Slow Money.....I went to the conference in San Francisco and I have to say I was amazed. For those of you that are not familiar with Slow Money here is my take…

There are many folks that want to invest their money but don’t trust the stock market…that makes sense to me. These people also believe that the economy will grow if we give small business a chance to thrive.
The Banks are not lending to small business and when a loan is made the interest rates and fees are prohibitive. Slow Money investors are expecting to get money back but as the name implies, they are expecting a slow return and a modest one.
By investing in business ventures locally the money you invest stays local. Now that is an interesting thought (am I being too sarcastic?)!

These groups of investors are changing the way we borrow money. At the San Fran meeting there were 20 small entrepreneurs presenting their businesses and asking for small to large investments to grow. Some were as small as $1500 all the way up to $3 million. It was fabulous. All of the businesses were green, clean, environmentally sound and well thought out. They had business plans articulating growth expectations, expenses and exit strategies for investors (how the investor gets repaid). There is a San Francisco chapter meeting in Berkeley October 24th (look at their web site). If you are interested in an investment that supports your community, this is the place to be.

We are now building the Non Profit to train Future Farmers. Slow Money put me in contact with several possible investors that we can work with in the next few months. We want to build the infrastructure to train future farmers and help them into the land…be the bank…that is where you or those you know come in. Who do you know that may be interested in contributing, either from a loan perspective, a straight up contribution or in an advisory capacity. If you have interest, let me know and I will forward our business plan for your perusal. We are scheduling a meeting to discuss the plan with all interested, in any capacity, in November. Send me a note if you wish to attend (tara@tarafirmafarms.com) and I will make sure you are on the invite list.

Thanks so much for helping keep your food REAL and your money here in the community.

Your Farmer Tara Smith

Oct 10, 2011

Ode to the Grass…..

Annual grass grows once a year
Perennials would grow all year long
But it needs help to get going
Cows do the mowing
Chickens fertilize, debug and help with the sowing

Why is that good?
This should be understood
Within photosynthesis the answer is found
The grass that keeps growing
Due to the fertilizer and mowing
Photosynthesizes carbon back into the ground

This is good as you know
So our ozone will grow
Protecting us from the harsh rays of the sun
The happy animals on pasture
Avoid the disaster
Of life in cage with no fun.

Life with no fun
Is a life full of stress
It creates such an unnecessary mess
It requires chemical use
And all kinds of abuse
Our environment is choking as if in a noose

So we grow the grasses
That sequesters the carbon
We do it with animals
And make sure they have fun.

The circle of life
It is all around us
If we just follow Mother Nature
It is her we can trust

We have worked really hard
With the animals here
Raising them out on the pasture
Help us change the world
One farm at a time and
Avoid an environmental disaster!

Your Farmer Tara Smith (with a little help from Dr. Seuss)

One of my favorite things to do on the farm is to take a group of smart, savvy women on a tour.

The term Chicks in the Hen House comes to mind as to the way we woman talk. We talk over each other with excitement and flare when we first meet up and while it might look like we are all talking at once (we are) but we are also listening at the same time. It is an innate skill we seem to have.

Julie, one of our farm members, brought her gaggle of woman friends for a tour this week. It was fabulous. Everyone talking at once, asking lots of questions, smart questions to boot. Somewhere in near the end of the tour my favorite compliment showed up. ”…you are an inspiration. How did you find the courage to do all of this?” Here is the answer. It was 3 things.

Courage is one of them. Being fearless or acknowledging your fear and doing what needs to be done in spite of your fear. Here is an example: castrating pigs. I watched a video, watched an expert and jumped in. The little pig had his head in a bucket of ice cream. We sprayed scarlet oil, which is a numbing disinfectant, on the little testicles, made a tiny small slice and out they pop. It was easy and the pigs didn’t stop eating. He just shook a leg and walked off. No harm, no foul…got that done. Leading up to the process I was full of anxiety expecting the guys that work here to roll their eyes. But I pulled it off. Jumping in with a strong sense of knowing it would be okay even though…

The 2nd thing I think makes a person successful in what they choose is character. Character defined as: Following through on a commitment long after the excitement of the moment has passed”. Remember the “turkey sh$t storm”? Driving the atv into the barn, startling the wild turkeys that were roosting in the rafters. They flew out toward me, all at once, while each letting go of their entire lower bowels in one fell swoop. All over me and the dog (who rolled in the little that missed me and hit the ground). My first reaction? This is good material for the newsletter. It is a choice to laugh at it or not.

And 3rd is intention. Intention, in my book, is 90% of what it takes to be successful. It is the magic that happens when you paint yourself a vision and think of it as if it already existed. It changes the way you interact with people. What you talk about, what you do with the smallest decision and you don’t even know it. It is an unconscious way of being. It is incredibly powerful when intention is thought about consciously (with intent).


