Weblog Archive 1/6/2023

 

Happy New Year - 2023

Market News

Wow, what a time to be alive in America – as if that hasn’t been said before! But, really, so much has changed over the past few years! I feel like I am living in a modern depression. We will never see things like the 1930’s but, OMG, this has been crazy! Farming is not, by nature, a good lucrative industry to be in but, I can easily say, this last year has been the hardest on us, to date. And, it was not only financially challenging, weather has been pretty extreme too. The heat/drought we recently experienced brought on talk of a 150% price increase on hay. This led many cattle ranchers to take large numbers of cattle to the sale barns – the trailer lines were so long that the fire dept. had to come out and hose down the cattle because they were dying from the heat and stress of waiting so long in line. I am not 100% privy to the commercial beef industry but, I could sympathize with the cattle ranchers as the heat was very extreme and most commercial cattle are of European descent so they are, by nature, more susceptible to heat stress. We have a heat tolerant breed but, we still have to feed them hay in the winter months so, we were a bit concerned as well. It really was a hot one – the main concern for our cattle (and sheep) was that when the rotational grazing reached full circle, there was no more grass growing as there was no rain to generate new growth. Fortunately, we had some hay left over from last year so, we were able to feed them but, water was another story. Our pond nearly dried up for the first time since being here, at this location, over the past 7 years. We have always relied on that source of water to hydrate our herds – sans pond not only upset the natural ecosystem but, caused us to have to use city water which, is not as natural and increased our cost for many months (our water bills were triple in that time).

We got through that time then, when winter approached, it was time to buy hay – fortunately, the price of hay only increased by 50% (instead of 150%). So, our herds are still eating. We did raise our beef prices at the beginning of the year in anticipation of the hay increase and hope to keep those prices where they are for the time being. We raise and grow a small herd of beef (though, when we need winter hay, our little 15 head of cattle seem big to us!) and you are fortunate if you are on our waiting list. But, if not, consider lamb. We do have much more lamb than beef (we milk our sheep so, we breed more of them – we must have lambs to have sheep milk!). If you have not tried it, don’t be shy, give it a try. I never ate lamb before I became a sheep farmer and, the one time I did buy it and tried it off the store shelf, it was awful! Our meat comes from hair sheep which is much tastier (think of Irish Lamb Stew). When available, we have sample packs of lamb for $25 for those who want to give it a try (check our market page for availability or e-mail us – we process lamb in March and Aug each year).

Speaking of price increases, have you seen the price of eggs?! It almost blew my mind when people told me what they were paying for ordinary (commercial grade) eggs on the shelf – some even told me they are now rationing eggs (and beef) in their household! The price of eggs on the store shelves may go down since the reason for the spike was the realization of the forewarned bird flu that finally hit. That, too, was quite concerning to us in past months as other farmers were already reporting losses on their small farms. But, in the end, the commercial industry was hit the hardest. As for us, we did not have any losses in our flock. Regardless, we are still faced with having to increase our egg prices due to the increased cost of feed in our area. Even when other areas saw an increase, our prices held steady until just recently when we saw a 40% increase. As a result, we have raised our egg prices accordingly ($7/doz committed customers, $8 all other individual sales).

These are just some reports of the harder times we have seen recently. And, we don’t expect it to get any better. But, one relief has been the opening of our Airbnb unit. When we moved here, we built a living space for our daughters in a separate building (they were older teens at the time and we wanted them to have some sense of independence) and, now that they have moved out, we have been able to rent it on Airbnb which has helped lighten the financial load of the farm quite a bit. (Here is an article that talks about farmers using Airbnb for survival)

Our product sales to you all don’t go unnoticed either and we are very thankful for all our supporters – you are the end line relief but, we still need cash flow upfront to be able to carry the load while the crops are growing. We also rely on the sales of our breeding stock (in between product sales) to other farms but, farms are not starting up right now and the ones on the ground are not expanding – we are all just trying to hang on the best we can.

I am sure there are other farms that could match (and beat) my stories of these hardships but, in our 18 years, this has been the toughest we’ve seen. Financial relief helps but, we aren’t able to do much about the extreme weather. Just before Christmas, we had an unusual freeze and we anticipate another one before the winter’s end. Texas sees freezing temps longer than 24 hrs on an average of one day/year – we have certainly topped that over the past few years. And, that adds to our challenges as we are having to re-think our farming practices because the standard rules don’t always apply anymore. We actually have a rooster with no toes due to prior year’s extended freeze (poor guy – he is now named “No-Toes”). But, we are pressing on (No Toes and all) as it is still a wonderful life here on the farm.

Please continue to be patient with us and understand that we are not high-tech nor do we aim to go that direction. We do have our farm market page and are able to take on-line payments so, we are not totally ancient. On the other hand, we do deal with our customers more personally and direct than is customary in this day and age and, we plan to keep it that way. Our young Farm Manager, Christie, may introduce some new concepts to the farm (like our new YouTube channel! – if you have not seen it, check it out) but, I (personally) am sure I will not see too much radical change (at least on this farm) in my life-time. I don’t doubt that innovative farming will be more and more prevalent as the population grows and more and more people need to eat: preview here. But, for us, we are doing it as low tech as we can. Quite a few sustainable/regenerative farms (our peers) have gone semi-commercial themselves to help bear their costs (in business, there has to be a break-even point!). And, we still prefer quality over quantity and we do that with limited crops and slow production – we believe in that practice and will stick to it as long as we farm. We changed our life-style to become farmers and, the paths we left behind had much more lucrative potential so, for us, it would not be worth it to seek higher financial gain on this path (we had a means to do that on a different path). We took this path, instead, to eat good and to live a more natural life-style in the process – we don’t see any other purpose for our farming venture. I (personally) do miss people interaction (especially since we moved our farm to a much more rural area 7 years ago) so, please do stop by if you are ever in the mood for a day trip. I would be happy to show you around and have lunch with you in direct view of the farm! Spring is the best time to come – just give us a day or two notice of your planned arrival. And, if you take some time to chat when you pick up items at the farm or at one of our drop offs and think you are taking up too much of my time, believe me, you are not! I enjoy a friendly chat and, more than anything, I like to talk farming so, bring on the chat and the farming questions anytime! Finally, if you know anyone who will visit the area (near Texas A&M Commerce), do tell them about our Airbnb! Green Farm Stay

Thanks again to all of you and we look forward to another year of lamb meat, sheep milk, South American beef, Gyr milk, chicken eggs, chicken meat, pig play, pork, gourds, goose eggs, soap, crocheting, lovely sunrises/sunsets, spring gardens and more!

Sandra