Today we took all the kids on an ag field trip to two farms. One is a ranch with pasture raised beef and pigs as well as a major composting operation. The next was a USDA sheep farm where we enjoyed her handmade, delicious sheep milk kefir with honey from her own hives. The kids got to play with and feed pigs, goats, baby sheep, LSG dogs, cows. Did you know that sheeps milk is naturally homogeneous and can therefore be frozen and thawed with zero change to it's quality? TIL! Anyway. My child is bloodthirsty and spent a lot of time collecting and then playing with these. Do you live near farms? Do you visit them or shop directly from them? If not, look something up in your area. Its spring and beautiful outside and you should go to a farm. Happy Friday! Whatcho doing?
The small rural town I grew up and currently live in used to have a lot of small farms including at least three dairy operations within a mile or two of each other. They’re all gone now. There’s some people with a couple of cows here and there but that’s about it. Dairy is a tough business. There’s a beef farmer a few miles away who’s done okay and a lot of people here buy from him. But it’s been getting tougher for him and he recently posted online that he got a lucrative offer to buy out his herd:
Man... that sucks. I can't imagine how hard it must be for the smaller producers right now. I know that I've shifted a lot of my buying behaviour so that I'm now ordering directly from local farms for my beef, pork, and lamb. There are a few farms around here that have embraced direct to consumer selling, and it's amazing. Most of them basically take a day every week or two and hop in their truck and drive around making their deliveries. All at prices that are somewhat comparable to other suppliers, but with insanely better quality. My last pork delivery even had a few treats in it for Zoe, as the young girl that goes with her dad on the deliveries likes Zoe, so that's how she got some pigs ears to gnaw on.
I’m seeing that more and more on a regional basis, but nothing here in my immediate area. At least not that I’m aware of.
Google the term "CSA" or "Community Supported Agriculture." I used to have a subscription box to a ranch that would hook me up with like 20 lbs of beef at a time.
Yeah. I've got a lamb supplier that will basically butcher on demand. I just call them up and tell them what I want and it shows up in the next delivery cycle. (They don't even have an online store, just a web page with a phone number). I have a lamb shoulder in the fridge that will be roasted tomorrow. (It's pissing rain and snow this weekend, like seriously, wtf, so I figured a good roasted lamb dinner and a nice bottle of red would be good comfort food). Pork supplier is the same... I can get a whole pig up to 50 lbs, or pretty well any cut I'm looking for. I've got a big shoulder that I'll be curing next week as prep for a cottage roll. They're starting to make their own sausage, and I've tried it, but it needs some work. The best part is I gave them some feedback and they're adjusting accordingly. I'm more than happy to pay butcher prices for this stuff, cutting out the middle man for them.
Neighbors I grew up with raise beef cattle and process maybe 6-8 a year and we get half a cow. It's usually ~350-400lbs of beef. Right after we paid for our beef this year we happened to get a flyer from a local supermarket advertising a sale on ground beef. My wife ran the numbers and we easily save over $500 by buying half a cow each year. Easily worth the eight hour round trip to pick it up.
Yeah. If you're willing to put in a bit of time and effort, you can save big by buying in bulk from the source. The more butchering you're willing to do, the better. I usually try and get big unbutchered cuts that I can then slice up and vacuum pack as I want. A good chamber vacuum is worth its weight in gold for long term frozen food storage.
We’ve bought a 1/4 pig or a portion of cow in the past, but with it being just the wife and I now it’s really more than we need. And we don’t eat a lot of beef anymore. There was a store that opened a few years ago that sold fresh meats from a nearby farm. I enjoyed buying from him despite the price. His homemade sausage was to die for. But not enough people were willing to pay the price so he closed up and moved to a more affluent section of the state. I still follow his Facebook page and it looks like he’s doing well there. I may have to stop if we’re ever out that way again just for his jalepeno and cheese sausage.