Winter is Coming
Winter is coming and I have all these photos I never got around to posting. Let’s relive the wonder of long days and green grass, while my hoses all freeze and I finish chores in the dark, continuing on in denial.
Winter is coming and I have all these photos I never got around to posting. Let’s relive the wonder of long days and green grass, while my hoses all freeze and I finish chores in the dark, continuing on in denial.
This is a lamb born in May, looking quite grown up now. Lambs (and piglets) grow extremely fast. By the time a lamb reaches market weight, the average person would not even know it’s a young animal because it no longer looks like a baby lamb.
This is the best our lambs have ever looked, as our first few years raising sheep on this land we slowly figured out our soil has a cobalt deficiency. We have always provided mineral to our animals, but when starting from a deficiency it just wasn’t quite enough for optimal health. Now all the ewes receive a cobalt bolus, which is like a big pill that they swallow and hangs out in their rumen, slowly releasing the essential vitamin b12 over the course of a few years.
And with a larger flock now (60 sheep this year as opposed to the 20 we started with) we are also able to rotationally graze all our land while keeping our grass in a vegetative state, which means the animals are eating it when it’s providing optimal nutrition. Without so many animals we couldn’t always get to certain pastures before the grass got stemmy and went to seed. But this difference in grazing in combination with the ewes getting enough cobalt has resulted in big, healthy lambs like we’ve never seen before!
Thank you everyone who made it out for the farm party on Saturday! It is so wonderful to connect with customers and neighbors, friends and strangers alike. The potluck was something to behold yet again and I can’t help but love introducing the animals to so many adoring fans. And the kids! The kids have so much fun!!!
We know many of you couldn’t make it but there’s always next year! And please do reach out if you’re ever passing by, we’re happy to give impromptu tours as well.
Join us for our 2nd annual Farm Party! Tour, Potluck and Bonfire on Saturday, Sept. 14.
Tour at 4PM
meet the cows, pigs, sheep, and guard dogs
Learn about regenerative agriculture, rotational grazing, and soil health and its benefits to humans, animals, and the environment.
Potluck Meal at 5PM
please bring a dish to share, a chair, and your dinnerware
This is not your church basement potluck -- come prepared for a foodie feast catered by your friends and neighbors!
Bonfire and Music into the Evening
share s'mores and stories around the fire
Camping available for those traveling far and staying late.
How to Find Us
Medicine Creek Farm is located outside of Finlayson in NE Minnesota. We are about 1.5 hours north of the Twin Cities and 1 hour south of Duluth, just a short 6 mile drive off of I-35. If you search for “Medicine Creek Farm” in Google Maps you can easily get directions straight to us.
RSVP
RSVPs appreciated but not necessary to attend. Send us an email if you know you’re coming and let us know if you have questions!
Twin Cities Public Television did a profile of women farmers on a recent episode of Almanac. I was thrilled to be featured along with other women of the Minnesota Farmers Union.
The grass has been slow to grow up in northern Minnesota but the cattle are grazing and enjoying a feast of dandelions. We now have a respectable herd of 46 cattle, mostly Shorthorn and Hereford/Red Angus crosses.
I have been doing a lot of grass monitoring to determine what size paddock this many cattle need. We already know the biology in our soil is not super active as it had never been grazed before our arrival. But now that we have a real herd, we can reach more of our pastures with rotational grazing.
The more we graze, allowing the proper rest time, the more the soil biology will be stimulated to wake up and do the work of feeding the grass. The more the grass is eaten and regrows, the more it pulls carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and stores it in the soil.
The more cattle we can get rotationally grazing the land, the more carbon is sequestered. The more YOU eat grass fed beef and lamb, the more we both fight climate change.
Lambing and the start of grazing are a very busy time of year. There’s been icy rain and snow, hypothermia, lamb sweaters, 3am bottle feedings, triplets, QUINTUPLETS(?!), hand milking, lambs snuggling with dogs, many healthy unassisted births, and lots of crying lamb babies.
This little lamb was from the set of quints. The two biggest took right to nursing but she and her even smaller brother were premature at 3.5 and 3 pounds and became bottle babies. I worked with her for a few days to see if she could eventually learn to nurse from her mama, but ultimately the bonding window closed and the ewe no longer recognized her as her lamb. She was a vigorous little thing but looked like a doll at half the size of all the other lambs in the pasture. When her mama wasn’t interested anymore, she snuggled up to Lena the livestock guardian dog’s tail.
