Justifying My Actions

Action: Carrot cake for breakfast.

Justification: I read somewhere that walking 10,000 steps a day will keep you in shape.
I wondered how many steps I take, evidently I wondered out loud and someone gave me one of those pedometers. From 7am to 11:00 each morning I walk 17,000 steps, give or take, on hills, in the heat tending the chicken tractors.

Action: Stealing three bites of steak tartar that Tiffani made and gave to Paige for lunch (Paige can’t see me from her office).

Justification: The stuff is amazing and Paige can’t see me from her office.

Action: Eating a huge dinner of massive sautéed vegetables over a beautiful medium rare pork chop.

Justification: Walking through the fields at night with Roland checking sniffing all things adds on some steps along with the work of hosing him down to get all the duck weed out of his coat because he HAD to jump into the pond. There are steps to get the goats out of the garden (they have discovered the garden) and out of the chicken feed (they discovered that too).

The bottom line is that I am in much better shape than when I was an executive in the insurance industry.
Sitting at a desk on the phone or eating hotel food while traveling had all its appeal (it was clean and my fingers and toes were pretty). But I was fat and unhealthy and frankly bored. Not that that was a reason to go into farming. But it was a reason to take pause, consider what I wanted my life to be like, what I wanted to contribute back…okay I didn’t take pause, I jumped in but that would not suffice to make this point: Working physically as well as mentally rocks. Just like my “pipes” as my son calls my arms. I feel good. I sleep well and I get to eat cake for breakfast!

Warning: If you are having thoughts of going into farming and you are over 45 I would suggest a gym first.

Your Buff Farmer!
Tara Smith

Just when I think we are a fad I get a call. This guy wants to know what to do with the $2 million dollars he has from selling shares in a company. He wonders about organic food as an investment. I sent him to my friend that is an investor doing just that. He buys farm land with investors’ money, turns it into organic producing land within 5 years and the return is 8% starting at the 5 year mark. I was surprised to learn the surge of people putting their money into such an investment and the reasons why. Not just the return. The majority say it is to guarantee organic food for their grandchildren. Most of these investors are over 50 and believe the stock market is not trustworthy but organic land (or land becoming organic) is a safe and smart investment for their families futures. I found that fascinating.
So those occasionally fleeting thoughts of selling the farm because my hands are cut up from moving chickens or I can’t get out of bed without groaning like an old man are just that...fleeting. If anything I would like to lease more land with investors to allow us to raise more chicken on less challenging ground (those hills are tough). Maybe a manicure first…

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

It’s All About the Twinkie Defense

I have to say congratulations to you as members. Not because you want to feed your kids and selves real food and not because you want to support the farm so you can choose real food (even though those are great reasons). There is another reason.

Remember the Twinkie defense? The defendant killed 2 well known leaders in the community and claimed he was depressed from eating too many Twinkies causing him to lash out and murder. It didn’t fly and he was convicted. Read on and keep the Twinkie in mind…









There was a meeting in Marin yesterday that addressed the availability of healthy food for those that are at or below the poverty line. Now, you know my stand on those that are above the poverty line. The stand about choices. We have a choice to buy a new gadget or pay for real food. However, those that are below the poverty line have less options. Some much less.

In the San Rafael Canal district there are 5 fast food restaurants and no grocery stores. Has something to do with zoning. Really? Are you kidding me? Our county and city planners don’t have a bigger vision than that? Wait…hold on…it is really complicated. So complicated that there is no accountability at any level of government. No one has the authority to make a better choice to plan for growth and distribution of healthy food. What would it take to put a farmers market in the Canal District? A lot of bright minds to get past all the zoning etc. But that wouldn’t be the show stopper.

The show stopper is the cost of the food. The supply and cost to raise it with land prices, workers comp and labor board requirements are cost prohibitive, today. They will remain that way until enough of the middle to high income families and leaders in our communities decide that enough is enough. But why would we decide that? Best to look closely at why. There is a huge health care cost for children that grow up eating from a convenience store or seniors that can’t physically access healthy food and end up eating processed “plastic” food delivered by well-meaning volunteers.

It’s called welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare. Programs that are creating a wave of higher costs because they cannot address the problem adequately. And the unhealthy are growing in numbers beyond control. The food system, or lack thereof, is feeding the health care system. Nice little monopoly.

Sitting in this meeting my head wanted to explode. All I could think about is why it is okay to sell Twinkies in the store? My husband, the level headed one in our marriage, said it had something to do with some document called the Constitution. Yeah, whatever. I think it is more about leadership.

