TLR Newsletter

 When we think of a meat butcher, many of us think of the familiar picture of the portly gentleman in a white smock, preparing cuts of meat right down the road for us to purchase fresh as can be.  And of course, we all know this picture is largely outdated, save for a few exceptions.  Instead, the modern meat packing plant consists of a huge team of employees all trained with highly specialized skills (rather than the broad-spectrum knowledge of butchers in the past).  The production line is essentially a (dis)assembly line, with each worker making a limited number of repetitive motions to accomplish one narrow portion of the butchering task, as the product moves by at a set speed on meat hooks and conveyers.  Employees work in close proximity to one-another, and conditions are ripe for a highly contagious disease like Covid-19.  The meat packing industry has also consolidated over time,  just like every industry has, with the bulk of the supply moving...

 As you would expect, the tasks completed at TLR change depending on the season, giving the year a certain rhythmic workflow.  We have now begun our fall tasks, which in our fifth year of production, have taken on a grooved familiarity. Since the years flow in a cycle, it can be hard to define a "starting point" for the year's activities.  But in some sense, our production year begins in fall.  Summer tasks are winding down, and we begin preparing the farm for our earliest rains.  Hay is tucked away safely in the barn, to keep it from molding in the rain.  The barn is checked for leaks, and loose sheeting that may allow water infiltration, or may blow off in a storm are battened down.  (TLR is high up on the side of a hill in the Salinas Valley; the valley creates a "wind tunnel" effect, which concentrates wind energy in the valley, especially at our elevation, so winds can be extremely destructive during winter.) Fall is the main mating season for goa...

 Throughout the season, we make various bulk purchases of hay to get us through the dry summer months, and the slow-growing winter.  Historically we have experimented with wide array of options for feeding hay, including Bermuda hay, orchard grass, oat hay, teff grass, and alfalfa.  Based on this experimentation, we have found that alfalfa gives the best return on investment, with high protein content, high palatability, and high utilization by the animals.  Alfalfa is the gold standard for protein, and all other feeds use alfalfa by way of comparison for the amount and quality of protein they contain.  Alfalfa is also high in minerals (the "Ash" content in the image below), which ensures that the animals are not eating empty calories, and are instead eating a ration that truly produces healthy animals and healthy meat.  Alfalfa has a digestible energy content of 10.7 megajoules per kilogram of dry matter, and sorghum Sudan grass has a digestible energy con...

 Although lamb is one of the most widely eaten meats in the world, the US is not known as a lamb-centric community.  So naturally, to find the best recipes for lamb, it makes sense to look to the communities that have built a cuisine out of lamb, based on a long track record of high per capita lamb consumption.  One such country is Greece , which ranks 5th-highest per capita consumption of lamb in the world. One of the most common lamb dishes in this lamb-loving country is Lamb and Tomato Sauce .  This rather bland name masks an incredible dish, with many layers of flavor, all blended beautifully, and completely complementary of one-another.  It's one of the most common dishes in Greece, and has a 400 year legacy.  Instead of a regional favorite, it can be found throughout the country of Greece, and once you taste it, you'll see why.  Ingredients listed with a * are essential to the dish. Ingredients: 3 tablespoons of olive oil 3 pounds of lamb, bone-...

 Last month, we described several R&D projects we've taken on to help improve margins as part of continual-improvement on the ranch.  One of the more exciting projects is the seeding of the pastures with a warm-season grass, Piper Sudan Grass.  This is a sorghum/sudan grass hybrid, which is a cross between sorghum grass (often used as a grain for animal feed), and sudan grass.  The grass grows quickly, produces tons of biomass, and has a vigorous root system.  It establishes quickly, and is relatively drought tolerant.  The aggressive root system pushes carbon deep into the soil, and will improve soil conditions over time, allowing for better water infiltration when it rains, more soil biology for nutrient cycling, and more native bunch grass production in the winter and spring. Summers at TLR are the hardest time of year, as pastures dry up, and only the most well-adapted plants can survive the dry conditions.  The native grasses in our area are a...

