we face.
Even now that we own our own home-base, we still run our animals on leased land for a good chunk of the year because the 30 acres we own is nowhere near enough land to sustain our livestock operation (mostly because we have no irrigation abilities.) We simply added the resilience of a fallback place in case we lose a land lease, or an emergency happens. We now have somewhere to bring our animals, so we don't have to sell them all off when tough times hit.
Participating in the Land-Access Summit and listening to Caroline's Episode on Land Access inspired me to create an episode of my own on land access and the ways farmers and ranchers in our local food family are tackling this challenge.
I can't wait to publish it!
We are taking advantage of the GrowinG Wyoming Beginning Farmer and Rancher program through the University of Wyoming this year. We get our first intern through this program next week!
I can't wait to introduce you to her, and hopefully I'll get to wrangle her in for the episode as well.
What questions do you have about Land Access?
I would love to hear them, so I can make sure to get those answered for you.
Have a great rest of your week!
-BJ, Chris, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Did you know that 30-50 million Americans are lactose intolerant?
Listen to this interview of the Associate Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, where she talks about how the ability to digest lactose could partially depend on your gut microbiome.
Check it out HERE.
I found this episode particularly relevant because my relationship with dairy has been long and winding...
I found out that I was lactose intolerant when I went to college.
I discovered, a few years later, that I could enjoy goat and sheep milk, as well as A2A2 cow milk sometimes, without the same consequences I experienced when I drank ultra-pasteurized, homogenized cow milk from the grocery store.
Then, when I got pregnant last year, I could suddenly eat any dairy products I wanted with no consequences at all!
I'm not really sure why this happened, but I have been thoroughly enjoying all kinds of products made with local raw milk.
I have always noticed that in the summertime, when I am regularly consuming raw sheep milk, I can eat dairy products to an extent- without any ill consequences. This makes sense after listening to the episode above.
I recently heard that local folks were having some trouble finding sources for raw milk, so I started to put together a directory of producers in the Laramie/Cheyenne area.
It is nowhere near finished, but it should help give you a starting point, if you are trying to locate raw milk.
You can view my directory HERE.
Sometimes I just can't use milk fast enough, but local raw milk is WAYYYY too good to waste!
Sometimes I give it to our pigs and chickens, (who love every form of milk), but I also enjoy experimenting with the whey and curd of sour milk.
I have made cheeses, fermented whey drinks, and bread.
You may have seen me mention my first attempt at Beet Kvass a couple of weeks ago.
Beet Kvass is beets (I also added a bit of cabbage and onion) fermented in whey for about a week in the fridge.
This mixture creates an earthy soda with a subtle bubbliness that lights up the tastebuds and leaves your guts feeling happy.
Boy is it delicious!
This weekend, I tried out a new dairy-centered recipe.
Check out my new favorite way to use sour milk!
Sour-Milk Biscuits
This recipe is adapted from a Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe out of the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (one of my favorites).
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp double-acting baking powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup lard or butter
1 & 1/2 cup sour milk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450*F.
Mix dry ingredients well.
With a fork or pastry blender, cut in lard or butter. If using butter, I like to freeze it for 20-30 minutes, then use a cheese grater to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture in small shreds.
Mix gently until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add milk and mix with fork until mixture forms soft dough that doesn't stick to the side of the bowl.
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead 6 to 8 strokes,
Roll out to about 1/2" thickness.
Cut biscuits with a 2" biscuit cutter (I like to use a canning jar lid ring).
Place biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet, 1" apart for crispy ones and barely touching for soft-sided ones.
Place dough trimmings together and roll out again (don't knead them), and cut more biscuits until all your dough is used up.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until they are golden on top.
If your oven heats from the bottom, bake on top or middle rack to keep the bottoms of the biscuits from burning.
Enjoy with fresh butter, pot pie filling, or white gravy!
Deposits are closed for our Bulk Meats in 2023.
That means....
It is time to announce the winners of the Meet Your Rancher Giveaway!
Tour the Balzan Longhorn Cattle Ranch in Wheatland Wyoming- Amanda Bowman
Rardin Family Calf Branding- Vladimir Alvarado
Learn to Process Your Own Meat with BJ at the New Taste of the Wind Farm- Linda Williamson
Please respond to this email so we can coordinate the details.
Thanks to everyone who placed their deposits and reserved their meat for the 2023 season we are looking forward to feeding you and your loved ones this year!
It was Chris's Birthday this past weekend, and I got him a couple of special gifts.
Some whole-wheat berries from Wyoming Heritage Grains out of Powell, Wyoming.
Chris has always loved making bread, and we have both read about the huge difference that local, freshly-ground flour makes when baking your own loaves.
We were gifted a small flour mill from a friend last year and Chris has been excited to try it out.
So, I got him two varieties of wheat berries.
-White Sonora
-Rouge de Bordeaux
I will have to let you know how they taste!
My CSA folks are getting bags of milled White Sonora flour in their boxes this month too!
I'm excited to share the products of another local Wyoming farmer with folks who appreciate local foods.
What an amazing feeling it is to eat in a way that supports our local community, our local economy, our local ecosystems, and our own health.
There is nothing like real, local, food produced by folks you can trust.
We couldn't produce food like this or even eat food like this if it wasn't for you.
Thanks for caring about local food!
Until next week.
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>The chicken egg yolks are just starting to turn orange again, our fridge is full of sheep milk, Peter has been coming out more often to lend a hand with chores with the nicer weather, and we are surrounded by babies!
I even saw that the green grass is really starting to sprout this week.
Woohoo!
We have had 14 lambs so far, we are officially past the half-way point, and I am pretty excited (mostly for night checks to be over so I can maybe get some sleep) but also to have a full clan of bouncy lambs out on pasture again. Nothing makes me happier than watching lambs do the four-legged-sproingy-popcorn-
An artist was parked on the road the other day.
I walked over to say hi and see what he was up to. (I didn't realize he was painting until I got up close and could see his easel out.) He said he was painting the sheep.
He knew they were sheep right off the bat- most people think they are goats at first. He told me he would send me a print of his painting once it was finished. Above is the view from the spot where he was set up. You can see the Snowy Range in the background.
It was one of those moments where I was reminded how lucky we are... We have been so spoiled to live in such beautiful places over the past few years. This place we live on now is not immediately or obviously beautiful to me, but it is beautiful in its own special ways, and I am coming to appreciate those ways more as we live here and watch the seasons work their magic.
This artist made that process more evident to me, and I can't wait to see his rendition of this spot.
I'll make sure to share it with you in a future email!
Last week EatWyoming delivered our meat bird chicks from Melissahof Farm and Hatchery in Lander Wyoming.
Don't they look great?
Peter adores watching them peep around in the brooder when we give them food and water throughout the day.
I interviewed Melissa Hemken, founder, owner, and operator of Melissahof Farm and Hatchery on my Podcast last week.
We talked about how she got into breeding her own chickens and hatching her own chicks, a little bit of the technical side of her farm, and her multi-faceted participation in our local food system.
It was an awesome conversation, with a little input from Peter too!
I hope it inspires you to take advantage of the power you have in our local food system, our local economy, and our community.
You can listen to the episode HERE.
Or you can watch the interview on Youtube HERE.
Reply to this email to let me know what you think, and rate my podcast and share it with someone you know to help others find out about what we are doing, and what they can do to support their local food system too!
Want to reserve some of these heritage breed roosters for your freezer this summer?
You can do that, by placing your deposit HERE.
Deposits will be open for a little less than 2 more weeks!
Hogs are officially SOLD OUT for 2023.
We do have a couple more slots for Lamb, Chickens, and Beef still.
Place your deposit here, before it's too late!
Have you ever tried a reverse-sear?
Most people sear something and then put it in the oven to lock the juices in and then cook the middle of the meat, but this method works the opposite way.
It is a fantastic way to cook up steaks and chops.
Chris cooked me up a reverse-seared pork chop last night, and it was amazing!
I ate it too fast to take a good photo... oops!
But... I did put a recipe together for you: Reverse-Seared Pork Chops
Pork chops are challenging for me because they are so deliciously thick.
I always end up undercooking them a little bit because I am afraid of overcooking them.
Reverse-searing helps.
This method requires you take temp readings often. It helps to have a temp probe like this one.
You can use this reverse-sear method on the grill or in the oven/on the stovetop.
It works great for pork, beef, and lamb.
Try it out, and let me know what you think!
Or if you are already a fan of the reverse-sear method, tell me what you use it on.
I would love to hear about it!
Hope you are enjoying the wave of nice weather, and getting some good sunshine on your skin and fresh air in your lungs, while this Spring-snap lasts!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Lambing Season is well on its way!
We are up to 10 lambs and almost half-way done.
We have had some interesting ups and downs so far this year.
But everyone is looking spry and healthy and enjoying the beautiful weather we have been getting this weekend!
If it won't load in the box above, you can Check out this video here of what I like to call "The Taste of the Wind Lamb Races."
In case you missed it, here is my latest podcast episode where I shared my interview with Dr. Tammy Grey-Steele of the National Women in Agriculture Association.
It was kind of fun to talk about my own farm on the podcast for a change.
Although, I do prefer learning about what other farmers and ranchers are doing and how they implement their goals of sustainability across the West.
Next week, I am publishing a podcast episode where I interview Melissa Hemken of Melissahof Farm in Lander, Wyoming.
Melissa raises heritage breed chickens on pasture and she started her own hatchery business here in the state to help her accomplish several aspects of sustainability and to participate in and strengthen our local food system. Stay tuned to hear about her business, her poultry, and what she envisions the future of food looking like in Wyoming and beyond.
Melissa is providing our meat bird roosters this year, the chicks are being transported as I type this, from Lander to Laramie by EatWyoming so they never have to enter the Postal System. They will spend tonight in Casper under a heat lamp with feed and water, and they will arrive here tomorrow morning along with my monthly Veggie-Box.
I can't wait!
Want to reserve some of these Heritage Meat Chickens for your freezer this summer?
You still can!
But not for much longer...
There are only two more weeks left to place your deposits on bulk meat packages from Taste of the Wind for 2023.
Half of our meat birds are already reserved for this year.
And we only have...
2 Hog slots
6 Beef slots
and
5 Lamb slots
left for 2023.
Have you placed your deposit yet?
Don't wait, once these slots are filled we won't be adding any more to 2023.
Here are what others are saying about our lamb, beef, chicken, and pork:
-Pam J. Winthrop Harbor, Illinois
-Lynn L. Laramie, WY
-Susan D. Timnath, CO
-Bryce B. Jelm, WY
Frequently asked questions about our bulk meat packages:
How much freezer space will I need?
Half and whole hog packages fit easily inside a standard chest freezer.
Whole and half lamb packages fit inside the small freezers attached to fridges.
Beef packages can be a bit more complicated, but I have two charts you can view on the product page, HERE.
How much does it cost?
Deposits are due by May 1st to hold your spot. Deposits are approximately half of the total product cost.
You can view the deposit amounts and final amounts due on the bulk meat product page HERE.
Is it organic?
Our products are not certified organic. We value sustainability over organic certification because a few aspects of organic certification are not sustainable, including the cost of organic certification- (and we would like to keep our product prices as low as we possibly can) so we choose not to participate in this USDA Organic Certification program.
However, we do not use chemical dewormers, hormones, or antibiotics in our livestock who are destined to become nourishment for our customers. If you have a specific question about our management practices, we are happy to answer any questions you may have. We want to make sure our products are the perfect fit for you before you commit to purchasing a bulk meats package from us.
When will it be ready?
Hogs will be ready in late June/Early July
Beef will be ready on a first-come-first-serve basis starting in June and going no later than November.
Lambs will be ready in November.
Chickens will be ready late August through September.
How is it packaged?
All of our meats are shrink-wrapped/vacuum sealed at a USDA inspected plant. If you would like them paper-wrapped instead, email me and we can discuss options for different processing facilities (if you are within the state of Wyoming). If you are out of state, your meat is required to be processed in a USDA inspected plant. The only way to get around this is for you to come to Wyoming to pick it up.
Our chickens are shrink-wrapped and frozen by us unless you request to pick them up fresh on the day of processing. We cannot ship our chickens across the state-line because they are not inspected.
How long will the meat last?
We recommend consuming meats you have purchased within one year. However, meats in shrink-wrapped/vac-sealed packaging have lasted upwards of 2 years in our experience without compromising the quality of the meat, as long as the seal stays intact. You can reduce the likelihood of busting the seal on the package by reducing the amount of times your packaged meat is moved from one place to another. Waxed-paper wrapped meats tend to last longer because the seal doesn't break on these packages like it can with the plastic packaging. If you are wondering how many people a package will feed your household for, you can take a look at this chart I made to help out with this question.
What makes your meats different?
All or our meats come from Heritage Breed animals. Icelandic Sheep, Mangalitsa Hogs, Longhorn and Highland Cattle, and Dominique, Buckeye, Orpington and Salmon Faverolle Chickens. This leads to darker, richer, meat with more flavor and fat than the standard meat available at the supermarket. Our animals also grow slower, due to our harsh climate and the fact that we raise slower-growing breeds. We think this contributes positively to the flavor, texture, and nutrient density of our meats. Our animals are finished on pasture with a wide variety of foods, so they have the ability to select what plants and foods they need or want in order to thrive. They also have access to clean air, water, and sunshine throughout their lives, which we believe improves their quality of life and subsequently enhances the quality of our products, (see some of our recent customer reviews above).
Do you have any questions that I haven't highlighted here?
Reply to this email and let me know what I can answer for you!
Don't forget, when you place your deposit by April 15th, (that's only 3 days from today- April is FLYING BY, isn't it!?)
you will get 5 extra entries to win one of our Meet Your Rancher Giveaway Experiences this summer!
-Tour the Balzan Longhorn Cattle Ranch
-Take part in the Rardin Highland Calf Branding
-Learn how to process meat with BJ at the new Taste of the Wind Farm
Want to learn a bit more about your ranchers before the giveaway?
Check out the Taste of the Wind Podcast Episodes about the ranchers we work with.
Interested in why what we do is good for the land?
Check out this highlight about how the Rardins use sustainable cattle grazing to rejuvenate landscapes:
"Just one Bite" from WPR's The Modern West.
We care about the future and we believe that Sustainable and Ethical Food is the best way to build a brighter world.
We hope you will join us in making the world a better place in 2023.
Thanks for being here!
Hope you have an amazing week!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Did you know that most people in the U.S. are vitamin D deficient for at least part of the year?
