Saturday Country Drive
Decided to take the long way to the “moon road” and visit a farm I know of called Reckamp. Located in the Wright City area on OO between M and N hence the Moon Road. That’s my bud Karen (our fabulous flower buyer at Walter Knoll Florist) she was a bit nervous about my pulling over to shoot the sign. “Hurry Up!”
Reckamp sells frozen pork cuts and fresh produce from their farm. We got lucky today and my favorite third generation son took us for a tour into the birthing stalls. The first room we came to has a giant tractor that runs a machine which grinds up the feed for the pigs. A mixture of corn grown right there on the farm and noodles and fortune cookies – yes, noodles and fortune cookies, there is a big bucket of fortunes there in case you don’t believe it!
Yesterday’s piglets were all about 1 month old and just beginning to wean. I think we saw 8 or 10 sows with their precious little piglets, each sow gives birth to as many as 14 little ones, but the Reckamps will foster to other sows any more than 10 or 11 to be sure each piglet gets his share of mama. This one year-old sow is approximately 400 pounds. The babies go from birth to table in about five months – going to slaughter at around 250 pounds.
Reckamp is a small family farm, originally a family farm in Florissant, Mo it’s been about 3 generations out on the Moon Road, close to Wentzville and Wright City is where the Reckamp children go to school. We took the long way, heading out Highway 44 to 100 and then through Washington, Mo where we picked up 47 to cross the Missouri River. 47 took us to T and then to TT to M and finally to OO where the farm is, just about halfway between M and N. This will be a fantastic leaf peeping drive in a few weeks.
Yesterday’s produce selection included sweet potatoes, squash, okra, butternut squash, white and purple eggplant, peppers, decorative corn and squash and a few pumpkins. All grown right there on the farm!
Always there are farm fresh eggs from a neighboring farm and Amish Honey and Jams. Come October they’ll have a huge selection of pumpkins, and bales of hay or straw for sale. We were lucky yesterday to get a tour, like I said it’s a small family farm and there’s plenty of work to do on 185 acres – the Reckamps have an amazingly clean place, you will not smell a pig farm or pigs unless you get to go see the birthing stalls. The stalls are cleaned and drained and the collection is put into the ground and fertilizes the produce. Best sweet potatoes you’ll ever taste! And sweet potatoes or butternut squash is a perfect accompaniment to the frozen pork cuts you can purchase right there in the family home’s garage
I recommend you take along a cooler for your pork and egg purchases, ‘cause on the way home you might want to go back the same way but just before crossing the Missouri River into Washington you can get on Highway 94 and go a quarter mile into Dutzow, MO to the Blumenhof Vineyards. They have a wine tasting room where you can taste all their wines, buy a nice cold bottle and go sit out in the garden patio and have a little lunch – live musical entertainment on weekend afternoons, we enjoyed guitarist/singer Erik Brooks the “human jukebox” on our visit, he even pulled an old Marty Robbins request of mine out of his bag of songs – Down in El Paso.
We enjoyed some real German potato salad and bratwurst.
Another thing to bring along on this road trip are some wine glasses, you can buy some at $3 each, or rent them at $3 each or drink from plastic cups!
In a few weeks I hope to do a pumpkin post, so check back! But if you can’t get out for a fall drive, you can certainly enjoy the look of fall with an arrangement from our new fall lineup Autumn Flowers Reckamp doesn’t have a web site I can link you to, but they can be reached at 636 673-2734.