The Bottom Line……Sounds like a political news show and I am hosting. Here it is…Unfortunately the switch to corn and soy free feed is not sustainable, available consistently, or affordable going forward - with price increases in the peas in particular. We analyzed the numbers and would need to charge $10/lb for chicken in order to make it work so we going back to the feed we used prior to last February.

Here is what I know about the effect of feed for the animals that we eat…The health of the bird is 80% lifestyle and 20% feed. Making sure they have plenty of fresh air, fresh water, exercise, greens and low to no stress makes a healthy bird. Their feed is important to have the healthy mix of proteins and carbs, and we have always used certified organic feed.

However, if I couldn’t afford organic I would choose a bird that was out on pasture over a caged bird. Their lifestyle is too significant a piece of the health puzzle.

It was a good experiment and we are sad that we can’t continue with the corn and soy free feed. Of course we will revert to the organic feed we used prior, and will be supporting a local business.

This choice is one more rung on the ladder towards sustainability for the farm. We love taking care of this land, raising healthy happy animals, and feeding our community.

As always we appreciate your business, feedback and support.

Stop by sometime – it would be great to see you!
Farm tours are Saturday and Sunday 10am to 3pm on the hour. Bring a picnic!

Your Farmer Tara Smith (out running in a field…after chickens)

True Leaders and Visionaries of Organic Farming: Bill Niman and Steve Clausen of BN Ranch, Willie Benedetti aka The Willie Bird and Jason Diestel aka Diestel Turkey Ranch.

Farming, like most businesses is competitive. With fewer than 1% of the population buying REAL food, the opportunity is in educating the other 99%. Those companies that lead an industry, that has little to no real market penetration, welcome the “competition”. They understand the dollars spent in marketing to the 99%, whether it is their own company or a competitor, benefits them directly. In the beginning of an emerging market it pays to have as much marketing/education dollars out there as possible. It turns the tides. In the case of REAL food marketing it drives up the demand for REAL food, bringing more opportunity for more farmers to be successful and eventually brings down the costs of doing farming which brings down the cost of product as competition truly increases (for any of you economic majors, if I screwed that up, keep it to yourself, you get the point). My point, was actually not to talk economics but to honor 3 of those Visionaries/Leaders in the REAL food market place. Here is the story…
We placed our order for day-old turkeys last October. At the end of June we were sent 100 with the promise of the 350 coming the following week. They didn't show. After calling 17 hatcheries and no luck I was told that disease at many of the hatcheries had caused a low hatching rate and only the large orders were filled, not the little guys' orders like mine. Now I am not a victim. I slept on it for 2 weeks and trusted something would show up. 3am (when I get most of my ideas) I woke up and had a potential solution. I would call my competition. I would ask them to sell me 6 to 7 week old birds. Now the problem with this is that the hardest part of turkey raising is the first month. After that it is all turkiness in the pasture and easy. So this was a long shot. But I have no fear (that is how I ended up farming in the first place) and I would help out a struggling new farmer so… I made the calls, 3 of them - left messages then sent e-mails. The communication was short and specific and well, yes, I begged. Within 10 minutes I had 3 answers. For all of you that know me I sat in front of my computer reading the e-mails as they came in one after the other and cried. All three were short and concise “Happy to help.” I went with the first one to respond, Bill Niman and Steve Clausen, because that seemed like the right thing to do. Someone else might have tried to negotiate between them but to me a gift is to be accepted with grace and gratitude…(I offered marriage when I spoke to Bill the first time even though my husband and Bill's beautiful wife, Nicolette would probably have rolled their eyes…I was so happy. He graciously declined by the way).
I am proud to be part of an industry that takes care of its junior partners and I will be honored to do the same in the future hoping to live up to their easy way of showing Leadership and Vision…Happy to Help! We now have 350 seven week old turkeys lazing in the field enjoying the sun. Come visit and don't forget to place your order for turkey!
Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Warning to our members..... You may wish to edit if you are reading out loud....

Storms...all kinds of storms. There are hail storms, ice storms, your basic thunder storm. Then you have Desert Storm, The Perfect Storm and Brain Storm. Here is one from your Farmer...

