Farm news for May
posted on
May 1, 2023
| The snow is finally melted (mostly) and if we get any in the night it’s gone by noon. The grasses are already coming up and I’m thrilled with how fast. One of the principles of soil health is to always have living roots in the soil, even in the cold months. We are really seeing that in the fields where we are doing the managed grazing and seeding some cover plants after the animals leave the area. It’s so exciting to me to be seeing this improvement after just a few years. One of our main goals is to leave the soil better than when we started that season while raising high quality food that benefits from the health of the soil. The calves have started coming. As of this afternoon we have 4 on the ground, 2 heifers and 2 bulls. 2 out of first time moms and the other 2 have done this before. It's my favorite time of the year and also a stressful one. The stress seems to lessen as weather improves. I got a call this week from a person who is outside of the area we service right now. He wanted to know how to tell what pharmaceuticals may have been given to the pigs he was getting his bacon from. I told him there’s only one way to really know: KNOW YOUR FARMER! I referred him to a farmer in his area. It really got me thinking more about how hard it is to really know where the food in the grocery store is coming from. 80% of the food in this county is produced, processed and marketed by only a handful of companies. It gets so confusing with all the labeling trying to tell us in just a glance where the food came from. In reality, most farmers don’t ever meet their end consumer either. It’s really just smaller scale farmers like us, doing direct to customer sales, that get to know the families that eat our products. We value our relationship with you and it’s an honor for us to produce food that you feed to your family. In that sprit of transparency I feel it’s important for us to share more about the what and why of our farming practices. Also I know that raising the meat and eggs is not simply enough, we also need to move those products from our farm to your table. We want to make that process as convenient as possible for you. We are hoping that the website, anytime pickup from the farm and home delivery to the Denver area is doing that. We are working to move beyond that to also offer shipping to more of Colorado (to start with). We would appreciate any feedback you have as to products you’d like to see us offer or ways you’d like to receive your products or information from us. We strive to raise a premium product and service. In that I will be putting a big focus on sharing more on the blog, in emails and on social media of the day to day happenings on the farm as well as sharing my thoughts on our food system as a whole. If you know others who want to know the farmers that produce their food, please send them our way. Hope you are enjoying the warmer, longer days too! Aila |
