Apple Cider Donut Muffins 1 ½ c all purpose flour ½ c granulated sugar ½ c light brown sugar 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt ¾ tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp nutmeg ¾ c apple cider 1 egg ½ tsp vanilla extract 7 tbsp unsalted butter, melted ¾ c granulated sugar 1 ¼ tsp cinnamon Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin pan and set aside. In medium bowl, combine apple cider, egg, and vanilla extract. In large bowl or stand mixer, combine flour, ½ c granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. With mixer running on low, slowly incorporate wet ingredients. Mix until batter is combined and no streaks remain. Divide batter between prepared muffin cavities. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Immediately turn out onto a baking sheet or cutting board. For topping, combine remaining granulated sugar and cinnamon in medium bowl. Coat each muffin entirely in melted butter then roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Transfer to wire cooling rack. Apple Cider Syrup ½ c. brown sugar ½ c. white sugar 2 T. cornstarch 2 tsp. cinnamon ⅛ tsp. nutmeg 2 c. apple cider 2 T. lemon juice ½ tsp. vanilla ¼ c. butter Add sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg and cornstarch to saucepan. Whisk together. Gradually add apple cider and lemon juice. Cook and whisk over medium heat until thickened to desired consistency. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter. Serve warm over pancakes, waffles, French toast or ice cream. Slow Cooker Apple Cider Pulled Pork 5-4 lb pork shoulder, bone-in 2 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 yellow onion, sliced 1 ½ c apple cider Add sliced onions to bottom of 5-6 q slow cooker. Place pork shoulder on top of onions. Sprinkle with seasonings and garlic. Pour apple cider over all. Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours, or low for 8-10 hours. Pork is ready when internal temperature reaches at least 145degrees. Carefully remove and shred using forks. Slow Cooker Apple Cider Maple Meatballs 50 meatballs 2 c apple cider ½ c maple syrup 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar 2 apples, cored and chopped Spray slow cooker with cooking spray. Turn on low. Place meatballs inside. Combine apple cider, maple syrup, and apple cider vinegar and pour over meatballs. Place apples on top. Place lid on slow cooker and cook on low heat for 4-8 hours. Turn to warm after that. Serve warm with additional chopped apples if desired. Caramel Apple Sangria 1 750 ml bottle of pino grigio or your favorite mild white wine 1 c caramel flavored vodka 6 c apple cider 2 medium apples, cored and chopped Stir wine, vodka, and apple cider together in large pitcher. Add chopped apples to pitcher or individual glasses. Serve sangria over ice. Apple cider settles. If sangria sits for awhile, it will need to be stirred before serving Apple Cider Cinnamon Glaze 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted 1 c confectioners’ sugar, sifted ½ tsp pure vanilla extract 2 tbsp apple cider ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon In medium bowl, mix together all ingredients. Whisk until smooth. Apple Cider Floats Sparkling apple cider FF apple cider French vanilla ice cream Whipped cream - optional Apple slice - optional Ground cinnamon - optional Cinnamon stick - optional Caramel sauce - optional Scoop ice cream into glass and pour equal parts sparkling apple cider and fresh apple cider. Top with whipped cream, apple slice, sprinkle of ground cinnamon, cinnamon stick, and caramel sauce. If you freeze your cup for at least 30 minutes your drink will stay cold longer and won’t melt as quickly.