This can be detrimental to our health, because Vitamin D is needed for calcium absorption, and for your genes and cells to talk to each other for several different bodily processes, and adequate amounts of vitamin D can help prevent several degenerative diseases.
Problem is, synthetic vitamin D supplements are not always very bioavailable. This means your body cannot break them down into useable forms efficiently enough to get the benefits you need- especially this time of year when you still have to keep your skin covered in the inclement "Spring" weather.
So, what can we do?
I have a couple of ideas for you...
Below is a downloadable doc I created with 10 simple ways to increase your Vitamin D absorption this time of year!
For example, flipping your mushrooms upside-down in the sun for 15 mins on your counter can multiply the vitamin D they contain by over 1000%
I compiled a list of easy, and simple things for you to try into one document below!
10 Ways to Increase Vitamin D Absorption.pdf
What things do you do to get more vitamin D in your life?
I would love to hear about them.
Let me know what you think about my list, and if you are going to try any of these things out this Spring.
I was going back and forth on whether to raise chickens this year.
For several reasons, but the biggest one was how unsustainable it is to get chicks shipped from somewhere like Iowa to our farm..
This causes problems due to the altitude shift and the stress of these poor little fluffies braving the USPS mail system for 2-4 days in an unpredicatable time of year. It has been something I have not felt morally right about for the past few years.
However a fantastic alternative has surfaced, thanks to Melissa Hemken at MelissaHof Hatchery in Lander Wyoming!
She breeds 4 different Heritage Breeds of chicken and sells live chicks and hatching eggs and delivers them through EatWyoming all over the state so these vibrant little puffs don't ever have to enter the mail system.
If they have to overnight, they spend the night under a heat lamp with food and water and then they continue their journey to their destination the very next day.
I feel so much better about this option for the sake of the chicks and the adults.
Check out Melissa's pastured-chicken setup for her breeding flocks.
Every year is an experiment for us and an effort to work towards that moving target of Sustainable and Ethical Food Production.
I feel that sourcing our birds from another small-scale Wyoming Farm is more sustainable for our local economy and more ethical environmentally, and just a way to show respect to the birds!
All of these elements lead to a happier, healthier food product which we hope will taste even better than the chickens we have offered in the past.
Want to join us in this experiment of local food sustainability and ethics?
Here are the two ways you can secure some heritage birds from Taste of the Wind this summer.
Place your deposit on chickens for 2023.
Sign up for our monthly CSA Box subscription including a variety of meats (pasture-raised beef, lamb, pork, and chicken), free-range eggs, and other products from local farms like ours.
We are grateful for your support.
If it weren't for folks like you who care about your food, your environment, and the well-being of the animals who provide your sustenance businesses like Taste of the Wind, and Melissahof wouldn't be able to do what we do.
Thank you!
On that note, I just wanted to remind you that
Deposits for Bulk Shares of Beef, Pork, and Lamb are still open!
We have several Beef and Lamb slots left,
but only 4 Pork Slots Left for 2023.
If you are wanting to secure your meat from Taste of the Wind for 2023, I highly recommend you place your deposit soon.
I am leaving deposits open until May 1st, but if we sell out before then- I will have to close them.
You can place your deposit and reserve your Bulk Share of Beef, Lamb, Pork, and Chicken on our Online Store HERE.
Our local-food family is growing!
Meet the Ericson family of Well Fed Farmstead in Fort Collins!
Ryan and his wife Alexa (and their two young boys) run a vegetable CSA on their farm during the growing season, they have plants in the ground that are almost ready to harvest already, and their veggie CSAs are now open.
Ryan and I devised a plan to work together to increase access to local food in or communities. We are going to swap products once a month and save local folks the trip back and forth between Laramie and Fort Collins.
What does this mean for you?
Access to extremely fresh veggies, grown by a local family you can trust, once a month, delivered to you in Laramie!
If you would be interested in some fresh veggies once-a-month from Well Fed Farmstead, reply to this email so I can get you on our interest list and get you set up to receive incredibly beautiful and fresh veggies in a couple of weeks!
Remember our most recent giveaway?
I am extending it to folks who sign up for Ryan's veggie shares too!
*If you purchase a veggie share through our partnership for the summer of 2023, you will be entered to win A Day Among the Veggies with the Farm Crew at the Well Fed Farmstead. Work alongside your farmers and receive free veggies for your efforts.*
Our team of Farmers and Ranchers CANNOT WAIT to meet you and your family!
It is an honor to feed our community, and we can't wait to shake the hands of people we help sustain and nourish.
We have a couple of podcast episodes coming up so you can hear the voices of the people raising your food.
What do you want to know???
Reply to this email with your questions about beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and/or veggies, so I can ask them during my upcoming interviews with your Farmers and Ranchers.
Hope you have a great week!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Spring in the desert is one of the most beautiful experiences on earth.
Flowers in the most unexpected places.
Birds and bugs of crazy varieties.
Life oozes from the crevices of what seems like deep, dry, cold nothingness, and then... it's gone again.
Have you ever seen a desert Spring?
If you haven't, I highly recommend spending a week in the Mojave, or the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau, it's breathtaking!
Up here in Wyoming, we have a lot of Cold-Desert expanses.
It is a different kind of beauty for sure. This time of year doesn't embody the typical "Springtime" at all.
In fact, a lot of us refer to this time of year as Spri-nter... because it is as if Spring keeps trying to come, but Winter just won't let it stick around.
I want to ask you about a different kind of desert today though BJ...
A Food/Nutrition Desert.
I can tell you that Laramie, Wyoming was a Food Desert for at least part of this winter, because the interstates were shut for 2 weeks, and we could not receive shipments of a lot of foods to our grocery stores.
The shelves were eerily empty for a few days.
It was comforting to be able to text my farmer friends and purchase my usual staples, regardless of the road closures.
It also felt pretty good to provide access to nutrient-dense food to my friends and customers despite the wind and snow.
We have Food Deserts all over the U.S. and they aren't dependant on the climate, elevation, or weather patterns.
Actually factors that determine a food desert are more in the realm of:
- Poverty Rate
- Distance from a Supermarket
- Population Demographic
- The Type of Calories Available in Local Stores
What is exceptionally odd about Food Deserts, is that our main piece of legislation written to target Food Deserts, is also helping to create them...
I have talked about The Farm Bill before, but let's revisit it for a second.
Here is a quick introduction video on The Farm Bill.
Through the Farm Bill disaster relief and insurance programs are targeted at large-scale commodity crops like corn, soy, barley, and hay/forage.
If you want to learn more about the reach (and shortcomings) of the Farm Bill, here are a couple of my favorite books that explain it pretty well:
Farm and Other F Words- Sarah K Mock
A Nation of Farmers- Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton
Against the Grain- Richard Manning
Lentil Underground- Liz Carlisle
The Farm Bill is not targeted at diversified food production systems that produce nutrient dense vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, and seafood. There are some instances in which Farm Bill disaster assistance programs can be granted for crops like these, but producers can only apply for assistance if their area receives an emergency determination or USDA drought rating of "severe to exceptional drought."
Meanwhile, large-commodity producers (corn, soy, and cereal grains) lean heavily on crop insurance when conditions aren't ideal for planting or harvesting. This allows large-scale production agriculture as a whole to continue in directions that may not be sustainable into the future.
According to the UN, this process contributes to fertile soil losses of around 24 billion tons every year...
Ouch!
Rather than trying other crops or other practices to curb the effects of climate extremes like drought, farmers plant in the same rotation- using heavy amounts of herbicides, diesel, and synthetic fertilizers, knowing that they can ultimately fall back on insurance if their yields are too low to make a profit for the year.
In Wyoming, USDA Crop Insurance is not available for foods like vegetables, and fruits, but it is available for commodity crops like barley (used to make beer), sugar beets (used to make refined sugar), corn (used to make ethanol, and corn-based food additives, like corn syrup), and wheat (used to make pastas, breads, and crackers).
Most of these products are not made in Wyoming because we no longer have the infrastructure to convert these products into edible foods. So, not only are our natural resources being used to produce less-nutrient-dense foods, but the most value-adding/profitable steps are being completed outside of the State and then these products are being sold back to Wyoming in the form of empty calories... This is a major part of the Food Desert Problem that often goes overlooked.
We are surrounded by "food" without the means to efficiently convert it into ready-to-eat-or-cook "food."
Our tax dollars are being used to encourage the production of processed foods that are depleting and contaminating natural resources, and providing a lot of empty calories instead of nutrition...
Ug.
I don't necessarily think the solution is to transfer dollars from insured crops to non-insured crops because this will probably just perpetuate poor agricultural practices with other crops, but here are some ideas for how we could improve the Farm Bill:
-Redirect funding from insuring unsustainable crops, towards local infrastructure for nutrient-dense, locally-adapted food production in local markets, to make it more feasible for producers to switch to growing nutritious food crops.
-Providing food and nutrition education to folks in need by expanding programs like SNAP.
-Funneling funds for crop insurance into education and encouraging more adaptive farm practices and resource conservation on agricultural lands.
Here is what we can do!
The Farm Bill is being re-written in 2023 (this only happens once every 5 years!).
Your input as an Eater in the U.S. matters RIGHT NOW!
Here are five things you can do to end food/nutrition deserts and designate your tax dollars and efforts towards the types of food production you would like to see instead:
Submit your input on the Farm Bill through the Ag Senate Committee HERE.
Submit your input on the Farm Bill through the House Committee on Agriculture HERE.
Find your Legislators HERE and write to them about what the future of Agriculture and Eating looks like to you!
Participate in the Grow A Little Extra Program -if you live in WY and get free seeds from your local extension office, so you can grow produce in your garden for your local food pantry!
*BONUS* Let me know what the future of Ag and Eating look like to you, so I can make your voice heard through my work with the Wyoming Food Coalition.
Here is a press release on the 2022 framework proposed to increase stability of local food systems within the next Farm Bill. Please encourage your legislators to support these changes and push for expanded funding on these areas. https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/06/01/usda-announces-framework-shoring-food-supply-chain-and-transforming.
Comment on this blog post to tell me your thoughts on The Farm Bill and the Future of Agriculture and Food in America and beyond!
Do you live in a Food Desert?
One thing I have been working on in our community is closing the gap between access to nutrient-dense food and the higher cost of this food.
We donated hundreds of pounds of meat to families in our community and around the country last year- thanks to folks like you.
It means a lot to me to provide access to nutrient dense, real food, even though I could certainly find more "lucrative" ways to spend my time.
Most of all, it is important to me, for my family to understand the true cost of food and the true cost of health.
Some things just can't be measured in dollars, and you can't know this until you experience it-
through taste,
and
through feel.
I recently found a way to help give folks who just can't bridge that gap all on their own, access to our nutrient-dense products.
It's called SNAP- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and it is the largest part of the Farm Bill.
Even though small farms like Taste of the Wind can't receive disaster-relief funds, subsidies, or crop insurance like big commodity farms, we can provide our products to folks in need by accepting SNAP as a payment method for our products.
So, I signed Taste of the Wind up to be a SNAP retail location.
This will allow folks who can qualify to receive financial assistance with their nutritional needs, access to our products.
Wyoming has one of the lowest SNAP utilization rates in the Nation.
With rising inflation, I am hoping to spread the word about this program as a tool to help folks in need get the nutrient-dense foods they need from local producers and suppliers.
Find out if you are eligible to receive SNAP Benefits HERE.
I'm so excited about this- this could increase the scope of what we are able to do- by a lot!
Do you know someone who could benefit from SNAP, and who would be interested in nutrient dense products like ours?
Send this email to them and let us help get good food into their homes for their families.
Getting good food to good people is what we live for, and I would so appreciate your help reaching more amazing folks who are in need of real food!
Thanks!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
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I was fortunate enough to be able to attend and present at the very first Harvest Wyoming Small Farm Symposium in Riverton.
It was a blast!
There were workshops, talks, farm-tours, and a fabulous farm-to-table dinner with a panel discussion.
At the end of this discussion, folks were wondering how to get involved in the Local Food movement in Wyoming, and it seemed like a fitting time for Wyoming Food Coalition board member LeAnn Miller, to announce my new position as Executive Director of the Wyoming Food Coalition!
The Wyoming Food Coalition is a non-profit organization set up to increase awareness, facilitate collaboration, increase education, promote transparency, and influence legislation centered around local food.
Wyoming is a leader in local-food accessibility as one of the 4 Food Freedom States in the Nation (North Dakota, Maine, Utah) with our state-wide cottage law called the Food Freedom Act.
This law is what allows us small farmers and ranchers to sell our products directly to our customers, with limited regulation (although there is an important emphasis on making sure the end consumer is clearly informed about what they are purchasing).
The Wyoming Food Coalition is made up of 7 working groups, and anyone can be a member of these working groups and attend their meetings, which are mostly virtual.
You can check out WFC website HERE.
Feel free to reach out to me if you want to be connected with one of the working groups, or if you have any questions.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, and I'm SO excited to dig in, and to help this organization gain more momentum!
Peter and I also got to present our very own workshop at this conference, and that was a TON of fun!
Reply to this email if you want to see the recording, and the workbook I put together for this workshop-
Effective Marketing for Your Farm-Raised Products.
Peter and I also enjoyed the farm tour of Lakeview Gardens and Red Roof Meat Company. The afternoon "breeze" reminded him of doing farm chores at home.
We got to attend a couple of great talks on goat browsing, profitable poultry, local food policy, solar power, farm finances, and operation efficiency.
It was a blast, and the perfect timing to get us excited for the coming season.
Want to be in-the-know about upcoming events like this one?
Get on the free Ag Dispatch list for Wyoming HERE.
By the way, I was interviewed on the Wyoming Women in Ag Talk Show last week- it airs tomorrow!
You can view the episode on Instagram or Facebook Live at 12PM CST.
Learn more about NWIAA HERE.
We are in the process of starting a local NWIAA chapter for Wyoming. I'm excited to finally have the Equality State represented through this national organization!
NWIAA is looking for other Women in the Ag industry to interview on their talk show. If you know of someone who would be awesome to hear from, please send your recommendation to: womeninag@gmail.com.
Want to take part in the best part of Local Ag?
The Eating of delicious, locally-raised food of course!
Keep your freezer full and...
Place your deposit on our local lamb, pork, and beef shares for 2023 HERE.
We also have CSA shares available if you would like an array of products delivered to your door every month.
Not long after Peter and I got home from Riverton, were we welcomed with our first lamb of 2022!!!
