Friends Weekend, Woodshed, Buying Heifers
What a fun weekend! For the past few years, three of Amy’s close college friends have been bringing their families to the valley for a weekend in the spring. Currently at 15 kids between the four families. 23 heads sleeping under one roof. And honestly, it wasn’t near as chaotic as you might imagine. 4-wheeler rides, checking out the farm animals, playing in the creek, backyard games, porch sitting. The welcomed rain Saturday afternoon didn’t slow the outdoor play of the kids as they rigged up a shelter to keep their fire going. Not much work was done, but a lot of fun was had. At least by me.
Thankful for the lasting friendship of these moms. The closeness of old college friends has grown into the closeness of families and what we hope will be the foundation of new friendships in the next generation. We remain grateful and blessed by the fine folks that God has placed in our lives. Not just in this weekend, but in our days and weeks spread out over the years. We are blessed to have so many good people to go through life with.
Amy’s dad came up on Monday morning and stayed for a couple days to help build us another woodshed. We finished the woodshed by lunchtime on Tuesday. But what good is a woodshed without any wood? So we spent the remainder of the afternoon splitting and hauling three loads of firewood to go in it (with the help of Amy, the kids, and Ms. Desiree). Far from filling it up, but at least it’s a start. Thankful for Papaw’s help keeping our home warm next winter.
Yesterday we bought 63 heifers to add to our herd. Carter hauled a load with me, insisting that we listen to the DAVID soundtrack along the way. It was a family affair to get them ran through the chute and tagged. I filled the holding tub; Hasten and Wren kept them moving from the tub up the lane through the chute; Amy and Leon worked the head-gate; Hallie and Ms. Desiree did ear work (untagging, notching, and retagging), while Carter kept the ear-tagger supplied with new “dots” (cow tags).
I never thought we’d pay more for calves than we did last year, but here we go again. It’s mind-blowing how high these things are. These are some fancy locally raised heifers, but honestly we’ll be lucky to break even on them. Costing over $2,800 per head, we’ll graze these heifers for 12-18 months before finishing. Then we’ll put another $1000ish into them at processing. Then pay $1000ish each month to the power company to keep the meat frozen until we eventually run here, there, and yonder to get it to you at either the Abingdon Farmers Market or one of our monthly delivery locations.
On a semi-regular basis, we get deer in the headlight looks from those strolling by at the market when they glance at our prices (which by the way are looking better and better as grocery store prices climb, especially our herd share and bulk prices). It takes a lot of work to raise these cattle. And just as much work on the distribution end to get it to the families in our surrounding communities. I don’t say this to complain. It is a blessing for us to do it. I say this to give a glimpse of what it takes to put local meat on your plate. If you don’t value eating local, that’s fine. If you don’t care where your meat comes from or how it was raised, no worries. I won’t try to convince you otherwise. But if you do value putting local meat on your plate, we want to be transparent with you on our end about what it takes to put it there.
Believe me, right now we could make more and work a whole lot less by just selling our cattle on the commodity market. Some think we’re crazy for trying to do what we do. Maybe so. But we have a passion for raising the best animals we can and a conviction to try to get local pasture raised meats to people in our area. It wasn't for chasing dollar signs that led us down the farm-to-table road. And it won’t be for chasing dollar signs that we veer off of it.
We could further increase our prices to reflect our costs, but for the sake of our current customer base, we hope to prevent their climbing as much as possible.
“Sustainable farming” gets thrown around a lot. Usually farming practices and environmental implications first come to mind when thinking about sustainability, as it should. But being financially sustainable is another important leg of the sustainable table. If it’s not financially sustainable, it’s not sustainable. Us buying $2800-2900 calves every year with our current meat prices is not sustainable. But as many of you know who have been keeping up with our farm, over the past couple years we’ve been adding to our momma cow herd. Which means we won’t need to buy many or maybe not any calves next year if all goes as planned. If we can get over the hump this year and maintain our current customers, we feel better about the following years and our ability to continue producing high quality meats at a reasonable price. =
All that to say, the cost of us raising our calves will be far less than the cost of us buying them. And for those purchasing ORVF beef, our savings will be your savings. If we can get over this year’s hump.
Usually while farming I listen to audiobooks or podcasts conversations. The quotes I’ve been pondering this week come not from a podcast conversation but from a conversation between Greer who is in Kindergarten and 4 year-old Gatlin who were riding with me on the 4-wheeler this weekend while we were out checking the cows and calves. They started counting the baby calves. Their counting then turned to addition and a competitive quest to see who was better at math.
Greer: “I know what 2+3 is. It’s 5. I know what 4+4 is… 8.”
Gatlin, not to be outdone: “I know what 1+3 is. It’s 4… I know what 4+5 is… 78.” (With confidence)
Greer: No, it’s not 78. 4+5 is 9. I know it’s 9. I’m good at math.” (With even more confidence)
Gatlin: “Oh yeah, well what’s twenty-eleven plus twenty-twelve?”
Greer, somewhat defeated after a pause and some serious thought: “Well, I haven’t learned those yet.”
Gatlin, with a tone of victory: “See… You don’t know all of ‘em.”
Maybe you had to have been there, but I laughed out loud so hard.
Have a good week.
Will