Chickens, Turkeys, No Broadband, O My

First, I must apologize for letting so much time lapse between posts. It is complicated by that fact that we do not and will not have hard-wired internet in our home for the foreseeable future. We were told that internet was available when we chose the site, but it turns out that was wrong, so I have been dependent upon my phone's data plan. We are looking at other options, but have not settled on anything.

We are still putting the business back together after the move. I am eternally grateful to our longtime customers who have reached out to us and helped keep us solvent as we relaunch the business in September. Part of that relaunch, is a new website, which is up right now, but still needs some tweaking. We are working with a new locker this year, Story City locker, which is allowing us to offer a number of new products including chicken, basil, and garlic sausages, smoked turkey halves that are free of sodium nitrates and nitrites, beef sticks, beef frankfurters, and summer sausage. All and all it is exciting to be able to offer such a wide range of new and revised products. We also got our long-time poultry processor to to package cut-up chickens in parts. That means you can now buy bone-in chicken breasts (4 per package), chicken thighs (4 per package), chicken wings (8 per package), chicken legs (4 per package), and chicken backs and necks (4 each per package).

As production seasons go, it has been pretty good. Our first batch of chickens did quite well in the pasture and missed the coolest parts of spring and some of the hottest parts of summer. The turkeys have also done quite well. They just hit five weeks and moved out to the pasture this week.

Chickens in the Chicken Tractor

Full Chicken Pasture Setup

Turkeys at Two Weeks in the Brooder

Turkeys just Moved Outdoors

The cattle have been doing well. The fertility of our pastures is much much better then the old farm, but not so much better that we can shrug off the loss of twenty acres. That has meant feeding a little hay this summer to let the grass recover. We will process four animals this year, and should have a full restock of beef available in late August.

Cattle on the West Pasture

We hosted aPractical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) field day back in June. We had over twenty people out at the farm and talked about building high-tensile electric fence and do some demonstration work. PFI did a nice write-up on the field day. 

Hosted a PFI Field Day

The kids are doing well as summer begins winding down. We have family camp, the state fair, and the next thing you know, school is going to start. Having both children at home is challenging and managing them better along with the farm business is something I still could use to improve on.

Picking Flowers

Investigating Butterflies

Sorry for taking so long to fill people in. We are still here, we do still have the products you love, and we hope to see you soon at a delivery near you.