Buy Our Beef at Mills River Farmers Market on May 21

After many requests from our customers, we decided to try selling some of our beef retail (in the past we have ONLY sold our beef by the quarter). On May 14th, we set up our booth at the Mills River Farmers Market (at its new location in the parking lot of Mills River Elementary School). Our offerings were rather slim because we weren't really prepared for spring market sales. We had ground beef by the pound, Jeanine's Fiber Art Originals, and my book, Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and Other Woodland Medicinals. We had concerns about whether we would be able to sell enough to make it worth our while being there all morning. What a wonderful surprise we had!!!

People really wanted to buy locally grown, pastured-raised ground beef! So much so that Glen had to run back to the farm to bring more to the market. I was impressed that almost every customer asked us to explain how we grew our beef. We told our story over and over again. And I was so pleased at how many young families were able to use their EBT/SNAP funds to buy good quality meat for their families. They got a real sweet deal because right now there is a 2 for 1 special for EBT/SNAP customers. For every EBT dollar they spend, they get two dollars worth of food. That is good for as long as the grant and gifts funding that program last. We also sold a quarter of beef that we delivered to the customer this morning.

So, we will be at the market again on Saturday, May 21 from 8 am to noon selling frozen ground beef in vacuum-sealed one pound packages. The retail prices at the market are 1 lb for $7.50, 5 lb ($7.25/lb) for $36.25, 10 lb ($7.10/lb), and 20 lb ($6.90/lb) for $138.00. Tax is already included in the price. This week we will also bring liver for $2.55 per pound. There are two quarters left for sale, too. They are $8 per pound plus 2% tax, so the average quarter costs a total of $726.

I will also bring a few knitted and crocheted bags, hats, booties, and bowls to sell and my artist daughter might include some of her pottery Shannonmade.com  .

If sales are as brisk as they were last week, May 21st will be our last day to sell beef at the market because our quantities are limited (we only raise a few steers at a time). We will be back later in the season with garlic, honey, and heirloom popcorn.

The 2 for 1 EBT/SNAP program is a wonderful thing. The Mills River Farmers Market is the only farmers market in the county who takes EBT/SNAP. I LOVE that we are able to offer this fresh, locally grown food to these families. It also gives us an opportunity to talk to them about nutrition, food quality, and how to prepare good food quickly and easily. If you are interested in making a donation so we can continue to offer the 2 for 1 deal for the whole growing season, please contact Joe or Linda Brittain at 828-891-3332.

Stock Your Freezer with Locally-Raised Beef for the Summer Grilling Season!

Stock your freezers with juicy, tasty, locally grown, pasture raised Black Angus beef at a great price.

Quarters (average weight of 89 lbs) for $8.00 per pound (with tax, that's $726). 20 lbs of ground beef (1 lb packages) for $6.75 per pound (with tax, that's $138). Liver for $2.50 per pound (plus 2% sales tax)

These are great prices. The lowest price for grass-fed/pasture-raised ground beef at Ingles this week was $9.28/lb.

The quarters are sold by finished, packaged weight and do not include dog bones, soup bones, or ribs (so more meat!). An average quarter contains 6 ribeye steaks, 8 NY strip steaks, 6 filets, 1 round steak, 1 sirloin steak, 2 sirloin tip roasts, 1 London broil, 2 chuck roasts, 2 arm roasts, 6 stew beef (1 lb pkgs), and 50 ground beef (1 lb pkgs). The ground beef is vacuum-sealed in one pound packages.

We are a very small farm and only raise a few steers at a time. These steers were harvested late last fall; dry-aged for two weeks, butchered, vacuum-packed and frozen at a local USDA inspected facility.  The beef is boxed and being held in commercial deep freezers at a local facility. You can pick up at the farm or we will meet you in Hendersonville or the Asheville Airport area. For more information, check our dedicated beef page.

Pasture-Raised Black Angus Beef: .50 Off Per Pound!

We are getting rave reviews on our beef, so we are offering our customers another opportunity to buy it at a reduced price. Order now, and we will take 50 cents off per pound.

