Canal Junction Farmstead

I'm trying to remember how I stumbled upon CJ Farm and started learning more about their local practices of producing grass fed meats and cheeses. And I think the chain that linked us was my search on Toledo Farmers Market website for weekend events last fall. The farmer's market occasionally has days where they offer activities for kids and other days where the local Slow Food chapter holds cooking demos. So after linking to Slow Food Maumee Valley (and signing up to follow their blog), I found C/J Natural Meats listed under "Friends of SFMV" and linked to them for more info (and to follow their blog). I'd already read a LOT of information on grass fed meat farming practices and philosophies and was very curious to continue learning and find out what sort of options I might have "locally".

C/J Farm is located just south of the historically rich junction of the old Miami, Erie and Wabash Canals in Defiance, Ohio, hence the name "Canal Junction". Ralph and Sheila Schlatter are 5th and 6th generation farmers and, together with three of their children, they own and operate C/J Natural Meats and Farmstead Cheese. I chatted via e-mail with their daughter, Renae, last December about some of their farming practices and about coming to visit the farm this summer so I have been looking forward to this for months! The summer weekends have been so filled with U-Picks and other fun activities, however, that it has taken me until now to get down there! (I think the 1.5 hour drive may have something to do with the delay in planning also.)

So!... Grass fed meats.

I fully believe in the philosophy of doing it, but I haven't convinced Craig (or myself, really) in the idea of eating grass fed beef yet. From everything I've heard, the taste is drastically different from grain fed beef and the cooking instructions are different as well. They actually make grass fed cookbooks! C/J meats does sell their beef in small portions though so you wouldn't have to invest in a whole side of beef to try it out. Poultry and eggs, on the other hand, are definitely something I am interested in purchasing from them. (They also offer turkey, pork and lamb.) The nutritional value of meat from animals that forage on grass and other legumes is far superior to that of factory-raised animals. Makes complete sense. They are consuming a diet that God intended them to so they are healthier for it (essentially eliminating the need for antibiotics) and the variety of greens that their guts were designed to digest produces a meat that is higher in Omega-3 fatty acid as well as many important vitamins. The gradual trend in our culture to demand more fast food than ever before and meat that is raised to be bigger, fatter and unnecessarily loaded with hormones has completely changed the politics of our food system and the basis of America's farmland. Not to mention the health of our society. (Doesn't everyone die of cancer these days?) Meat isn't what it used to be. FOOD isn't, actually! The nutritional value of a carrot, for example, can vary drastically depending on how/where it was grown. Same for animals and their byproducts. Animals are raised in factories - crammed in and fed awful things - and treated with complete lack of respect or humane practices... just so that McDonalds can supply billions upon billions of burgers to us. I'm not a member of PETA, but I tend to disagree with inhumane treatment of animals just so I can eat them without knowing about it.

Most farmers that raise grass fed animals consider themselves to be primarily "grass farmers", because their biggest job is to grow and maintain a variety of grasses and legumes in a healthy soil and just expose the animals to them... and then the animals do the rest via rotational grazing. "Rotational grazing" is utilized as a means of sanitizing and fertilizing the pastures for all the animals. Basically, that just means that animals are rotated between pastures to forage around independently and fertilize the soil beneath them. This is beneficial and environmentally friendly for every participating member of the cycle. 1) The soil is richer and requires no herbicides, pesticides or tillage (which causes erosion). 2) The grass is more nutritious for the animals. 3) The chickens take care of things (that I won't go into detail with) in sanitizing the waste produced by other grazing animals when they take their turn in the rotation. 4) The animals produce a far more nutritious meat. 5) And, of course, the omnivores that we are, benefit from all the nutrients we are increasingly lacking in with a traditional Western diet.

Some of the things that I've seen/heard/read about with regards to animal raising and processing for meat has been hard to see/hear/read. But trust me... ignorance is not bliss in this regard. Ignorant is what the current food system in our country wants us to remain. That way they can manipulate the things we are putting in our bodies to produce the biggest dollar for their companies and we can go on wondering why we are getting sicker and fatter without ever pointing a finger at them.

I'm not a political person and I don't generally like to impose my own beliefs onto others, but having kids has completely changed me in so many ways (as it does everyone) and I'm not satisfied with being completely ignorant as to what I'm putting into my children's bodies. They are small and they are trusting me to make smart decisions for them so I want to do the best that I can. I want to find and offer the very best food for them and I want to show them what real food actually tastes like. I want to raise my children to know that food comes from farms, not grocery stores, and I want to teach them an appreciation and respect for the work that goes into producing real food properly.

Moving on from that soap box...

Will and I drove down to visit C/J Farm on Saturday, July 30th. It was a very hot day and we only had about an hours time to take our own walking tour of the place and chat with Renae again. She was very kind and welcoming and told us where to walk to see all that we wanted to. She also writes the farm's blog that I have enjoyed keeping up on since last fall. This is one corner of the property where we turned onto their road. The animals do graze all the way out here.

Our first stop was to the pond so Will could watch the ducks walk right down to the water and swim along.

