The Crowded Acre

The Crowded Acre: Cats and Taxes

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By Jen Welch

When I was about five years old, I remember nervously asking my mom about taxes. I was concerned that I wouldn’t know when to pay or how much I owed. Add to that the fact that there were multiple types of taxes, varying tax rates and several tax collection entities to make sense of. At this point in my life, I only knew two things with any certainty: I would never get married in the state of Georgia (which required a blood draw to do so – presumably to make sure you weren’t too closely related to your betrothed), and that I loathed the idea of paying taxes. Fast forward thirty years and not much has changed. I moved to a state that doesn’t require blood draws in order to become legally married and I still abhor tax season. Let’s just say that I’m part dutiful-citizen, part taxation-is-theft. Truthfully, I should be preparing my taxes now but, I’m hoping that if I put it off long enough, maybe the zombie apocalypse will finally start and we can all do something more useful with our time

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The Crowded Acre: The Good Sow

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By Jennifer Welch

I remember the first day I saw her. She wasn’t a particularly impressive pig. I picked her and a few Durocs out of the litters available and came home with a menagerie of feeder pigs. Our original intention was to eat them all. I had visited several pig breeders and decided, ultimately, that breeding was not for me. Pigs are smelly. And loud. And they eat a lot. And they can gnaw through your femur in minutes flat, flesh included. There were too many reasons to count, as to why we would never become pig farmers, and count them we did. That is, until reason became meaningless and all counts flew out the door … and we decided to breed pigs. Naturally.

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The Crowded Acre: Maybe

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By Jennifer Welch

Maybe being a farmer is akin to being a glutton for punishment. As farmers, we take on nearly insurmountable tasks against the worst odds and try to make a living out of it. We watch animals die and crops fail and weather reign supreme over our best fought intentions. Collectively, we’ve seen it all. We watch our friends get their hearts broken again and again, and we tell each other it will be okay, that this is how it goes. Entire seasons lost, the feeling of a lifetime of wondering how we can do it better, different. We tell our families, we tell ourselves, that next year will be our year. It’s coming, we just have to get up and make the coffee, keep our heads down, plow through the work, and patiently wait.

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The Crowded Acre: Soccer Mom

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By Jennifer Welch

I’m not entirely sure how the thing happened. I was there, of course, when it happened. I even took part in the happening of the thing. But I still can’t be sure of the how part. And, you know, life goes on – blah, blah, blah, we will all survive – yada, yada, yada. Maybe I will even find a way to forgive myself somewhere way, way down the line. But for right now, in this very moment, I am still kicking myself for that single moment of weakness. I am utterly questioning what made me do the unspeakable deed of signing all three of my children up for spring soccer. Ugh.

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The Crowded Acre: Butter and Waffles

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I think I’m gaining ground. In the early days, my request for a house pig would have simply been ignored. Along with my ideas of owning goats and cows and chickens and ponies, it might have even been scoffed at. I think the initial resistance was due to the fact that my husband didn’t really want any animals, likely due to the fact that he had never really had any animals. I, on the other hand, can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have any animals. In just over a decade together, we have grown a family, built a farm, lived in a yurt, turned a school bus into a food truck, and loved every minute of it. It just seems logical that the next phase of our relationship will be “house pig” … at least to one of us, that is.

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The Crowded Acre: Where’s the Beef?

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By Jen Welch
I have built my business primarily around the growing of pigs and the production of pork. From the breeding board to the farrowing stall to the finishing paddock to the butcher to the fork, I do pork and I do it well. So it should come as no surprise that when I opened my food truck, pork would sit front and center on the menu. When customers ask me what they should try, I usually suggest the roasted pork street tacos – a recipe that is my dad’s and was the inspiration for opening a food truck in the first place. But not everyone is familiar with street tacos and empanadas and, on occasion, we get a customer who just wants a burger and fries. But I don’t have that on my menu, and I’ll tell you why.

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The Crowded Acre – What A Long, Strange Trip

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By Jennifer Welch

Y’all … what a long, strange trip it’s been. I am a pig farmer, a cook, and the owner of a 1984 65-passenger Bluebird school bus. The amount of stuff I don’t know could fill that school bus ten times over. But there are a few things I have learned along the way that are worth sharing.

The first thing I’ve learned is: Never say never.

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The Crowded Acre – The Grass is Always Greener …

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By Jennifer Welch

I never did fall in love with the idea of grazing our livestock on leased property 10 miles from the farm. The idea never sat well with me for a variety of reasons, the loftiest of which has been protection from predators. Our poultry are protected round-the-clock by a 140-pound livestock guard dog who resides on our property. The Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats benefit from his protection as well – being the little bite-size nuggets that they are. I don’t worry too much about our breeding pigs, as they average 600 pounds apiece, but the freshly weaned feeders would make quite a tempting snack. And the sweet, trusting Jersey cows make a nice target while they are calving or just afterward with a small, velvety calf by their side. No, I don’t like the idea of pasturing any of these animals even just 15 minutes away from our home base, but that is what we had to do to make things work.  

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Revolution

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 By Jennifer Welch – The Crowded Acre

“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” – Paul Cezanne

How many times has a single head of lettuce changed your life?

I received a call saying that my tank was ready for pickup – the one that I take to the local goat dairy every week to collect over 150 gallons of whey to feed to my pigs. But this time, they also wanted to know if I was interested in some lettuce that a local greenhouse was giving away as animal fodder. Given that pigs will eat nearly anything I said yes, I would take it. And before long I received another call, this time from the owner of the greenhouse, about picking up the lettuce for the pigs. Score. Free food for my little herd of garbage disposals. 

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Full Circle

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 By Jennifer Welch

It’s embarrassing, really. I’ve lost two cows in two months. The first cow, Luna, snagged her training halter on a tree limb and snapped her neck trying to get loose. The second, my favorite cow, Deluxe, pushed her way into our feed stores and ate an entire bag of layer pellets. She perished three days later, despite our best efforts to keep her alive. Both of these deaths were the result of management issues.

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Who Shaved the Cat’s Butt and Why is There a Bomb in the Pantry?

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 By Jennifer Welch

Okay, so the cat’s butt didn’t actually get a shave … yet. There was merely an attempt involving a feline, a pair of blunt-tipped scissors, and a boy – my boy. But I assure you, the intent was there, and I have no illusions that this intent will subside any time soon. The reason for this belief is that I live with boys. I am, in fact, outnumbered by them. As is the poor, poor cat.

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The Crowded Acre – Barn. Heart.

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by Jennifer Welch

I can’t think of a single aspect of farming that isn’t an act of love. It usually begins with the break of day, or just before it. I feel through the darkness of the room for my boots and jacket before fumbling down the stairs and out the back door. I slowly make my way to the barn and as I rub the sleep from my eyes, I am blanketed by the stillness of the earth at dawn. The animals begin to stir in the early light. Yak the horse lets out a low nicker then brushes my cheek with his whiskers – it’s his way of saying “Good morning.” Slowly, the goats and the cows follow suit as they rise from their beds and make their way towards the gate. The kittens stretch and yawn quietly until the first shot of milk hits the side of the pail, then they rush to my side impatiently waiting for their breakfast. And so it goes, the milking and feeding take place as the sun rises up over the Midland Hill, and the silence I first stepped into is carried off with the awakening of the farm. It’s mostly the silent moments that draw me in to this life. It gives me a quiet sense of solitude when I secretly crave isolation from the world around me, something I crave more often than most. It is in these moments, however, when I find I am least alone, and most surrounded by love.

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