Woohoo! A healthy and strong Icelandic x Jacob cross Ram Lamb out of a first-time momma.
The first lamb born every year is always a little bit funny (and dangerous).
Some of the other ewes get a bit jealous and start to want to steal the new baby away from his real mother... we call these "baby-snatchers."
This was starting to happen in my flock, so I locked these two up in our little sheep shelter and gave them some alone time to try out the nursing process.
It didn't take long for them to get it figured out!
It won't be long at all before we have a big group of lambs bouncing and running and jumping around, enjoying the sun and snow and wind like these Icelandic sheep love to do!
I'm so excited!
Stay tuned for more photos of lambs as we get further into lambing season.
Happy Almost Spring!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>They can't wait to have you out to tour their operation and meet their Longhorn Cattle!
I got to ask them some questions customers have previously submitted, plus a few that I came up with too.
Q: What makes your beef different?
First, our beef is from Longhorn Cattle. It is a lean, very nutritious, and flavorful meat. Our cattle graze on only the best variety of grasses and legumes our ranch has to offer. Our herd is free range and our cows spend their whole lives on pasture. We treat them kindly and they are not introduced to outside diseases because they stay on our land and are not exposed to other cattle.
Q: Why do you choose to raise beef differently than producers who raise beef for the 'big industry'?
We believe Big Industry Beef is leaving a massive carbon footprint on our world , mostly through their practice of finishing cattle in feedlots, which depends on monoculture cropping (the method of dedicating entire fields to the growing of single-species crops such as corn and soy), which is necessary to produce the feed for their method of finishing beef on grain. This monoculture cropping often leaves soils depleted of nutrients with little to no native species, and with bare ground through through the winter. Additionally, feedlots are large areas of completely bare dirt, void of plant and soil life with large run-off lagoons that pollute nearby water-souces and the air. Cattle confined in feed lots are not aiding in the rejuvenation of grasslands, which we believe is an inherent role cattle need to play in the cycle of life. When cattle are kept in feed lots, they are no longer benefitting the environment. Instead they are contributing to air and water pollution. We choose not to contribute to this negative cycle of carbon emissions and pollution, by keeping our cattle on native-grass pastures for their whole lives instead.
Q: What are the top three things customers can appreciate about your beef?
1- Our beef is lean, because it is grass-fed and finished, and therefore it is very healthy for you. 2- Because of the high quality of forage we feed to our cattle, the texture and flavor are phenomenal. 3- Our cattle and our pastures are kindly treated, and our cattle live happy lives on our green pastures.
Q: What in particular makes your beef good for the environment?
Our longhorns affect the soil in a beneficial way when they are out grazing and doing what cows do. The cycle of fertilization and mineralization are accelerated and this allows new plants to grow and fix more carbon in our pasture soils. These cycles also increase soil water holding capacity, which benefits soil-life, plant-life, and nearby watersheds (because healthy soils and healthy plants reduce erosion and soil run-off into water-ways). When we graze our cattle, we aren't just looking to make a profit, we are looking to sequester carbon into the soil with that animal-plant interaction that is happening on the surface.
Q: What are some questions or objections you have heard from folks about grass-fed beef, and what information can you offer to address these questions/objections?
1- Grassfed beef tastes 'gamey'. If raised correctly and given the right quality and variety of grasses and legumes, and if the cattle are treated kindly and allowed to live a relaxed stress free lifestyle, with access to good clean and fresh water, the meat really is amazing in flavor and texture.
2- Grassfed/Longhorn beef is tough rather than tender. Cattle fed properly and treated properly yield a very tender and delicious beef- especially breeds like Longhorn Cattle, which have been raised on grass for centuries and have adapted well to it. Our beef in particular has a delicious flavor because most cuts have a surprising amount of grass-finished fat, skirting the muscle. It is truly all about how the animal is raised!
Q: What is your favorite part of raising beef?
Getting to see first-hand the benefits that raising beef can have on the rejuvenation of our land. There is nothing like eating properly raised grass-fed beef. The health benefits are incredible and it’s a lot more affordable and economical compared to boxed beef that claims to be of similar quality.
Q: Why have you chosen to pursue this life path of cattle ranching in Wyoming?
The Balzan family has had Longhorns for over 30 years! Their Longhorn herd started off as a hobby, and Robert and Julie Balzan raised their children on the wholesome beef, and shared it with family and friends. After Blake attended college and worked a couple of jobs in the field of rangeland management, he returned to the ranch with a dream to create something even more amazing for the community and his own family on his family's place. Helen also saw what potential it held and wanted to participate and help Blake see his dreams realized.
Q: What does the future of Agriculture look like in your mind?
In the future, Agriculture looks more sustainable on a larger scale to us, with more producers taking a holistic approach to farming and ranching. This way we will be able rejuvenate our planet and feed our earth through the plants and animals we grow. Large-scale commercial farming is very profit centered and takes from the planet without giving anything back. This creates a feedback loop that produces food containing less nutrients, which results in depleted human health as well. The future of Agriculture will need to abandon this negative feedback loop and return fertility and nutrients to the land and subsequently the food we eat.
Q: What hopes do you have for how your beef will affect your customers lives?
We hope that our beef impacts their health and wellness in a positive way- like it has for us. Also we hope to give them affordable and healthy meat, so they can economically feed themselves and their families. We would like to share with them the pride of knowing they are supporting something much bigger, that can impact the direction our planet is headed in, for the better. We hope they know that their choice in food is affecting our world in a positive way and that they know that what they are doing will help improve the health of our planet and everyone on it.
Q: Is there anything you want your customers to know?
We want our customers to know what we are doing and why we are doing it this way. We want them to know how raising and eating beef ethically is actually very important for health and the survival of our planet. We want our customers to know that they have options when it comes to where there food comes from and what the implications of their food are for their health and for the planet.
Q: When did you realize that you wanted to be a rancher?
Blake has always wanted to create something successful and something in which could be shared with others, ever since he grew up on his family's ranch. Helen has always been passionate about the health of our planet and a better way of doing things. Helen has also been a health nut for a long time and she has been concerned about the way that conventional food is produced. Helen saw the opportunity of working with Blake and his family as an opportunity to actually get involved in agriculture and in creating the future she wanted to see.
Q: What world/community issues keep you awake at night?
We worry that family and community structures have fallen apart, and we worry about the implications of this on the general morals and ethics of our society. We worry a lot about our contributions to pollution and plastic waste as humans. We really strive to think critically on a day-to-day basis. This is a value we hope will increase in the minds of average Americans across the nation.
Q: How does ranching relate to these issues that you worry about?
We believe that we are so lucky because we get to live our down to earth way of life. In producing and sharing our beef, we are trying to promote and share that sort of life with others. Our morals and ethics are an important part of what we do every day.
Our beef is in plastic, which sucks. But as small farmers and ranchers, we are big into conserving and re-using and repurposing anything possible so as to save money and pollute less. We do our very best, and will continue to find ways to do better and waste less. We are in a small town, and our community sort of mind set and working together as we have to do to exist in this community, we eliminate segregation and racism, and political conflict. We only work together for the greater good. We hope that eventually consumers will start buying healthy and sustainably raised meat and sustainably farmed grains and vegetables. We hope this leads to more small farms and ranches being able to provide good, wholesome food to their communities.
Q: Do you feel that you have a positive impact on our world by raising beef?
Every positive thing anyone does- no matter how small- results in a massive impact. If everyone were to do small things every day, we could all change the world. Even though we are a small ranch, we know we are contributing in a big way for future generations. We want to spread this mindset by our lifestyle, leading by example and sharing openly with others.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you face as a beef producer?
Finding a good, local meat processing facility and team has proven very difficult for us. Providing sufficient high quality feed, can be challenging, especially during the parts of the year when we receive really harsh weather. Balancing our methods of rotational-grazing and sustainable-hay-growing practices, so that we can treat our land kindly, rejuvenate it and make it as healthy as possible while running a sustainable business on it proves challenging as well.
Q: How do you mitigate these challenges?
Most of our local meat processing facilities are booked at least one year out, so they are tuff to get into, but once we find a good processor we work very hard to build a good lasting relationship with them. When our customers order their beef in advance and help us plan as far ahead as possible, this really helps us get quality beef to our customers in a timely and efficient manner.
As for providing the cattle and the land with what they need year-round, we monitor our pastures constantly and make adjustments based on what we observe. We are constantly improving our infrastructure so our pastures get sufficient rest from grazing and moving our cattle onto fresh grass is a low-stress and easy endeavor for everyone involved.
Q: Do you hope to stay in the Beef-Raising Industry? Why?
Yes!! It is so much fun.
Hearing our customers rave about the quality and the taste and texture of our beef and the excitement customers show makes all the hard work worth it! The knowledge that we are helping people improve their health and well-being while giving them and economical option is really gratifying. Doing our small part that we know will result in big change in the future is amazing and it feels good knowing that we are giving back to the land, and that we are treating cattle as valuable creatures who have a bigger part to play in our ecosystem and our community, rather than just to be fattened as quickly and cheaply as possible, and sold off to large companies. These amazing animals help us to achieve personal health and wellness and they are the most effective tool we have to achieve a future of healthy land.
Q: What is your favorite cut of beef and how do you like it cooked?
We like all the cuts, it's so hard to pick just one!
Cooking beef is so fun because with each cut you can do different things and there are so many methods of cooking them which result in a completely different outcomes. It’s just fun to experiment with all the cuts!
We especially enjoy creating something flavorful and tender from the less popular cuts that often get a bad wrap. There is really no bad cut of beef and cooking our way through them all has been a fun adventure.
Q: Do you have any funny stories you would like to share with your customers?
Last summer there was an older back cow who needed doctoring. So Blake and his father Robert grabbed their ropes and Helen grabbed one too, just for the heck of it. Helen didn’t know a thing about roping and she had only messed with it a little when she was younger for the fun of it- with friends. So all three loaded up and headed down to the field where the cow was. Blake and Robert got the cow to a corner of the pasture and they tossed their ropes at the same time to try to catch her, but their ropes intercepted each other and failed to make a catch. Helen was standing with her rope on the other side of the gate and cow decided to run over in Helen's direction. Blake and Robert yelled “It’s up to you now Helen!” So Helen started swinging her rope, and the cow did not want to be caught at that point so the cow started running faster. Helen ran towards the cow while swinging her rope and then let her rope fly. From 20 feet away while running at a running cow Helen somehow threw a perfect loop which fell around the horns with surprisingly-great precision. But the cow did not stop, and she proceeded to drag Helen- on the end of her rope. Helen held on though, as they both went through a big mud pit and then some how my rope ended up slowing the cow down so they could get her treated. Helen will never forget this experience, as she had no gloves on, and she was wearing her traditional footwear of choice- a pare of Birkenstock sandals...
Did you enjoy reading through the interview?
Let me know what we forgot to talk about by leaving a comment on this post.
Thanks!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>The uncomfortable feeling I get when someone starts talking like this has only been made worse by my recent experiences with the healthcare system.
I have been fighting to have our hospital bills, from the birth of our son, covered by our insurance company for weeks. It has been a ridiculous and exhausting process and it has truly injured the last shred of trust I have for the "healthcare" system. The whole experience of having a child in the hospital wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, although I do think there were a few things that were done without full disclosure or my consent, and I had to fight (while in labor) to have my desires for my own body and my child's body honored.
I'm so grateful I had a supportive husband and a doula, but I honestly would never go back to the hospital unless I absolutely had to.
You see, like hospitals and insurance companies, big companies and institutions are ultimately profit-driven. This theme permeates our health"care" system, our "food" system, and sadly our government agencies- because our government is made up of and influenced by individuals with lots of money who wish to preserve their own wealth and power.
If you want a very visible example of this, do an online search on Bill Gates. He is, currently, the largest private owner of farm-land in the United States. If you want to know where he thinks the future of agriculture lies, just read a few of his claims about the food system in his book How to Avoid A Climate Disaster, and pay attention to where he is investing his resources (he currently owns shares in Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods).
He believes the future of food isn't really food at all. He has invested in farm land for the carbon emissions credits, and like many big land owners in the US, to cash in on Ag Subsidies and Tax Breaks.
If large land owners like Bill Gates truly understood the difference between the resource intensive fake meats and sustainable agriculture, and if he was truly wanting to fuel a sustainable future, he would be investing in sustainable grazing operations rather than corn and soy production... but there aren't huge subsidies set up for truly sustainable agriculture yet.
As for food and the health"care" system, there seems to be a miscommunication, or at least a delay in implementating what is known about human health and what professionals in the health field are putting into practice.
One of the most recent studies being pushed to inform and influence the newest iteration of the US National Health Guidelines, is Food Compass.
You can view the latest publication and press-release on this study HERE.
This chart sums up their recommendations, mostly admonishing saturated fats and sugars and promoting plant-based foods, poultry and fish, and sponsored by companies like Acasti Pharma.
Why would food studies be sponsored by Pharmaceutical companies?
This isn't the first time this has happened, and in the past it has been an agenda of profit.
In 1952 Ancel Keys came up with his lipid hypothesis, linking heart disease to consuming animal fats.
He spent the next 50 years trying to prove this hypothesis right, and was unsuccessful.
By the late 70's, it was becoming apparent that ingesting plant oils like corn oil and soybean oil were associated with inflammation-based health problems.
Instead of admitting the mistake and advising people to begin using animal-based fats, other more-harmful products like Canola Oil were an encouraged substitution.
Needless to say, the lipid hypothesis has since been disproved, but it has remained the basis for government-backed health advice to this day, and statistics describing the demise of health in the US show the effects of this widespread mistake.
According to the CDC, the leading cause of death in America is Heart Disease, followed shortly by Cancer...
You would think, if the lipid hypothesis was correct, after 50+ years of encouraging Americans to avoid animal fats, the number of deaths related to Heart Disease would have decreased by now.
Its trends like these that really start to make me feel like "they" as in big industry food and pharmaceuticals would rather our country be rife with chronic illness, so they can cash in on our dependance on their products...
Government agencies don't make a profit themselves, but their recommendations sway the consumer dollar, and in many cases they designate our tax dollars to major purchases from private companies.
When the owners of huge companies like Monsanto, Tyson, Cargill, DuPont, ADM, Syngenta, Bayer, and JBS aren't seeing the consumer behavior they would like to see, funding towards "science" and lobbying goes a long way.
After all, it would be a lot harder to sell health"care" products and value-added food products to folks who were already healthy, and folks who were already sourcing or raising their own food.
