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The last farm we visited was the Mary L Farm. The Mary L is a dairy farm that has been in the family for 4 generations. It is the first dairy farm in North Carolina to be certified organic.
The whole family was very nice and friendly and gave us a lot of interesting information about their farm. 
First we had a tour of the milking parlor. Rick Parker, one of the farmers, was very proud of his heat exchanger. And I have to admit, I think it's pretty nifty too. (I even took a picture of it.) It allows him to use the heat from the milk (body temperature of a cow averages 101.5˚) which has to be cooled anyway, to warm the water he needs to clean the cows and the dairy parlor. How cool is that?
Next, the milking parlor itself, where the cows come twice a day to be milked. 
The cows come in on either side with their feet about level with our heads in this picture. Then after each udder is cleaned, this contraption
next to Nora is attached and milk is extracted very efficiently. For any one who has ever used a breast pump, this strikes a little too close to home :)
Organic dairies are required to allow their cows access to pasture. These cows spend most of their time on fresh grass, but also get haylage (fermented hay, which retains a much higher proportion of its nutrients than dried hay). This beautiful building is where they come for haylage and also shade or shelter. It should be beautiful, according to Rick's son, because his dad spent 2 years sitting out here at this site on a 5 gallon bucket contemplating the exact location, orientation and design of the perfect cow barn. Most dairy cows (the non organic variety) spend ALL of their time in a barn like this, except when they make the trek to the milking parlor. In this barn, there were about 150 cows. When this was a traditional dairy farm, 400 cows were housed in this same space. Which kind of cow would you rather be?
The two labrador retrievers had a great time greeting the guests. The black lab chased the 4 wheeler from one part of the farm to the other, but the yellow lab preferred to take the easy way and ride inside!
What a life!We also spotted one of the farmer's peacocks perched on the porch of the family home.
The Mary L Farm was a quite interesting and the whole Farm Tour was a great experience. I hope we get to do it again next year!
The second farm we visited on our farm tour was Birdbrain Ostrich Ranch.
They raise ostriches for meat and eggs. An ostrich egg is equivalent to about 36 chicken eggs! If you want a hard boiled ostrich egg, cook it for an hour and a half. Then you have to cut the shell off with a knife. 
The ostrich babies were so cute! These guys are about 3 weeks old. 
They were as interested in us as we were in them.
Ostriches grow really fast. At three months of age, they were as tall as we were!
It takes about 12 to 14 months to get an ostrich big enough to "harvest" (we tried not to think about that too much). By that age, they are quite tall and strong. 
They had several breeding pairs which can produce between 20 and 40 eggs per year. They told us that they make nests out in the open and the male ostriches are in charge of the egg (and the young once they are hatched in the wild. At the farm, they separate the eggs for incubation and raise all the young in a group.) They have to watch where they walk when they are in the pastures with the breeding pairs, because they do not like you walking through their nests!
The biggest male they have is a "red necked" (I am not making this up!) They have 3 breeds, or subspecies of ostrich on the Ranch, the red necked, the blue necked, and the African black.
Their red male is 10 1/2 feet tall.
We really enjoyed visiting this farm. The owners were so nice and friendly and very proud of their birds.
And how cool is it, anyway, to see so many ostriches up close? They were a lot bigger than I expected, and there were cool details you might not notice otherwise, like their peculiar two-toed feet. Don't they look like they should be attached to a dinosaur?
A final visit with the baby ostriches was captured on camera, not only by me but also by Davidson News. Scroll down to the photo gallery and click on the first photo in the upper left hand corner. Do those folks look familiar?
See you later ostriches!
On Saturday we visited a farm called Grateful Growers Farm.
They raise pigs, turkeys, ducks and chickens, and grow shitake mushrooms. The chickens and ducks are free range and the pigs have enough room to forage and wallow in the mud. If you ever consider the conditions in which our food species are raised (and you should), you will, perhaps, consider seeking out a source of humanely farmed meat. This website lists local farms in many areas of the country with contact information and what types of products they provide.
The proprietor of Grateful Growers was very informative as she took us on a tour of the farm. She discussed the reason that free range chickens are so much more expensive (and that she still actually loses money on chickens) and that even the big time, non-organic chicken farms only make a profit of cents per chicken. They make a lot of money by producing A LOT of chickens.
Naturally, their chickens aren't as happy as these.
And if you want to see some happy animals, take a look at these pigs! 
Ooo, that mud feels good!
The shitakes mushrooms are grown on oak logs. Spores are inserted into holes drilled into the logs and they are placed in shady areas that are not useful for growing other types of food. 
Gratuitous cute puppy photo:
And finally, which is the biggest turkey?? You decide.
We had another fun visit with our friends in NC, Ed, Wendy and Nora. It really is like visiting family when we all get together. Nora is about midway in age between Megan and Nicholas, and all 3 kids get along great together. Our kids disappear with Nora on our arrival, emerging only for meals.
Nora has a great playhouse built by Ed, and during this visit, the kids were running a bed and breakfast. The King and Queen (of what was not made clear) were in residence and I was privileged to observe the preparation of their breakfast. 
Looks pretty good, eh?
On Saturday, we attended the Know Your Farms farm tour. We visited 3 of the nearly 2 dozen farms included on the tour. We had a great time, the weather held off, with only a short rain shower at the last farm, and a great time was had by all. See my next posts for descriptions of the individual farms.
This year, Grandma and Grandpa joined us and then returned to our house for birthday cake.
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