The sale prices are:

Quarters (average weight of 89 lbs) for $8.00 per pound

20 lbs of ground beef (1 lb packages) for $6.75 per pound

Liver for $2.50 per pound

(plus 2% sales tax)

The quarters are sold by finished, packaged weight and do not include dog bones, soup bones, or ribs (so more meat!). An average quarter contains 6 ribeye steaks, 8 NY strip steaks, 6 filets, 1 round steak, 1 sirloin steak, 2 sirloin tip roasts, 1 London broil, 2 chuck roasts, 2 arm roasts, 6 stew beef (1 lb pkgs), and 50 ground beef (1 lb pkgs). The ground beef is vacuum-sealed in one pound packages.

We raise a few Black Angus steers at a time on Our Tiny Farm in Etowah, NC. They eat the grass on their pastures and locally grown hay in the winter. The steers were harvested late last fall; dry-aged for two weeks, butchered, vacuum-packed and frozen at a local USDA inspected facility. The beef is boxed and being held in commercial deep freezers at a local facility.

For more information or to order email jeaninedavisnc@gmail.com or visit our BEEF PAGE. You can pick up at the farm or we will meet you in Hendersonville or the Asheville Airport area.

Spring Sale on Our Pasture Raised Black Angus Beef!

Our steers were gently raised on Our Tiny Farm in Etowah, NC. They lived on our pastures for two years eating the fresh grass growing there. In the winter we also fed them locally grown hay, carefully selected to not contain persistent herbicides. The meat was dry-aged for several weeks, butchered, vacuumed packed, and frozen at a USDA inspected facility in Forest City, NC. The beef is boxed and being held in deep freezers at a local commercial packing house.

These steers were harvested late last fall, but because of family health issues, we had to halt our beef sales this past winter, so now we are offering the following spring specials:
Quarters (average weight of 89 lbs) for $8.50 per pound
20 lbs of ground beef (1 lb packages) for $7.25 per pound
Liver for $3 per pound
(plus 2% sales tax)

New York Strip Steak

We sell our meat as finished, packaged weight; just like you would buy meat in a butcher shop or supermarket. (Many farmers sell their beef as "hanging weight" which includes the bone and excess fat. The way we sell it, you know exactly how much meat you are getting). An average quarter contains 6 ribeye steaks, 8 NY strip steaks, 6 filets, 1 round steak, 1 sirloin steak, 2 sirloin tip roasts, 1 London broil, 2 chuck roasts, 2 arm roasts, 6 stew beef (1 lb pkgs), and 50 ground beef (1 lb pkgs)  (this will, of course, vary slightly from quarter to quarter). We don't sell a front or back quarter but make an even assortment for each. We do not include soup bones or ribs in our quarters, i.e., you get more meat and less bone.

If 89 pounds of beef sounds like a lot, you can always split it with another family, but it also holds in a home freezer for a very long time. We are still eating some of our beef from November 2013 that we store in a chest freezer and it tastes as fresh and juicy as it did over two years ago. The vacuum packaging is what does it. If you plan to store the meat for a long time, to maintain the best quality we recommend you store it in a chest or upright freezer and not in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. We also like the vacuum packaging because you can quickly thaw ground beef, stew beef, and steaks by putting them in a sink full of water for 20 to 30 minutes. We do not recommend thawing pasture raised or grass-fed beef in the microwave.

A quarter of beef takes up about 5 to 6 cubic feet of freezer space.  Our small chest freezer will hold a quarter with room to spare. The meat will be frozen solid and packed in two sturdy boxes. Please come prepared to transport frozen meat. If you don't have far to travel, you can just wrap blankets around the boxes. But if you have to travel for an hour or so, bring some large coolers or something to keep your beef frozen solid.