Have you always used dogs on the farm? Not really. We’ve always had dogs on the farm, but we haven’t always had working dogs. In the past, they were more of a pet instead of someone who could help with the work. I used to have Jack Russell Terriers when I used to get paid to hunt groundhogs. My dad did it too. The dogs would run down into the hole and either push the groundhog out the other side or drag it out the side they came in. But as far as working dogs on the farm now, it’s just something that I recently started messing with. I did some research and a couple field runs and figured it was something that I wanted to try. I thought it might take some of the work off my hands How many dogs do you have? I have two dogs right now. They’re both heelers. One is male and one is female. The female is my worker. Her name is Pup. The male’s name is Holdem and he’s just for show now. He’s old and well past his prime as a working dog. He prefers to lay on the porch now. Sometimes he’ll run after us when we take the Razor out into the fields. But he mostly lays on the porch and watches the house. He’s our guard dog. He’s got some allergies that are especially bad right now because of all the pollen. I think he might be going deaf too. But he’s a good watch dog. Pup is my real worker. She’s a Red Heeler. She responds to my voice and whistle commands. She’s always by my side if I’m working with the animals. Where did you get your dogs? Pup was given to me by the Amish. They just wanted to get rid of her. I don’t really know where Holdem came from. He was my brother’s dog and I think I took him when my brother couldn’t take care of him anymore. My advice for finding a dog would be to find a good breeder first if you want a good dog. Ask him what the traits are of the dog. If you find a well-known breeder, they’re going to be well-known for a reason. After that it comes down to training and nurturing. You could get a mutt dog and turn it into an outstanding work dog. The bloodline helps, but it’s really about putting enough time and effort in. You have to train them without overdoing it so they don’t get bored. What do you use them for on the farm? I use them for anything really. They’re good for putting an animal or a flock or herd where you want it to go, without having to chase them around. Pup can do it in a quarter of the time it would take me to do the same task. If you can teach them to respond to voice and whistle commands, as well as gestures, the dog will do what it’s supposed to do. One thing I use Pup for every morning is to help me move the chicken pens. With the rotational grazing program, we do this at least once a day so they have fresh ground. While I’m pulling the enclosure, she’s at the back, keeping the chickens from getting caught in the back end when it’s moving. Every once in awhile, a chicken will get caught and break it’s leg. They’re pretty much useless after that. They won’t grow and they can’t compete with the other chickens. So Pup is really helpful in that situation because she keeps that from happening. She’ll bark or jump and do whatever she can to keep them in line. Sometimes she does this little mouth snap thing, which is funny to watch. She makes that task a lot easier for me though. What are some other advantages to having them work with you? She is able to help me with a lot of my daily work. It saves time, which in turn saves money. When animals get out of their paddocks, she’s on the job. If you whistle and tell her to get over there, she’ll circle the animal and push it back towards you. The cow knows the dog isn’t a real threat, but it still wants to get away anyway. She’s not always 100% and she doesn’t always get it on the first try, but she does what I need her to do most of the time. I love working with her. I like working with livestock in general, so if I can use livestock to help maintain other livestock, it’s a win-win for me. It’s a crazy ability that some of these dogs have. Are there any disadvantages? I don’t think so. I guess there’s always the possibility that you could get a dog that’s no good and doesn’t want to learn, or one who’s just irritable. It can be frustrating, the whole learning curve. Sometimes the dog might do something you don’t want it to do and that just causes more work. You have to go out and fix a fence or chase down a cow. But the pros outweigh the cons if you have the time. That’s the important thing - putting the time in. Pup works every day, so I don’t have to set aside the time. I’m out there every day anyway. But if you aren’t out working your dog every day, make sure you set aside enough time to spend with them. Otherwise they aren’t going to turn out like you want them. How did you train them? I got Pup when she was already a year old so I didn’t get to start training her as early as I would have liked. When you get a new puppy, it’s important to start training from day one. From the very beginning, you should start teaching them basic commands. I just started with sit and stay. You should train them that when they eat, they have to sit first before they can get any food. They should grasp this concept within two weeks. Then I started training her to walk along next to me. After that, you can start teaching the dog voice commands for the tasks you want them to know. For me, I taught her “out left” or “out right.” She knows that means to circle to either side and push an animal back. Dogs aren’t good at driving with you. It’s in their genetic makeup to circle an animal. Anything you can teach them is going to