Recently one of our customers asked us” what do we consider ourselves”? I didn’t know what she meant but she continued “I mean are you farmers or homesteaders. Are you back to nature folks or something else?” I laughed and said we are farmers and left it at that.
The question got me to thinking and I thought I would explain some more here. We are farmers no doubt about it. I get up every morning to farm. I am far more diverse than most “farms” however we don’t do this to be self sufficient or live off the land. We are not nature lovers (although we do love this nature God has given us) and our animals are not our pets.
We are farmers.
We tend the earth and the animals. Each of these has a purpose and we attempt to work with and for the glory of that purpose. Cows for milk and meat, hogs for meat and clearing land. Corn for feed Hay for feed. Oats for feed and food. Our crops are planted with a purpose of feeding soil and livestock. All of these things are things farmers did for centuries. We raise cattle for milk using grass, which as humans, we cannot sustain ourselves with to better the world and use all of this creation for the flourishing of humanity. We raise hogs so that we can have a good use of milk we do not sell.
Our crops are grown in such a way as to benefit the soil and further the next crop. Soon we will do some videos to show this in more detail. We tend to do things always looking at the future. Yes we need corn for the cows right now, in three years this field will be hay so we don’t want to hurt the soil biology in such a way that it will impact that crop. We use very few chemicals and limit our commercial fertilizer usage. We never use Anhydrous Ammonia as it is very hard on micro bio organisms in the soil. We don’t use glyphosate and we cultivate and rotary hoe alot! Our rotation consists of 5 or 6 different types of crops to bring about diversity in our soil and control pests naturally.
We don’t consider ourselves organic but we are very close to it. In fact at times you will see a sprayer in our fields. We are not applying chemicals but biologicals to enhance the nutrients that are already there! We are not technology adverse at all. Tools are what makes it easier for us to do the work our ancestors labored so hard at.
The biggest difference between us and many other farmers is our stand 2 years ago against taking any government subsidies. In the fall of 2022 I decided I couldn’t in good conscience keep adding to the debt of our grand children by doing this. So we haven’t taken any subsidies in any form since then. This makes us very different from many. Especially in the dairy business. We also broke form the many entanglements in the forms of Climate change agendas that are going to put our food at risk. We will not use MRNA vaccines (in fact we don’t use any) we will not participate in EID tracking of cattle or hogs. And we are very skeptical of any Government certification as it always ends up being woke and liberty killing. Our word is our bond and our conscience is our customers. We want to live in harmony with nature and our neighbors. And above all remember that “The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof”.
