This week we announced our new Comfort Foods bundle and added a collection of classic comfort foods and delicious new seasonings to our online store. We decided to create this new Winter Comfort Foods bundle that includes roasts, whole chicken, and ground beef for a few reasons that I'd like to share with you today. First and foremost, as the temperatures drop a bit it sure is nice to look forward to enjoying a roast, meatloaf or bowl of your favorite savory stew, chili or soup. It truly is the heart of Comfort Foods season.

It's a special holiday weekend here on the farm in Petal as we get to introduce our newest value bundle, the 2021 Winter Comfort Foods Bundle. It features 20+ pounds of delicious farm-fresh food including, 5 lbs. of our premium Grassfed Ground Beef, 3 hearty Beef Roasts, a whole chicken and 2 dozen GMO-free, pasture-raised eggs.

I sure hope you and your family enjoyed a wonderful Christmas together yesterday. Mine was spent - aside from the "must do" farm chores - with family enjoying food and fellowship. You may be interested to know the centerpiece of our meal was one of the whole pork shoulders. Beth seasoned it with Butcher Blend Original seasoning and then had it smoked. It was soooo good! As far as my farm news message for this week, I actually have some pretty exciting news to share. At the beginning of 2020, we introduced a new bundle to you called the Best of Farm Bundle, and we had plans to continue to add more new items and similar value bundles throughout the year

A short TEN years ago we sold our 1st Grass-Fed Beef! That same year we also cleared and prepared 75 acres of additional pasture. By 2012 we started raising pastured chickens and cleared and prepared 35 acres of additional pasture. Pigs came the next year and in 2015 we purchased 52 acres that joined our farm. Beth mentioned the other day that it was FOUR years ago this month that we travelled to Seven Sons to look into raising eggs. By Spring of 2017 we had our first flock. Did you know that our farm was one of the early adapters with Seven Sons and GrazeCart for our website that we started January 2016 - almost FIVE years ago. Followed by our deliveries that summer when we switched from selling custom half & whole beef & pigs to mostly selling retail cuts. And, ALL raised and finished on our farm.

This week we want to share two items of interest from our farm. The first is a video made last year about How & Why We Feed Our Cows Hay. This time of the year we are in-between grazing seasons - the summer grass is dormant and winter grass is not yet ready for grazing. So, we buy hay from a local farmer, who we appreciate very much, to feed our cows. As described in the video we do not use hay rings like most farmers because we want to spread the manure across the pastures vs. only around a hay ring.

We so hope you and your family had a thankful Thanksgiving. Today, i wanted to share our Thanksgiving Story. Our Story actually began back in the Spring of this year. As you know, meat was scarce and we had ramped up our chicken production to help meet the needs of our customers. And, the hatcheries were feeling the stress as well with a lot of orders above normal. Well, along about week 5 or 6 in of one of those batches we noticed one of the broiler chickens was not a chicken at all. But was a turkey!

For those of you who have been a part of our farm community probably recognize Diana Rodger's name. I first meet her several years back when she spoke at the Grassfed Exchange Conference that we had attended. Diana Rodgers, RD, LDN is a “real food” Licensed Registered Dietitian Nutritionist living on a working organic farm in New England. She runs an active nutrition practice where she helps people with weight, metabolic, and intestinal issues recover their health through diet and lifestyle. She’s also an author, host of The Sustainable Dish Podcast, and the mom of two active kids.

Last week we discussed transparency and the importance of being authentic! This week we'll follow up with an example of transparency and why this matters to many of our customers. So, what is up with our pork? To be fully transparent means I'll need to disclose issues that affect the quality of our product as well as customer expectations. Here goes! As many of you know, our pork is processed at Attala Frozen Foods in Kosciusko, MS. We started doing business with them in 2016 after Cascio decided to close his business and we were moving into selling more than custom half & whole beef & pork.

Wikipedia defines Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in other social contexts, is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. I bring this up because being transparent is a key principle that our farm operates on. By early February of this year we completed a consulting gig with a person who helped us set up an email marketing program.

This week I want to share three short videos taken recently on the farm. I will provide a short introduction and then a link to our farm YouTube channel. Note that the videos are unedited meaning it is what it is! Hope you enjoy. The first video is between our farm dog Tess and a fawn that wondered up in the pasture beside our home. We have seen a lot of fawns this year - many more than in any previous years. The video shows Tess circling the fawn and the fawn standing its ground while pivoting to keep a sharp eye on Tess.

Popular diets recognize the value of all-natural grass finished beef in their diet. This high protein food helps provide essential amino acids, vitamin B12, A, D, and E as well as important minerals and other nutrients. Our farming stewardship of the land and animals is based on Godly principles - similar to God's Biblical health plan as it is presented in Dr. Jordan S. Rubin's bestselling book The Maker's Diet. Our cattle herd peacefully graze about 265 acres of diverse grassland that has high quality, high protein grasses that are free of chemicals. The end result is delicious, all-natural, lean beef, with many hidden health benefits.

Many if not all publications and emails from various sources I read talk about "Building Resiliency" on farms as well as building resilient immune systems to better avoid sicknesses. But what does this mean? Well, building suggest you have made a conscious decision to do something different. As it relates to farming or our health it can mean taking a different path than the conventional methods out there. Resiliency is a noun and means the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity. The ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc. Stay with me here - Did you know Mississippi is the most regulated state in the South?