We take the relationship with our butcher very seriously. Even if we raise excellent pork, the cuts and smoke, cures and brines can make or break it. As many of you know, our previous butcher closed down. It was important for us to find a place we trusted, and felt we could grow with. We were pleased to find out that The Meating Place, a long-time staple for custom butchery located in Hillsboro recently expanded significantly. They now have a large retail meat space, a cafe, and massive, state of the art custom butcher shop.

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Do breeds matter? We have a lot to say on the subject.

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Buying a half or whole animal can be intimating. If you feel at all overwhelmed, here's a few bits to chew on. 

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If you are going to raise pigs on pasture, and move them frequently, you have to solve the shelter problem.

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This is a short video explaining the heating and cooling system in our passive solar greenhouse. It's been called a Climate Battery, or a Subterranean Heating and Cooling System but the easiest way to think of it is as Poor Man's Geothermal. 

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The next book review in our series is on a new book and deals with one of Allison's favorite topics...invasive species! Read the review and definitely read the book.

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A bit on the Restoration Agriculture workshop at The Little Farm by The Sea with Mark Shepherd and a brief review of his book, Restoration Agriculture: Real World Permaculture for Farmers. 

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Summer is bringing an incredible line up of classes at Out of Ashes. To start, we have Claudia Lucero, author of One Hour Cheese and owner/operator of Urban Cheesecraft (and an egg customer!) on June 30th. Then it's Permaculture, Rabbits, and Chickens. Find out more... 

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This year has been a turning point in our farming story in many ways. One new road we're walking down is that of breeding. For many reasons it was never in our minds to do so (neither was raising livestock), but we have at this point become thoroughly committed to raising heritage breeds that are all critically endangered or threatened.

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Three years ago we moved to our smallholding. It was a neglected tree stand with a ton of unfortunate and poorly planned ornamental plantings crying out to us for a rebirth. Sunlight could barely penetrate anything and the brambles and garbage had swallowed a good percentage of the un-treed land.

We felt that in honor of the clearing, cleaning, sweating, bleeding, injuring, dreaming, believing, designing, building, planting, birthing, raising, butchering, feeding, teaching, nurturing and healing that has taken place in three short years we would share some photos to narrate the journey as best as our cameras can.

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