New Arrivals - July/August Newsletter
posted on
September 4, 2018
Meet The New Arrivals!
Hey It's David,
The last two months have been extremely busy for us on the farm. We have been very dry and it has definitely upped the work load. However the soil restoration work we have already done is really paying off! What little rain we have received has all been soaked up into the soil and we have gotten excellent grass growth response from it.
The livestock really enjoy the grass when it has been dry (with less water every bite has even more nutrients) so they have been quite happy (just a little hot). So we made them a shade structure so we could better control their grazing patterns, give them a reprieve from the heat in fields without trees, and control where they rest so we are able to have them deposit their manure on the weakest areas of the field. Thus speeding the land healing in those areas.
Our mission has always been to "restore the health and vitality of the land while nourishing the families who eat of its bounty". In accordance with the first part of that mission, it has been our dream to have the opportunity to touch and heal more land (through intensive, land mulching, carbon sequestering, soil restoring, forage stimulating, multispecies planned herbivory or more simply mimicking nature by rotating ALL animals across the landscape allowing them to use their natural giftings to heal the land).
As we have had the opportunity to touch and restore more land we were blessed to be able to welcome two good friends of ours: Austin and Kelly to our team as restoration agriculturalists to touch and restore more land and provide more nutrient rich food to all our families.
Austin and Kelly are passionate about regenerative agriculture and nutrient rich food. They were blessed to have not grown up with an agricultural background so they had much less to "unlearn" when they got here. We feel blessed to have them here and we hope you will all take a moment to greet them when they are doing drop-offs. Here is a little more about Austin and Kelli in their own words:
"Hey ya'll, we are Austin and Kelli Williams. We had been living in Colorado for the past year before David and Mariah gave us the opportunity to be farmers in training back in Mid-Missouri. Even though we consider ourselves avid backpackers, mountain bikers, rock climbers, and snowboarders, we thought the chance to learn how to farm, heal the land, and nourish the people was too good a deal to pass up. We packed up everything we had and headed straight for Boonville. We're so excited to be part of a something as important as regenerative agriculture, and are totally psyched to crest this wave with a new generation of like-minded farmers. We hope we get to meet you on one of our delivery runs, but if we don't, at least we know you get to enjoy the fruits of our labor!"
Speaking of providing more nutrient rich food to all our families.... many of you have noticed that we have been out of most of our beef cuts and bundles for several months and more recently out of ground beef! We apologize for the inconvenience. Our supply for our family is the same as displays on the store (needless to say Mariah has reminded me multiple times that we are out of ground beef :).
It is an exciting problem to have; however, it is more difficult to rectify. Since we are a seasonal pasture based farm we harvest our beeves in the fall after they have finished on grass (deposited super healthy nutrient packed intramuscular fat). This grass finishing process is why our beef tastes go good and is so tender. Most grass fed beef isn't finished which hurts the eating experience and lessens the nutrient density.
Grass finishing is also a lengthy process. It takes about two years from birth to finish. So compared to our pasture chickens which grow quite rapidly our beef production is a slow but rewarding process.
All that said as part of our mission we are working to expand regenerative agriculture (to restore the health and vitality of more land ). As part of that mission we have decided to create a fellowship of likeminded small family farmers that operate their farms and produce nutrient rich pasture raised food according to our strict and delicious standards. We are excited about the implications this could have by allowing these family farms to increase the amount of land they can heal as well as improving the availability of some pasture raised products (like beef). We will introduce you to some of the incredible family farms that make up the Fed From The Farm Fellowship of Family Farms in the coming months.
Another result of this is that our beef will be back in stock much sooner than it otherwise would be. All of it will be 100% grass fed to finish and produced exactly the same as our standards on healthy soil, grazing verdant pastures. While we may have a select amount of grass fed to finish beef available sooner (especially ground beef) we know for sure we will have beef available for pickup the 1st of November. If you want to ensure your family is stocked up consider purchasing one of our preorders for October. There will be no bundles available before then.
On the topic of beef we want to make you aware that our costs of producing, processing, and storing our delicious meat have gone up dramatically this year. Because of this we will have to increase our beef prices this fall.
However, We want to ensure nutrient rich pasture raised food is affordable for your family. All of our pre-order bundles will remain the same price because we won't have the cost of storing the meat if it is picked up right away. Also we will add more bundles for some of our favorite products like ground beef and steaks to help your family save even more.
Thankfully our costs of producing most of our other pasture raised meats has not increased like the beef so all our other prices will remain the same at this time.
We are passionate about your families and we want to be upfront and forthright about these changes coming this fall. Thank you for your commitment to land restoration and the health of all of our families. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Blessings
Your Farmers
-David, Mariah, Judah, and Baby Ephraim
