The Pork is in! Pictured Below: 500 pounds of pork from my two pigs: Bacon, Pork Chops, Breakfast Sausage, Links, Kielbasa, Pepperoni Sticks, Hams, Spare Ribs, and more! Contact me if your interested in trying some! Pasture-raised and grain finished, these pigs taste amazing!

So it's finnaly arrived: 500 pounds of Pastured/Naturally raised pork in every possible cut you can imagine. Pork Chops, Pork Steak, Hams, Ribs, Bacon, Sausages. And I also used some of my Dad's goat meat to create some 60% Pork 40% Goat Kielbasas (Eastern European style sausages). If you like that kind of thing, you will love these! Plus I bought 10 extra pounds of ground beef to add with my pork and had some spicy pepperoni sticks made! Forget "Oh Boy O'Berto"! These are way better! And healthier too! No added chemicals, just spices! I had just bought a 21 cubic ft. freezer the day before I picked up all the meat, and I'm glad I didn't go with something smaller, because it's pretty well packed in there! It's definently better to have a little extra room than to not have enough room. Besides, I am going to have a bunch of chicken here in not too long. My plan is to have at least half of the pork sold in the next 2 months though, so there should be plenty of room when the time comes. I just got the pork on Friday and I'm still calculating my cost of production, including feed and processing costs, but as soon as I have that figured, I will have a price list for all the different cuts of meat and sausages available. I can tell you one thing though, it's not going to be cheap! But you probably knew that. It costs a little extra for quality, natural, tasty food these days! I know that for many people, pork isn't one of their favorite meats, but I think the reason for that, is most people eat the cheap store-bought industrial JUNK pork, and that leaves them with a bad impression. My pork is the opposite, full of color, with perfect marbling, humanely raised on pasture, and it tastes incredible! I am planning on making a BIG batch of pulled pork soon and I will have that available soon for instant sandwiches etc. It will be pre-cooked and ready to eat, plain or on a sandwich or on mashed potatoes, however you like it. But then you can be lazy and still enjoy wonderful food! Contact me if your interested in pork: MBAMBER (@) AOL.COM (I do that (@) so I don't get a bunch of spam email.







Pictured on left - Cornish Cross Meat Chickens.

My Neighbor Tammi and I decided to make the minimum order of 25 chicks and ordered them from a hatchery in the midwest. They were shipped in a box with holes cut out for air and with some bedding straw, and all survived! I have my twelve now living in my garage in a kiddie-pool. They have a bed of straw and the kiddie pool is just a convenient way of containing them (and easy to clean), with a couple feet of chicken wire wrapped around it so they can't jump out. In this picture the chicks are 3 days old. Right now they are about 2 1/2 weeks old and they are NOT CUTE! These are the fastest growing breed of chicken, and they should reach finishing size in a total of only 8 weeks! Tammi and I both wan't to learn how to process these birds ourselves, so if it's bearable AND profitable, you might be able to acquire some "NATURALLY RAISED, PASTURED CHICKEN"! They finish at about 5 pounds, so I actually will have quite alot of Chicken, and I would love to see how much better you think it tastes than store-bought, so I will let you know when the chicken becomes available. Until next time: HAPPY FARMING! -Marshall

Baby goats, New Cow, New Chicken Coop & Livestock Shelter

One of my Dad's Boer goats had triplets a few daysy ago. Heres a picture of two of them. They are adorable. Another of the goats is due any day now, so possibly one or two more babies coming soon. Luckily we fenced another area for livestock last summer, so have plenty of room for all the new additions! If you don't know about Boer goats, they are meat goats, and if you have never tried goat meat, then you are missing out! My Dad's goat/pork sausage is THE BEST sausage you have ever tasted, and I hope to have some for sale soon. I'll let you know when we have it available. FACT: Goat is the most eaten meat in the world! I bought my first Cow! He's a year-old Hereford-Angus cross. He is presently living with the goats, as my pasture had no livestock shelter several weeks ago when he was delivered. But now that I have my livestock shelter finished, he can be moved over to my pasture to eat all the grass which is abundant. Only problem is now the cow thinks he is a goat, and travels around with the goat herd. So I'm going to have to bring over a goat or two to my pasture with the cow so that he doesnt get lonely. A lonely cow is an unhappy, loud, annoying cow, and I don't want that. I want all the animals on my farm to live a happy life, and so far I think I'm doing a good a pretty good job at that.
Here is the new Chicken Coop & connected Livestock Shelter built by my friends Rob and Brenden at Redwood Contracting. I have yet to paint it, and I'm open to suggestions. I am considering "barn red", though I'm not sure yet. It's still much too wet to paint anyway. Right now I have my ten chickens in the coop (but it was designed for future expansion of the flock!), which has a "chicken door" that opens up to the entire fenced pasture. These chickens will truly be "free range", as they will have a huge area to roam, and unlimited amounts of green forage, bugs, and worms to eat. Eggs will be available in about 3 months. I guaruntee those eggs will be AMAZING! It's hard to see in the picture, but Brenden, one of my friends who built the coop/livestock shelter devised an ingenious pulley system to open the chicken door. So I don't need to go into the pasture or into the chicken coop, I need only to pull a handle to open or close the door. This was a surprise, as I was concerned about this point, and I made it clear that I wanted something like this, but I was BLOWN AWAY by this simple yet amazing design. It makes closing the chickens in at night so quick and easy, which reminds me! It's almost dark, and I havent closed the chicken door! So until next time, happy farming! Special 'Thank you' to Rob and Brenden at Redwood Contracting for such an awesome chicken coop/livestock shelter. The chickens already love it, and i'm sure the cow and goats will love the livestock shelter section as well.

