This is my soapbox....be prepared for me to be stepping on it frequently

I haven't been posting much about my opinions lately.

This is my SoapBox

I will be stepping up onto my soapbox HERE on my blog.  In more ways than one.

As usual, I try to think before I speak, but it IS my blog & I will say what I want.  I do have several posts in draft for me to tone down. : )

Hang on to your saddlehorn, we're going for a run.

GreenRanchingMom

Simplicity

So, my friend Diana @ Spain in Iowa has a fun Blog hop about simplicity in our lives.

This has me thinking, how am I simple, how can I make our lives more Simple?

I'm in  list making mood, so here it goes...

Simple things we do
Grocery shop once a month - less trips to the store means less junk comes in the house & less diesel to travel
Live in the old house (rather than build a new one right away)
Feed us and our animals REAL foods (whole foods that are recognizeable for what they are)
Keep something until it wears out (or beyond)
We use old machinery (& keep fixing it)
We only have the truck as our family vehicle (the diesel gets great  {15-20mpg} fuel economy too)

Areas we can improve upon
I think that this winter, we'll to NOT buy ANYTHING the month of January! 
Do more canning this summer (even though I once again killed my garden)
Keep working towards growing ALL of our cattle feeds
Work towards year round grazing so we don't need as much hay (thus reducing the need for using the tractors)

What do you do in your daily life to make things simple?

PFI Conference

HMMMM. That's what I'm still thinking about the PFI conference on Making Sense of Meat Marketing.

The conference as a whole was pretty good. But, it was more of a "big picture" day. And I need the DETAILS! The Devil IS in the Details; & he's giving me fits!!!

There were a couple of big points that were helpful to reinforce in my mind.

1- You are not selling "meat". If they want just meat, they can go to Wal-Mart.
I need to remember that we are selling 60% "Story" and 40% Meat. We are in the people business, not the Meat buisness when I am marketing. This means that I have to take off my production hat sometimes & put on my salesman's hat.


2 - SELL HALVES & QUARTERS!!! It was reiterated over and over (in a great way) that this will be your most profitable, and easiest sale.


Sooooooo, the question now is how to pursue the DETAILS.


And, I haven't mentioned that we have recieved the EQUIP grant for a indoor finishing facility.
We have decided to go ahead and build this barn. We WILL make some major modifications to the conventional methods of using this barn. But I do believe that this barn will allow us to make our animals much more comfortable in a GREAT variety of conditions.

I'm still working on several things that I will share in the days to come. Most importantly is to write a great but yet concise "story" of our Ranch and vision for our cattle. In addition, we will work on our goals for the new Ranch & our game plan.

I'll probably share most of these and ask for tons of imput.

As always, thanks for reading and supporting me.

OH, almost totally forgot, a couple of beef have their final appointment this week, so I'll be calling everyone to finalize any cutting instructions.

Stay cool in this heat!!!

Our Current Ranch

So... This summer we worked on building our current ranch. We bought a 160 ac Ranch with a small house that had not been lived in in 2 years. So, a remodeling we went. We decided to build a new barn and fix up the house a little. Because the barn makes the money, not the house. We put some new windows in the house, new appliances and ripped out the carpet downstairs to expose beautiful hardwood floors.

Across the road, we built the BARN. This barn is everything my 12 year old self ever dreamed of. We built a 98 x 104 barn. It is set up for both cattle and horses. We put large runs out the east side and an arena to the north with some working and holding pens. The inside will have an open area in the center for riding horses with pens on each side.

Our Ranch Plan is pretty complex, but here are the basics.

1- Our goal is to raise Maine-Anjou females to sell to other breeers. Byproducts of this goal will be Show Quality Calves, Beef and Bulls. We want everything to be Organic. The cattle should have great dispositions, and be happy and easily handle-able.

2 - Beef Sales. We will raise both Grass-Fed and Corn Fed Beef. Our animals will ALWAYS be treated with the utmost respect and kindness as long as we have them. We want to sell Beef Shares and Sides and Quarters of Beef. Our animals will always have access to exercise and grass.

3 - Horses. We raise working quarter horses. We want to keep our colts until they are 2 - 4 to train for roping and working cattle.

4 - Dogs. We have working dogs. Our male is a blue heeler and my female is a registered mini-Australian Sheperd. We will raise Mini Aussies an Toy Aussies. Our dogs are GREAT with the kids and must always be great with the kids.

5 - Garden. This next year I want to start a great garden. Eventually I would like to offer a vegetable CSA. I would like fruit trees to be in this garden

6 - FAMILY. Most of all our main goal is for this Ranch to grow our family. The kids are most important to us, and the main reason we downsized to this ranch.


I know this kind of turned out like a list, but it is what I needed to explain to y'all what we're doin, and what we're about. Hope you like our blog and you can also read along at http://www.localharvest.org/blog/24259/
This is where you can look at purchasing options for our Beef CSA