Riding back to the house at night on the ATV, Roland running alongside. As I ride into the big barn my head lamp shines up to the rafters and frightens a flock of wild turkeys which proceed to fly straight at me to get out of the barn (they could have gone the other way, but no). As they come upon me they take a severe turn upward and altogether let fly their bowels. You guessed it… The perfect shit storm. I was pelted from head to toe, along with my trusted companion, Roland. I yelled out "holy shit" realized what I said, started laughing and I kid you not, Roland flipped over, did the dog wiggle on his back and I swear he said "that's what I'm talking about!"

We showered, honest....!

Time to order your turkeys...we ran out last year...

Your Farmer,
"Tara Shit Storm Smith"(sort of has a nice ring to it).

Pigs and Water

As most of you know, pigs don’t sweat so in warm weather they need water. Plenty of it. Water to drink. Water to dig mud wallows (covering their skin with mud acts as a sun screen and cools them off).
Yesterday, at 3am, I woke up in a panic. I realized that the water lines for the pigs, in their current new pastures, are laying out on the ground and the pipe is black. That means when the sun hits the line it heats up so hot they can't drink it. I got up, got dressed and headed out with a headlamp and started burying line. It took most of the morning and then I had help from one of the guys that knows all the stuff on the parts and gravity and fittings etc. It was a hard day up and down hills in the heat, standing and watching the pro do the work and me doing the learning, holding tools, digging 4" troughs to bury line, managing tools. By 3 pm I was hot, sweaty (unlike the pigs I do sweat and probably smelled worse than a pig) and at first pissed off that I didn't plan the original move well.
That's when I noticed the breathing. The unmistakable labor breathing all moms that give birth have. Right there next to me one of the mama pigs had 9 of the dearest, cutest, sweetest, litters yet (one of them stumbled over to me. She was red on top, white on bottom with a tan backside and 5 black spots on her butt!). She sniffed at my hand, grabbed a finger looking for milk. I carefully put her next to her mama to drink and she latched on with gusto!
All the work laying the line didn't matt
For a moment, all was right with the world (probably is always that way but somehow I need a push a lot of the time to see it). Come visit.

Your humbled Farmer,
Tara Smith

I have been irritated most of my life by the comment “I need to have a balanced life”. I say this comment when I am exhausted or stressed out. Lately that seems to be a lot. Moving the cement chunks out of the store (making more room in the back for packing), while a physically moronic move for a 50 year old was actually brilliant as it caused my right knee to swell up which then caused me to have to sit and think about what caused me to make the “moronic” move.

I started with “I need to get a balanced life”. But what does that actually mean? The judgmental side of me thinks it means “I work until I have put in the required hours (set by someone else). It doesn’t matter if what needed to get done got done. My time is up and I have a balanced life. My life is not about work. I work to live not live to work”.

The defensive side of me toward the “balanced life scenario” says that leaders, business owners, movers and shakers don’t have balanced lives. They work to live and must work 7 days a week to be successful in the beginning of every endeavor. As they train others they can back away from the day-to-day and focus on the vision and future (which fills the time the “day-to-day” was occupying).
The dilemma…what about the people that do what they love and are successful (whatever that means to them)? What if my day is filled with more of the stuff I love to do and it turns out it is the work I am doing or some part of it? What if I delegate more of the stuff I don’t like to do? If I am working but doing what gives me peace, fulfillment and pays my bills so I am not a burden on society, can I do that and call it a balanced life?

Can I get up every morning face my fears and still manage to get the kids off to school or listen to their successes and struggles with a listening ear verses trying to save them from the pains of growing and learning themselves?

Here is an example of what I am thinking for those of you that don’t follow my writing (which is not a strength and I know it). Here is what is fulfilling to me:
6:00 – 6:30 Getting up at 6am to have coffee to talk about my day with my husband
6:45 – 10:30 Moving Chicken Tractors
10:30 – 11:30 Breakfast with my 13 year old
11:30 – 1:00 Run in shower and deliver a talk on farming somewhere in the 2 counties.
1:30 – 5:00 Check in with office staff, e-mail, voicemail, ancillary paperwork.
5:00 – 7:00 Laundry, house work etc. Conversations with my older kids. Dinner?
7:00 – 9:00 Maintenance/Closing chicken tractors/hen houses/check all water
9:00 on is hearing how the family is doing, work, girls, work, girls…hmmmmm

Not sure if it sounds good to you or not but during the day I feel like I am testing my armor. What is possible for me. I know that moving the cement chunks was mentally an ego thing. I did it! I am the WoMan. I still got it going on. Not a smart move given the swelling in my knee. However, I love the peace and quiet putting new clips on the chicken tractors, sitting on the ground talking to the chickens while I fashioned each wire clip to fit. I like learning how to use a new tool and build a solid fence. It feels satisfying to see the business report with all the numbers going in the right directions and not have to create it myself.

