Before I discuss our soil fertility process I need to mention a housekeeping event that I will do before year end. After about 2-years with our new email delivery provider we have accumulated more than 2,000 email addresses that our newsletter delivers to each Saturday morning. However, only about 38% actually will open them (probably not the same 38% each week). This is not uncommon! Folks hear about our farm from a friend or do a search and decide to register with every intention of one day placing an order. Then, life happens and pretty soon a year has gone by and they are no longer interested. One of our motivations for cleaning up our registered users is our email delivery provider increases the monthly fee from $49 to $122 when the delivery crosses above 2,000. That's almost $900 per year.

When I was serving in the Air National Guard and received my letter that I had 20 good years towards retirement...it started me thinking about whether I continue serving or retire. Back then, most folks I met seemed to only be working for retirement so they could "stay home" without any real objective in mind other than do as little as possible. For me, my health was very good, I was enjoying what I was doing, and l liked being around the people and mission. As the years ticked by I always thought I would know when it was my "time to retire". So, I stayed - for another 16 years. But, I did not retire to sit at home and do next to nothing with my time. I like and need to be busy.

I like Thanksgiving! Ours this year was really nice... it was so good to visit with family and enjoy each others fellowship. Of course, there were still chores to be done. Chickens that had to be feed & watered as well as moved daily. Eggs to gather, wash, grade, and pack. Cows to hay and pigs to feed. Just to mention a few. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Beth and I can do it all. However, the farm has grown to the point where we cannot physically do it all by ourselves.

About this time each year our warm season grasses have been grazed down and our cool season grasses have not matured enough to start grazing. Early October marks the end of the growing season for warm season varieties like Bahia Grass. However, because Bahia grass is an excellent stockpiled grass we can extend our grazing season typically into early November. It really depends on how much rain we start getting in November. As you know, our Spring and Summer were very wet. It was so wet that much of the work we wanted (needed) to do in our pastures was delayed.

One of the first things folks typically ask is "How Are Things At The Farm"? To be honest, things are going really good! An interesting statistic is folks opening our newsletters. Up until about 4 weeks ago we averaged about 550 opens or 26-28% of the folks who receive the newsletter. Since then the number has continuously increased. Last week 776 folks opened our newsletter or 39% of receipts. That is a 41% increase and puts us way ahead of the average open rate of other farms.

Well maybe not sweet but at least short! That is how my newsletter will be today. Between daily chores, planting cool season pastures, harvesting, cutting up and packing chicken, two trips to the processor in Lucedale, and 8+ hours packing orders for today I find myself tired and short on thoughts to share. I do want to give a big shout out to our Gulf Coast customers! We will be rolling out with 80 orders Saturday morning bringing nutrient dense food to help nourish your families... all "true" pasture raised beef, pork, chicken, and eggs.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day of October. Where has this year gone? October 16th was our last delivery for October. That left me with two weeks "mostly" open to plant our winter pastures. And, we have been hard at it. On the new ground we spread the seed on top of the ground and then bush hogged - bush hogging is also our means of weed control!

Have you been thinking about what meat to prepare for your Thanksgiving & Christmas Family Meal? Many of our customers have! And have contacted us to see what is available. Well, the bad news is we did not get our infrastructure done in time to start turkeys. There was just so many other priorities like chicken brooder & tractors and not having our red meat slaughter available that would have freed up travel time back and forth to the processor. And, what I am hearing is the price of pastured turkeys this year is $10 lb. and up! WOW... But, the GOOD NEWS is we do have non-traditional options

I attended my first Grassfed Exchange Conference in Bismark, ND in 2013. One of the many excellent speakers there was Dr. Don Huber, Botany and Plant Pathology. Professor Emeritus at Purdue University. His topic was about the dangers of GLYPHOSTATE! Which is the active ingredient (poison) in Roundup Chemical. According to the NON-GMO Project website, a GMO, or genetically modified organism, is

Our oldest son Eric is interested in growing Microgreens and would like feedback from Nature's Gourmet Farm customers to get a fell for interest for them. Here is information from a flyer Eric put together. Packaging will most likely be a clamshell type container. What are Microgreens? Microgreens are the highly nutritious seedlings of edible full-sized plants, typically 7-14 days old Microgreens are NOT sprouts—sprouts are slightly younger and eaten with the root. Microgreens are harvested from the base of the stem.

In 1974 John Denver released a song titled "Thank God I'm A Country Boy". Do you remember the lyrics? Here is a sampling- Well life on the farm is kinda laid back Ain't much an old country boy like me can't hack It's early to rise, early in the sack I thank God I'm a country boy I was singing this song solo (you know, so low nobody can hear me) earlier this week while doing chores.

We really appreciate all the very positive feedback from so many of our customers regarding credit card fees as well as price increases. Here is a sampling: "On reading your last email, it seemed worth remembering that your entire customer base consists of people who are willing to pay more in order to make sure that all concerned are well cared for. "All concerned" includes the cows, chickens, etc., as well as yourself, your wife, your children, anyone you employ, and your dog (whom I've met, by the way).