Fall colors, Meat deliveries, Dirt to Soil
Sometimes I still can’t believe I get to wake up everyday in this beautiful valley. Spring is my favorite season, but this time of year runs a close second, closing the gap a little more every year. So much color. With spring comes new life. And lots of work. Although fall means winter is just around the corner, it also means a change of pace. While there’s always something needing to be done, our work load in the fall is not as heavy. The older I get, the more I look forward to fall and the lighter load that comes with it.
This week we emptied out the remaining chicken shelters, finally finished up our pastured chicken production for the year. No more pulling shelters across the field everyday. And no more taking the dogs out to the field at dark every evening to help deter predation. We ended up raising 3,153 birds to harvest this season.
Back in the summer we got a group of chicks to raise as egg layers. We’ve been growing them out in the shelters with our meat birds. We took them back to the barn. They should hopefully start laying in about a month or so.
After emptying all the chickens out of the shelters, it took an afternoon of moving all the empty shelters to the edge of the field to get them in place for winter. Putting away shelter lids, waterers, feeders, hoses, and buckets.
Amy’s brother and his family came up last weekend. The kids carved pumpkins and had a big time on the farm.
It’s been a big week of emptying out our freezers and getting meat to people. On-farm pick up day was Saturday. Amy and kids delivered meat to Knoxville on Monday. I delivered herd shares and pre-orders to families in Bristol and Kingsport yesterday evening. Amy usually makes that run, but she was needing to catch up on bookkeeping and cabin cleaning. Our biggest meat day of the month is tomorrow with herd share deliveries to both Abingdon and Marion. Lots of coolers to get filled up today. This part of the job always stresses Amy out, nervous about missing or messing up someone’s order. We appreciate your grace as we have and will continue to mess up.
One thing we did not mess up this week was ORVF smoked brisket and pulled pork. So good. Don’t ask me how I know. Ha. I’m afraid our vacuum sealer is on its last leg though. Bout time for another one.
This week, I’ve been listening to is “Dirt to Soil” by Gabe Brown. Here are a few quotes that stood out:
“Our lives depend on soil. This knowledge is so engrained in me now that it’s hard to believe how many soil destroying practices I followed when I first started farming. I didn’t know any better. In college I was taught all about the current industrial production model, which is a model based on reductionist science, not on how natural ecosystems function.”
“Where in nature does one find a monoculture? Only where humans have put them… Diversity enhances ecosystem function.”
“I believe that a farm or ranch is not truly sustainable unless it is transferred to the next generation, family member or not.”
“The U.S. government has propagated this mindset with its cheap food policy. It wants to ensure that citizens have an abundant supply of cheap food. Notice I did not say nutrient-dense food. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, and yet its citizens are not healthy. Are farmers and ranchers to blame for all of this? No, not entirely, but we need to take our fair share of the blame. The American public needs to take their part of the blame as well for allowing this to happen. Through their buying dollars, consumers have made the choice that they want this system, even as they choose to ignore the environmental degradation, the mistreatment of animals, and the overall decline in human health. And think of what else this production model has caused. It has led to tighter and tighter margins for producers. Lower margins mean producers must farm more and more land to make ends meet. Farm sizes increase, leaving fewer and fewer farms overall, and fewer people operating the land. In other words, this production model has led to the demise of many of our small towns.”
“As with most government programs, good intentions often lead to disappointing results. A program that was intended to minimize risk has become a monster that now dictates most of the cropping decisions made in the United States today.”
“The foods we put in our mouths have the ability to either heal us or harm us. The choice is ours.”
Have a good week.
Will