Alongside Ancel Keys' debacle, our country saw another major shift in consumer behavior starting in the sixties.
Chicken used to be one of the hardest meat products to acquire and prepare, but poultry production became more efficient and therefore chicken also became the cheapest and most-accessible meat in the US, due to the work of one particularly industrious individual named, John W. Tyson. Determined to capitalize on one of the only meats not rationed during WWII, Tyson expanded his family's business by vertically integrating poultry production as a supplier, and placing the most risky and costly elements of production on farmers.
If you want to learn more about the ris
e of poultry as the nation's most consumed meat this article sums it up pretty nicely.
I also finished reading the book Big Chicken recently, (I would highly recommend reading this book!) It not only opened my eyes to this massive shift in our food system, but also to the role of antibiotics in meat production all over the world.
What baffled me was just how hard US companies and even Government Agencies fought to keep Antibiotics from being outlawed in animal feeds. Evidence for antibiotic resistance was evident (for three decades, the CDC recorded increasing outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacterias) up until antibiotic use in animal feeds was finally banned in the US in 2017.
What was most disappointing to me, was that antibiotics in animal feeds were outlawed in the EU in 2006, because outside of the US, the possibility of this risk was enough to halt this practice until proof could be solidified.
Unfortunately, with something like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it is a global affair and responsibility.
Our country not only failed its own citizens in the name of profit, but it also failed humanity all over the world.
Because of this, we now have zero antibiotics without resistant strains of bacteria. This could have been prevented if profit weren't the underlying force of our country's massive systems...
Tell me if I'm off-base here... but this kind of stuff makes me feel overwhelmed!
Who do we trust with our health and our food?
Who do we trust with the health of our families and our children?
Who do we trust our future and our legacies to?
Well first, we know we can trust ourselves.
We can trust our own instincts, and our ability to distinguish right from wrong.
We can trust our ability to dig deeper and to not just accept what is handed to us as the ultimate end-all-be-all truth.
We can also trust people we know and have had the chance to meet and talk to in-person.
People we can shake the hands of, ask our questions, and have plain discussions over things like our food, how it's raised, and how it's processed.
People who know what it's like to not have access to the real, pure, food and health we want.
People like local farmers and ranchers, who started producing food, not because they wanted to make insane profits to fuel their greed and power, but because they couldn't find what they were looking for at the store and because they love what they do and they want to share it with their community.
This is why I started Taste of the Wind.
I was sick of feeling physically sick, and sick of feeling scared of the only food I had access to.
I wanted to know that the food I was eating was actually nourishing my body and was not perpetuating our seriously messed up food system!
I didn't want my hard-earned dollars going towards an industry that didn't have my family's best-interests in mind.
I also realized nobody was coming to save me, it was up to me to create the food I was looking for, for myself and the people I care about.
So in 2013 I began working for farms and ranches all over the state, gaining as many skills and experiences as I could in raising food ethically and sustainably.
I eventually started Taste of the Wind in 2019.
Not only did I start growing the food I wanted, but I connected with other amazing families who were doing the same thing.
Next week I will introduce you to some of these amazing folks, and I'll talk about some upcoming opportunities to meet them and to support their mission to provide nutrient-dense, clean, honest, real-food products.
If you are interested in getting your hands on a constant supply of clean, nutrient-dense food that you just can't find in the grocery store, check out the products we have available on our online store.
The most popular of these are our:
Monthly CSA Share Box: a box of Locally-Raised Nutrient-Dense Products, Recipes and Mealplans
and
Available Soon: Bulk Beef, Pork, and Lamb Deposits- Stay tuned for the Bulk Meat Launch in March!
Speaking of ranches I have worked on in the past...
I whipped up a nostalgic recipe last night BJ, and I wanted to share it with you.
One of my past-bosses, Karen Hertel- one of the ranch managers at the The Ishawooa Mesa Ranch, a place I was lucky enough to work for a couple summers in Cody, WY- makes THE BEST granola ever!
We would eat it for breakfast or for an afternoon snack with fresh yogurt or raw milk from one of the ranch's dairy cows.
I have been longing to taste that granola again for several weeks now, so I decided to try my hand at making some!
It actually turned out pretty good, so I thought I would share my rendition with you.
I have had a lot of this stuff in my cupboard for way too long, so this was a great way to use up quite a few stale items too!
Immitation-Ishawooa Ranch Granola
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup nuts (walnuts, pecans, sliced almonds, etc)
3 tsp chia seeds or hemp hearts
1/4 c milled flax
1/8 cup sunflower seeds or pepitas
1 cup dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, chopped dates, raisins, crystalized ginger, apples, apricots, etc)
1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
1 cup coconut or olive oil
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
. . .
Preheat your oven to 350 *F.
Melt the oil and honey in the oven as it preheats, in a large metal bowl.
Remove the bowl from the oven and add the extracts.
Add all other contents to the bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until the contents are evenly-coated.
Empty the bowl onto two rimmed cookie sheets with rims.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Remove and let cool.
Store in a sealed container to prevent your granola from becoming ultra-crunchy.
Enjoy!
I hope this granola helps kick-start your day alongside some eggs and bacon, or you can eat it as a refreshing afternoon snack with some raw milk.
Stay healthy!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>What's with the candy and lame cards, when we could be enjoying this time of year the way people used to back in the day???
Valentine's Day actually claims to celebrate several individuals (considered saints) who were murdered for their kind actions, because the ways in which they helped people violated Roman law at the time.
Several of these saints were named "Valentine" including a Christian Priest who was performing miracles, and an Italian Bishop who was marrying couples in secret.
The irony of this holiday is, that it is now celebrated around the same time of year that the ancient Romans would celebrate with the feast of Lupercalia- a tribute to the goddess of fertility. It was custom to bring a friend of the opposite sex to this feast. What better way to impress someone than to share some awesome food?
. . .
I realized that, regardless of WHO or WHAT this holiday makes you want to celebrate, we have the HOW all wrong.
It's not candy and cards we should be indulging in this time of year-
it's a FEAST!!!
In years past I have been opting out of Valentine's Day, when I should have been cooking new dishes and inviting my loved-ones over for a feast instead.
At least we know now!
Chris and I are headed to a Feast with our good friends Blake and Helen (who raise awesome Longhorn Beef for Taste of the Wind) this week.
I can't wait!
What is your Valentine's Day Tradition?
We had a weekend full of beautiful weather here,
but that doesn't mean we were out of the mood for stew!
We had what I call "gizzy-stew" this week and it was delicious!
Chris and I are in the process of gradually cleaning out our freezer for Spring.
So we are down to the odds and ends of whatever I stuck in there over the past year.
Our freezer right now is home to stuff like...
An old laying hen I processed because she was pecking eggs, random organ meats, freezer burnt packages or packages of various meats and cuts that busted so I couldn't sell them.
Interesting stuff like that!
If you have been getting my emails for any amount of time you have probably realized I love a good culinary challenge- especially one involving turning Mediocre Meats into delectable, nutrient-rich deliciousness.
You probably also know by now, that I have a dang-picky husband when it comes to food...
So when it comes to eating the wonders at bottom-of-the-freezer, I have my work cut out for me.
A package of chicken gizzards ended up in this mix and I didn't quite feel like frying them, so I decided what the heck-
When in doubt, cook it down!
I tossed them into my slow-cooker with a bunch of other amazing veggies, spices, and bone broth.
Chris ate the gizzy-stew multiple times. He didn't even ask what the melt-in-your-mouth meat morsels were and he said he liked the stew!
I gave myself a pat on the back with my ladle.
Heck-yessss, another home-stewed-success!
Want to try your hand at stewing but don't have a freezer bottom full of "wonders" to try it out with?
We still have stew bundles available on our online store.
They do not include chicken gizzards, but they do come with:
-Soup Bones
-Beef Stew Meat
-Diced Pork
-Slow-Cooker Beef Roast
-Ground Beef
-Lamb Shanks or Beef Short Ribs
-My 5 Favorite Go-To-Stew Recipes
-FREE Shipping for the Month of February!
Stew is a great way to use up meat that may be a little bit freezer burnt from sitting at the bottom of your freezer for too long.
Here are some videos I created for you about preventing freezer burn and converting a freezer-burnt roast into a fantastic meal. In case you find some freezer burn in those wonders at the bottom of your freezer this winter.
I hope your week is warm and stewy, because it is supposed to get back into the negatives again this week in Laramie.
Stay warm and cozy!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Out here we call them marmots, and they are all currently asleep...
I don't think this rule really applies in the Wyoming dialect of Groundhogese... they all just assume the weather will be too cold to bear until May, and they stay safe and warm underground... no shadow-dance necessary.
So as we hunker-down in our own burrows and grumble at the windiest part of the year settling down upon us, what better past-times than to cook, to garden plan, and to dream of Spring...
What does your Spring Dream look like?
Mine includes my biggest garden yet, and a summer/fall full of canning. I have truly missed canning and growing my own veggies and fruits. Nothing beats pulling a growing radish out of the ground, brushing the dirt off, and eating it right then and there.
I can taste the crisp, peppery, cool, crunch on my tongue already...
On a particularly gloomy and breezy day this past week, I went digging through my seed stash from years past.
Man, do I have a TON of seeds!
I thought it would be fun to offer up some of them for trades if anyone wants to exchange seeds for other things they may have too many of.
Here is the list of seeds I have.
Give it a gander and let me know if there is anything you would like to trade for!
I also want to share my top 10 Favorite Kitchen Tools with you!
I am so grateful to have these tools this time of year, they definitely help me look forward to Spring and they also help me with other things like:
-reducing waste
-saving money
-increasing efficiency in the kitchen
-cutting down trips to the store
-increasing my repertoire of meal-variety
-making more things at home instead of buying them
-making cooking more enjoyable and easier
. . .
10 Must-Have Tools for Your Sustainable Kitchen
Have you been thinking about getting a freezer, but are not sure how much freezer space you might need? I made a chart to help you out:
What would you add to this list?
I would love to hear what tools you just couldn't survive without in the kitchen, and how you like to use them.
Leave a comment and let me know!
Do you know someone else who would benefit from our blog? Share this blog post with them for me. It is my goal to help connect as many people to their food as possible, and I would just love it if you could help spread the efforts!
Speaking of freezers... our bulk meat deposits launch in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned to hear how you can be entered to win free prizes when you reserve your bulk meat packages for 2023.
Here's what's in-stock in our online store this week:
We have Winter Stew Bundles Available Now!
These include:
-Soup Bones
-Beef Stew Meat
-Diced Pork
-Slow-Cooker Beef Roast
-Ground Beef
-Lamb Shanks
-My 5 Favorite Go-To-Stew Recipes
-FREE Shipping for the Month of February!
Get your Winter Stew Bundle ,
delivered right to your door so you can skip the grocery store and cozy up to the fire with a nice warm bowl of
Rich,
Delicious,
Wyoming-Grown,
Stew!
Have you thought about Valentine's Day yet?
Do you have a special someone you would like to give a neat gift to?
We have Funny Farm Valentines paired with our awesome Beef Snacks to help you out!
-Jerky
-Snack Sticks
-Summer Sausage
Order One or Two for a Friend,
OR
Send a Whole Beef Bouquet of 6 Valentines to a very Special Someone!
Each Valentine Pack includes FREE Shipping and is shipped in a 100% recyclable reinforced-kraft-paper mailer.
You can even send a custom message to your friends, family, and loved ones- just specify what you want to say in the notes section when you place your order!
Keep your peeps full and happy, and let them know you are thinking of them this Valentine's Day.
Well, that's all I've got for you this week.
Now make like a marmot and stay warm and hunkered-down for the extension of winter we have ahead of us!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
It has been a crazy/fun/humbling learning curve- raising Peter so far, as I'm sure it will continue to be!
One thing that has been ever-changing is...
my diet.
I did not realize that Peter would be so influenced by my diet already.
Most days he is so happy and mellow, but some days he would wake up screaming and would just seem so uncomfortable for hours and hours. It was horrible! Nothing I did was helping to relieve his pain.
It was making me so sad and helpless to see him suffer without the ability to help him...ugh!
Luckily, it is easy for me to know what I have eaten recently because I cook almost 100% of the time and I have been reducing my intake of foods with over 10 ingredients in them.
Temporary elimination diets are a very useful tool if you are ever looking to improve the way you feel- I have used them multiple times in my life to help determine what I need to change.
There are certain food groups that are well-known to cause gastrointestinal distress- like nightshades (peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes).
Eliminating a couple of problematic food groups for 2 weeks to a month and then slowly adding them back in, one-at-a-time, makes it a lot easier to figure out which foods are hard for your body to digest.
After a couple of weeks of keeping track and eating as simply as possible- I finally realized that tomatoes were the culprit, for now at least...
Now we are back to jolly, curious, and fun-loving Peter for the time being, woohoo!
It has been so chilly this week!
Lows in the double-digit negatives make 40 degrees feel like summer.
The air literally hurts my face- perfect time of year for stewing...
Not angry stewing.
Although, a few folks I know are probably stewing over the weather that way.
I love winter comfort foods, and I always keep a pot of bone broth cooking so I can whip up things like soups and stews all winter long.
Here is my Simple-Stew-Formula for whipping up a quick, rich, and nutritious winter stew:
Pick Your Base:
-2 cups bone broth or vegetable broth (the best is chicken broth- which I make from chicken feet and veggie peels and scraps)
AND/OR
-milk, for creamy stews and curries
Pick Your Spices:
The basic salt and pepper (and in my opinion, garlic) are a given, but consider some of these pairings:
-rosemary and thyme
-oregano, cumin, and cayenne pepper
-marjoram and dill
-curry powder, honey, and paprika
-mustard and fresh ground red-peppercorns
-sage, thyme, and lemon zest
-oregano, basil, and bay leaves
Pick Your Protein:
-stew meat or diced meat
(I love to use particularly tough cuts from the neck, brisket, shank, arm, leg, and round areas, in stews because they fall apart so beautifully. I also go for lean cuts because my broths already contain enough fats from bone marrow)
-slow-cooked roast
-ground beef
-meat from bones
(For this option, you will want to slow-cook a poultry carcass, or something like short-ribs, or cross-cut shanks. I usually do this while I am making bone broth and I strain out the broth and then gather the meat and re-unite it with my broth.)
-leftovers from another meal
Pick Your Veggies:
Add Some Veggies!
You know, the wilted ones you bought a week ago because you were going to start eating healthier in 2023... (as long as they aren't rotting yet) those will go great in your stew!
-Onions
-Tomatoes
-Carrots
-Celery
-Squash
-Garlic Cloves
-Kale
-Spinach
Add a Starch (Optional):
-Barley
-Farrow
-Rice
-Potatoes
-Sweet Potatoes
-Beans
-Lentils
-Peas
-Dumplings
-Sunchokes
Cook for 2-8 hours
(Shorter for stews with pre-cooked ingredients. Longer for stews with raw ingredients.)
The key is for your meat to have cooked, while submerged in liquid, between 180 and 200 degrees F, at a very light simmer.
I do this two ways, either in a dutch oven/stockpot with a lid, or in a slow-cooker.
I don't usually pressure cook my stews. In my experience, the meat ends up more tender if it slow-cooks.
I like to make a large batch and freeze some to reheat for a quick cold-night meal later.
. . .
What are your Go-To-Stews for weather like this?
I'd love to hear about them!
Does stew sound great to you???
We have Winter Stew Bundles Available Now!
These include:
-Soup Bones
-Beef Stew Meat
-Diced Pork
-Slow-Cooker Beef Roast
-Ground Beef
-Lamb Shanks
-My 5 Favorite Go-To-Stew Recipes
-FREE Shipping for the Month of February!
Get your Winter Stew Bundle,
delivered right to your door so you can skip the grocery store and cozy up to the fire with a nice warm bowl of
Rich,
Delicious,
Wyoming-Grown,
Stew!
Have you thought about Valentine's Day yet!
Do you have a special someone you would like to give a neat gift to?
We have Funny Farm Valentines paired with our awesome Beef Snacks to help you out!
-Jerky
-Snack Sticks
-Summer Sausage
Order One or Two for a Friend,
OR
Send a Whole Beef Bouquet of 6 Valentines to a very Special Someone!
Each Valentine Pack includes FREE Shipping and is shipped in a 100% recyclable reinforced-kraft-paper mailer.
You can even send a custom message to your friends, family, and loved ones- just specify what you want to say in the notes section when you place your order!
Keep your peeps full and happy, and let them know you are thinking of them this Valentine's Day.
Stay warm, dry, and off the roads if you can!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>Yet another sour-brick!
I could build a small house with all of the sour bricks I have baked in the past few years...
I SUCK at making sourdough bread... I have been trying for years to make the perfect loaf and the soft, bubbly, loaf of my dreams still evades me.
But you know, I seemed to be able to procure eggs and bacon in the middle of winter this year- somehow...
That got me thinking.
A lot of the books I have read recently have talked about the concept of reciprocity. That for everything we take, we must give back in some way.
In the book Braiding the Sweetgrass, the author sums it all up in "The Honorable Harvest"
Here is what it says:
"Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself.
Be accountable as someone who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking, abide by the answer.
Never take the first.
Never take the last.
Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half.
Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully.
Never waste what you have taken.
Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity, for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the earth will last forever."
I love this!
It truly makes me feel a bit better about my shortcomings- like my inability to make bread- because that opens up the opportunity for me to use my strengths to serve someone else who has strengths I am lacking.
My friend Maureen brought me this beautiful sourdough loaf the other day.
It truly was the loaf of my dreams; fluffy, bubbly, plenty of crevices to catch some golden home-made butter or olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with a golden crispy crust, and a hint of yeasty sourness.
Ahhhhhhh....
It was heaven, for so many reasons most folks may not realize.
You see,
I don't eat a whole lot of storebought bread because it has really weird stuff in it, like Soy Lecithin...
Why does it even need that???
Well, soy lecithin serves as an emulsifier- aiding in keeping mixtures of fat and water from separating. It also works as a preservative, and it is added to things like vitamin-supplements to increase fat and protein content.
But soy contains these chenicals called phytoestrogens, which your body can confuse for the same estrogens it produces... Because of this percieved estrogen, your body thinks, "Oh look, we produced enough estrogen already! Nice work crew, lets close up shop and head home for the day."
This leads to estrogen imbalance, reproductive-system disruption, and maybe even cancers- like breast cancer.
Keep in mind that this is theory.
Studies haven't 100% linked soy consumption with cancers, some sources even claim soy lecithin actually has several health benefits!
But in my brief research-session, I did learn that Soy Lecithin is a byproduct of raw soy processing. It is extracted using a solvent called hexane, it is then "degummed," and dried.
This is a red flag in my opinion. It doesn't go along with "take what is given," from the Honorable Harvest- for one...
If you trace soy consumption back through it's history as a staple food in Asian cultures, it was never consumed raw. Soy was always fermented like it is in Tempeh or Tofu- which was also the case with other traditional foods around the world, like sourdough, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut.
Hard-to-digest foods that were commonly consumed were historically prepared in ways that made them easier to digest.
As a country, we didn't start producing and consuming Soy, Corn, Barley, and Wheat to better our health... these increased with mechanization of agriculture, and because these crops were easy to grow in large quantities. There is a lot of collusion and corruption that went on in between (there is a whole book written about this called Against the Grain, which is worth a read, but for the sake of keeping this email a reasonable length, I'll skip those details for now!) Add in government subsidies, namely the Farm Bill, which stilited up agriculture and the economy and caused an insane overproduction of these commodities in the US. We were left with a massive problem of how to use this mountain of over-produced commodities created with tax-payer dollars. So into livestock feeds these products went, and into fuel production, and into all kinds of new processed foods.
Did you know that the original food pyramid was actually built to encourage more grain consumption to add value to these over-produced commodities, rather than to encourage US families to eat a more balanced diet?
The Farm Bill still designates millions of tax-payer dollars to subsidies for the production of commodity crops like corn, soy, wheat, and barley- even though these crops are not the most efficient, profitable, or environmentally-friendly crops farmers could be growing. These subsidies (see the categories titled: Crop Insurance and Commodities, totalling 68.1 Billion Dollars, in the figure below) keep farms stuck growing the same crop rotations over and over, depleting soils, and then applying increasing amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers and herbicides to make up the difference...
You can read more about the Farm Bill HERE.
This sounds about like the Honorable Harvest, doesn't it BJ???!
So, with all of that in mind... and the fact that heart disease, cancer, diabetes, infertility, and other health issues have been on the rise in our country since this major mechanization and subsidization of agriculture changed our food industry, I have decided to not to eat things with Soy Lecithin (and many other additives and preservatives) whenever I can help it. It just isn't necessary, and it supports industrial practices I am ashamed of and disgusted by in our country.
I'm not perfect and I certainly still have some work to do, but it's a start!
All of this factors in to how I felt about my disappointment with my incapacity to make enjoyable sourdough bread, and the deep gratitude I felt when Maureen graciously handed me that loaf to feed my family with.
What A Gift.
I later delivered a dozen eggs to her door in hopes I could help nourish her family too- my attempt at the Honorable Harvest and a Heart of Reciprocity.
We need our shortcomings, to tie ourselves to each other in community.
Trading and gifting are really something I haven't felt the full value of until recently, and I hope to do a lot more of that in 2023.
I'm not giving up on baking altogether though!
I found some pretty helpful and FREE resources from the University of Wyoming Extension, and I thought they might also be of use to you!
I can tell you from experience, that trying to follow recipes at high-altitudes can be pretty dang frustrating.
These guides on conversions and altitude-friendly recipes are just fantastic!
I hope they help you with your culinary endeavors.
University of Wyoming High-Altitude Baking Publications
Speaking of giving BJ...
Valentine's Day is coming right up!
Do you have a special someone you would like to give a neat gift to?
We have Funny Farm Valentines paired with our awesome Beef Snacks to help you out!
-Jerky
-Snack Sticks
-Summer Sausage
Order One or Two for a Friend,
Four for a Sibling,
OR
Send a Whole Beef Bouquet of 6 Valentines to a very Special Someone!
Each Valentine Pack includes FREE Shipping and is shipped in a 100% recyclable reinforced-kraft-paper mailer.
You can even send a custom message to your friends, family, and loved ones- just specify what you want to say in the notes section when you place your order!
Keep your peeps full and happy, and let them know you are thinking of them this Valentine's Day.
There are still a few more days to get your Winter Sampler Bundle before bulk meat deposits open up this Spring.
Get your Beef, Lamb, or Pork bundle HERE.
Or try all three at once HERE.
That's all we've got for you this week.
Stay warm!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
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I have cleaned as a side-job since I was in college, but it wasn't really until I became pregnant with Peter that I really started to increase my awareness of the ingredients in cleaning products I was using.
I have gradually become aware of more and more additives and chemicals that are being found to have negative side effects on our health.
So, naturally when I found out I was pregnant, I wanted to minimize exposure to any of the unneccesary toxins I could which, surprisingly, is actually pretty difficult when it comes to cleaning products.
In fact, some really common brands produce several products that have been found to be as harmful as second-hand-smoke when inhaled in a confined space.
Don't beleive me? Check out EthicalConsumer.org.
When it comes to most cleaning products, including ones we use to clean our bodies, the main components to avoid are often referred to as the "Toxic Trio":
Parabens
Triclosans
and
Pthalates
have been linked to cancers, hormone disruption, skin and eye irritation, and long-term negative effects in aquatic ecosystems.
Many of these types of chemicals have been banned in other countries, but not in the US.
If you are like me, I suppose you are probably wondering "Why is this?"
In the US it is not a requirement for companies to list all of the ingredients on the product- as is the requirement we are used to for manufactured food products.
So, my guess is that people just are not able to see what is in these products.
Only the main ingredient-families have to be listed on the packaging for cleaning products, soaps, conditioners and cosmetics. You can find a more complete ingredient list at the website that is required to be listed on the package, but do you have time to look up every ingredient list for every product you look at on the shelf?
I certainly don't...
Even just looking at the ingredients on the packages of products where they are actually listed gets seriously exhausting, and makes me want to set the item back down and just go without soap for the week...
This aspect of shopping certainly doesn't help how much I dislike going to the grocery store!
The best solution I have come up with so far, is to just make my own cleaning products.
This is a lot easier than it sounds.
You can actually use what I call the "Terrific Trio" to replace a lot of detergents and soaps in your home.
Baking Soda
Borax
Washing Soda
These products are available in very convenient amounts at most grocery stores, often in the same aisle as the cleaning products you are already purchasing, and they are cheaper!
We have used these three powders in our home for years- (we made the switch after Chris started getting rashes where his clothes would fold, like in the creases of his arms, around his neck, and on the backs of his knees). The rashes went away completely as soon as we switched and they have not been back.
Chris knows how to make clothes dirty- let me tell ya!
Between fixing equipment and vehicles, working his construction jobs, and helping me with the farm shenanigans- I'm surprised anything gets the dirt, grass stains, blood, fat, and grease out of our clothes!
The "Terrific Trio", plus a couple of other handy and easily accessible solutions take care of it all, and for wayyyy cheaper and with wayyyy less harm to us and our environment!
Here is a short list of what we use for different types of cleaning in our home:
Dishwasher- 1tbps borax, 1 tbsp washing soda, 1tbsp citric acid in the little detergent reservoir
Clothes Washing Machine- 1/4 borax, 1/4 cup washing soda right in the machine with the clothes
Stain-Remover- A squirt of peroxide on stained spots before placing in the washing machine
Hand-Soap- We use bar-soap to eliminate plastic packaging. We like Castile Soap and local soaps we have found in shops downtown or from local makers that are made with milk and tallow for moisturizing properties.
Shampoo- We also use bar shampoo. Our local Food Coop sells a couple of different brands. Our favorites so far, are J.R. Liggets, Castille, and Acure
Body Soap- Castille Soap and Acure also work great as body soap! I also appreciate soaps made with milk or tallow/lard because they offer a moisturizing aspect.
Disinfecting Spray/Glass Cleaner/Floor Cleaner- Orange Peels Soaked in Vinegar for 24 to 48 hours. This works great for wiping down surfaces and smells good too!
Polish- A banana peel, orange peel, or microfiber cloth with a water-and-baking-soda-paste smeared on it. This sounds weird- I know, but it actually works really well for polishing smooth surfaces!
Grout/Drain Scrub- An old toothbrush with a water-washing-soda-paste gets hard-to-reach crevices sparkling again.
*The Terrific Trio is free of several common toxins, but that does not mean they are safe to consume! Please keep these salts out of reach of children and stored safely so they cannot be improperly used by anyone in your household.*
Do you have any home-made washing/cleaning hacks that you like to use in your home?
I would love to hear about them! Leave a comment and tell me your go-to's!
I hope this list helps you reduce costs and eliminate some unneccesary toxins in your home.
How our Bulk Meat Packages Work:
If you have been on our email list for a while, you may have heard me mention Bulk Meat Deposits before.
We sell meat in 2 main ways:
1- Through our Monthly CSA Subscription- great for folks who don't have much freezer space
2- Bulk Packages like whole animals, halves, and quarters- great for folks who want to stock their freezer once or twice a year
Bulk Packages are the most cost-effective way for folks to get our meat products.
They require a deposit up-front and then the rest is paid once the meat is ready.
Pork- Whole and Half Pork Packages (Ready Winter and Summer)
Lamb- Whole and Half Lamb Packages (Ready in the Fall)
Beef- Whole, Half, Quarter, and Eighth Beef Packages (Ready in the Spring and Summer)
I open up deposits ahead of time so my team of ranchers and I can plan ahead. If we don't have deposits down for all of the animals that were born in a year, we sell them to another farm or ranch so we aren't feeding any extra animals over the toughest times of the year.
This is why we need you to save your spot with a deposit, if you would like to purchase in bulk in 2023.
Deposits will begin to open up in February/March.
But, for now, I am giving you the chance to try out a sample of our Pork, Lamb, and/or Beef so you can decide whether you like them enough to commit to a larger amount, before deposits open up.
You only have 2 more weeks to try out our Pork, Lamb, and Beef in our Sampler Bundles!
Order yours HERE before they sell out!!!
Until next week!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>As we look ahead in 2023, one of my favorite things to do is to gather up a list of books to read over the year.
I keep a running To-Read-List and when the year turns over, I look at which books I read and which ones I added throughout the year and I create my new list.
I'm so lucky to have a lot of friends who send me great reading recommendations!
Some come from podcasts, some from people I follow on social media, some from business mastermind communities, and a few of them come from my husband, Chris!
Most people don't know this, but Chris is actually the biggest "reader" I know.
Here's the thing though... he has ALWAYS struggled with and hated reading!!!
Despite this hurdle, Chris probably reads over 100 books a year without flipping a page.
Isn't that nuts!?
