A Busy Week At The Farm

Good Morning and hello from the farm,

So, have you ever wondered how "your" farmer spends his day? Believe me, we wear a lot of hats here!

The first hat would be daily chores. You know, the things you have to do everyday - regardless of the weather, anniversary, birthday, day of the week, etc. This includes taking care of the baby chicks in the brooder (as well as cleaning up the brooder, waters, feeders, etc. to prepare for the next batch), then moving, feeding, and checking water for the pasture chickens. And, there is feeding the pigs (twice per day & about 250# each time) and making sure their needs are met and they have not destroyed something. Lastly, would be checking on the cows that all is well and moving to the next paddock if needed.

Next hat is what I would describe as regular chores. This would include things like today Beth & I spent our morning packing the orders for our Gulf Coast Route. This is something we do once per week - every week. Then, the next regular chore would be chicken processing. This happens three Wednesday's each month and takes 7-8 hours of time (in addition to daily chores). A couple of logistics examples are taking pigs to Kosciusko (and picking up pork) - this requires 7-8 hours twice each month. Delivering beef to Lucedale (or picking up product) happens twice per month. Beef especially requires moving the herd to the corral and sorting out the ones selected and then moving the balance to their fresh pasture. Labor Day is our next time to take beef to the processor.

Then, there is the project hat. This is where I have spent most of my time the past two weeks. A big project I've been wanting to get done is installing an electric fence along the branch that runs through most of our pastures. The objective is to block the cows from crossing anywhere they want which erodes the banks and causes terrible erosion. I hired a guy to drive the 110 wood fence post with his skid steer and then have a young man (who is waiting his USAF Basic Training date) named Hunter that has been helping me drive the 125 white fiberglass post, build the corners, and stretch the wire. Not a small task as the fence is about 5400 feet long. Very glad this was completed last Saturday.

There are some things on the farm I don't do anymore - one of those is hammering in fence post. So glad to have Hunter helping!!! His energy & enthusiasm is amazing. Some areas the ground would be really hard so I'd give him a little encouragement and bam, bam, bam - he would have that post driven down where it needed to be. Here is one of the pictures I took and sent to his Mom.

Another project is bush hogging pastures. Two objectives here include weed control and taking the tops off the grass to get a last new growth before the grass goes dormant starting in early October. We accomplished about 90 acres this week.

Lastly, there is the paperwork hat. Maybe this one should have been listed in with the daily hat chores as paperwork of some type happens every day and usually requires at least an hour per day of time.

Obviously, as a small family farm there are many more hats we wear. They include: mechanic, welder, electrician, plumber, sales, marketing, website developer, bookkeeper, animal vet, soil biologist, soil scientist.... the list goes on.

However, in all the busyness of the day, the most important thing I do is my daily Bible Study and Prayer Time.

Hope you enjoyed making the rounds with me today. I'm tired and ready to get some rest.

Julie T. recently left this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Google Review:

I have been a loyal customer of Nature's Gourmet for nearly seven years. Not only are Ben and Beth the nicest people around, their love and care for their customers and our health is evident in the animals they raise. Their animals live a happy, stress-free life in a healthy environment, thus yielding quality meat. I have purchased single items from Ben over the years, but regularly purchase 1/2 beef shares and full pork shares annually. The beef and pork are the best around, but his chickens and eggs -- oh my! Nothing compares! I am a customer for life!​