Farm Activities

Here on the farm we feel very blessed to have missed the damaging effects to two storms this week that eventually impacted Louisiana and Texas.

There are numerous vulnerabilities in our operations. Top of the list is lack of electricity for an extended period of time to keep our product frozen. We do have a generator backup, but that could be stressed in an extended scenario.

Next, I would list our pastured chickens. The pens we move each morning are light - weighing only 100 pounds. They shed less than 30 MPH wind really good. And I have made metal pins to stake each corner down so they don't slide and injure chickens or go airborne like an empty one did back in January.

Monday morning I proactively rescheduled a shipment of baby chicks that was due Thursday morning for later this year. After all, you never know where these storms will eventually hit landfall. Hurricane Laura was an exception. It went exactly where it was predicted to go.

On that note, I do know of several direct market poultry farms north of Lake Charles whose operations were severely damaged. Please join us in prayer for these families as they work to recover and restore their farms. They have some difficult days (weeks) ahead.

Have you noticed that most of our products are now listed as IN STOCK? With the exception of several of the most popular items - like chicken breast - we are mostly in stock on all products.

A major OUT OF STOCK exception is eggs. While our older flock lay rate improves daily - the new flock as not started laying yet. That means there will be few if any eggs for the September 5th delivery date.

Once the new flock starts laying, availability will quickly get better! Thank you for your patience.

BTW, a fellow farmer in Foley text me Friday afternoon saying his flock has dropped from 30 dozen per day to only 4 dozen. And, our feed supplier says the same about their hens. So, our girls are actually doing much better than that.

Beef Processing Update

As you know, COVID-19 shut down a lot of commercial processing plants back in the Spring. That sent a lot of folks looking for meat outside of their local grocery stores.

The number of customer names on our website nearly doubled. And the request for half or whole beef soared where we had to manage by adding people to a "buy list".

Processing at our limited number of plants quickly became the bottleneck as many farms scheduled beef for processing to feed their family. Homestead Processing "was" booked out through August 2021!

Recently, however, slots have opened up. On our buy list about 25% of the folks who were panic buying have backed out. Our half beef availability dates have improved from December to October.

Processing slots have also opened up as other farm orders have dropped out. We continue to pick up additional slots for each monthly processing. For September we will process 10 vs. 6.

So, when is a good time to buy a side of beef or pig? There is no time like the present BEFORE folks panic and skew demand beyond what local systems can handle.

Weston A. Price Myths and Truths About Nutrition

MYTH: To avoid heart disease, we should use margarine instead of butter.

TRUTH: Margarine eaters have twice the rate of heart disease as butter eaters (Nutrition Week 3/22/91 21:12).

Tami M. recently left this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Google Review:

Finding Ben and Nature’s Gourmet was a godsend! It allowed my family to continue to follow our WAPF eating lifestyle during a recent trip to visit family. I grew up on the MS Gulf Coast but have since been a 30yr Oregon resident, where I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by amazing local farmers/ranchers/makers. I was concerned about how I could continue to feed my family the most nutrient dense foods, so I did some research and found Nature’s Gourmet. Ben was such a delight to talk to, and although it’s busy season for farmers, he took the time to answer all my questions. I placed my order and made arrangements to pick it up at the farm after we had arrived. Ben’s offerings of grass-fed & grass-finished beef, pastured pork and chicken and eggs did not disappoint. Everything was delicious! Ben also was able to refer me to someone local to provide for my family’s raw dairy needs. I will gladly support Ben in his hard work of providing ethically and sustainably raised, nutrient-dense foods, to his local community, and look forward to connecting with him again on any and all future trips back to MS.