I am missing Michigan. Ohio has its own forests, miles of neatly farmed fields, tight farmhouse complexes tucked into isolated copses connected by the usual crappy frost heaved roads. Michigan is all that and more of it, deeper valleys and bigger hills and more appalling potholes.
Two years ago we came across a small farm on the Harvest Host program and we remembered the quiet under a starlit night sky followed by a superb breakfast brought to our van. They still do that.
The farm is still there as is the breakfast. They sell the meat they raise as well. We don’t eat meat all the time but we aren’t vegetarians. I am not a fan of factory farming -who is?- and I’m fine with paying more for meat raised humanely and in nature. Not everyone can or even cares about the old fashioned way to raise farm animals. Dan Cool said to me that his pigs have only one bad day in their lives. He had to yell at them repeatedly to come out and get their dinner.
They were napping in the bushes out of sight but eventually we heard grunting in the darkness under the trees shading their field and out they came ready to stick their snouts in the trough.
Dan told us his first batch of pigs were pink skinned and got sunburned living outdoors. Now he raises more expensive dark skinned pigs. They live outdoors and they live it, only using their shelter to escape the rain. Usually they are sent to the butcher before winter but he says they have enough fat to be comfortable even in cold weather. A little straw and they pile under cover when it’s cold out. And they are smart. Sometimes they do something stupid he said with a laugh and then he had to remind himself they are just six months old. They’d be puppies if they were dogs.
It was getting dark and time to bring in the sheep. And Dan has a couple of sheep dogs.
Rusty was locked up safe in the van so the sheep could be herded to the barn for the night safe from real predators:
Happy animals mean better meat and happy animals mean more relaxed humans looking after them. Dan is proud of his husbandry.
Dan and Arlene have traveled abroad as missionaries but they came home to join his seven siblings who farm here. He has ten acres of his own and shares 80 more with his family. They cut wood and heat their water and their home with a remote boiler. Twice a day Dan or Arlene come out to check and feed the animals and throw some wood on the fire and they live through the winter with no heating hills. It’s not a bad life.
I’m retired and not into chores but park your RV and you have a place to walk the dog or read the book of listen to the sounds of dinner fading into Autumn.
They sell jams and stuff in the gift shop. They have a bed and breakfast apartment. They live on a dirt road near LeRoy Michigan.
I can’t wait to come back.