 When we began marketing our pasture-raised animals to the public, we believed that our grass-fed lamb would be our flagship product.  The whole-animal lamb sales we had done in the past were met with rave reviews, and our own culinary experience with the lamb led us to believe that it truly is a remarkable offering.  We raise a breed of sheep (American Blackbelly) that is known to have one of the premier flavor profiles of all sheep breeds, especially when grass-fed and pasture-raised.  The first round of animals that we had processed for market were four lambs, and one goat, as we had assumed the demand for the two types of animals would be asymmetric toward lamb. As we soon found out, however, the market for goat meat is remarkably underdeveloped, with few producers, who struggle to meet the demand of a very large and underserved market.  Among these producers, many follow "conventional" practices, feeding concentrates to accelerate growth to a large size as ...

 After taking our recent load of animals into the processor, we were met with yet another unpleasant surprise, as the price to process animals has increased yet again, this time by a much lower $7 per animal (versus almost $80 with the previous round).  Although the $7 increase per animal is small by most standards, it represents yet another increase among many others in the supply chain, whether it be hay cost, fuel cost, processing cost, or seed.  Make no doubt about it, the huge array of different cost increases truly represents an existential threat to TLR, and our existing operating framework may need to change dramatically in the coming years.  We will continue to update our customers of any changes, and possible disruptions through our newsletter as usual.

Even a small farming operation is a highly complex undertaking, with an extremely wide array of variables that can be manipulated, usually with imperfect information, and based on speculation about the future.  In this environment, there is ample room for experimentation, and farmers are known for continual experimentation and innovation.  With the price of inputs going up in price so dramatically, it is an imperative that we focus on innovation to keep costs down to maintain the operation. Although innovation can lead to improvements over time, the development cycle in the agricultural sector tends to be significantly slower than in other areas.  Farmers often must wait a whole season to see the effect of their experiments, and only get to modify/update their experimental trials once a year.  A commonly used estimate for the time needed to determine the efficacy, and to further calibrate a new system in agriculture is  7 years!  Despite this, research and...

One of the changes that we have made in response to the steep increase in fees we have experienced has been to grow our animals out to a larger size, to reduce the price per pound of processing fees.  Because of this, we have taken far fewer animals in to the processor recently, which led to a steep dropoff in product availability.  We had to cut off one-time/non-subscription purchase, to prioritize our monthly subscription members.  But we are now reaping the benefits of this patient approach.  We now have a cohort of animals that have increased in size to the point where they are much more marketable in light of the higher fees, and we will be stocking up our inventory to have product available for one-time (non-subscription) purchases.  The order form will open in September, for October delivery, and we believe the inventory will be sufficient going forward to keep the one-time purchase option open long term. We also had to turn away potential monthly subscri...

 One of the talking points that comes up the most often when chatting with customers is the use of concentrates used in feeding animals.  Our animals are pasture-raised and fed hay when the pastures run low, which sets us apart from many other producers.  But what exactly are concentrates, and why don't we use them? Beet Pulp The way we define "concentrate" at TLR is actually as a generic term that includes grains, vegetable pulp, soy protein powder, molasses, etc.  These concentrates come in many forms.  Some producers feed their animals grain, as a high energy (carbohydrate) supplement.  When a female goat is in the late stages of pregnancy, or while lactating, female goat's have high energy needs, and some producers supplement the females with some grain to support their needs at this time. Other producers feed grains to all animals routinely, and others feed grain almost exclusively.  Due to the high energy content, grain-fed animals tend to grow v...

 In our earlier posts, we have described how the farm will be evolving over the long run, as we strive to sustainably raise our animals in a way that also improves the finances of the farm.  Ultimately, the farm must be profitable for our mission to continue, and we aim to work on projects that both improve the property and our sustainability, while also improving the bottom line.  That is why we have embarked upon a multi-year effort to transition the farm to a tree-based enterprise, as trees make great use of resources, provide tons of additional benefits beyond feed, and are water efficient as compared to irrigating our pastures. We began this process in earnest last year, with the planting of several thousand tree seeds of many different varieties.  Some of the more important include mulberry, black locust, Osage orange, and chestnut.  These trees offer a plethora of benefits, but each of them is known to be fast growing, respond well to "browse" (trimming b...

