‎"We (Asian Americans) have to stop being so fucking polite!" - Asian American dreams: the emergence of an American people, by Helen Zia

Thursday, September 11, 2014

S2S+BBQ - Planning - Finding a lamb

So I have a tentative agreement for a cook which was confirmed at the CT Sheep & Wool Festival in 2013.  (I think it's because his wife is a fiber geek & foodie too and the chance to combine both at one party helped her convince her husband to assist in the insanity!)  So now that I have adult supervision, I felt more confident in starting to search for local farms that might possibly sell me fleece(s) and a freezer lamb.  I started collecting business cards from farms in NJ, PA, CT, & Southeastern NY (Long Island & around Westchester) at fiber festivals.  Since we were going to host this fiasco at Harry's house I was really hoping to find someplace on Long Island.

After Rhinebeck last year, I moved in with Harry.  I started looking for a CSA (community supported agriculture) to join.  As I was digging through websites and news articles as well as asking local friends for recommendations the Garden of Eve kept popping up.  So I went to their website and saw they were offering a winter share and it included eggs and meat which was what I was looking for.  I took a closer look at their website and noticed sheep!  Then I read "one show-winning purebred ram named Infinity, who I brought back from Maryland on a charter tour bus."  Wait a minute!  I HEARD about this on a local spinning list.  OMG! This farm is OWNED by the woman who brought a lamb back from MDSW on the bus.   I read on further and the site says they sell both lambs and fleeces.  The meat share says it could include chickens or lamb from the farm.  This is exactly what I was looking for my birthday.  A farm with dual purpose sheep that sell both fleeces and freezer lamb.  And as an added bonus the shepherd is a fiber person so spinner's flock!

So I called Eve and asked about a winter share for the CSA and also asked her about market lamb.  At first she was a bit hesitant, so I explained to her why I was looking for a both fleece(s) and lamb from the same farm.  While chatting with her, I found out she belongs to the Spinning Study Group of Long Island, the guild I just joined.  And yes, she did sell both lamb and fleeces.  And yes I could tentatively reserve a lamb for next fall, depending lambing this spring.  She also shears in the spring after it gets warm enough for the sheep to be without their winter coats!  Yay!  I have located a dual purpose spinner's flock within a hours drive of Harry's house, which is a much better commute than I thought I would manage.  Before I spoke to Eve, I was trying to figure out the logistics of transporting a whole (hopefully frozen) carcass from either PA, S Jersey, or upstate to Long Island!  Another important question...  Um...  Eve, do you have butcher or someone who can process the lamb for me and how BIG do you estimate the lamb will be and how much meat?  Although, I'm trying to get closer to my food (the whole farm to table thing) I'm really really NOT prepared to have Harry trying to slaughter and process an animal in is backyard, never mind what his neighbors would say!  Plus...  um...  having an amateur slaughter the lamb kind of defeats the whole purpose of happy livestock living a nice free range life and before being humanely brought to the table.  Success! She uses a neighbor for her processing and gave me an estimate of the cost.  She said it's really hard to guess how big a lamb will by 4 - 5 months but gave me a range of 60 - 80 lbs live weight which would figure to about 30-50 lbs of meat.  WOW...  that's a lot of meat.  Eve told me to touch bases with her around March to ask about fleeces, lambing, her shearing schedule, and prices.  I thanked her and said I would follow up in March.

Yeah!  Two birds with one stone!  I have a farm share for the winter and source for fleece and lamb, who doesn't think I'm out of my mind.  Well maybe she does and is just too polite to tell me. :)




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