On Sunday, May 3, as a project of Boston Localvores, 31 hungry, curious, urban localvores descended on unsuspecting Hardwick, Ma in two unmarked vans and one renegade car.
It wasn’t until we arrived at the Stillman’s house and unloaded that we looked like a wedding party that some UFO dropped in a pasture. Thirty plus people is more than you’d think. Also, we brought questions on behalf of every man, woman and child in Boston. But that was good. You know how sometimes you’re at an event and the speaker asks for questions and gets stony silence in return and you’re kind of embarrassed for everyone? Not the case!
Kate Stillman and Aidan Davin, of Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm, were gracious enough to bring us into their home and barn, tell us all about their farm, their business and pass out lambs for holding. There was so much to learn about. They raise chickens (broilers), eggs, lamb, pork and beef on three different farms for retail to customers and a CSA. And they’re raising a baby. And they do this with one full time and one part time employee. And their bathroom was spotless.
Aside from seeing the animals, the best part of our visit to their two farms in Hardwick (the cattle are raised on Kate’s parents’ vegetable farm in Lunenburg), was how open they were about getting started. Aidan, for example, said that he didn’t know to castrate his first litter of piglets until some old pig farmer stopped by and said he’d better, soon. I heard another tale of pigs gone wild when, in the middle of some hellacious Hardwick snow storm scene and with Kate pregnant, three pigs leapt off the truck and took off into the woods. The aspiring farmer in me took heart. Kate, Aidan, baby, pigs, business all look fine now. Thriving even.
Our final stop was to the headquarters of Hardwick Beef, run by Ridge Shinn. Ridge approaches grass-fed beef production like no one else. Maybe a bit like a mad scientist, but in the best way possible. He explained to us a few things about grass-feeding - including that most cattle eat grass at some point in their lives, but that doesn’t qualify them as grass-fed. Most also eat grain at some point (the last point). So when you’re looking for grass-fed meat, you want 100%. No grass-fed, grain-finished. No maybe/ a little/ for the most part. “It’s like pregnancy,” said Ridge. “Either you are or you aren’t.”
Ridge doesn’t really raise cattle for slaughter at the Hardwick facility (read: big hilltop pasture). He breeds only the finest cattle who make the finest meat, and sells them to other Hardwick Beef producers, most of whom are in Vermont. In pursuit of this, he recently purchased an entire herd of Rotakawa cattle FROM NEW ZEALAND who have only ever, in their lives and in the lives of their forbears, eaten grass. The current stock we have in this country, he said, have been corrupted by the industrial beef industry who feed grain.
(For those who don’t know about this stuff, basically: cows aren’t designed to eat grain. They’re designed to eat grass. When they eat grain, their rumens (stomachs) become acidic welcome mats to stuff like E. coli, the cows become sick and in need of antibiotics to stay alive, the make up of the fatty acids of which meat is comprised go all wacky, etc. etc. etc).
There is way more than I can possible justify in a blog post. But we’ll go again. Maybe some of you will, too.
One final thought:
It was a long hour and a half on slow-going Route 2 and through single lane dirt roads to get where we were going and another long hour and a half back. A drive that the Stillman’s, as an operation, make TWENTY THREE times a week during the season. Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. This is in addition to the drives they make to upstate New York to have the animals slaughtered.
We had some tired-ass people draped all over the vans, sleeping, hungry, backs stiff, maybe verging on cranky. THANK YOU to those people. You were awesome and engaged and thoughtful and fun. I guess we (Kristi and I/Boston Localvores) could make these trips alone, but where’s the adventure in that?
