Shelterbelt Farm is owned and managed by Craig and Erica and their young children Rowan and Phoenix. Started as a homestead in 2005, 2010 was their first year of operation as an official farm. The farm is located in the scenic rolling hills of Caroline, NY, in the Finger Lakes region just southeast of Ithaca. It is home to three generations of Modishers, and pigs, chickens, turkeys, bees, and geese. Next year Craig and Erica will add 100% grass-fed cattle and goats, and eventually produce greens through the winter in unheated hoophouses.

Craig and Erica are passionate about regenerating the health of the land and their customers, by managing animals in a way that builds soil and plant diversity, provides a low-stress, happy life for the livestock, and produces nourishing pasture-raised meats. All-natural production practices, superior taste and quality, and good environmental stewardship go hand-in-hand.

Craig also runs Ironwood Builders with his business partners, and Erica works at the Cornell Small Farms Program as the co-manager of the Northeast Beginning Farmer Project. This program has been sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

"When you're homesteading you don't have to worry about enterprise budgets, profits, efficiency or scale. These are some of the issues we've been dealing with since we began commercial farming." [6:32] -- Erica Frenay on Greenhorn Radio

Katy Keiffer has a deep discussion about slaughterhouses and transparency with the author of "Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight", Timothy Pachirat. How do people deal with the routine slaughter of animals? How can we successfully compute and understand the practice of animal processing on a human and emotional level? Tune in and get an insiders perspective on transparency, morality and the many implications of eating meat. Carnivores and vegetarians alike can learn something new from this show. This program was sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

"I do think there is something significant to the act of taking life...What happens to the way we think about these practices if we begin to collapse some of the distances that shield us from having to confront the realities that they demand?"

"What I really want to get across is that there's absolutely something that happens in the act of taking another life. The current industrialized meat model allows people to eat meat without confronting that something. I believe that is deeply problematic."

--Author Timothy Pachirat on Straight, No Chaser

Hear some horror stories from the kitchen on this week's episode of The Main Course. Patrick Martins is joined in the studio by Liz Clarke of Bubby's to talk about all of the things that can go wrong when butchering and working in the back of the house. Tune in to listen to stories about troublesome grease traps and gory wounds delivered by slicers, bandsaws, and knives! What did Liz do when the sewers and grease traps backed up into a restaurant that she formerly worked at? Find out what can go wrong during holiday meals, and how an unreliable staff can be a true nightmare! This program has been sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons. Thanks to The Hollows for today's musical break.

"Slicers are so dangerous, and they're even more dangerous when you're cleaning them. I try to teach to teach my employees- respect the equipment." [8:10] -- Liz Clarke on The Main Course

"Kitchens, to me, are one step away from a jail situation..." [33:40]

-- Liz Clarke on The Main Course