I guess what I am saying is that I get juiced when I am exhausted from a day, can see results of my work and the work is good. I feel like my life is meaningful.
There is some draw for me to test the limits of my capability, to see what is possible from my mind and hands (and knee). It is something I don’t get from shopping (unless it is at the salvage yard, love that place). Fear is actually a strong player in my life. The fear that I might be one of the “cold and timid souls, that know neither victory nor defeat” as George Bernard Shaw put it. To play in the arena of life, risking failure for the potential of victory! That is what I am all about and I don’t think “balance” has a place here. But that is just me!

Your gimpy farmer,
Tara Smith

Innovation

I haven’t been willing to stray from or change anything we learned from Joel Salatin. I found it to be risky and mostly to the detriment of the animals (safety) and workers (efficiency). Until now. Innovation usually comes to me in the middle of the night. The bad news I wake up at 3:15 and realize the mouth guard I use to stop the GRINDING down of my teeth has been worn thin. The good news is I usually have a solution to the problem at hand within the hour. Just laying there giving my brain a moment to speak -it is quite surprising and I count on it.

Two nights ago it was all about the bigger meat chickens. This time of year we are low on green grass. We put in lots of garden vegetables to compensate. But the 6 to 10 week old chickens just seem, well, bored. It is nice out and they are big enough to not get picked up by a hawk so I tried an experiment. We propped up one end of the chicken tractor so they could walk out on the pasture and graze on bugs and plants. It worked. They come out in the am and graze around. They go in for shade if it is too warm. At night they go in on their own for protection. Seems to be working well. We still move the tractor each day to allow pooh to concentrate only one day in any given patch. Everything else seems to be working fine. Chickens seem to be happy. So we have extended the privilege to the rest of the birds that are big enough to not be prey to a hawk. So far so good.

There was one little glitch. I also thought that if I put a batch of 3 weeks olds next to a batch of 8 week olds that they might blend in well enough to be safe. The attack was not from hawks or crows, it was from the 8 week old birds. Apparently they are not interested in sharing pasture with their fellow siblings. They peck at them, drawing blood. Fortunately no one was around to see my reaction. I jumped yelling “Stop it. What are you crazy? Get away. Leave him alone. Have you lost your mind? You don’t bite other chickens”.
Realizing later that this sounded just like talking to a child. I did look around to see if anyone was laughing (that happens a lot). And I still am the boss and get to make the decisions. So there.

Come and visit…
Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Most people in the world want to live here in the US (regardless of all the complaining we might do). I believe it has to do with our freedoms. Especially the freedom of choice.

The perception is that we always have a choice. In my opinion we do have choice, but it is more complex than that. Let’s take food for instance…

Eating organic, pasture raised, local food meets so many levels of “being green” and it requires a well-informed purchaser to be able to pull it off. Marketing is hard core for bad food and overcoming the lies in our food system is one of the most trying and frustrating things I have done in the last 3 years.

Understanding what REAL food is and what it is not is key to making informed choices. I recommend the following:

http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood/movie.asp
This is a 15 minute video with sources to follow up on.

Food Inc. – DVD movie that fills in the back story of “The True Cost of Food”. You will be amazed. (It is not graphic – great for those sensitive or who are a bit younger) On August 9th, PBS will show an encore presentation of Food, Inc. at 10pm ET (check your local listing. Food, Inc. was just nominated for two News and Documentary Emmy Awards!
Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. There are 2 versions and I recommend the “young persons” edition for easier reading. He can get very technical.

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer by Joel Salatin. This is a fabulous perspective of how one man models a healthy, sustainable practice building a food system that in turn builds soil which in turn grows grass that photosynthesizes greenhouse gases (CO2) back into the ground…this book is a hoot and gives hope and solutions you can tackle without becoming a farmer.

There is more and we have a library full of it (also in Farmigo for your shopping enjoyment).

Come visit…bring a friend!

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith