Farm Updates

Good Morning and hello from your farmer,

WHEW! Thank you Lord Jesus that we were not impacted by Hurricane Sally. While the winds were not forecasted to be that significant, the 10-15 inches of rain is enough to present major issues.

We started preparing Saturday afternoon. Sunday, I contacted my USDA rep to see if we could schedule our Wednesday chicken processing for Monday afternoon - that way we would not risk a batch of chicken if the weather turned for the worse. Fortunately, we have great inspectors to work with and our processing team stepped up and made it happen.

Then, Sally turned North on Tuesday and went through Mobile Bay. This put us on the west side of the storm and all the forecasted rain dwindled to zero!

Unfortunately, our blessing became a major problem for our Alabama friends. A farmer friend in Foley had major destruction. In fact, Beth & Jared are headed there Saturday morning to take some supplies, gas, and also help with rebuilding his mobile hen trailer. Another farmer friend about 100 miles inland loaded his pastured turkeys (ready for processing) into a cattle trailer for safety. Unfortunately, about 50 suffocated and died.

I am sure Stewart & Matthew would appreciate your prayers as they recover and rebuild their farms.

Rescue Pigs: maybe you remember that last May we purchased 100 pigs from a commercial farm in North Carolina that were scheduled to be euthanized.

We put them on pasture and built them a tarp shelter to block the sun so they did not get sunburned (they are white in color and burn easily).

Well, needless to say they are thriving and doing great. Here is a picture of some of them I took last Sunday morning.

EGGS: are on everyone's mind! Two things needed to "really" improve egg production is cooler nights and time - and both are forecast for this week. The older flock lay rate continues to get better and the egg size has improved from mediums back to large. We expect them to improve as the weather cools off. The younger flock high last week was 56 in a day. Today, we gathered 120. Next week should be a really good week for both quantity and size.

Lastly, be on the lookout for some new items when beef & pork are restocked next week!