It's hard to tell if people buy local beef because there is less meat in the supermarkets; or because they are appalled by the news stories coming out of Midwestern meat-packing plants; or because they want to support farmers. Whichever is true, I'm hoping that once they taste the incredible flavor of locally raised beef, they'll never go back to factory-farmed meat.
Please stop in the store only on Fridays (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or Saturdays (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) as we restock our shelves. Thanks for your patience. We are doing our best to meet your needs during this stressful time.
Beef can be labeled as a product of the USA, but was it? Under current labeling laws, there is no way to know.
There's nothing better than finding a healthy newborn calf in the pasture. If you can't make it to the farm to see these bundles of joy, stop by the Audubon pasture on Silk Farm Road in Concord to see 10 of our Scottish Highlander cattle.
With the recent closing of the Smithfield’s pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, 20,000 pigs a day now have nowhere to go. The current system is not sustainable because when it breaks, as it has in this pandemic, there might be less meat to buy, and farmers have animals they may need to euthanize.
The art of farming requires that the farmer be willing to learn skills like getting a reluctant calf to nurse on his mom; extracting a cow whose horns are stuck in a hay feeder (ever do a Chinese nail puzzle?); or fixing a broken machine when you can't get parts. The farmer has to learn to adapt and improvise. It's part know-how and part attitude.
