Thursday, November 5, 2015

Pasture Raised Beef Available Soon and Reflecting Back on the Growing Season

 
We will have our pastured raised Black Angus beef available very soon. Right now the meat is dry aging. Then it will be butchered, vacuum-packed, frozen, and packed into quarters. And then we will make it available for sale to you direct from the farm. We won't have prices or know the size of the quarters until we have the meat on hand, but you can reserve a quarter now. Just use the contact form on the right side bar (if you are using a smartphone or tablet and don't see a side-bar, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "View web version"). We will post all those details as soon as they are available.
For two years these boys have been living the good life roaming free in our pastures and down into the bog. They got personal attention from us every day, i.e., we spoiled them rotten! They loved to run up to the gate to get their ears scratched and lick our hands. When we took the tractor into the pasture to move their portable lean-to or put a round bale of locally-grown hay into the hay ring, they would run around like giant puppies, challenging the tractor as if it were a new animal in their pasture. We miss seeing them every day, but thanked them for sharing their lives with us and for providing high-quality meat to feed our family and yours.
It is a beautiful fall in western North Carolina. I don't ever remember the colors being this brilliant. As we enjoy the colors and cooling temperatures, we reflect on the growing season and say thank you to our customers for making this a profitable year for us.
The garlic crop was of excellent quality and we sold all of it on-line, much of it to repeat customers, so we must be doing something right.

It has taken us several years to rebuild our hives after losing almost all of them to colony collapse, but this fall we got enough of a crop to again offer honey for sale. The demand for local honey is strong and we sold out at the Hendersonville Apple Festival. So we won't have honey at the Holiday Market at the Mills River Farmers' Market this year.
So all in all, it was a good year. Now it is time to sit back, enjoy the sunshine and my donkeys and decide what we want to do next year. Should we raise the same crops? Should we try something new? Should we raise more Black Angus steers or try another breed?  Should we board donkeys instead of horses (that is my idea which isn't going very far with the rest of my family). If you have any ideas you want to share, please let us know. Thank you for supporting Our Tiny Farm.

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