I thought a few more pictures from Robert and Judy's St. Brigid's Farm would be more interesting than the wreck that is currently the Brooks Tavern. Certainly more cheery, except for the calves I guess. We stopped out there after we got those last pics from Robert and checked out the little veal calves for ourselves. They will be ready in a month or so, and already Kevin is dreaming of sweetbreads and veal stews and cutlets. And as Robert pointed out, in case some of us are sort of falling in love with the cute little critters, they are having a longer and happier life as veal than they would have ordinarily, since bull calves are not destined for a long life on a Dairy Farm. This is sort of a matriarchal society - you need heifers for the milk production, but you only really need one bull to get that production rolling. I don't know what the ratio is of bull calves versus heifers born each spring, but I do know that when we were kids the bull calves went pretty much immediately to Rudnick's Sale Barn in Galena (traveling in the back of the Plymouth wagon), while the heifers grew up to be cows. We might have kept a steer every year or so for our own family's beef, but we never raised anything for veal. That was then. Now, we hope to have a long and mutually rewarding relationship with St. Brigid's Farm.