Leadership like they have in Fairfax. The community decided to ban “polystyrene” from use in restaurants and stores. Makes great sense. The stuff doesn’t biodegrade, creates landfill and litter issues so they ban it. Seems simple.

So why not create a vision that by 2015 we have only real food in any outlet for food i.e. restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, schools etc. What would it take to do it? The best way I know how to accomplish a huge goal is to write down all the reasons why it can’t be done and work on each issue one by one. That process puts all the overwhelming stuff in to bite size pieces and it is amazing how much can get done in a short time. Utilizing many people for small projects vs. few doing all the work is another method to Get Sh*t Done.

Can you feel it? The insanity. Anybody interested in leading us out of it?
Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

What can a Goat tell you? If you pay attention it can tell you to “Move On”. From a philosophical stand point and a literal one. One of our goats has taken to pushing me forward with it’s head squarely behind my knee. It’s a gentle push but she evidently is tired of listening to my farm tour blabber and seems to want to move ahead with the walk! The “Move On” message is what it is like here day to day. There is maintenance of course but it changes with the seasons. There are predators and mistakes. There is always someone with a suggestion of what to add to the farm (some of them are great ideas as long as the person suggesting it wants to do the work!).

In our 2 long years here we have built the basics and continue to improve our processes toward the perfect plan and it NEVER comes out that way, but it is close. Trying new ideas while keeping our core values in place i.e. Animal happiness first, then soil building, then humans and the rest we work hard on like trying to impress you with the bounty.

Moving on, improving practices is tricky. Sometimes what seems like a more efficient method thwarts the purpose of the original idea i.e. the meat chickens are in chicken tractors out on pasture but the hills in some areas of the farm make it difficult to move them each day so we are trying out a new idea today. Using a flexible fence to surround 5 of the tractors and allowing the meat chickens to graze outside of the tractors. It gives the older chickens, 5 to 10 weeks, free range opportunity and they are big enough to not get picked off by a hawk. I will let you know how that goes.

The fun part is that it is my farm and I get to try stuff. I like that. It is your farm too so feel free to come up with ideas and let me know. Like the front yard. The plan is to create a kid friendly garden. Lamb’s ear, pineapple sage, a brick path through it. If you have any ideas or want to work on it, let me know. Should be fun! Because I can!

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Moo

The 3rd day we lived on the farm there was a cow here, from the previous owners, that was having twins. The vet was called because of the twins and sadly it is common for the female of the twins to be stillborn. It was true in this case but the male was healthy. Much to my chagrin the normal process for the male was to send him to be processed (he was a Holstein breed and as we now know that is primarily for milk, not meat. He wouldn’t produce enough meat to be considered worth raising). Of course that wasn’t acceptable so we asked if we could have him and they agreed. However, he would be sad to be alone so we were given another day- old calf from the neighbor (he would have gone to processing also. Not the neighbor, the calf).









The neighbor showed us how to feed the calves and care for them. It was easy and for the next 8 months we had so much fun with those little guys. We named them Spot and Sparky and all the visitors could bottle feed them. The kids loved it and the calves would follow us around on tours just like those now pesky goats.

One Sunday about 6 months in, we were graced with a visit from Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery. After the tour, Albert introduced himself, was kind enough to compliment our efforts. He then pulled me aside and said…”Tara, the calves are great but you do realize they are bulls, right?” “Yes” I replied looking all innocent…because I WAS. “Well”, he replied “they will want to “mount” something pretty quick here (I think I understood what he meant) and you don’t want it to be one of your guests. Probably after the 6 month point you should keep them in a fenced area verses going on tours with you and you can still allow the kids to bottle feed them” (at this age the calves were only getting water but they loved it and the kids did too).

He was right. Several days later the cattle were mounting each other and frankly, while it was an eye raiser, I could see his point. So, into the pasture, behind a fence and sadly no more calves on tour.

Then we got the baby goats. They are still fun to take on tour, safe with the kids albeit not safe for the grape vines or any other plant we want to keep. Still, we missed those little calves.

Guess what…we have a little calf and will have 2 by next week that we can take on tour again. One of the mama cows had a little brown male and for some reason she was not interested in raising him. So we began bottle feeding today. He is soooo cute. We need a name. Send in your ideas and next week we will pick and post to the newsletter.

More importantly, we invite you to come visit and feed them yourselves. Not to mention all the baby piglets and chicks…ducks on the pond and of course Roland the protector (sadly, and those of you that know him understand, he does need valium).