Thanks to audio books, Chris reads all kinds of books, fiction, non-fiction, history, mysteries, westerns... while he works, while he drives, and while he is in his shop at home building and working on projects.
Here are the two free apps he uses to listen all these books for free.
All you need is a library card from your local library branch!
Libby
LibraVox
I listened to a lot of great books this year while I worked my "other jobs" too, thanks to these two apps!
I used to hate audio books because I would just daydream through them.
I finally figured out, though, that if I play audio books on fast-forward, they keep my attention, because I have to focus on them harder to hear all of the words.
It is kind of silly, but it works really well for me and I can power through some really great books and pay attention to them for much longer than I was able to before!
2022 Books That I read and liked:
Fox and I
The Body Keeps the Score
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Atomic Habits
Deep Nutrition
My Friend Flicka
Farm and Other F Words
The Meadow
Whole
The Reason for God
Birth Without Fear
A Promised Land
Greenlights
The Power of Now
Start With Why
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Vitamania
Chris's favorite books he read this year were:
Non-Fiction: Holding Back the River by Tyler J. Kelley
Fiction: Stardust by Neil Gaiman
I wanted to share these books I read and enjoyed in 2022, and the ones I am looking forward to reading in 2023 with you because I figure you might enjoy reading some of them as well.
I am a non-fiction fan. I do read fiction books here and there, but my reading selection is inherently dominated by non-fiction.
I can't help it...I love to learn about things like:
-Finding and Eating Local Food
-Preparing Nutrient Dense Meals
-Diet-Based Supplementation
-Adventures in Cooking At Home
-Supporting Local Businesses
-Sustainable Living
-Environmental-Friendly Lifestyle
-Travel and Culture
-Wildlife and Livestock
-Traditional Trades/Skills
-Anything to do with Learning and Gaining New Skills In General
I love learning, to a fault... As soon as I feel like I have an idea of how something works I want to be onto the next thing I want to learn!!!!
This leads me to be a Jack of all trades Master of Absolutely NONE...
Is it me, or is life is just too short to stop learning?
It is a pretty important goal of mine for 2023 and beyond, to keep learning new things by listening and reading, and I would love to pass this love of learning and reading onto my kids.
So, I was very excited when Peter received big pile of children's books for Christmas!
Chris and I have already been reading these books to him and he loves it!
A lot of these books I haven't read since I was little, and it is fun to re-experience them as an adult. I cannot wait to see Peter connect with these stories and pictures in his own ways as he grows and starts to understand and memorize them.
I also have been listening to some audiobooks and podcasts around Peter and he seems to enjoy hearing different voices that way too!
Without Further Ado,
Here is my 2023 List of Books to Read:
-The Milagro Beanfield War
-Big Team Farms
-Once Upon a Farm
-Braiding Sweetgrass
-The Gut Immune Connection
-Pastoral Song
-This Is Your Brain On Food
-The Foxfire Book
-The Inflammation Spectrum
-The Soil Will Save Us
-Lazy B
-The Western Range Revisited
-Stalking the Wild Asparagus
-The Salatin Semester
-Women Who Run With the Wolves
-The Unsettling of America
Care to share yours?
I whipped up a quick batch of Mini-Pot Pies this week.
They were SO good, so I wanted to share my adapted version of this recipe, from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook with you.
I think this pot pie recipe would be great with beef, lamb, or poultry.
I used 4 cups of leftover turkey from a holiday dinner we had with family.
I made the crust as well. It was pretty easy.
I have been making more crusts, and breads in the past few months because the pre-made ones at the store have so much extra junk in them. They really aren't too hard to make if you keep the ingredients on hand.
Preheat oven to 425* F
Crust:
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold lard or butter
7 Tbsp cold water
Mix the flour and salt, cut in the lard or butter. Combine lightly until the mixture resembles coarse meal/tiny peas. Sprinkle water over the mixture a tablespoon at a time and mix lightly with a fork until the pastry holds together when pressed into a ball.
I chilled the dough in the fridge (actually on the porch, in the bowl I mixed it in) while I made the filling.
Pot Pie Filling:
6 Tbsp butter
6 Tbsp flour
2 cups broth
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
4 cups cooked chicken or turkey
1 white onion, diced
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup of carrots
Melt the butter, add the flour and stir until smooth, add onions and simmer for about a minute. Then add the broth, pepper, turkey, carrots and peas, stirring in between each ingredient. Bring to a light simmer, then turn off the stove.
You could make a large pot pie with these components if you want, but I like the mini pot-pie cups because they are much easier to store and reheat for lunches later!
Break off little balls of dough from your dough ball and squish them into the compartments of a muffin tin.
Once you have made all of your mini crusts, fill each compartment with the filling from the stove- level with the top of each compartment.
Place your muffin tin in the oven on a middle rack and bake for 25 minutes or when the tops just barely start to turn golden brown.
Enjoy!
P.S.- Because the crust is fat-based, the little pot pie cups popped out of the muffin tin really easily on their own.
No need to grease your pan!
What is the first thing you made in 2023?
I would love to hear about it!
Happy Sustainable 2023!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>After making gift suggestions for "hard-to-buy-for people" I realized that I myself, can be one of those very people...
I tend to be a minimalist, probably because we have moved so many times and I just get tired of moving so much stuff. So when people ask me what I want for Christmas my go-to answer is usually, socks.
I can put holes in socks like nobody else I know!
It is funny to me that kids dread getting socks for Christmas... every year I get a few pairs of socks and I am so grateful!
This year however, I received some really neat gifts I would not have thought of, and I wanted to share one of them with you as a gift idea for other occasions, or maybe even next year.
Alright, are you ready???
One of the coolest and simplest gifts I got for Christmas this year, is
a grater/slicer attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer.
I'm not an applicance person, but my dark blue Kitchen Aid has proven indispensable. Ours was given to us by someone who got a newer version about 5 years ago.
I was making cookies with some kids a couple Christmases ago and they had a bunch of googley eyes for some Rudolph cupcakes they were making. There was a set of googley eyes that was way too large to fit on a cupcake, so I stuck them on the mixer as a joke. The kids and I started calling the mixer "The Cookie Monster," and 5 years later the googley eyes and the nickname have all stuck.
I use the Cookie Monster for everything... baking, prepping dinner, even making zoodles! The Cookie Monster whipped up Peter's first whipped cream this Christmas, boatloads of eggnog, home-made hot chocolate, and corn bread for our holiday cribbage party we had last week too!
The only thing I haven't tried with it is grinding meat. I have heard this burns up Kitchen Aid mixers, and we have a couple of meat grinders so I haven't felt the need to try it.
But one thing I truly hate doing- and probably the only thing I actually hate doing when it comes to cooking- is grating cheese. I hate it so much, that when I announce that dinner is ready, Chris instantly asks if I want him to grate some cheese ontop of it.
What a guy!?
Well Chris's sister Abbie heard how much I hate grating cheese and she decided to get me a grating attachment for the Cookie Monster.
It is AMAZING!
Yes, I am aware that I could buy shredded cheese at the store, but did you know most shredded cheeses have weird things added to them to keep the shreds from sticking together???
The most common ingredients include cellulose, potato starch, cornstarch, calcium sulfate, and natamycin. Some of these are also key ingredients used in cement and tile grout!
Now, doesnt THAT sound appetizing?!
These ingredients can also wreck your recipes, because the anti-caking agents used will keep the pre-shredded cheese from melting normally and blending with other things like butter, when you are trying to make a creamy-cheese sauce, for example.
So you could say this handy gadget saves time, energy, Chris's fingers, and the integrity of cheesy recipes!!!
I'm in love!
What is the coolest gift you received this year?
Here are some recipes I recently cooked up that I thoroughly enjoyed and wanted to share with you.
Mollee's Most Eggcellent EggNog
3cups whole milk
1cup cream
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
1tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
Heat the milk/cream to about 160 degrees, mix the eggs, sugar, salt, and seasonings in a separate bowl.
Once the milk is heated, temper the egg mixture by slowly whisking a cup of the hot milk into it, then another cup after that.
Mix tempered egg mixture back into the milk mixture and turn the heat off.
It will thicken a little while it cools.
Enjoy with home-made whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon on top!
Cream of Turkey Soup
Cream of chicken soup is another one of those things that is so full of junk, when you buy it at the store. I have fond memories of the recipes my mom used to make with Cream of Chicken Soup though, so I decided to make my own version with turkey leftovers from a Christmas meal we had with family.
Place 1 tablespoon of chicken stock in a saucepan over medium-low heat, and cook and stir the onion and garlic in the broth until they are softened, about 3 minutes. Pour in the rest of the broth and 1/2 cup of milk, and whisk in the salt, black pepper, parsley, pepper, allspice, and paprika. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat, and allow to simmer for 1 to 2 minutes.
Whisk together the remaining milk and the flour until smooth, and whisk the milk mixture into the hot stock mixture. Keep whisking continuously to avoid lumps until the soup comes almost to a boil and thickens.
Have any Winter recipes you care to share?
Until next week BJ.
Happy New Year!!!!
-BJ, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
The whole New-Year-New-Me thing just doesn't seem to stick year after year.
Would you agree?
Or are you a stickler for that January 1st-Fresh-Start?
I'm with you, it is nice to have somewhere to draw the line from old to new, 2022 to 2023, and possibly habits you dislike and ones you would prefer to have, but why do we put this practice off for the New Year?
Why only once a year?
Personally, I like using the Solstices and Equinoxes to reevaluate my intentions and practices 4 times a year.
It just feels more natural, and in-tune with the seasons to have self-reflection on these four days, and it takes some of the pressure off of the New Year.
I already keep a journal on a somewhat regular basis, so it works well to make sure I write these four times per year and really delve deep into where I have been, where I am now, and where I want to go.
Since today is the Winter Solstice, I won't make resolutions per-se, but I will take some time to write down ways in which my life does and does not reflect my intentions. I will list out things I would like to improve on and directions I would like to focus on taking in the next few months as the days start to shift from darker to lighter.
This feels more positive to me, than setting goals I know deep-down may not be realistic or sustainable.
Realizing that the days will be getting longer from now until June helps me to feel inspired- rather than overwhelmed. The focus becomes using that extra bit of daylight every day to become more of the person I want to be, and to do things I value, rather than acting out of subconscious habit.
Bringing awareness to my actions and re-aligning my intentions with what I am doing, is something I make an effort to do for a good amount of time on both Solstices and Equinoxes.
What are your New-Year or Solstice Rituals?
One of the things I need to re-align in my life this winter is my diet.
This year my diet really changed a lot through my pregnancy. There were things I simply could not stand to even smell- one of those was coffee and I still can't stand to drink it. (I'm actually so grateful for this aversion that has seemed to stick so far!)
I would say I generally shifted away from eating lots of fruits and vegetables because they were so unpalatable and towards the end were giving me outrageous heartburn.
I have since noticed a negative difference in my health, which I believe to be due to a lack of fruits and vegetables lately.
So one of the things I am focusing on this season is eating more fruits and vegetables that are
1) In-season
and
2) Locally produced.
How do I pull this off in the Winter?
My awesome friends at EAT Wyoming!
LeAnn Miller, fondly known as "The Veggie Lady" in Casper Wyoming, puts together produce boxes using products from all over Wyoming, and sometimes other nearby states too.
A Veggie Share from the Veggie Lady is an option to add-on to our CSA this winter.
It is unbelievably affordable, and having fresh vegetables and sometimes fruits delivered to your door, is a sure-fire way to add some fresh produce into your life. I'm a cook-by-what's-in-the-fridge kind of person, so when I have veggies on-hand I use them!
If you are more of the meal-planning type, the Veggie Lady sends out recipes to go with the box contents as well!
EATWyoming makes cooking with veggies so easy, and they deliver to my door every month. I LOVE it!
If you are a 2023 CSA Member with us, you can add a Veggie Share to your subscription and have your veggies delivered with your CSA monthly along with several other Add-On options HERE.
I hope you thoroughly enjoy the rest of the shortest day of the year!
Merry Christmas!
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
Happy Wyoming Winter!
I mean real winter now... the weather outside is, well, a bit frightful.
Appropriate for the season, I might add.
We are finally are having our first actual blizzard of the year and it's about time!
I love it when it snows, but it does make things a bit challenging for shipping products.
This is what I mean when I say Winter is the thing I love to hate.
So much depends on how much snow we get here, not just for us, but for our whole nation!
When we get snow in Wyoming, (becuase a large part of the Continental Divide runs through this state) that is more water for the whole entire country come Springtime.
So Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, and Happy Kwanza- some more fresh mountain water is in store for your region! What a fantastic present from Mother Nature to us all.
It's hard to hate a blizzard for too long when you think about it this way, even though it may delay the arrival of a few of our other presents we may have ordered this week...
Especially -since we've no place to go- as the roads have been closed for the past couple of days and that means no shipments of any kind have been able to get here or leave here.
If you placed an order this week, please be aware that we are experiencing delays. The good thing is that cold weather helps keep perishable products cold longer at least!
I have held most shipments back so I can make sure everything stays the right temperature until roads open up again.
So for orders that have already been placed, non-perishables (Snack Packs, Jerky, Summer Sausage, and Cook Books) will ship out tomorrow (the 15th), and perishables (frozen meats) will ship out Monday the 19th.
This means the last day you can order from Taste of the Wind, and expect your package to arrive before Christmas, is Monday the 19th for any shipments destined as far as the East Coast, Tuesday the 20th for most other places, and Wednesday the 21st for Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, the Dakotas, and Colorado. Order as early as possible to ensure your package will arrive on time, becaus you never know- delays happen!
Check out our Holiday Bundles HERE if you haven't already.
I wanted to share an Edwards' family favorite Holiday Recipe: Mock Wild Boar. I think it is an unusual one, because I hadn't heard of it before I met Chris, and neither has anyone I have told about it.
Let me know if you have ever had it!
This recipe uses a raw ham roast, which can actually be hard to find!
Most ham roasts you get in the store are cured. Some folks like to avoid cured items because they don't want to consume nitrates and nitrites. So this is a great Holiday Roast alternative for these folks who want to skip the curing salts.
I recently had a CSA customer reach out to me and ask what the best way to use a raw ham roast is, and that conversation reminded me that this is one of my favorite recipes.
This is NOT an easy recipe. It takes A LOT of time to marinate and cook, so this recipe isn't for the faint of heart, but boy is it good!
Chris's Aunt recently posted photos of the family recipe on the original cards she has, on Facebook, so I thought I would share them with you too!
