We had another busy week on the farm, with a batch of No Corn/No Soy broiler chickens going in for processing on Monday, then on Wednesday we took the 22 largest hogs on their final trip from our pastures, soon to your plates.
Many times when I mention processing/harvesting/slaughtering animals in my newsletter I get a handful of comments from the vegans out there about how horrible we are. My first thought, of course, is why are vegans subscribing to a newsletter from a farm that primarily produces meat, eggs, and dairy products? And why do vegans feel compelled to push their dietary preferences on everyone else?
My typical response to them is that we give our animals a great life, living very similar to how mother nature intended (maybe better with feed coming every day) and they have just one bad day at the end of that great life. At our Wisconsin farm tour last week one of the visitors commented that our beef cattle won the livestock lottery and didn't even know how great they had it, with 99% of their cousins confined to a hot, stinky feedlot eating corn and soybeans for the last six months of their existence.
Along those lines we could use a little help from our loyal customers out there to combat a spate of knucklehead 1-star Google reviews that came through recently. If we provide poor products or service I am perfectly accepting of legitimate poor reviews. However one dude complained that he couldn't get milk and therefore our online ordering process was a farce that we really were not making any milk available to customers.
Another first timer complained that our milk tasted “awful” and went on to provide a set of instructions for how we should be cleaning cows and handling our milk to make it taste better (what planet did he come from?). And finally there was the most recent non-customer that gave us a 1-star review for selling eggs, before launching into a diatribe about the evil egg industry killing all the male chicks, therefore nobody should eat eggs even from humanely-raised hens free-ranging on pastures all day long. Never been to our store, just decided to dump on us.
If you feel like balancing out these knuckleheads feel free to provide some positive input on our Google Profile page, thanks much!
“MEET THE MAKER” EVENTS COMING UP
Sunday June 28th – Rob Hermany, founder of Kaleido Greens will be at the store sampling a variety of his micro-green medleys. 10 AM - 1 PM.
Saturday July 11th – Umland Cheese will be at the store sampling their different flavors of crunchy cheese snacks. 10 AM - 1 PM.
Sunday July 12th – Michelle, founder of FoxFire Kombucha will be at the store sampling a variety of her tasty brews. 10 AM - 1 PM.
FARM STORE UPDATE
As mentioned above we have fresh No Corn/No Soy pasture-raised chickens available through the weekend. This will be our last batch of fresh chickens for the next several weeks.
Fresh organically-grown produce in the store from our on-site gardens: Green Lettuce, Red/Green Lettuce, Chard, Spinach, Parsley, Mint, Celery, Carrots, Scallions, Rhubarb, Turnips & Broccolini. Plus local Microgreens and Mushrooms.
Fresh produce from our network of downstate Illinois farms: Garlic, Cucumbers, Green Beans, Red Beets, Cherry Tomatoes, Black Currants, Easter Egg Radishes, Cauliflower, Garlic Scapes plus eggs from Prairie Ridge Farm.
Other organic produce in the store includes: Avocados, Mandarins, Oranges, Pomelo Mexican Limes, Red, Gold, & Russet Potatoes, Garnet Jumbo Sweet Potatoes, BenYagi Purple Sweet Potatoes, Ginger, Apples, & Red Onions.
Join our Saturday farm tour to see all of our farm animals up close. We still have a handful of pigs to satisfy any pig passions, and more baby pigs coming in about 10 days. Every week at 1:00 PM, this is a 75-90 minute guided tour around the farm on a hay wagon, with stops to visit all the different animals we raise. Reserve your seats on our website or purchase tickets in the farm store.
That's it for this week, we look forward to seeing you at the farm soon. Please remember to bring us your paper or plastic shopping bags and egg cartons so we can reuse them!
Cliff, Anna & The Farm Team