When it comes to the farm we said we wanted to grow and raise the food, educate our community about REAL food, be economically sustainable and to train future farmers. I pictured families picnicking, someone getting married, children playing, students learning. It is all happening now. At the end of the day, with all my complaining and whining, I still held the vision and the universe delivered. We have the food, the education, the accounting and most importantly, you, our members. Do what you love and the money will come. But it is more than that. It is a way of being and learning. Learning to hold the vision, surrounding myself with the people that can make the vision happen, being coachable/teachable (that is hard to do at 50 but when I let go of having to be in charge, everyone showed up and got the job done). That is the long answer. Intention. It is all about intention.

I am intending to have 2 days off a week in October.
Sincerely, your farmer…Tara Smith

I am an innovator. I enjoy starting new endeavors, kicking stuff off, hitting a goal, talking vision and proving it can happen. Yes siree, that is my strength.
Tell me something can’t be done (something that is exciting) and I will jump in full force.

This time I am learning patience. It is not easy for me. There is always something going on around here and my lack of experience is what creates the “thing” that goes on around here. Here is an example…we are all about growing perennial grasses year round. The story goes that if they are allowed to grow up to 2 feet or so and have consistent haircuts by the cows (leaving 8 to 12 inches), they will grow back to 2 feet-ish in 2 months….each time they get the haircut and begin to grow the roots grow also. By the dry season the roots can be far enough down, 2 to 3 feet, where they can access water and don’t need rain. Yeah! Green grass all year round. Green grass photosynthesizing carbon back into the ground and feeding cows and chickens!

In our 8th month here, November 2009, it was beginning to rain a bit, here and there. The Perennial grasses would take 3 to 5 years to show up and I was…impatient. What if I just tossed out some Perennial grass seed? Not a lot as it is expensive. Just some, a little. My CFO husband was not all that crazy about the idea and thought the expense was unnecessary. So, I did what any determined, impatient wife does, I waited until he was on a business trip and told one of our employees to pick up the seed for me while she was in town. A few days later I noticed the bag of seed sitting in the barn and took it out to a couple of areas where the cows and chickens had been and tossed it out randomly.

As we all know, while one thing is going on, many other things are going on. We had our pigs in the rock pasture. The pasture with lots of buried rocks. We were planting corn, fava, turnips, wheat and barley in the rock pasture and once it was a good foot high we put the pigs in and they dig up the plants and rocks along with it! Genius. Great way to move out the rocks and fertilize at the same time.

Craig and I were walking over the land (sounds romantic) we came across a corn stalk in the middle of nowhere. Do you see where this is going? The gal I had asked to pick up the seed had forgotten. The seed I threw over the pastures was the seed for the pigs pasture - corn, fava, etc. I suppose I should have known as the bag was open but I was so excited. Don’t be surprised to see various vegetables growing around the farm, outside of the garden.

The good news is that we had a grass expert walk the property and we already have about 15% of native perennials growing where the cows and chickens have been. Mother Nature did not need to be rushed. I apologize profusely to her and realize she has a sense of humor…..so does my husband…

Your Farmer Tara Smith

Every now and then, well okay, more than that, I sneak into the grocery store to see what is being charged for meat and veggies. The organic veggies. While I can compare costs from the organic counter to our food and it is interesting…what I can’t do is compare what is in the grocery store to what we and the farmers here grow. Because very little of the veggies and meat in the grocery store are from here. Here is a sample of 10 items of veggies (there was one local grass fed/finished ground beef option at $7/lb). No other local meat that day.

Cucumbers - $3/pound here, $2.99/pound Whole Foods
Broccoli - $2.50/bunch here, $2.69/pound Whole Foods
Leeks - $5/pound here, $5.99/pound Whole Foods
Carrots - $3/pound here, $3/pound Whole Foods
Onions - $3/pound here, $4.99/pound Whole Foods
Summer Squash - $3/pound here, $2.99/pound WF
Strawberries - $5/basket here, $5/basket Whole Foods
Specialty/Baby lettuce - $5/pound here, $8/lb WF

The veggies from our farm are local, completely organic and taste like they were meant to taste. The veggies from the grocery are from many countries; China, Mexico, Argentina and therefore use large amounts of oil to transport, are picked unripe, washed in bleach, sprayed with mineral oil for shine (tomatoes) and gassed with ethylene to unnaturally “ripen” them (anything that needs to ripen more).

Have you purchased an heirloom tomato from the store and compared the flavor to one of the tomatoes we have put in your box, heirloom or otherwise? It is shockingly different to me and I am biased, I admit that. Clearly we are in the business to provide real healthy food at a price to be sustainable. It actually costs less in the long run for you to shop locally. Your health, your environment, your families understanding and accountability for their food. We thank you for that and hope to see you carving pumpkins at Pumpkins on Pikes this year!

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