Meet the Slacks - Our Backyard From Farm to Feast

    Traveling the dusty, gravel road for miles.  Rows of corn stretch along the fields at the sides of the road.  Huge round bails of hay looking almost architectural in their fields.  Blue skies overhead, dabbed with cotton candy clouds.  Water babbling, racing me along the road.  I am in rural Ontario.   Finally I see the mailbox marked "Slack" and I know that I am where I am supposed to be.  I am at Slack Family Farms.

     Slack Family Farms are generously donating pork for the Our Backyard From Feast to Farm taking place in Tweed, September 28.  Their pork will be masterfully prepared by a local chef, and we will get to try this masterpiece.  As the weeks quickly tick past, I am becoming more and more excited about this amazing event.

  Mark and Sarah Slack and their three children are third generation farmers (the kids are actually fourth generation farmers.  All three kids took part in 4H).  One could really say that farming is in their blood, they are truly stewards of the land.   Primarily they are pig farmers, but they also grow cash crops of corn, soya beans and wheat, as well as pasture cattle, and Sarah's green house which she grows spring plants to sell at their farm in Erinsville ... honestly I am not sure when they have time to sleep.  I say this because with two of the oldest children away at university the majority of the work falls to Mark and Sarah.  They do not have any employees, they work the farms themselves.

 

   They have two farms, one in Tweed and one in Mark's hometown of Erinsville, which is his family's farm.  Between the two farms they farm 450 acres of land (feel exhausted just writing about it, never mind doing all the work).  Mark's family raised cattle back in Erinsville.  It was however hog farming which brought them together.  Both attended Guelph University, but they did not meet there.  They met and fell in love at their first jobs after university, working at a hog farm in Rockwood, Ontario.  Since 1989, the pair has been raising pigs (oh and children too).

  

    After speaking to Sarah I will never look at bacon (not really 'just' bacon but all pork) the same, I have gained a much better appreciation for the work that goes into that delicious breakfast meat.  There is a lot of work goes into raising pigs.  There are also a lot of regulations put in place by our government to protect us.  Primarily the Slack's raise pigs intended for the purpose of breeding.  The piglets arrive at the nursery at around three weeks old (they are called weaners.  That kind of made me giggle... it's the little things.)  There are two nursery rooms.  As the pigs grow, they are moved to a different room.  There are four "finishing rooms" in the barn.  They operate on a five week rotation.  When the pigs are about 6 months old Mark goes through the pigs and decides which are good breeding stock (a pig's breeding life is from about 1 - 4 years).  Anything that is not appropriate breeding stock goes to The Ontario Pork System or to Quinn's Meats in Yarker.  They always buy their live stock from the same breeders and always sell to the same breeders/ meat suppliers.

  
   The Slack Family Farms are beautiful.  Set away from the rest of the world.  They are living what they love.  I was so envious of Sarah's big beautiful greenhouse where she grows plants for spring planting.  As she showed me around the farm the two dogs loped along beside us, it was really nice, really comfortable.  The land around the farm is this glorious green, and surprisingly smelled fresh.  It is just a bit of paradise out there away from the rest of the world.
    Thank you Sarah for taking your morning to speak to me and show me around your little bit of heaven.  It was such a pleasure.  Thank you Slack Family Farms for donating your pork so that we may all sample your hard work.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarahs-Country-Greenhouse/303581189713712