Next we made our way to the huge, awesome greenhouse where the laying hens spend many of their days. According to CJ's web page, they are the most challenging species because they need about 14 hours of light in a day to optimize their egg production. So summer months are really the only time that they can be out to pasture. The greenhouse is 100 ft long and allows the farmers to have lights on the hens during the months when there is not enough sunlight. They've also developed a run, which you will see further down, where the hens can come out of the green house and forage in the grassy area just outside. The wooden doors for that are visible along the left side of the green house in this picture.

In the winter, the greenhouse serves to block the wind as well as allow a little extra warmth on sunny days, as the hens spend a lot of the energy just trying maintain body heat in the cold.

When we walked up, many of the chickens came out of the greenhouse into the grassy run and up to the fence to greet us. :)

Will and I, hiking along down the stone path to see the broiler chickens next. It was HOT and Will always gets lazy in the extreme heat. So I gave him a piggy back ride.

These are the floorless, movable pens that all the baby chicks move to after their first two weeks under the brooder. The pens are moved once a day to fresh forages and the baby chicks are supplemented with a grain mixture because they need the extra protein and energy to survive. (This is all on the website.) You can see that the pens are 3/4 under roof and 1/4 available for sun exposure. Pretty much all the baby chicks preferred the shade. ;)

Aren't they so cute? Again, not to be morbid, but this is a far cry from the kind of treatment that most factory farms give to their chickens, babies included. It's just so soul-nourishing to see that animals which are raised for our own nourishment can be given a life that is respectful and humane. Yes, their purpose is to eventually be eaten. But they live a LIFE beforehand! And we should have some gratitude for them, rather than just blindly eating whatever a name brand wants to sell to us, just because we are at the top of the food chain.

THIS is what I want my child to see. Not what is actually far more common practice.

The older broiler chickens were just roaming freely around the pasture, free to forage and run as they please. They aren't overfed and confined from being mobile until they are so top heavy, their own legs cannot support them. Many of them walked right up to us. They had their own little "mobile home" that they could freely enter and leave whenever they desired shade, water or just a place to sit.

Broiler chickens are raised from May through October.

A peek inside:

Hello there!

More shade options scattered around the pasture. By the way, all of this is nearby those movable pens that the chicks were in.

Another view of the movable pens.

Walking back on the path up to the farmstead.

I'm sure there were more cows roaming elsewhere, but we just checked out the ones up closer to the barns. You can tell what a hot day it was as they are all congregating in the big rain puddle in that little valley. The beef animals are 100% grass fed from start to finish, as are the dairy cows. In the winter season they are fed dry hay out in the pasture. I'm not a cattle expert, though, so I have no idea if these are beef cows or part of the dairy herd.

I loved Renae's blog post on nurse cows from June 2010. So awesome to see the calves being allowed to nurse with their mothers for so long! And the pictures are so neat. As a mother who nursed her own children, my heart goes out to the nursing calves on factory farms that are taken from their mothers so early and the cries that can be heard from both mother and baby upon separation.

Immediately after we walked away from the cows, Will stepped right in a huge, green cow pie. He was wearing his LL Bean sandals and his toes were covered in green poo. I couldn't help be laugh, but he didn't find it funny at all. :) LOL His face was so worried and he started whining and asking me to get it off. We scraped it on the grass as best we could and I convinced him to come see the hogs quick and then we'd go back to the car and clean him up.

According to the website, "the pigs are raised outdoors where they can root, romp, forage and assimilate the sunshine into vitamin D". You can read more about them and about the little bit of grain that are offered to the pigs and turkeys for energy on their webpage. The farmers have "eliminated a lot of their grain by feeding them whey and milk excess products".

Here's a back view of the Schlatter's house and garden. It's right next door to the store where we parked and very nearby the building where they make their own artisan, raw milk cheese. Their cheeses are sold at the Erie Street Market in Toledo on Saturdays, but I've never known to look for them there!

Inside the store, I chatted with Renae about joining their "Farm Club". Haha! It's not what it sounds like. Basically, it just allows me to make unregulated direct farmer-to-consumer "trades" (purchases) of their foods. CJ Farm Club members that live in my area place weekly (or as needed) orders and a large delivery is made to a specified drop off location on Wednesdays each week. I haven't joined yet. I want to work through the logistics of schedules, meal planning and purchasing food in this way. Plus I have a list of questions that I want to go over with Renae in the near future. But it is wonderful to know that this option is available to us!

The store has upright and chest-style refridgerators with ready-for-purchase meats and cheeses along with these shelves along one wall filled with other local goodies: teas, flours, dried fruit, honey, maple syrup, etc.

I wanted to purchase some spelt and buckwheat flour but only had $5 cash on me and decided I'd rather trial their raw milk cheddar cheese instead.

Will played with some toys they had set up in the store while Renae and I talked.

I purchased 8oz of the mm Bossie Cheddar to try.

This whole topic of natural and sustainable food is so fascinating to me and I just want to learn as much as I can. A little exploring and communicating has opened up so many paths to better eating for me this year. There's still a local woman (as in really near to my house) that seems to be the guru of this stuff for my area. She is a former dietitian who actually left her career because of her disagreement with food politics in standard health care practices. Now she teaches and organizes all sorts of people in learning more about healthy eating, despite the system.

For further research topics, check out:

The Weston A. Price Foundation (also see here)

And look for these AWESOME books:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I'm also reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan right now.