I just noticed in the in the middle left of the picture you can see the pigs in their seperate pig pen, with the port-a-hut behind them.

P.S. I know it's been more than awhile since I've posted to the blog. My only excuse is that I've been so busy, that I don't really feel like travelling down the road to sit in the library parking lot to get on the internet. Supposedly WAVE will be installing "broadband" internet at my house in 3-5 weeks, though I've been told that now for over 6 months! When I have internet at my house I'll be more inclined to post more info and pictures of the goings-on at Hidden Island Farms!

Hidden Island's first two pigs!

So last week I bought two "grower" pigs. "Grower" meaning that they are just going to grow until they are "market" size, and then be made into meat. They will be ready for butcher in several months. They arent typical "wiener pig" size, they are about 100 pounds, so they are causing some MAJOR rooting damage. I'm thinking of starting a side businesss of "Eco-friendly rotilling" or "Eco-Friendly Land Clearing" because thats really what these pigs seem to be experts at, ripping up sod, tilling about 8 inches deep! If you want to be able to experience these delicious pigs when they become pork, let me know your interested, and also what cuts of meat and how much you might be interested in buying. For example: 2 pork chops, 2 pounds of bacon. Hopefully I will be using the Island Grown Farmers Co-Op to butcher and process my meats, which will allow me to sell retail cuts of meat, rather than the typical "Quarter, Half, or Whole" animal which doesn't work well for most people, especially those with limited freezer space. Also if I use the Island Grown Co-Op it means I can put my own "Hidden Island Farms" label on the package, which would be awesome! I already have several people interested in pork, so be sure to let me know if you want to be on "the list". The picture shown above is the pigs after only 5 days, showing how much "destruction" they cause (to wet soil anyways). The dog in the picture is my Brittany (Brittany spaniel) puppy (8 months old) named Olivia aka "Livvie" hanging out with her new best friends. The pigs don't have names, I just call them: "pig" and "pig", and occasionally "pigs" (they always come when called! LOL) . The black and white spotted pig is actually a really nice girl, who apparently had no human contact before I bought her. She seems really happy to be living in a nice environment (her previous home was borderline inhumane) and if you pet her, she immediately rolls on her side to get her belly rubbed (if you have never rubbed a pigs belly, and heard the snorts of happiness, then you are missing out on one of lifes minor pleasures!). If she keeps that up I might try to keep her and see if she might be able to raise some babies. The pigs are eating a "grower" ration from Wolfkill Feed in Stanwood, WA.

I'm looking for Berkshire pigs. If anyone knows anyone who has Berkshire's, let me know please. If you don't know about Berkshire pigs, they are like the "Angus of pork" with good meat-marbling.

I also planted three trees yesterday, but that deserves its own post! So until next time, HAPPY HOEING! - Farmer Marshall

Hidden Island Farms has an official blog!

Well, the time has come. That is, the time for me to start writing my "farm blog" for all you curious people out there on "the internets". So, wether you are family, friends, a customer, or just interested in the goings-on at Hidden Island Farms, then this is the place to be. I'll try to post at LEAST once a week. Really I'd like to post every day, and post pictures and video also, but at the moment I don't have internet at my house, so for now I might be a little more sporadic. But if something interesting happens at the farm, such as getting a new animal, or planting some new fruit trees etc. I will try and post about it right away (with pictures!). For everyone with high-speed internet connections, you'll be able to enjoy watching video from the farm in HD (yes, Hi-Def). I can upload videos I took with my Canon HV20 HD Video Camera and post it to Vimeo where it can be viewed in full 720p or even 1080p Hi-Definition! Even YouTube has HD video now, so I might give that a try also, but I've had good luck with Vimeo so far.