Slow Beef Production

Happy Winter Solstice Eve everyone. I am so excited to welcome longer days--rainy or not I'll take em'. It's been a tough year for all of us and we are hopeful for the New Year. Don't get me wrong-I believe strongly that we create our own happiness by being fully present in the moment and grounding ourselves in gratitude (not that some magic moment arrives in which we can finally capture it once and for all). Farming provides us a fresh opportunity each day to count our many blessings and ground ourselves deeply in nature's cycles. It is such a comfort to me.

Today was spent cleaning out the chicken coop, mucking stalls and feeding cattle. My kids think I'm crazy but this is fun to me!

My brother came over and brought the tractor back. Dad is moving slower these days so Tyson wanted to knock down some hay and get the bucket back on the tractor to help Dad start his day right. He reminded me briefly of our days bucking bales as kids and it made me smile--thinking back to those sweet pre-cancer times. How I wish I had enjoyed them more! This I think has been one of the best gifts of middle age so far--the heightened awareness of just how short life is, and how critical to tune into the joy in each moment.

Rain has been falling for days and the water table is high. Ponds surge upward in the fields and the Milk Creek gushes over its banks. Mud slops under our boots and Christmas lights blink from the windows of our new home. The cattle hunker down inside the barn and chickens crowd around the haystack looking for a dusty spot to nestle in for the afternoon. I take load after load of soiled straw into the compost heap, a steady drizzle of rain wetting my hair. The cattle chew their cud.

This is natural beef production. Natural egg production. Natural chicken production. The process is slow. It's quiet. At first glance is doesn't appear much is happening but don't be fooled. This is what it takes to raise animals for food production in a way that respects the lives of the animals and the earth on which we depend. The process takes time. It takes someone (or more likely a group of someones), who care enough to show up each day like clockwork to clean pens, fix fences, shovel manure, fork hay, spread compost--no matter the weather.

This is what we do--we do it for ourselves, for the animals, for the earth and for our customers. We have sworn to live our values in the world and this is just one way we show up to do that.

Thank you for your support. Thank you for putting your money where your mouth is and for joining us in making the world a better place.