Visiting Polyface Farm and Gathering American Chestnuts

[George Collins]

To break up the journey home, we decided to spend a day in Chimney Rock, NC. Chimney Rock Park is where the film The Last of the Mohicans was filmed and is as pretty as any place I've ever seen except for maybe Hawaii. We arrived in the park at 8:45 this morning and hiked mountain trails or played at the bottom of the 404' waterfall until about 6:00 p.m.

Legs are SHOT!



Tomorrow will be the final push back to Heidelberg, MS.

[boo]

I'm starting to think that "everything" in America is HUGE Thanks for sharing George, awesome photo's.

[matt walker]

I love the pic you took of the pastures. I have a long way to go on that part of the 'stead, can't wait to read your review George. Chimney rock looks awesome!

[George Collins]

Here is the video taken of Joel Salatin's pasture on the recent visit to Polyface Farms:



Here is a video taken of Joel Salatin's pastured pork operation.



While visiting Mr. Salatin's operation, I was favorably impressed by much. Additionally. of all that we did on this vacation, some of my children, who live on a farm, enjoyed the visit to his farm the more than any other thing. Reading several places and hearing via audio book (Folk's This Ain't Normal) that Mr. Salatin maintains an open door policy on his farm impressed me much. Seeing just how open that open door policy is, is more impressive still. There is no check in. There is no paper work that one is required to sign. There are no signs anywhere restricting any aspect of any portion of his operation. Based on the lack of control and oversight, one could climb into one of his egg mobiles and roost with the chickens if one were so brace. The gate to the finishing pen for the pigs was a simple affair with a typical latch for a farm. No locks were visible anywhere. It was as if I were a boy on my grandfather's farm where one was expected to know that one just doesn't do certain things.

Several of his interns/staff members were going about their daily work schedules and would stop and strike up friendly conversation when time permitted. Otherwise, they were all business. When they did stop to talk, they were all manners and politeness and seemed very knowledgable about the operations of Polyface Farms. I spoke at some length to one of the staff members and former intern, Eric, and asked him how he liked working for Mr. Salatin. He was effusive with his praise. If memory serves, Eric is a college graduate that after interning, because he enjoyed the experience so much, opted to stay on as paid staff with the general intention one day of striking out on his own to establish his own Salatin-style farm operation.

For the farm itself, it was obviously a working farm. It looked about like one would expect that had spent much time around actual, real-life working farms. This was no post card quality, quaint little house placed in some storybook setting by a design architect. Everything from where the house was situated, to how the barns were arranged, to where the vegetable garden was screamed, "Practical." The beef cows were the first things we saw. They were immediately to the right as we entered the property. They were contained by a single strand of electric fencing and a water trough was present. Other than that, there was nothing but beeves and grass. The paddock, to my untrained eye, looked to be about half consumed when we arrived shortly before 10:00 a.m. I visited the beeves just before leaving approximately 3 1/2 hours later and it looked as if it had been bush hogged. There didn't appear to be a single blade of grass over the height that which a cow would normal graze at. Once all of the forage had been consumed, they all gathered up under a couple shade trees and seemed content to chew their cuds.

The paddock that appeared to be the one to which they would be moved to next was knee high in all manner of greenery. Given the contiguity of the two paddocks, I assume that the one they had finished grazing looked like the one they appeared to be destined to inhabit next, the job they did was impressive. Had I had no clue as to the how Mr. Salatin ran his operation, I would have likely thought, "Dang, that ol man sure needs to grease up his bush hog."

The paddock(s) apparently recently inhabited by the cattle was where the egg mobile was to be found. The egg mobile contained absolutely nothing to restrict the movement of the chickens to any degree. They were free to wander where they willed and quite a few of them roamed quite a ways from their mobile home seeking dust baths in the tractor shed, scratching around the pig pen, etc. Most however, contented themselves with remaining in relatively close proximity to the egg mobile and while doing so were obviously foraging heavily on insects. The chickens were all well socialized to human presence and would allow one to approach quite closely but not close enough to touch.

The pastured pig aspect of the operation was a bit different that what I imagined. I was anticipating a diet based exclusively, or at least, very heavily on forage. In reality, his system seemed to me to be very heavy on grains and very light on forage. The main advantage to his system was that his fencing consisted of a two-strand solar-powered electric fence which allowed him to raise quite a few pigs in a very cheap pen. There is nothing wrong with that system, I have used it myself. The one area where his system differs from my own is that my pens are constructed to take advantage of mast crops and are positioned in time to coincide with the acorn drop of particular tree(s). But then I don't operate on his scale so I'm not judging his methods negatively. Rather it was different than my expectations. The pigs were obviously content and friendly as one would expect well-raised pigs to be and certainly a damn sight better off than those raised in CAFOs.

His meat chickens were in pens just as can be seen in his books and he was raising the same breed as can be found in those massive chicken houses that dot the Mississippi countryside. The difference here was not so much the welfare of the birds (although my guess is that it is far superior to that found in the big chicken houses) but rather that their waste was spread out over a broad area via the movement of the pen rather than having to be collected all at once and transported elsewhere. The best part of this part of the operation from the standpoint of a community member is that there was absolutely no smell whatsoever. If you have ever driven by a pasture where a farmer has had a load of "chicken fertilizer" applied, the stench is nauseating and the flies are of biblical proportions. I don't' recollect seeing a single fly.

The one part of the whole operation that shocked me the most was that Mr. Salatin doesn't appear to own a single stocker cow. He doesn't own a single brood sow or a master boar. He does't appear to have hens laying eggs and hatching out chicks. Instead, he obtains his cattle and pigs from the stock yard and his chicks come from the same source that supplies the big poultry houses. At first I didn't know what to make of this find but the more I thought about it, the more it dawned that this is the secret to the profitability of his operation.

For years, farmers such as my father who keeps cows on pasture with a bull have lamented the low prices they receive at the stock yard.

For years, farmers such as my father have lamented the high feed prices they are forced to pay.

For years, farmers such as my father have lamented that there was no money in farming.

My guess is that Mr. Salatin saw this problem as an opportunity. He decided to play the same game as the big boys. After all, if there was no money in it, the bog boys wouldn't be in the business of purchasing cows at stockyards, fattening them up, slaughtering them and sending the meat to grocery store shelves. So Mr. Salatin goes to the stock yard, buys the same cows that would have otherwise been destined for a CAFO, fattens them up on free grass using next-to-free electrical fencing, slaughters them and sells the meat directly to the customer. So the process by which he obtain his raw goods is the same as it is for IBP.

The process by which he adds value costs pennies on the dollar.

The price he charges is dollars on the penny.

In a nutshell, government subsidized inputs gives him cheap raw materials to work with. He uses solar power to add value his product. Clever marketing that allows him to charge what he does.

Beautiful.

[pa_friendly_guy]

I had the opertunity to hear Joel Salatin speak today at the Mother News Earth Fair here in Pa. He was a keynote speaker, I got there over 1/2 hour early and it was standing room only, and it was pouring down the rain. I had an umbrella, most people did not. People were standing outside the tent in the rain waiting over 1/2 hour just to hear him talk. He spoke about his book ' That Ain't Normal " . It was an excellent talk, he is a wonderful speaker, I enjoyed it very much. He makes alot of good points about how we all live today, as compaired to how man kind has lived in every generation up until This One. How we live today just ain't Normal as far as he is concerned. Starting with the fact that Kids don't have chores to do , to the fact that most people under 40 do not remember a time when you could not buy Boneless Chicken Breasts, to the fact that people today feel that computers and tech will somehow free us from having to worry about growing, and cooking food. He said that 80% of the people in this country feel that it is the Governments job to insure that our food is safe. Joel feels that is your job and if you know your farmer you can have much safer food than the Gov can provide. I got the feeling that maybe he didn't trust the Gov, Another thing he talked about was cheap grain. Through out history that has not been the case, grain is an annual, it is labor intensive, and it has always been expensive. The Bible talks about a Harlot being sold for 2 1/2 bu of Barley. That is not because Harlots were cheap in those days, its because grain was so expensive! Useing grain to fatten hogs or feeding grain to chickens is a relatively new thing. People fed their kitchen scraps to the chickens and hogs foraged along the tree lines at the edge of the farm for acorns. He feels that there should be chickens living out side of every kitchen door in the country to eat the scraps and eliminate garbage being taken to Landfills. In one city they offered 3 chickens to any one who wanted them, 2000 people applied. In one month those 6000 chickens eliminated 100 tons of things going to the Landfill, AMAZING. All in all a very interesting speach with alot of great points that made alot of sense to me, as well as to everyone else in the standing room only tent. He was well recieved and got a standing ovation when he was done. Impressive fellow with a good world view. I may have to buy one of his books. If I wasn't a functional illiterate I think I would,

[George Collins]

GOT EM!



These are the first six I've de-burred. A quick count reveals that I could potentially end up with 150 seeds. One hundred though is a much more realistic possibility.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Nice size nuts George, I hope they all grow for you. Good Luck with your new Project.

[Lollykoko]

Thanks for the videos and your insight, George. It makes good sense to me. Impatiently biding my time ...

Will you intersperse the chestnuts with the walnuts or do they get their own acre?

[matt walker]

Great videos, and a great review. I'm really pleased to get your viewpoint George, thank you for sharing that. Looks like I've got a lot more to learn. I love that.

[George Collins]

Matt, I'm reading Mr. Salatin's book Salad Bar Beef right now.

Tis treasure.

Lolly, the chestnuts will most certainly not be interplanted with walnuts. According to the president of The ACCF, chestnuts are potentially harmed by juglone (the toxin in black walnuts that inhibits growth of competing plants). Juglone's bath is something i would easily subject a $0.50 tomato plant to just for kicks, giggles and photo ops. However, these chestnut seeds are potentially a bit more valuable. If the house catches on fire, its chestnuts first, wife and kids second. If I hear from a reasonably credible source that getting a nose ring materially increases chestnut survivability, I'd be at the nose-ring-getting place when the doors open the following morning.

Having said that, the original plan was to interplant. Now, I'm thinking of opening up another place of land. Now that I gots my little quirky, perky, worky, Berkies, doing so should be much easier. Throw a couple goats in the mix and who knows what might happen.

Before January, I will begin searching for the new chestnut home. At present understanding, the chestnuts will be happiest on a sandy slope, preferably facing east. So happens that Hurricaine Katrina opened up a large section of woods near to where the last surviving chestnut grew in this part of the world.