The bride may have worn a long veil, a white gown, and regally emerged from a limo on “her day,” but the real star of the Texas wedding arrived by FedEx from Woodland, Maine. She wore a shaggy orange coat and gracefully curved horns.
She was quiet and calm with big brown eyes … ”Downright mellow!” says co-owner Gail Maynard of Orchard Hills Farm, an organic, grass-fed beef farm belonging to Stan and Gail Maynard.
“She” was a Highland cow that spent her life, day and night, all four seasons, out and about in the fresh air and sunshine. In the summer, she stood on stocky legs knee-deep in an organically grown meadow and surrounded by two strands of electric fence. In the winter, she stood knee deep in snow, butt to the wind, or sheltered deep in a pine forest that surrounds her summer grazing ground. She picked her way through big round bales of organically grown hay or “marshmallows” of haylage, and waited for the dense stands of clover, vetch, trefoil, and mixed grasses that make up her pastures to reappear just in time for May calving season.
Her job as a brood cow is to eat grass and make calves. Her offspring produce clean, pure, flavorful, soft-as-butter beef, naturally low in fat and, like all pastured livestock, high in Omega-3 fatty acids. The animals are pasture reared and then slaughtered in a certified organic facility in North Anson, both USDA and MOFGA approved. The meat is vacuum-packed so that purchasers can get a good look at their selection and so the Maynards can maintain quality control of their product. The beef is frozen and sold “by the cow, by the side, or by the cut.”
In the case of the Texas wedding, selected cuts of specialty beef were packed on dry ice and shipped overnight by FedEx just in time for the reception dinner. The inclusion of the most ancient purebred beef cattle made the marriage celebration that much more memorable; the flavor lingers on your tongue like rich chocolate or fine wine.
The meat is also available even without a wedding in the offing: on the farm, over the Internet (orchhill@ainop.com), or nearly every Saturday morning at the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market in the parking lot at the Aroostook Centre Mall. Additionally, brood cows and their calves are happy to stand and be admired on site on the Pratt Road in Woodland during Open Farm Day and at gatherings like the Northern Maine Fair, the Houlton Fair, the Springfield Fair, Common Ground Fair, the “Big E,” and during Maple Meadows Festival.
Stan Maynard is happy to tell you all about their farm, their business ventures, but most particularly, about their big, shaggy animals with teddy-bear personalities who have learned to come when they are called and who quietly stand and watch the world while it watches them.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
Contributed photo
ORCHARD HILLS Farm, an organic, grass-fed beef farm belonging to Stan and Gail Maynard of Woodland features Highland cows which feature a shaggy orange coat and gracefully curved horns.