I leave out the Accent (MSG-flavor enhancer) and replace it with 2 more Tablespoons of salt.
I replace the beef noodle soup with beef broth for this stage.
Let me know if you decide to take on this beast of a recipe.
It is certainly worth it!
I would love to hear what you think of the process and the end result.
What are some of your family's holiday traditions and recipes?
I would love to hear about them!
I hope you are enjoying snuggling up by a -fire that's so delightful- with hot drinks, and snow falling outside your window wherever you are this week!
Until next week...
-BJ and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>It has been a couple of weeks since I have blogged... Hello!
We had our first son, Peter Henry Edwards, on November 7 at 1am. He weighed 6lbs 15oz and has been strong and healthy from the very beginning.
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I got to have a quick and completely unmedicated birth experience at our local Ivinson Memorial Hospital. There were no complications and we got to go home a little over 24 hours after Peter was born. I was so grateful for how smoothly everything went and how kind, helpful, and respectful the staff at Ivinson was.
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We also had the support of our amazing Doula, Jacqueline George out of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. She was so much help and support throughout my whole pregnancy and I wouldn't have the confidence or peace of mind without her there at the hospital with us. I highly recommend her services to anyone seeking prenatal-post-partem support in the southern half of Wyoming.
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We are so grateful for this blessing on our lives. I had no idea how amazing it would feel to actually become a Mother and I am loving every second.
Chris is thoroughly enjoying his new role as a Father too!
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Peter is so fun to have around already! I think he looks like a mini-Chris with blonde hair. Apparently Chris had blonde hair when he was born too. He already has a huge range of facial expressions and he loves to look all around with his big grey-blue eyes.
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He is gaining weight and enjoying the simple things in life and we have already been taking him along for short farm-adventures with us too!
Life has slowed down a lot for me as I focus on healing and as I adjust to all the new aspects of life involved in motherhood.
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I am easing back into responsibilities on the farm and with Taste of the Wind and I am searching for another part-time job to start in a couple of weeks.
Life is good!
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Just a quick reminder that the deadine to reserve your CSA share for 2023 and qualify for a holiday box of meats is December 1st.
You can place your deposit and reserve your box HERE.
These boxes ship out by the 15th of December.
The CSA Subscription starts around Jan 15th.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
We hope your weekend is filled
with people you love and great food!
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-BJ, Chris, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>Every time you open the door, you are waiting for a cascade of tupperware to bury you on the kitchen floor and you just hope someone else will be around to help dig you out!!
Well, it has officially been one week since Thanksgiving and we are down to just a bit of the dark meat now, but earlier this week we still had mashed potatoes, string beans, carrots, pie, and a huge tupperware of turkey to abscond with!
We could freeze the leftovers, but we don't have much freezer space right now and I was up for the challenge of using them all up before they went bad!
There's nothing like a cleaned out fridge to help you feel the victory of a week's-worth of creative re-cooking.
Here are a couple of favorites from our procession of Thanksgiving left-overs reincarnations this past week:
Turkey Tetrazzini- This is a favorite of Chris's. I think he looks forward to this dish more than he looks forward to any of the actual components of a Thanksgiving Meal!
Turkey Salad with Cranberry Sauce Vinaigrette- Have you noticed how hard it is to find salad dressing at the store without Canola/Vegetable Oil in it! It is crazy, almost ALL brands have it in the first couple ingredients among other scary ingredients like gums and syllable preservatives... I have been making my own dressings for a while now and my favorite is this super simple vinaigrette.
Here is the basic formula, this is for a single serving. You can just multiply this up if you are making salad for more than one person. This dressing keeps well in the fridge, but you will want to bring it to room temp and emulsify it- just give the jar a good shake- before putting it on your salad from the fridge:
1Tbs Fruit- ideally blended or mashed with a bit of honey (or you can use jam/jelly)- for the cranberry vinaigrette I used cranberry sauce
2Tbs Olive oil
1Tbs vinegar- I like red wine or apple cider vinegar for most dressings I make
Put all the ingredients in a jar and shake vigorously until the dressing is all one consistency- no separation of oil and vinegar is visible.
The salad was simple. Middle Fork Farm in Centennial had me out last week to help butcher their thanksgiving turkeys and as a thank you they gave me fresh lettuce and basil from their hyrdroponic towers. I shredded some turkey and sliced up some veggies, added my cranberry sauce vinnaigrette and salt and pepper and tossed away.
So good!!!!
Turkey Spaghetti- Spaghetti is a staple in our house. Such a great way to get your veggies in! Adding turkey is so simple. I started my noodles boiling. I like to infuse the turkey with a little bit more flavor before I throw it into dishes so we don't get tired of it. I dumped some shredded turkey into a skillet with about 2 Tbs olive oil, 1/2 tsp basil, 1/2tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp oregano, a dash of salt, and pepper. Once the turkey was sizzling I added a jar of home-made spaghetti sauce and brought it all up to temp. I drained the noodles and we dished up!
Fun fact: Chris won't eat his spaghetti sauce on his noodles... he always eats the noodles with butter and then the sauce on the side after... I have no idea why, (neither does he) but he has always enoyed his spaghetti this way- so who am I to try to change that. Haha!
Turkey Burritos- Burritos are a great late-night dinner I throw together when we get done with a long day and we just want to go to sleep! The other night we got done with everything we needed to do around 10pm and Chris and I didn't feel like waiting a whole lot longer for dinner to be ready. I always keep double-serving-sized containers of beans and rice I have pre-cooked, in the freezer so I can quickly thaw them out and whip up a meal. Adding turkey to this mix was super easy!
I dumped some shredded turkey into a skillet with about 2 Tbs olive oil, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp paprika, a dash of oregano, and a pinch of salt. I stirred that for a couple minutes, then added the beans and rice and sauteed everything until it was all warm and a bit crispy. Then I dished it up into some home-made tortillas- my favorite recipe is below, it's super quick and simple.
My favorite home-made tortilla recipe.
Oh yes we eat like kings, even in a hurry!
How was your Thanksgiving?
Are you still working through those Thanksgiving leftovers???
What recipes do you like to use up leftovers with?
Speaking of Thanksgiving, several of our CSA Members got a locally raised turkey and a Turkey Brining Kit in their CSA Share in November!
Everyone was pretty excited and I have gotten a lot of great feedback!
We offered these turkeys through a partnership with another local farm- Schadey's Acres just outside of Laramie. They did such a great job rasing beautiful free-range heritage breed turkeys. I'm excited to be able to offer more Local Turkeys next thanksgiving through this partnership, to our growing CSA membership next year!
Have you signed up for the 2023 CSA yet?
You only have 1 more day to do so and qualify to recieve a Holiday Box from Taste of the Wind!!!!
Sign up HERE.
CSA shares close December 15th for the year of 2023, but Holiday Boxes need to ship before then!
So make sure to sign up before midnight tonight!!!
Place your deposit HERE, and get your holiday box sent to your door before the holidays are here!
This year's holiday boxes include a variety of products including a locally-raised grass-finished Prime Rib Roast,
some beef jerky and snack-stick stocking stuffers, a farm-themed oven mit, a farm-themed basting brush, a Christmas Card and letter from Your Farmers, some Farm-Favorite Recipes and more!!!
I hope you are enjoying Winter and are looking forward to the holidays. Until next week!
-BJ , Pip, Peter, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>When I do my weekly delivery-round in Laramie I am often asked questions about processing animals. Usually these are technical questions about how things work and what tools and proceedures are used. I appreciate the opportunity to provide some clarity on this process that many folks are curious about.
I have so much respect for individuals who at least want to have some sort of awareness about the process of converting animals into sustenance for our well-being. Acknowledging this sacrefice and transition is imperative in our efforts to moving towards a more sustainable world- in my opion.
Some folks even want to take part in the harvesting of the animal that will sustain them and their family for the next few months.
Luckily, we can provide this opportunity to folks who are interested!
It saves a lot of money too, about half of what our bulk beef packages cost are just processing fees that go to our local butcher.
I'm all for supporting another local business that is very good at what they, do but I understand how big of an investment filling your freezer all at once can be also.
For folks who want to process their own animals, this saves about a thousand dollars per steer and provides a very educational experience!
Don't get me wrong though, it is A LOT of work to process an entire steer and you will want a team of people to help- at least for the post-harvest packaging part. It is not a one-man job, although I have done it alone before and it takes FOREVER by yourself.
You will sleep really well the night after, because it takes a lot of physcial labor, but it is really rewarding to fill your own freezer. It can be a great day of learning and fulfilling work with a good team.
Most of the folks who partake in the harvest on the ranch do so for religious reasons. We have many Muslim customers who have specific practices that make animals acceptable to consume once harvested- many of these practices are to ensure the animal is respected to the fullest extent throughout the process.
It is also a great way to keep a lot of the parts off the animal that the butcher won't usually allow. You are purchasing the animal live/on-the-hoof, so you can choose to keep or discard any and/or all parts.
If you are interested in harvesting your own beef this Fall, email me at BJ@tasteofthewind.com, and we can get that process started.
It is sure to be a memorable experience, and meat that you have put effort into yourself always tastes better!
Total Grass-Finished Beef Snack RESTOCK!!!
We finally got our latest batch of beef snacks back from our local butcher and they taste AMAZING!!!!
NEW
Jalapeno Cheddar Summer Sausage
BBQ Jerky
And a Previous Crowd Favorite-
Honey Jerky
You can try all Three with FREE Shipping in our Fall Beef Snack Bundle HERE.
We also had some Fresh, New Products made with our Grass-Finished Beef that are SO delicious!
Beef Hot Dogs
Beef Cheddar Hot Dogs
Beef Beer Bratwursts
Beef Beer and Cheddar Bratwursts
Want to give all of these Fall Products a taste at once?
Try out our Fall Cook-Out Bundle HERE.
You are bound to love these grass-finished delights, Chris and I have already eaten more than I care to admit...
A Freezer-Aisle Taquito: Recipe Hack
You probably already know that pregnancy cravings can get a little,,, odd.
But, did you know that it is really common to crave foods you haven't had since childhood BJ?
Me nether, until lately- I have been craving a lot of food I haven't had in years and years.
Unfortunately, I was raised on a lot of junk food: Pre-made meals out of the freezer or a box... my parents did the best they could- I'm not criticizing them, but I choose to live differently.
SO this week, when I had a hankering for freezer-aisle taquitos, I made some Chicken Liver/Ground Beef Taquitos instead!
Oh my gosh they hit the spot and they were full of nutrients and no preservatives or additives!
Ahhhhhh
Here is the recipe: (makes 3 servings... or one ravenous prenant lady serving and a half a serving for her poor skinny husband)
2 pasture-raised chicken livers
1/2 lb grass-finished ground beef
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
for a little kick, add 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper and chili powder
1 cup shredded cheese
10 corn tortillas
Finely-chop chicken livers and place in cast-iron skillet with ground beef.
For extra nutrients and buttery-ness add 1 Tbsp of bone marrow to the mixture- it will melt in and add to the sizzle and help the spices bind to the meat.
Sear for roughly 15 mins on med-high heat- or until well-cooked.
Switch off heat (to keep the pepper from burning), add seasonings, and stir.
Grab a 9 x 11ish baking pan and line up your corn tortillas in it side by side with the edges curled up like little tacos.
Spoon meat mixture into the tortillas.
Add shredded cheese to each one.
Roll into tubes and tuck them into the pan tightly, side-by-side, so they don't unroll.
Bake on 250 for 10 minutes. You can use your toaster oven too if you have one and that your pan will fit inside.
They don't have to bake, since the meat is already cooked, but making the tortillas a little crunchy helps them hold their shape and keeps them from falling apart while you eat them.
Remove from oven once the edges just start to crisp up.
Enjoy with Sour Cream, and your favorite Salsa.
These are a fantastic game-day treat without all the junk of normal sports foods, for the Fall Sports fans.
Liver is truly nature's multi-vitamin and chicken livers are very mild in flavor.
Chris ate his share of these without even noticing that I put livers in them!
HAH- Wifey Victory- that's my kind of Fall Sport!
If you try this out, or any variation of it, leave a comment on this blog post to let me know what you think and what you would change! I love exchanging cooking tips, especially with the "weird parts" of animals.
Want some livers to try this recipe out with. Order yours HERE. (Chicken livers are a Wyoming-Only product)
If you would like to try out the recipe with Beef Liver instead, we can ship our grass-finished Beef Liver nation-wide because it has been processed in a USDA inspected facility. You can order those HERE.
Our Fall Beef Packages include these awesome products as well as the custom cookbook we wrote just for our customers
Cooking Your Way Through a Whole Beef
We wrote this book so you could have an easily-accessible, wire-bound, colorful cookbook with water-resistant pages to help guide you through all the cuts you could possibly receive in a beef package.
This Cook Book is organized by the cut, so if there is something in your freezer you just don't know how to tackle- you can flip right to it. We have got your back!
It also has a Meet Your Rancher Section where you can learn a little bit about each producer we have partnered with to bring you Amazing, Local Beef!
Here's what folks are saying about our Cook Book:
"Thanks so much for the cook book! I love the pictures and I already have some recipes picked out that I am excited to try." -Vladimir A.
"The cook book you sent us is a real treasure. Thank you for including it with our awesome beef package." -Marilyn A.
"I am grateful to have the Cook Book you gave us. The grass-finished beef has been a learning curve, because I never would have known how to cook things like the oyster shell steak or the flat iron. Thank You!" -Susan D.
All of our Fall Bulk Beef Packages come with a copy!
Please keep in mind, our Fall Beef Packages close in October, so don't wait to reserve yours with a deposit ASAP.
You can do so HERE.
A deposit is only a portion of the payment to hold your slot. Full pricing is explained on the product page at the link above.
The balance is not due until your beef is ready- which will be starting in October.
Reserve for Yourself a Wonderful, Grass-Finished Beef Package and get:
Introducing the Oxford Ranch
This family raises Wagyu cattle just south of Laramie and they are helping us fill our demand for grass-finished organ meats!
You may see their label on your organ meats and soup bones if you order these items.
The oxford ranch has a lot of great things going on, on the ranch.
They not only raise grass-finished Wagyu Beef, but they also offer ranch-stays in their cabins!
You can check them out HERE.
You can also follow them on Facebook @oxfordranchwyoming
We are excited to make their spectacular products more accessible for you!
Would you do me a quick favor?
Would you take 5 minutes to leave us a google review?
This helps us immensely!
People are searching for the products our team works hard to offer our community, and reviews help these folks find us!