be better for you. After the voice commands, you can add whistle commands to that. Pup knows three whistles - come, which is a typical standard whistle, slow down or stop, which sounds like a train coming to a stop, and go, sounds more like a dog yip. Do you have any tips for someone trying to train their dog? Like I mentioned before, it’s important to start from day one. Start young and reward them often, but train a little bit at a time. You want to start as soon as it’s born but you don’t want to overdo it. Training then becomes monotonous and the dog gets bored. It’s important to establish dominance early on. It shouldn’t be in an aggressive way. Just lay the dog on it’s back and scratch their belly. If an animal is on it’s back, that is their way of submitting to you. If you roll them over on their back and pet them, they’ll understand that you’re in charge. If the animal respects you, that goes a long way. But you have to respect them too. You have to be in tune with the animal, you want to be on the same page. If something’s going on, you don’t want to get too excited. Animals can pick up excitement really easily. If you get too excited or mad or angry, animals will sense that. Then you get even more angry because they aren’t doing what you want them to do. Good communication is key just like any other relationship. Consistency is also important. Don’t mix up your words. Everyone has a their own vocabulary but you don’t want to use the same word in different commands. If you use “go by” to turn left, you don’t want to use the word “go” in another command. The dog can easily get confused. Use clear commands and clear gestures and remember to reward them when they do well. Then you can get excited - a good excited. They grasp the concept. Don’t overwork or over teach them. Work with smaller reps and don’t use corporal punishment. Actually, avoid too harsh of punishment in general. You want to rule with confidence, not with fear. You are working together with the dog, you aren’t dictating. If you rule with fear, you aren’t going to get as good an animal out of it. Animals look to you for advice, they look to you for what to do. It’s important to have a mutual relationship of respect. Do you think they enjoy working with you? I know they do. Pup is ready to go every morning when I walk outside. Every morning she’s just as excited as the day before. It’s like play to her. She’s excited to go out and run the animals. I definitely enjoy it too. It’s a working relationship. We get the job done together and it’s fun. Even though she’s a dog, it’s still fun. We hang out together every day and we’re always accomplishing things together. You have to make a connection with the animal. Pup and I have that connection and we have an understanding of each other. It’s important to be on the same page. That’s what’s so fun and cool about it. Animals understand what’s going on. You’re teaching the dog and working together, but you’re also learning together. I really enjoy it. And I know Pup enjoys our morning and evening routine every day. Have they ever gotten into any trouble? Not really. The worst thing that can happen is that they get too excited and run through a fence. That’s about as bad as it gets. Dogs aren’t naturally vicious. They aren’t trying to hurt the beast when they’re working. It’s play to them. We call it working but they’re having fun. You can’t run into too many problems. They could accidentally run an animal off the property. That’s something we obviously try to avoid. It can get frustrating if they aren’t on the same page but you just have to keep your head together and set the tone. Again, the dog shouldn’t be too worked up or excited or afraid. They have very conductive minds, they’re aware of their surroundings. They get a feel for how you’re feeling just by the way you’re talking. But mine have never really gotten into any serious trouble. What do you feed them? They get the best food in the world and it’s mostly raw. We do give them dog food when we don’t have any extra parts, but most of the time they’re eating fresh, raw leftovers. We give them chicken hearts, livers, gizzards, feed, heads. They’ll eat all of it and they love it. Basically we give the anything that we have leftover after butchering. It’s the best thing you can give a dog because it mimics what their diet would be in the wild. It makes them happy and it gives them a healthy and clean coat too. What plans do you have for the future? I’d like to be able to start training at a younger age. It really is best to start from day one. I’m looking for a better bloodline and that will lead to better discipline. It’s fun for me when I get a new one, but I’m not looking for a new one anytime soon. I’ll work with Pup until she’s much older and can’t do it anymore and then I’ll eventually get another one. But having more doesn’t necessarily make it better at all. It’s better to have one good working dogs than three average dogs. I like relating it to kids. Farmers think that they’ll have a bunch of kids and in turn get a bunch of workers but that’s not always true. Instead, you end up with some below average workers because you didn’t put enough time into them. The same is true with working dogs. One is all you really need. It’s important to focus on that one and make it the best, most disciplined animal it can be. You have to spend a lot of time and energy with it. If we got a larger herd of beef, I may think about getting another one. But not right now. Right now, it’s all manageable with one guy and a dog.

