Family delivery, by chance
Monday morning I took 8 cows and 4 hogs to the processor which meant getting a group of almost 60 cows in the pens Sunday afternoon to sort and turn back out. Then sort out the biggest few hogs out of about 25 to load on the trailer. Monday evening the farm animal harvest continued, catching over 500 chickens until about 9:30 pm for another farm to process the following day. Our farm has potential for producing a lot of food. More than we currently have a market for. Some farm-to-table problems have the opposite problems. Some have a market for more than their farm can produce, so occasionally we’ll raise extra animals for other farms. Win win.
So, Tuesday we had a lot of empty chicken shelters to fill back up with chicks from the brooder. Then yesterday we received a big batch of newly hatched chicks to refill the brooder. And the cycle continues. Currently 18 shelters in the field that we move to fresh grass everyday.
Brandon and the Circle B boys have been doing some fence work for us. Good fellas who do good work. Their fence work will help us more efficiently utilize our grass and rotationally graze our cow herds.
Some inventory sorting and order filling in the freezers. With that, some number crunching and price adjusting. As said before, I don’t love this part of farming. But because I love farming and have a passion for providing good local meats, we try to give the numbers their due. Being a consumer myself and struggling with the rising cost of everything, there are always reluctancies when it comes to raising prices.
That being said, the farmer side of me is unapologetic when it comes to pricing because the pricing reflects the value of the product and what it costs us to produce it. I am unapologetic about the way we raise our animals and am therefore unapologetic about the price tag that comes with it.
Take vehicles for example. Not all cars are the same; therefore, they are not all priced the same. You can get a new ride for more than $50k, or you can find a used clunker for several hundred bucks. And everything in between. The reason all cars are not priced the same is because they’re not all worth the same. You get what you pay for. Me personally, I don’t mind driving cheap junky cars, but I’d rather not fill my kids up with cheap junky food. We eat food everyday. Which is directly tied to the longevity of our health over time.
Wendell Berry often criticizes the consumer impulse to save a $ or two in the present, pursuing the cheapest option. Though we may save now, we pay later. Often the future health costs in land, animals, and ourselves far outweigh the dollars we think we saved in the present. Even cheap junky meat is expensive. I’m not saying all grocery store meat is bad, but some of it is. And how would you know? Oh because it has a pretty label? Feeding your family meat is costly. Period. You can pay a lot of money feeding your family who knows what, from who knows where, raised who knows how? Or you can find a local farmer near you. Seems like a good investment into the the future health of your family and community.
Speaking of local farmers, Amy and the kids spent a morning this week helping some nearby cousins harvest green beans. Amy always comes back from the Abingdon Farmers Market with lots of fresh produce she bartered for, but if you’re looking for some good fresh produce in the valley, check out the Busy Bee’s Farm Stand right off route 16.
Yesterday afternoon, the kids accompanied us on the Bristol/Kingsport delivery, stopping for plumbing supplies on the way home. And a rare ice cream treat to make the outing a extra special.
Keeping the Wendell Berry Mad Farmer Poems going. Here’s a few lines from one brilliantly titled:
“While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row”
“‘Chance’ is a poor word among
the mazes of causes and effects, the last
stand of these all-explainers who,
backed up to the first and final Why,
reply, ‘By chance, of course!’ As if
that tied up ignorance with a ribbon.
In the beginning something by chance
existed that would bang and by chance
it banged, obedient to the by-chance
previously existing laws of existence
and banging, from which the rest proceeds
by the logic of cause and effect also
previously existing by chance? Well,
when all that happened who was there?”
I try to be a man of faith. I can’t say I always live up to the faith I profess. But I have faith because I am also a man of reason. Gardening requires faith. And reason. No one puts the work into gardening based on blind hope or unrealistic optimism. Gardeners put their faith to work based on the miraculous evidence continually proven overtime that allows the soil to make dead seeds come alive and bear fruit.
I have faith for a lot of reasonable reasons. To believe that something somehow sprang forth from nothing for no reason seems to me unreasonable. I can’t muster up that much faith. I have no choice, based on the evidence, but to believe there is a Creator. Being was brought into existence not accidentally “by chance” but intentionally on purpose. And for a purpose. So what purpose did God have in mind with his Creation? And am I allowing what he created to live according to that designed purpose?
Have a good week.
Will