We would sincerely appreciate it!
Thank you!
Until next week my friend!
-BJ, Pip, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
]]>I get it.
It's heavy and it can leave us feeling guilty for sustaining ourselves as meat-eaters. AND it often-times leaves people outside the food system thinking that those of us inside the food system are just heartless, cruel, or numb, and that we have turned off our ability to care about what these animals are feeling and experiencing.
But I want to offer an alternative perspective and a different experience, because over the years I have come to realize it really doesn't have to be this way.
Last week Tom Rardin invited me to go on a small gather to round up some their cattle to take into the processor.
It wasn't that he was asking me to come along and help, rather a favor he was offering to me- to let me come along, because this is something Tom and/or Bridger routinely acheive on their own, with little or no help.
It was pretty amazing!
I haven't been able to have quite so many adventures involving cattle and horses this summer because I haven't wanted to risk getting injured while pregnant. The work we get to do with animals isn't usually very dangerous, but it can go that way in a hurry because these large animals obviously have minds of their own, and can therefore be somewhat unpredictable...
So, Chris and I decided I should lay off the ranch-hand/horseback work this summer and do something with less risk associated instead. The closest available job for this summer that fit the bill has been housekeeping up at Albany Lodge.
It has been a LONG summer of that... but you gotta do what you gotta do right?
So, when I got the invite to go on a cattle-gather with Tom on foot, I was excited!
I love being around cattle and horses. There is a very honest simplicity about being on "animal time." Nothing else matters to these cows except what is happening in the moment and that can be pretty dang refreshing. (It can also be frustrating as all get out when you are in a hurry or trying to rush the animals. This is when things get dangerous, because livestock don't like to be rushed- and they start to feel threatened when we apply a lot of pressure, noise, or speed.)
I also love walking! I haven't been able to run much this summer... it is quite a different experience now- and I wouldn't call it enjoyable... Running with ease is one of the things I am looking forward to being able to do again here in a few weeks. I knew with how calm the Rardins' cattle are, we probably wouldn't be running any marathons either, so that was reassuring and I hoped that maybe I could still be of a little help even though I am rather slow and somewhat physically incapable at the moment.
Well it turned out just awesome! It was a great day of walking and observing, catching up, and being around some cattle with awesome attitudes.
We met at Woods Landing and headed down to the lease the Rardin's have for this part of the Summer/Fall in Northern Colorado.
Tom calls this part of Northern Colorado a "Wyoming Annex" because it is pretty much just like a continuation of the Big Hollow, the Centennial Valley, and Woods Landing. I felt like we could have been in the Centennial Valley all day.
Tom said this pasture lease was from a friend they have had for years.
Bridger even went to school with their kids in a really small town on the edge of the Big Hollow called- Harmony, while he was growing up, so this family actually approached the Rardins about leasing this land for their herd to graze on because they knew the Rardins would take good care of it.
As we headed down the road in the pickup with the stock trailer on, we talked about all kinds of things. A lot about cattle and grazing, some sheep stuff (the Rardins used to run a large band of sheep on the East side of Sheep Mountain- years ago), a little poking fun at politics and law, some chatter about world travels, horses, and probably some stuff I don't remember too. There is always plenty to talk about with Tom, he can hold a conversation with anyone and make that person feel like a friend.
We pulled up to the driveway of the lease ground where the cattle were and Tom backed in the trailer while I made sure the gates stayed open.
Our first task, was to build a cattle trap.
Tom said the lease ground was somewhere around 100 acres. Not very big for pastures around here, but trying to convice cattle to come off of their summer vacation in the mountains and jump into a confined space (the stock trailer) for a bit is not a task that requires little effort!
So we set up a small pen using metal panels around the back end of the trailer, and then another funnel-shaped pen outside of the metal pen to help guide the cattle into the metal pen- using electric fence.
We didn't electrify the electric fence, because the Rardin's cattle respect electric fence really well, so we just bluffed them for the day- counting on their assumption that the fence was probably hot.
Once the trap was set up, the search began. Tom and I made our way up the road to the top of a hill where we could get a good view.
Tom had a set of binoculars so we could distinguish any sneaky large rocks disguised as cows, these binoculars saved us a lot of steps! He also had a bucket of alfalfa cubes. The Rardins cattle know the sound of the cubes in this bucket well. Our goal was to get within earshot of the cattle so they could hear Tom call for them and the rattling of these tasty green morsels in the bucket.
Most cattle gathering expeditions I have been on, have been quite the opposite experience from this. On these adventures, we would spread out over thousands of acres and ride strategically to drive and flush cattle out of hard-to-get-to spots and to a large corral, or through a gate to the next pasture. On these adventures, the cattle usually start to move away as soon as they see someone on a horse coming their way. Often times on large ranches, herds of cattle know where they are supposed to go when the horses come out because they have been moved in a certain progression year after year. It is an annual routine that they, sometimes, willingly follow.
But since the Rardins lease several different parcels of land, and these leases often change from year to year to allow pastures more than a year of rest, their cattle don't have the chance to learn the routine on any specific landscape over the years, and a different strategy has to be employed.
So rather than pushing cattle for this gather, we enticed them.
It was clear that the cattle knew this drill as soon as they were able to see us.
We spotted a group taking a mid-day nap in the sun on the next ridge over and we headed down through the aspen-filled draw towards them. As soon as we popped up on the same ridge as the group, the cattle stood up and started heading towards us.
I laughed! It was just so opposite of what I had done in the past! It was somewhat comical to me. As we got closer, the cattle began to pick up the pace, racing each other for first dibs on the treats rattling away in that bucket Tom was carrying.
We fed and scratched these obedient gals while we glassed through the binoculars for the rest. This was only about half of the group, and we made the assumption that the rest of them probably weren't too far off, but were likely bedded down in the shade because it was already getting to be pretty hot!
We decided to take this group to the trap through the tree-filled draw we suspected the other half of the group might be in.
The procession to the trailer was somewhat like a parade of red and black fur and horns. We stopped periodically to renew interest in the bucket of snacks and make this parade well-worth the effort for these ladies. Their willingness never wavered as we made our way down to the electric fenced area. The cattle slipped through our electric gate with ease but a few stopped at the openning to the panel-corral.
Tom tossed some alfalfa cubes into the panel-corral and in went the entire first group.
Nice!
We locked them in and they seemed to be enjoying this shady spot with great snacks, so we headed into a thicket of willows and aspens to try to locate the rest.
This part reminded me of elk hunting, except we were trying to be loud instead of quiet, which made me laugh again as we crossed a couple forks of a small creek and ducked along trails the cows had made through the thick-bunched willow branches.
It turns out Tom's instincts were right on and it wasn't long before we almost walked right into a wide-eyed red heifer amongst the leaves.
She graciously accepted some treats and stayed put, flicking her ears back and forth and looking around for her buddies.
Tom called for the rest of the group, and we heard an answer back. We could hear that they were making their way through the aspen grove towards us with lots of swishing and sticks breaking, so we waited for them to come closer. They were on the other side of the creek from us within minutes and Tom enticed them to cross with a few more treats.
Then we were on our way again!
This group was a bit quicker to jog on down to the electric pen, so we had to work a little harder to stay ahead of them.
When we got to the electric fence , two of the heifers were starting to get suspicious and they paused, until the group ahead of them started to get out of their sight, then they jogged on through.
Once we got to the metal pen, the first half went right in to join the rest, but those last two heifers seemed to say with their lowered heads, and wide eyes and flicking ears, "ahhhhhh I see what this is about."
Tom had gotten ahead of the group to open up the trailer door and let some cattle into the trailer to make more space in the pen.
The two suspicious heifers saw the pen and the trailer and they slowly turned around and started to walk away from the panel-corral.
Flashbacks of entire groups of cattle flying out of a pen all at once- came to my mind. So many times I have seen it happen where the cattle rushedly pile in, get too crowded and uncomfortable and all come flying back out of a corral with wild eyes, swearing never to return again. So I didn't want to move too fast or put too much pressure on these gals too early. Trying to put cattle back into a confined space is harder than putting them in on the first try- they aren't easy to convince twice!
Tom asked me to move in behind the heifers and urge them towards the pen, I did in a zig-zag motion trying my darndest not to make eye contact, or to come across as intimidating, (cattle hate being pressured by anything with predator-like behavior, like direct eye contact and being walked directly towards, at eye-level, in a straight line) and to my relief, the heifers turned around and proceed into the pen.
I quickly walked up and shut the gate and Tom said "Atta girl!"
I laughed and said, "Don't celebrate yet, it's not over 'till they are all in the trailer. I've jinxed myself too many times!"
That got a chuckle out of Tom too.
Because we were out of our home county, and out of our home state, we needed a brand inspection before we could legally transport these animals anywhere. So we waited for the brand inspector- who would take a look at the brands on Tom's herd and give us an official, notarized slip that verfied ownership of the cattle and gave us permission to move them. You can actually have your livestock confiscated from you if you don't have a brand inspection in Wyoming and Colorado- and you get pulled over for some reason.
It's a slight pain to have to do this every time we move livestock, and it costs money, but it prevents theft.
Surprisingly cattle rustling is still rampant in the west. I have even heard of people stealing one-week-old calves out of someone else's pasture... What the heck!?
This is why we have to have a permanent mark, a brand, on livestock like cattle, so it cannot be altered and ownership can be verified.
Unfortunately the states just east of us don't require brand inspections at all, so most of the time livestock theives head east. Once they make it across the state line, there is not really any way to track them... and the livestock are as good as gone to the original owner.
So, we always make sure to get the brand inspections done.
If you want to learn more about why and how we brand, you can read my blog post about it HERE.
We had a good stretch of time before the brand inspector showed up and luckily Tom had planned for it, just in case. He brought what he calls his "pony and calf," (an empty mineral-lick tub-to stand on- and a sawhorse) and a rope. We practiced throwing different loops with the rope; heel shots, flank shots, hoolihans, pig loops, and del vientos. Sometimes we might accidentally rope the aspens or clods of grass instead of the saw-horse, but it was all just for fun anyway and it passed the time well.
Tom also brought his guitar and played a couple tunes. Including Something Comin' to Me by the Gibson Brothers.
The cattle seemed to enjoy their shady serenade.
As for me, I wanted to spend the rest of Fall right there...
But,
the brand inspector eventually showed up, he got us the necessary paperwork and we loaded the ones we picked out of the group for our Fall Harvest- onto the trailer.
We headed home and Tom dropped me back off at my car and he headed into town with the precious cargo.
What a day!
. . .
Maybe this doesn't seem all that significant... just a shady afternoon walk- to some. But when you look at what the last day looks like for animals who end up as meat in the grocery store... there is quite a stark contrast.
Most beef at the grocery store (even if it's labelled as Grass-Fed) spends its last 60-90 days in a CAFO- a Confined Animal Feeding Operation, otherwise known as a Feed Lot. These operations are really efficient at reducing feed costs, and labor costs, but they cause some massive environmental issues and even though designated animal welfare practices are employed and enforced, I still wouldn't want to spend my last couple of months in a dirt/mud pen with several hundred of my counterparts, just waiting for the corn or hay truck to come around every day.
You have probably already heard me talk about why Feedlot/Grain Finished Cattle are not great to eat, but I haven't really addressed this issue from the cow's perspective.
Which would you choose?
I wish I could just decide for myself that my last day would be spent up on one of the Rardin's leases in the grass and the shade, but even as humans, we don't get that luxury...
Still feeling guilty?
As producers of high-quality meats, we don't take our roles lightly. All of the ranchers on the Taste of the Wind team have had to make hard calls to prevent and end the suffering of the animals we are tasked with caring for. It's not easy, and it's not always fulfilling in the moment either, but it is worth it.
In the grand scheme, if we have lived a life that has reduced suffering (to any living, feeling creature) that would have occured had we not been there, I believe that is a life well-lived.
I truly beleive the Rardin's do just that, and I am grateful to them for doing so.
. . .
What are your thoughts on this?
How to do you justify your choices when it comes to picking what you eat and where it comes from?
I would love to hear your perspective!
Feel free to email me BJ@tasteofthewind.com, or comment on this blog post with any thoughts you have. I'm all ears when it comes to ideas on how we can improve the lives of the amazing animals who sustain us and the people we care about.
Want to support and continue the Rardin's mission of ethical treatment of cattle and landscapes across the West?
There is still time to order your own Fall beef package from our wonderful local ranchers and their herds!
Place your deposit HERE,
And guarantee yourself and your family a freezer full of meat that
- makes you feel good from the inside out
- supports your local community
- fosters a quality life for animals that tend to get the short-end-of-the-stick when it comes to tranquility and enjoyment.
You can hear more about why what the Rardin's do is better for our environment, and animals on this episode of The Modern West from Wyoming Public Media HERE.
Want to try a smaller sample of the fruits of the Rardin family's labor?
Try our Welcome to the Ranch Box
A nice little variety of steaks, a roast, some ground beef, and a couple of our beef snack products.
You can taste the love in every bite!
We ship nation-wide (excluding HI and AK), so if you want a little Taste of Wyoming and you don't live in state, don't worry! We can still get one of our Welcome to the Ranch boxes or Bulk Beef Shares to your door.
What Others Are Saying About Rardin Beef:
"As a newcomer to the grass-finished beef world, I found the ribeye to be perfectly marbled with exceptional flavor (seasoned only with salt & pepper). It was also extremely tender when grilled to 135F. A perfect steak in my book."
Laramie, WY
"I’ve bought from taste of the wind for a couple of years. I have visited and watched BJ and Chris working with their livestock and am impressed with their knowledge/hard work they put in. Always a pleasure doing business with them, I make sure to stock up to take my haul home to Illinois. So worth the work to get it home. Quality and taste are beyond amazing. Will continue to purchase from them as long as I am able."
Chicago, IL
"Great beef product. Some of the best tasting beef I have had in a long time. Definitely will buy more in the future. Love it. Fast, Frozen, and Great."
- Patrick H.
Lake Havasu City, AZ
"Sustainable products raised with care. You can taste the difference in Taste of the Wind's products and they are much better than anything I’ve ever purchased in a grocery store."
- Bri A.
Centennial, WY
Have you enjoyed our products so far?
Leave Us Your Own Google Review!
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We are SO GRATEFUL to folks who take a few moments out of their busy lives to write these reviews for us- THANK YOU!!!
A sincere Thank You from all of us at Taste of the Wind.
Without you, we couldn't do what we do.
Until next week!
-Chris, BJ, and the Taste of the Wind Crew
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