In central California, late spring through late fall is as dry as a bone, and vegetation quickly turns dry and brown (or "golden", if you will).  The nutritional value of this vegetation is quite low, as the grasses have since gone to seed, which pushes the valuable nutrients held in the plant out to the seed heads, and leaves the body of the plant left as hollow stems of lignin and cellulose.  These fibrous materials are not easily digested, and most of them pass through the animal unmodified, giving no energy or other nutrition to the animal as it goes.  Only the rugged, deep tap-rooted plants can survive, and their thick skins and defensive physiology leave the animals hunting for something - anything - else to eat. For this reason, we rely to a large extent on hay that we buy in from producers in the central valley.  Our water is too expensive to irrigate, so it makes much more sense for us to buy in hay from other producers that have access to less expensive irr...

The problem of food waste is starting to get more mainstream press as of late.  Last Week Tonight 's John Oliver even highlighted food waste in our own Salinas Valley in his 2015 episode on food waste: Entire blogs and YouTube channels are dedicated to people who sustain themselves by pulling perfectly good food out of the waste stream, to feed themselves for free. Although there is no one cause of food waste, and therefore no "quick fix", Turning Leaf Ranch is happy to have partnered with Drew Massa Transportation, to collect human-grade produce that would otherwise go to waste.  We have fed our animals with Salinas Valley produce for years, and this year, given the steep increase in processing fees we recently experienced, we will increase our efforts in this area, to help offset our feed costs. We are highly selective of the produce we feed to the animals.  We only feed leafy greens, not including brassicas, which can influence the flavor of the meat.  Although th...

 

 Although the winter of 2020 - 2021 was exceedingly dry, it is really part of a larger story that has been building for many years.  The image shown here zooms out to show the recent dry years in perspective, showing the nearly continuous low rainfall, punctuated by the occasional heavy year.  An animated map showing drought areas and their severity may be found here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/drought/historical-palmers/ While things are already getting somewhat dire in some areas, it is worthwhile to consider some historical perspective.  The past 20 years may be the beginning of what some call a "mega drought".  Just how "mega" can a mega drought become?  Based on tree ring analysis, researchers have determined that droughts in the past have gone on as long as 90 years .  What's more, these patterns do not occur on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, and instead occur every couple of hundred years.  One such event da...

In last month's newsletter, we discussed subsoiling , and its benefits in allowing water to infiltrate deep into the soil column, beginning a virtuous cycle of improved water capacity, deeper roots, more organic matter deep in the soil, and hence more water holding capacity. This month, we'll be discussing another water-management tool, called swales . As we all know, when rain falls onto an area, it flows from regions of higher elevation, to regions of lower elevation, and this flow comes in many forms.  Sheet flow  is the slow movement of a sheet of water across a wide area.  As it flows, some of the water infiltrates the soil, and some of the water flows away.  Eventually, much of this water accumulates in natural or human-made channels that then make their way into brooks, streams, and rivers. The essential function of swales is to interrupt this flow, and prevent the water from flowing downstream.  By slowing or preventing this downward flow of water across...

The Background Although we have been growing out animals at Turning Leaf Ranch since 2016, we did not start marketing to the public until somewhat recently.  One of the first challenges we faced when we began marketing was finding a USDA processor that was open to the public, and took small loads of animals.  We have used Creston Valley Meats in Paso Robles since we began selling to the public, and their quality work and quality packaging have been a boon to Turning Leaf Ranch.  It is remarkable that Creston Valley Meats had prices significantly lower than their competitors, and could take our animals with minimal lead time (a few weeks advance notice, rather than three to six months advance notice). However... We recently took a load of animals to the processor, eight of them to be exact.  When we arrived, we were notified that the processing fees had increased, and not by a small amount.  Originally, it costed $126 dollars to process a small- to medium-sized s...

We have had a busy few years, and we have continued to break ground on new projects, and improve our existing systems and infrastructure.  Jacob has been hard at work improving the look and feel of the website, as well as its functionality.  Thanks for your great work, Jacob! Our earlier system required invoices be sent and paid each month, which works well enough.  But to make things easier, we have now established automatic payments , which do not require that we send invoices.  It also simplifies things for our customers, since they will not need to resend their payments each month. Existing Customers: How to switch to automatic payments: Navigate to the following link: https://www.turningleafranch.com/order/subscribe On the right hand side, find the drop down menu shown below: Choose your option (goat, lamb, or a mix of both), and choose a quantity. Once you've specified your meat selection and weight, click the PayPal Subscribe button: You'll click through the n...

