BOTL Farm re-learns F

The Great Escaper Pig is here to stay

Here at BOTL Farm, we breed and birth the pigs we sell. I mean, we don’t personally birth them, but we maintain breeding sows (farmer jargon for pig-moms). As our biggest fans may recall, last August we bought in new gilts (farmer jargon for female pigs who are intended to breed but have not yet) to expand production: ya’ll eat a lot of bacon so we need to make more pigs! One of the gilts immediately busted through several layers of fence we had in place and was loose on the farm for part of a day. She was eventually reunited with her sisters/half-sisters and they’ve been living in relative harmony since. 

The gilts are all crosses of Berkshire and Mangalitsa. Crosses of these two breeds result in an amazing array of colors, patterns, and levels of hairiness. As the gilts matured, we were excited to see that they are all delightfully distinct: there’s a red one, an orange one, a yellow one, and … a cow one that’s white with black splotches. We gave them all old Norse Valkyrie names: Astrid, Gertrud, Solveig, and Helga (we like to name our breeders after female deities). We’ve started attempting to breed them and it’s hard to not record notes based on their coats (“AI Red in AM”) but to remember their strong names rooted in female empowerment as warriors (“is yellow Helga or Gertrud?”). Because there is nearly always a method to our madness, each pig has an ear tag that is either on the right or left ear, and each name contains at least one R or L, to help us determine whose name is what. Which gilt is on first! … Orange?

Grants and funding confusion

We’re out to change the world by raising animals for meat that make the world a better place. Because we do what we do (use super-premium feed, limit the number of animals we grow to what the land can usefully support, breed all our market animals ourselves, etc.), we make business decisions based on animal welfare and not for maximizing profits. Also, our way of growing animals requires lots of infrastructure (rotating through pasture paddocks requires lots of fencing). We set prices of meat so that each species covers its direct costs (feed, hay, minerals, slaughter fees), but those (already-high) prices don’t cover infrastructure projects or our labor that drive our farm forward. 

We, like many other farms, rely on grant funds to offset the cost of infrastructure investments. Grants for farms come from different sources, such as American Farmland Trust (AFT) which uses a mix of private donations and government funds; Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) which leverages private investments and ASPCA funds; and with state and federal grants. A lot of funds, across the board, get funneled down from federally-designated appropriations. 

In the past month, we were notified by several groups with whom we have grants under contract that they can’t fulfill their contractual obligations due to interrupted funding. We also have heard from other grants to which we applied that they are on hold until their funding is clarified. This directly impacts our ability to complete planned work, such as putting solar panels on our barn, expanding production onto other land we own, and planting silvopasture trees on existing fields. This all interferes with our ability to make our farm financially viable long term. Sux. We’re crossing our fingers and other appendages that funds will be released soon. 

F is for Fahrenheit

Several years ago (when we first started the farm), as a joke Danielle stole Nick’s phone and changed the temperature settings from Fahrenheit to Celsius (editor notes that the typical unit of temperature in the US is Fahrenheit [unlike the rest of the world]). Hilarious. Nick, rather stubbornly, decided to up the ante by not only leaving his phone in Celsius, but changing all the house thermostats, sensors, and weather stations to Celsius (editor notes that the farm has lots and lots of sensors). Eventually, Danielle also changed her devices to the, by far, more common in science temperature scale as well. We both started talking and thinking in Celsius. It was supposed to be fun, but it mostly seemed weird since we gossip endlessly with other farmers about the weather and were speaking in different units.

Eight years later, we decided to make the switch – back to Fahrenheit. The sensors are updated, the numbers are bigger, we’re all having a great time, but we still can’t quite figure out what coat to wear when we leave the house. Just imagine what would have happened if Danielle had changed Nick’s phone from English to Spanish!

Now stocking wheat-free layer

Following up from two months ago: we said if we get consistent orders for a super-premium organic feed item from New Country Organics that we don’t typically stock, we’d think about stocking it! We’ve had several orders for wheat-free chicken layer feed, so we are stocking it. 

Like all NCO’s feed mixes, the wheat free layer is soy-free, non-GMO, and certified organic. This ration does contain corn and comes in 40 lb bags.

We have ideas and one of them is shipping

Here at BOTL Farm, we always said we didn’t ship. We worried about food safety issues like cold chain, freight damage to products, sourcing dry ice, and the whole concept of ‘local.’ But, we, in 2025, are resilient like blades of flexible orchard grass and we are bending towards shipping. We have bad ideas all the time, and sometimes we act on them (a plastic-free electric fence?). 

As we are refining our home delivery locations and luxuriating in not having a farmers market this winter, we decided to muddy the waters by starting to offer shipping. Who knows why it’s a good idea – our current online store doesn’t even support this. Regardless, see our nice new page in our online store and follow six easy steps to place an order for shipping!

Find us this month

On farm store: Tuesdays noon - 2pm, Saturdays 1 - 3pm. Pre-order

On farm self pickup: Everyday 8:30am - 8pm. Pre-order only

Sturbridge MA area home delivery: Saturday March 08. Delivery area is Sturbridge, Southbridge, Charlton, Brimfield, Brookfield MA and other small towns in that area. Pre-order only

“Around Ashford” CT area home delivery: Wednesday March 12. Delivery area is Ashford, Willington, Tolland, Eastford CT. Pre-order only

“East of us” CT area home delivery: Wednesday March 12. Delivery area is Woodstock, Pomfret, Putnam, Killingly, Dayville, Brooklyn CT. Pre-order only

Sturbridge Coffee House deliveries are over for the season. New Haven, Hartford, and Middletown deliveries have been axed due to lack of order volume.

It's too many numbers! Save me!