Ultimately it became clear she and her little brother—who was still just learning to walk and having some trouble with a leg—needed to be raised as full time bottle babies by someone who could give them more time and attention. I felt fortunate to find a wonderful family just starting their homesteading journey who took them both and are showering them with love.
There are still a handful of mamas left to give birth, and a gaggle of 25 lambs bouncing around the pastures each morning and night. I post many videos of all the lambing action to my Instagram and Facebook stories each day. Follow along there to catch some major cuteness along with all the drama!
Happy Mother’s Day! The first lambs arrived this morning. It’s a perfect day for lambing; warm and sunny for the lambs but not too hot for the mamas. The livestock guardian dogs are doing a great job keeping watch, giving a few licks to bond, but not interfering with nursing or mothering by the ewes. And reminding me to thank all the mother figures who tend to the children—we couldn’t do it without you!
Keep an eye on our social media feeds for all the lambing action as it unfolds. This is just the beginning!
Livestock guardian dogs are full time shepherds. They know what is normal and typical activity on the farm and are suspicious of change and anything being out of place. They know when something is wrong with a sheep and will be nervous and sometimes refuse to eat until I find the problem. They are typically awake at night and sleep most of the day.
Lena is the leader of the guard dogs. Polly and Shadow are submissive to her, but she’s incredibly submissive to me. She grew up with Ziva but they now have a bit of a rivalry, and Lena prefers that Ziva stays outside the sheep paddock... which is fine because Ziva was never bonded to livestock as a puppy so she prefers to be around people more (and does her job by roaming and marking territory). Lena is incredibly bonded to her sheep…
Read MoreWe recently got 16 yearling steer, 4 heifers, and the cutest little bull you ever did see named Woody. This will be a major jump in production for us, but now that we have fencing and soon will have water lines to the grazing pastures, I will be able to make big enough paddocks for this many cattle and I won’t have to haul water multiple times a day.
Read MoreOccasionally we leave the farm and do fun stuff… Did you know Jason is in a band that plays classic country and honky tonk music? We’d love to have you join us!
Heartbreak Affair
Thursday, April 25th
8:00-10:30pm
Minneapolis Eagles Club #34
Thank you for supporting us through a big year of growth... and a fair share of obstacles.
2018 Highs and Lows
- After a rough winter last year of frozen water tanks and escaping cattle, we got new permanent fencing and a frost-free winter waterer thanks to an NRCS Environmental Quality Incentive Program grant that rewards rotational grazing practices. So far this year, winter has been a breeze!
Did you know cows can help reverse climate change?
I know this idea goes contrary to much of what you hear about eating meat these days; the mainstream message has been that cattle are a major contributor to the methane emissions that fuel climate change.
The truth is a cow’s effect on global warming has everything to do with how it is raised. Cows and other livestock do put methane into the atmosphere, but when they are 100% grass fed and pasture raised in a rotational grazing system, the grassland ecosystem they are a part of sequesters more carbon in the soil than the methane they release…
Read MoreWe're having a party to celebrate our new pole barn, fences, and all the people who have supported us in getting this far!
Tour at 4PM
(meet the cows, pigs, and sheep)
Potluck Meal at 5PM
(please bring a dish to share and your dinnerware)
Bonfire and Music into the Evening
(camping available for those staying late)
Many of you know that Jason has an intense work ethic and a gift for making seemingly insane projects happen in record time. Here’s his latest project!
He found this barn on Craigslist four hours away (near Trimont where I grew up) and all the stars aligned for it to be ours... as long as he pitched all the hay out and took it down piece by piece and figured out how to move it to our farm.
If you've never had pastured pork before, get ready for your first, amazing pastured ham!
If you had the butcher smoke your ham, that means the meat is already cooked and all you need to do is reheat your ham before serving. You definitely don't want to over-cook the meat as that can cause it to dry out; however, since your pork is heritage, pastured meat, this isn't as big a risk as with a traditional lean, grocery store ham.
Read MoreHAPPY NEW YEAR! This year we've had so much gratitude for you--our family, friends, and customers!
- Jason finished building our home and we moved in just as grass growing weather and grazing began.
- We bred our 8 mature ewes and lambed our first flock of 9 bouncy, fluffy lambs on the hillsides outside our new house.
- We got a third, and then fourth livestock guardian dog to keep the livestock safe from coyotes and wolves...
Belly Rub Bacon is now Medicine Creek Farm and Ordering for 2017 is now open!
While we loved our name, it didn't seem right to limit the full potential our new land holds. After a pilgrimage to the magical but deeply hidden Medicine Creek across the road and a year experiencing the new land's beauty and wonder, it felt clear that our farm is about even more than the good care of our livestock...
Read More