Until the recent atmospheric river drenched the Central Coast, the outlook for the 2021 grazing season was looking bleak.  The soil was bone dry, the remaining vegetation in the fields was crisp, hollow, and yellow, and the animals subsisted on alfalfa hay.  Although the majority of Octobers have at least one light rain, October 2020 was a dry month, without a single drop, and as one dry month led to another, the urgency of the situation grew steadily. Even before the fall, signs were on the horizon that this winter would be subpar.  Forecasters predicted a moderate La Niña event, and we knew that this would be the winter that we implemented the water harvesting strategies we have been researching over the years.  The two primary tools we are implementing are called subsoil ripping , and swales .  This month we'll discuss subsoiling, and next month we'll cover swales. Subsoil ripping is performed by dragging a deep shank with a small blade behind a tractor....

As most customers will remember, Turning Leaf Ranch was nearly burned in the River Fire of August 2020.  Although the ranch was spared by the fire (thanks to the many(!) firefighters on the scene), our next concern turned to the giant burn scar that lies just feet from the property line.  TLR is at the base of the beautiful Santa Lucia mountain range that runs parallel to the Pacific coast.  These rugged mountains are remarkably steep, covered in brush and scrub trees, and they hadn't seen fire since the 1940s.  This sounded like a recipe for mudslides this winter, as the fire burned and killed scores of trees, and interrupted the soil's ability to absorb water. Late in January, as the recent storm approached, we watched with trepidation as areas around burn scars were all evacuated due to the risk.  Sure enough, our fire region was eventually evacuated, and we huddled in town at a hotel room until we got the all clear from the county to go back.  We knew t...

Despite being a small operation, it is remarkable the number and variety of tasks that we complete over the course of a year.  Spring time is a particularly busy time, with the beginning of the pasture rotation (and all the tasks that come with it), lambing and kidding season, planting trees, sunflower, radish, and beets for grazing, etc.  Here is a small sampling of our spring time agenda: Repair fencing Seed pastures Install temporary electric fencing for paddock-shift grazing Prepare planting media, and plant tree seeds Prepare animal handling facilities Prepare safe/dry space for new farm arrivals (kid goats) Graft high-yielding fruit trees Propagate new fruit tree rootstocks Handle the peak lambing and kidding season Use chickens to prepare the soil for sunflower Prepare irrigation drip lines Collect spent hay and manure for composting Clean up the books and prepare for tax season Repair animal rain shelters Prepare willow cuttings Naturally, this is only a starting point...

Who was Turning Leaf Ranch's  newest member in 2020? Mr. Rye Flanagan Turning Leaf Ranch's newest farmer! Born in August, he is the son of Jacob and Rhea Flanagan.  Turning Leaf Ranch is a partnership between Brian Palmer, and Jacob Flanagan.  Brian handles the day-to-day management of the farm, the marketing, and the delivery, and Jacob handles the website, and the payment handling, and offers his ideas for the operation.  Jacob has been with the ranch from the beginning, and we are excited to have his son join the enterprise from day 1!  We can't wait to see the adventures that await him! Congrats to Jacob and Rhea!

Farm Goals 2021 It comes as no surprise that a farm never truly reaches it's "finished state".  Rather, farms are always evolving, growing, and developing, in a constant state of "rebirth".  Because our farm is so new, we have many ambitious goals that will truly transform the farm from its current state.  Realistically, some of these are decades-long goals, but 2021 will see many important first steps in this transformative process.  Below are some of the main goals we'll be working on in 2021. Plant out multiple rows of trees (hundreds, if not thousands) As we all know, California gets little rain in the rainy season, and  zero  rain in the dry season.  We enjoy our beautiful green foothills in winter and spring, but they quickly turn to brown as we approach June.  As the grass turns, it also loses some of it nutritional value, as proteins and lipids break down and decay, leaving lignified straw in its place.  Farmers are in the business of...