Tim Memories - It was another benefit of having a big family. We went out as brothers and had a strong sense of companionship. I think we enjoyed it more because we had that companionship available to us and a lot of people don’t have that. We had a lot of adventures together. We went trout fishing in Emporium every year. We were able to fish on native trout streams, when most people fish on stock streams. We were lucky. We spent a lot of time together and had a lot of laughs. We also went to Coudersport for a traditional bow shoot. We learned to shoot recurve bows when we were very young. We hunted raccoons in Altoona. We just loved camping out in tents or sleeping by the fire. We’d shoot targets up and down the mountain. We had two Redbone Coonhounds named Dixie and Queen. Pete had Dixie and Queen was mine. We’d take them out with us. We also started a tradition of camping out after Christmas, no matter what the elements were at the time. Once we were out there in negative temperatures. But we would build shelters and fires. Sometimes we’d be out there for a day or a few days. One time I was out there for two weeks. We used to put up a bunch of tree stands and number them on a map. Then we’d draw them out of a hat and go out together. It’s not even really about hunting though. It’s about spending time together and putting food in the freezer. Best shot - That’s me. Either me or Sam. I prefer to shoot archery because it’s more of a challenge. It gives the animal a fighting chance. But you better be good. Funny story - One time we were all out in the woods in different places and I heard a loud boom. I thought somebody had gotten a deer. But we got back to camp and found that a log had rolled off the fire and our camp was destroyed. Pete Memories - Hunting was something we always did together when we were younger. We would go camping and hunt in the woods. The best part about it (besides having time off) was just being together. We’re around each other all the time, but we’re always working. It’s nice to be able to relax, get a break, and to take it easy for a change. We just talk about life that doesn’t pertain to business or our workload. Don’t get me wrong, we still talk about work sometimes. But it’s a different kind of bonding experience. I think muzzleloader hunting was the most fun. It’s not our busy season - it’s the dead of winter. We would all take our muskets and make a trip of it. It didn’t matter where we went, sometimes we’d just camp at the farm. But it’s fun to pretend like you’re a mountain man for awhile. Hunting is a change of pace. It’s the way we used to relax. We had a lot of good experiences. We all love being outdoors and have a general love for nature so it’s how we bonded. Now we’re old and boring. It seems like now, life is pointing us in different directions and we don’t have as much time. But in the back of everyone’s minds, I think we all hope we find time for it again. Best shot - Everyone probably said me. I’ll just say me. From a realistic standpoint though, the older brothers were usually better because we’d been doing it longer and had more confidence. Really, Tim and Joe might be better shots than me. But I’ve gotten better. I haven’t hunted lately so it’s hard to say, but I do shoot a gun on a weekly basis. So I’m keeping up. Funny story - We all had makeshift lean-to huts to sleep in and we bedded them with straw. We were out hunting that morning and everyone heard what we thought were gunshots. But then we got back and realized nobody got anything and the fire had caught the straw, then clothes, then the gunpowder. I don’t know who’s lean-to caught fire first. But nothing expensive got ruined. It would have been unfortunate if someone’s gun caught fire. Joe Memories - My favorite times were when we went out with our muzzleloaders for a week after Christmas. We would build our own shelters, teepees or lean-tos, and camp somewhere near the farm. We really only brought our hunting supplies, whiskey to keep warm, and ketchup to put on whatever we got. We would eat whatever we killed that day. We used to ice fish too and trout fish in the spring. We would cook everything over an open fire. It was really fun. When we were kids, we would pack up the horses and ride over to our grandpap’s farm. It made it feel like we were so far from home, when we were really only a short horse ride away. Hunting is about meditation for me. It’s a long session of looking inward. It’s a nice way to spend an hour before dark. There’s a sport to it. It’s fun to challenge yourself and it’s definitely a competition between us brothers to see who can bag the biggest fish or the meatiest dove. We taught our younger brothers and I look forward to teaching my kids. It’s an awesome family activity. Best shot - I really don’t know who is the best shot. It depends on what you’re talking about. We shot archery, rifles, and muzzleloaders. We used recurve bows for archery. But we’d probably all say we’re the best shot. Funny story - One year we built lean-tos around the fire for muzzleloader season. We’d had a really bad week and nobody got anything good. It was the last day and we were all still itching to bag something. We’re all spread out in the woods and I heard “bang, bang, bang” and I got excited because I thought somebody got something big. We came back to our camp to find that a log had rolled off the fire and burned all our lean-tos down. The “bang, bang, bang” we all heard was the log igniting extra gunpowder we had stored at camp. Thankfully, our most valuable items were with us at the time, but we lost everything that was back at camp, including our sleeping bags. It was a bad week - nobody shot anything and we burned our camp down. It was an effective way to clean up camp though.

