During the recent Superbowl, in some midwestern regions agricultural interest groups aired commercials with titles like “We are the 96%.” The goal was to promote more understanding among the public that the majority of farms in America are family farms. Polls indicate that most people believe that most farms are corporate-owned, and the perception of […]
Family Farming: There’s Got to Be More to It Read More »
We’re at it again with another shipping container project for the farm. A truck delivered two containers this week. One of them is pretty old and banged up, so that is destined to be used for more prosaic storage needs. But the nicer container is being reworked as a meat sorting room. In this situation,
Another Shipping Container Building for the Farm Read More »
A couple of headlines about fires at livestock facilities have caught my attention recently. It occurs to me that farming out on pasture adds yet another level of security to our food supply. Unlike the prevailing wisdom of the industry, where biosecurity is all about confining the animals and controlling the environment to a greater
Livestock Farm Fires Read More »
Want to get under my skin? Call me a protein farmer. Wrong Direction Farm is not a protein farm. Classifying Wrong Direction Farm as a protein farm involves some understandable oversimplifications. In a broad sense, we can agree that this farm’s commercial sales are built around selling cuts of meat from cattle, chickens, turkeys, pigs,
Enough With the Protein Already! Read More »
We’re always appreciative when our friend Chef Katy develops another recipe using our products. This time she set herself the task of creating up a restaurant-worthy treatment for our beef tenderloin filets. The quality of these tender filet mignon cuts does most of the heavy lifting in this recipe. The accompanying richly flavorful mushroom cream
Filet Mignon with Wild Mushroom Cream Sauce Read More »
This fall I spent some time in the garage cutting and welding an attachment for our tractor so it could plow snow around the farm. Years ago I bought a pickup truck at a municipal auction, and it came with a snow plow. The truck rusted itself into ruin and is no longer with us,
Farm Build: Snow Plow for the Tractor Read More »
I know that you don’t read a farm blog for personal medical advice, so rest assured that I’m not here to poke a finger in your face and to tell you what to think about vaccines. This past week I’ve received a flood of emails and a few phone calls from customers concerned about mRNA
On Vaccines and Meat from WDF Read More »
This fall we constructed a mud-season feeding area for the cattle, in the hope that we would be able to prevent our herd from degrading the land during the spring mud season when the fields always turn to goo. Two weeks ago we experienced a thaw with several days in the 40 degree range, resulting
Building Some Flex into the Farm Read More »
This week I finished reading Charles Mann’s The Wizard and the Prophet (published 2018) and I thought it might be a worthwhile topic for discussion. The book centers on the ideological struggle to understand the best way to feed and provision an immense and needy human population on a limited planet. As a framing structure,
Wizards, Prophets, and Farmers Read More »
Regular readers will know that I have always maintained an uncomfortable position on the term “grass fed beef.” It’s not that I’m against it; I’m all for it and firmly believe that it is one of the healthiest and most environmentally responsible foods. But the word “grass” was an inadequate choice, because there is no