Why don't we call our beef "grass-fed"?  The term "grass-fed" is a legal term for beef that has ONLY been fed fresh grass and hay. Fresh grass and locally grown hay make up more than 99% of our steers' diet, but we do give them a cupful of sweet feed (grain and molasses) once in awhile to keep them "trained to a bucket". That means if they ever get out of the fenced pasture, they will come running to us when they hear us shake the buckets. So technically, we can't call our steers "grass-fed". We do not feed our steers hormones or antibiotics. We do not fertilize or spray herbicides on our pastures and we use fly predators (tiny wasps) as the basis for our fly control program. We are NC licensed meat handlers and are certified Appalachian Grown by ASAP.

If you are interested in buying or want to learn more, use the contact form on the right sidebar (if you are on a smartphone or tablet and don't see a sidebar, scroll to the bottom of this page and click on "View Web Version" and it will show up). You can make an appointment to pick up the beef at our farm in Etowah or we can arrange to meet you near the Asheville airport. We accept cash and credit cards or you can pay through Paypal.

Our Tiny Farm Grass-Pasture Raised Beef For Sale Now!

 A delicious smelling beef roast simmering in the crockpot with potatoes, onions, and carrots

We have grass-pastured raised Black Angus beef for sale. These two steers were gently raised on Our Tiny Farm in Etowah, NC. They lived on our pasture eating the fresh grass growing there. In the winter we also fed them locally grown hay, carefully selected to not contain persistent herbicides. The meat was aged for several weeks, butchered, vacuumed packed, and frozen at a USDA inspected facility in Forest City, NC. The beef is boxed in quarters and being held in deep freezers ready for you to purchase at $7.25 per pound plus tax, packaged weight. If you are interested in buying or want to learn more, use the contact form on the right sidebar. We only raise two steers at a time, so the beef sells quickly.

These are the two Black Angus steers in our pasture in November

Upon customer request, we harvested these steers at a smaller size then the ones we raised previously. So each quarter weighs approximately 85-88 pounds. That is finished, packaged weight; just like you would buy meat in a butcher shop or supermarket. (Many farmers sell their beef as "hanging weight" which includes the bone and excess fat. The way we sell it, you know exactly how much meat you are getting). An average quarter contains approximately 3 sirloin steaks, 2 ribeye steaks, 2 round steaks, 7 t-bone steaks, 2 cube steaks, 1 arm roast, 2 sirloin tip roasts, 3 chuck roasts, 11 one-pound packages of stew beef, 3 packages of ribs, and 34 one-pound packages of ground beef (this will, of course, vary some from quarter to quarter).

Our daughter reaching out to pet one of the steers

One of our customers just told us how much her family enjoyed the first roast they cooked. If 87 pounds of beef sounds like a lot, you can always split it with another family, but it also holds in a freezer for a very long time. We held a few steaks and roasts from the steers we harvested in fall 2011 to see how long they retain their quality. We keep them in a standard chest freezer. We recently had several of the 2011 t-bone steaks and they were just as tasty and fresh tasting as they were in the beginning. The vacuum packaging is what does it. We also like the vacuum packaging because you can quickly thaw ground beef, stew beef, ribs, and steaks by putting them in a sink full of water for 20 to 30 minutes. It is not recommended to thaw pasture raised or grass-fed beef in the microwave.

Why don't we call our beef "grass-fed"?  The term "grass-fed" is actually a federal designation for beef that has ONLY been fed fresh grass and hay. Fresh grass and locally grown hay make up more than 99% of our steers' diet, but we do give them a cupful of sweet feed (grain and molasses) frequently to keep them "trained to a bucket". That means they will come running to us whenever they see us with the buckets or hear us shake the buckets with feed in them. We do that so that if they ever get out of their pasture, we can entice them to come home. It also allows us to give them some minerals once in a while, and if they were ever to get sick, we could give them medicine. These two steers were never ill, so they never did receive any antibiotics. But, because we give them that tiny bit of sweet feed, we cannot legally call our cattle "grass-fed". And of course, our cattle never received any hormones. We have not fertilized or sprayed herbicide on the pasture. We use fly predators as the basis for our fly control program. We are NC licensed meat handlers and are certified Appalachian Grown by ASAP.