Have you ever been in a milking contest before? No I have not. Not a cow milking contest at least. I milk our goats every day. That’s always a contest. Everything’s a race. A little competition gets the job done faster. Maybe that’s not the best strategy to have, but it’s always worked for me. How were you feeling before the contest? I felt really confident. I figured since I have the milking experience from working with our goats, it would be pretty easy. I actually felt right at home. In the first round, I got the cow I wanted - Jackie. She had the nicest teats and I knew I could win with her. But then when we weren’t allowed to choose her in the second (championship) round, I guess I got a little nervous. Overall though, I felt good. I didn’t know that there were going to be other farmers in the competition. I understand you and winner Chet Welch have some history. Can you explain? We’ve known Chet for awhile. He was my mom’s friend and he became a friend of the whole family. We definitely know of each other. He raises beef cattle. I think he has Highlanders. So we’re in the same line of work. He was on a few episodes of the show with us. People also may know him because he was on Survivor. After Farm Kings ended, Chet had a show called Farm Queens on the same network, Great American Country. How did it feel to come in second to Chet? Well when I saw Chet, I knew he was actually going to be some competition. Going into the contest, I didn’t think I’d have any real competition because I didn’t know there would be other farmers competing. But when I saw Chet, I thought ‘Uh oh. He’s gonna be a tough competitor.’ He’s had his hands on some udders before. I was a little bummed to come in second but Chet picked the right cow in the second round and I didn’t. So that’s the way it goes. It’s just my competitive nature I guess. It’s definitely on the lower end of worries for me, but I had higher expectations for myself. What is the biggest difference between milking cows and milking goats? It’s really the exact same thing except cows have four teats and goats only have two. I just picked one that looked like it would milk the best. If you’re ever milking, just look for one with nice big udders and nice teats. Whether it’s a cow or a goat, that’s how you’re going to get the most milk. Have you learned anything from this experience? Make sure you choose the right cow. I guess that’s the lesson from this whole experience. It all depends on the cow you pick. As far as milking though, I didn’t learn much. I was confident in my milking ability and I still am. I figured cows would be similar to goats and they were. It just killed us that we weren’t allowed to milk Jackie in the final round. What are you going to do to prepare for next year? Practice. I’m going to get some more goats to milk. Even if we don’t need the milk, I need the practice. Honestly, I probably won’t do too much. I had a good strategy and Chet just picked the right cow in the last round. If I do it again next year, I’ll still have the same strategy. It was a fun thing to do so hopefully I get invited back. Pete’s Goat-Milking Guide It’s just like a pastry bag. You have to squeeze all the milk out, then release your hand to let more milk fall. A lot of people in the competition were just squeezing because they were trying to go so fast. But when you’re constantly squeezing, you’re not letting the milk fall down into the teat. You have to let that milk fall or you aren’t going to get much after the first squeeze. You can feel the milk with your hand. So you just squeeze it out and then release to let more come down. It’s pretty simple.