Dropstone Farms

Hey look what we got!

These shy little guys (who won’t move out from behind the crate so I can take a good picture) are Soay sheep, a not-very-domesticated breed from Scotland. They are small, and their tails are short so they don’t need to be docked, and they don’t need to be sheared to gather their wool, as they rub it off or you can just pull it off with your fingers. And, they’ll eat scrub and weeds, including Scotch broom and blackberries, like goats will, but most domestic sheep won’t.

We brought them home from Puyallup last night in the dog crate in the back of truck. It was late and dark when we got home so we left them in the crate, on the front porch, for the night, then woke up early this morning to let them out to learn about the electric fence and get some delicious grass. They munched all day and spent a lot of time running and jumping when we opened the back door and startled them into touching the electric fence accidentally. (They don’t learn as fast as dogs!)

They come with the names Biscuit and Muskrat* (the one with horns, in front above). They are wethers, which means they are fixed males who have been removed from circulation, so to speak, for whatever genetic reason. In this case they will ultimately be removed into our freezer and thence to our tummies for the winter. If it goes well, we may see about a breeding and/or wool flock in the future.

All of a sudden, where I used to see overgrown grass and weeds, I now see delicious pasture. Who knew I’d have this side effect? So we’re trying to figure out how best to confine them to specific small parts of our yard so they can safely trim the lawn without eating the cabbage and kale and lettuce, or eat the Scotch broom and blackberry without getting into the street. Harness? Collar? More electric fence?

If you have experience with sheep, please do chime in! We are winging it here … so far they seem to want to eat some grass and not be near us. On Sunday we will pick up a couple of domestic-breed mutt-ish wethers (Romney and whatever), also for meat, who we will try to integrate with these guys. Any and all advice/ideas are welcome!

* Despite the America (orig. Captain and Tennille, I think) song, I keep thinking it’s Biscuit and Buckwheat. So Muskrat may become Buckwheat. Or else Buttermilk, for thematic-ness.)

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Apparently. The Territorial Seed catalogs arrived today!

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Posted with permission …

Subj: Just wanted to say Yummmmm!

We had roast chicken Sunday night and it was delicious. Thanks for providing this great service (and product) for our family.

And from someone else:

Subj: extra chicken?

Hi,
I got one of your recently slaughtered chickens — roasted it and ate it right away and it was the best chicken I’ve ever had in my life! I wondered if you ended up with extras that you froze and would like to sell?

When we replied to tell her that unfortunately no, we couldn’t legally do that even if we hadn’t sold out, and to ask permission to use her feedback:

You can add that I’ve only recently begun eating meat after years of not so I’m a pretty hard sell on chicken tasting really good!

Good luck with your farm. It’s gotta be tough making a living as a farmer — I admire and respect you for it!

Thanks, everyone, for your positive feedback. We welcome all feedback, of course, including constructive criticism, but the good vibes are particularly heartening as we regroup and try to recover from this difficult season.

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… with the obvious exceptions of the wine, salt, pepper.

Chicken: grown by us.
Beets, potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, roasting under the chicken: grown by us.
Butter for basting: made by us from cream from organic, happy Washington pastured cows from Fresh Breeze.
Stock for helping veggies cook: made by us from another chicken we grew.

It wasn’t even on purpose!

PS Roasted chicken + root veggies = it must be fall. Also, it’s been raining ALL DAY.

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Good news, everyone! Senate Bill 5350 passed in Washington state. What does this mean? Simple. Previously, it was legal to process chickens on-farm and sell them directly to customers on the farm premises without hiring a WSDA approved slaughterhouse. Thanks to the passage of this bill, the exemption is now extended to all poultry. This is great news for people that want to buy a turkey or a duck directly from a farmer. From talking to the friends and family for whom we’re raising a test batch of six turkeys this year, I can tell you that there are a tremendous number of people who want to buy poultry raised cleanly and humanely on a small farm and who are willing to pay extra for it. Prior to this, there was no way for us to legally sell farm-slaughtered non-chicken poultry to people. Frustrating.

This is a great, common sense piece of legislation because, if small-scale chicken operations don’t require WSDA inspection, why should other poultry? Conversely, if other small poultry require inspection, why don’t chickens? It’s just inconsistent. The only reason I can think of is that, when the legislation granting the exemption was originally written, they simply overlooked other meat birds. This has now been corrected. Our regulatory apparatus for food is seriously and epically flawed–I won’t argue that–but this is yet another example of how I’m seeing our state-level regulatory bodies doing a great job of improving things.

So, if you want a turkey or a duck or a goose for the holidays, let us know. We’ll see if we can raise one (humanely, happily, cleanly, and deliciously) for you. It’s legal now!

On a similar note, I posted another rant about regulations here at the Civil Eats food policy blog. I’m kind of pleased with it so I’ve reproduced it below.

“As a farmer and an eater, I believe very strongly in regulation. I just believe in good regulation.

Despite the poorly written and ill-conceived regulation that are coming out at the (usually) federal level, there are some bright spots in food safety. One example with which I’m familiar is the Washington State Department of Agriculture who, from the ground up, are coming up with some very sane regulations that both ensure safety more effectively (in my opinion) and are more small-farm-friendly than the cumbersome and prescriptive regulations that we love to complain about.

For example, at a Tilth Producers conference a couple of years ago I attended a session on small dairy certification hosted by a farmer and a representative of the WSDA. The farmer indicated that one of the challenges of certification in Washington is that the regulations specify *results*, not methods. It’s left to the farmer to figure out how to meet sanitation goals, not how to pay for the specified equipment. As an eater, I don’t care how far the domestic animals are from my greens, I care that the result of the handling is food free of contamination. A small farmer can spare the attention to detail to manage handling as intensively as a small farmer must manage production.

An example of WSDA’s sane approach to regulation is that, when a farmer found the requirement for a commercial dishwasher too onerous, he was able to demonstrate to the local inspector that a consumer model dishwasher offered the same results as the commercial dishwasher at a fraction of the cost. Thus, the inspector was (rightly) satisfied, the farmer was able to produce dairy at the appropriate scale, and the consumer was assured of a clean and wholesome product thanks to the active, critical, and results-oriented involvement of the agency as well as the diligence of the farmer in researching the problem instead of being forced to focus on regulations.”

Remember folks, good government matters and small changes can make a very big difference on the local level.

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