P.S. Just an FYI…I don’t want you to own any problems we have. It is not yours to deal with, but I do want you to know what we deal with in order for you to understand what farming is about, and when we are not willing to cut corners to make the bills. Eggs and chicken. We are short on eggs again. 600+ laying chickens was not enough and we are growing more and adding from other organic flocks that want to sell. Meat chickens are another matter. We upped the baby chick quantity from 400 to 500 every 2 weeks. That will handle growth for the next several months however we do have a shortage outside of membership. Membership has its privileges and this is one of the times your membership pays off.

Thanks for supporting us in our efforts. We know you want our success as much as we do.

Come visit, Mooooo…Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Just got back from vacation. Can you believe it - I went on a 2 week vacation. The highlight of the vacation was “the incident” and it went like this…

We were in Greece on a boat anchored in a small cove off a little tiny island. On top of the island was a rock outcropping and I thought it would be fun to hike up and see the view. With my handy dandy team of 3 (two whiny woman and my son Joe), we ventured off.
We got to a small road that was lined with an eight foot rock wall on the side I needed to get to so I walked along looking for an opening and of course there was one. I was going to get to the top.

As I walked through the opening something grabbed my arm. I looked down as my arm was pulled back and what registered all happened in an instant.
The thing grabbing my arm looked just like a thick string of yarn. It was white.

My thoughts as they occurred:
“That is from a spider”
“It is really thick and huge webbing”
“That means the spider is huge and a monster”
“Screaming and jumping is in order”









Yes, yes, your charming farmer ripped off a blood curdling scream, jumped 5 feet into the air and started frantically flailing to get the monster off of me. There was web stuck all over me and the web was full of dead insects the size of quarters and I am sure there was a few large beasts like bears and mountain lions stuck in there. My whiner friends were laughing. The one that actually peed her pants shall go unnamed (Kim Galatolo)….and the other one who had said it was crazy to go climbing due to the venomous snakes we were warned about (being such a chicken she will go unnamed also, Dr. Kathy O’Connor), pointed out how many of the large beasts were all over which sent me into fits of jumping and screaming and more flailing.
Okay, so the beast itself…it was HUGE. It was spitting and hissing. It said my name. It said it would hunt me down with its brethren and eat me during the night. Its brethren echoed my name and said death to the organic woman that wants to climb the mountain. She will be good eating.

I continued to flail but manage to make my way back to boat without injuring myself or anyone else (as far as I know)…

I have recovered but on returning to the farm Elijah asked me to come to the garden to see what he had found…yes it was a tarantula. He had covered it with a glass cup and wanted to show me before he let it go. I won’t be working in the garden anytime soon.


Your wussy, rested Farmer,
Tara Smith

The Burger Edition

Now that you have read up on chickens, let’s have a refresher on Pig!

What kind of pigs do we have on the farm?
We have 5 different breeds: Duroc, Hampshire, Berkshire, Tamsworth and Gloucester Old Spot. We mix the breeds to create a strong, healthy animal that will do best in our unique area.

How long is a pig pregnant?
A mama pig (sow) will be pregnant for 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, give or take. When the babies are born they come out really clean. The mamas don’t have to lick them at all so they are not used to being touched. If you pet a baby pig it will jump straight up in the air and squeal from the odd sensation of your touch.

Why are the pigs at Tara Firma Farms so friendly?
Well, we coax them with a little organic Straus ice cream when they are little! They stick their heads into the bucket and we pet them until they are used to our touch. Doesn’t take too long!

Photo of our pigs by Nathaniel Coon, aren’t they cute?

How long do pigs live here on the farm?
We raise our pigs to approx. 8 months old & 250 lbs.

What do the pigs do on the farm?
They fertilize and dig up rocks! We have certain pastures with lots of rocks and the pigs dig those up when they are rooting for bugs, grubs and turnips!

Why are pigs always playing in the mud?
Pigs don’t sweat! So when it is hot out they need to cool off. By making mud holes to lay in, they can cover themselves with mud, kind of like sun screen. Good news it works, bad news is they get itchy when the mud dries and then they want to be scratched. You can be a scratching post for them!

What it the funniest thing about Pigs?
Around 5pm, as the days cool off the pigs wake up from a lazy, snoozing day and start to play. And when I say play I mean Play Big! They run, jump and twirl. The 8 week old piglets will sneak out and run around the farm like a gang from New York! However, the second they are startled by anything they run as fast as they can back to their mama!

All in all the pigs are the most fun here on the farm! And we have lots of babies just born, so come out to see then and maybe you and a piglet can go for a walk!

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith