End of Chicken Season, Freezers Restocked, Inflation
Though I sincerely enjoy moving our meat birds across the field everyday during the growing season, I also sincerely enjoy a break from it through the colder season. It was especially nice to not need to move them Sunday morning before church. I did get one final chicken shelter moving in for the year on Monday as I pulled the remaining shelters off to the side of the field and put away feeders, lids, and waterers for the winter.
I got out the winter coat and fired up the outdoor wood stove this week. Time to put the top back on the farm Jeep. Thankful for a half inch of rain Sunday afternoon. I cut and split a load of wood while Amy and the kids were delivering meats to Knoxville early in the week.
After Amy and I both made herd share deliveries over the weekend, our freezers were as bare as they’ve been in years. Before getting ORVF beef and pork delivered back to the farm on Wednesday, Tuesday afternoon was spent doing a final chicken inventory sorting. Check out our website to stock up on ORVF chicken.
Early Wednesday our beef and pork was delivered. Amy and I spent a couple hours sorting it into the freezers. With many patiently waiting on our restocking, we first needed to fill beef and pork herd shares before knowing how much inventory would be leftover to sell. So as soon as we got all the meat sorted into the freezers, we got the pork right back out to fill pork shares. Then after an inventory break to catch up on farm chores, right back to the freezers to fill next month’s beef shares. Putting boxes in freezers, only to get them back out, and put them back in.
Usually filling beef and pork shares is more than we can handle in one day along with the other goings on around the farm, but Wednesday, with Ms. Desiree’s help, we got all November shares filled. And Amy has updated our online store inventory for all ORVF beef, chicken, and pork options.
Again, we are a real farm with fluctuating inventory due to fluctuating factors that come with real farming. Just as our herd share members prioritize eating our local pastured meats, we also prioritize them. As our inventory ebbs and flows, they always get their meat. More than that, they always get the best of what we have. If you want to know your family is getting ORVF meats every month, join the herd.
This week I finished listening to F.A. Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty. One point of emphasis Hayek highlighted was warning of the government’s increased involvement with monetary policy and inflation.
“With government in control of monetary policy, the chief threat in this field has become inflation. Governments everywhere and at all times have been the chief cause of the depreciation of the currency.”
Again, supply and demand moves prices in a free market, as they should. But government involvement also moves prices, as it shouldn’t. When we see the prices of everything continuing to rise, it’s a good indicator that the value of our dollar is going down. This is especially hard on the generation in retirement or hoping for retirement, whose retirement dollars don’t go near as far now as they thought they would when they were working for them.
Amy says the following quotes are too long. But here, Hayek gets to the heart of what is necessary in order for us to maintain a (somewhat) free society. Understanding what he says here is important. Really important.
“It seems certain that we shall not stop the drift toward more and more state control unless we stop the inflationary trend. Any continued rise in price is dangerous because once we begin to rely on its stimulating effect, we shall be committed to a course that will leave us no choice but that between more inflation on the one hand and paying for our mistake by a recession or depression on the other. Even a very moderate degree of inflation is dangerous because it ties the hands of those responsible for policy by creating a situation in which every time a problem arrises, a little more inflation seems the only easy way out.”
“Those who wish to preserve freedom should recognize, however, that inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason, all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control, should concentrate their efforts on monetary policy. There is perhaps nothing more disheartening that the fact that there are still so many intelligent and informed people, who in most other respects, will defend freedom, and yet are induced by the immediate benefits of an expansionist policy to support what in the long run must destroy the foundations of a free society.”
Have a good week.
Will