If the stress of the the virus and high toll on human life isn’t enough. Our economy and food system is severely impacted.

Our local Farmers Market in Cazenovia will likely not open for a time this summer. We have faced so many roadblocks, obstacles and just the simple thing of having no value has taken it’s toll on me.

I personally can’t keep fighting to open the market when I need to be here on the farm raising food.

Managing this little market should have been simple and not all that complicated. But its become a quagmire of red tape and underlying power plays.

I am encouraging our Farmers to band together and instead offer a curbside pickup that is all done by pre-orders with each farm. That way our farmers are protected and shoppers can get food safely without the walls and air of a grocery store closing in on them.

Some day maybe the market will re-open but there will be a need for a new manager. I am a farmer first and foremost. Well okay wife and mom first, farming is the other part of me.

Overwhelming demand. A few weeks ago we started getting so many emails and phone calls from people wanting to order so much meat from us. For years we have focussed on selling at the farmers market in Cazenovia that we went lighter on the bulk orders like 1/2 an animal. So I quickly redesigned the online store and got it launched. In 2 weeks we have sold over half of all our meat for the year.

So we have all our beef are born on the farm. When they are 2 to 2 1/2 years old they become meat. We schedule their dates with our butcher 6-12 months ahead of schedule because they get so busy and booked up.

Our piglets usually are born on the farm but one sow hasn’t retained a litter in a year and the other had complications so we have started culling our breeding stock. We purchase many piglets from farmer friends nearby.

All of them are on the farm and that’s are the meat for the year for sale.

We can’t even add anymore because usda butchers are often already book for the WHOLE YEAR. Add it another USDA butcher closed last fall so there is a log jam.

We can add more piglets to raised later this year for spring pork but our beef is totally grassfed and we don’t purchase animals from off the farm anymore.

Once we are sold out we can’t “get anymore” We don’t call up Cargill or jBS or Smithfield and order more. Oh that’s right those big companies that are procesing the meat and offering it so cheaply they have hundreds of workers infected because the plant owners do not value their workers health or lives.

We do value lives. Our butcher we use values their employees many of them are their family members. They know if they shut down it will devistate hundreds of small farms. They are taking extraordinary measures (is that the right word??) to protect their workers.

Cost: Our prices are directly linked to our costs. As our costs have gone up we have to adjust price accordingly. Our costs to operate safely have gone up. Our butcher fees have gone up. Fuel prices have gone down but our farm insurance has gone up. Farmers don’t get breaks we get to feed people.

So for all of you who value food security and have turned to us as your local food source…..

THANK YOU

You make this work worth it and drives us to do more and do it better.

We are a small farm and it’s US doing the work. No employees No volunteers Always 100% American

(plus a veteran writing this!).

Take care and one day we can chat face to face. Not going to hug anyone soon though.

Tricia, farmer, veteran, wife, mom and outstanding in her field.