TLR Newsletter

As families grow more and more distant from the food they consume, the meat cuts they have available to them are often prime cuts, with bones being minimized or removed entirely.  But earlier generations saw the value in every part of the animal, as they invested scarce time and resources into raising animals for themselves and their families.  Bone broth is one example of a fantastically beneficial use of some "throwaway" leftovers from a meal.  It's easy to make, extremely versatile as a base for soups and stews, and extremely healthy. Here's a great recipe to try with some bones of your choice: 3-5 lbs of meat bones (any mixture of bones will work) (optional) Meat drippings saved from previous dishes 1 ½ tablespoons of vinegar 1 teaspoon of salt Enough water to fill a stock pot (optional) 4 to 5 carrots 2-4 full bay leaves 1-2 onions Several ribs celery (optional) 4 to 5 cloves of garlic Place the bones and meat drippings into a large stock pot, slow cooker, or roa...

We are currently planning our next processing date for a load of lamb and goats.  Do you have a special request for cuts? Rack of lamb? Frenched ribs? Bone-in roasts? Sausage? Please submit your cut requests via the Google Form below, and we'll include your request with our next batch of animals. Order Now

Agriculture of all forms has very thin (or even negative) profit margins, and a central goal of all farmers is designing systems that relentlessly cut costs, build in efficiencies, and optimize an array of highly interconnected variables as efficiently as possible.  And in large-scale agriculture, farmers have achieved some level of success.  Large-scale farms have developed complicated and data-driven regimes, complete with tightly coordinated planting dates, annual R&D, highly specialized and expensive equipment, and deep marketing channels.  But even though these highly refined systems produce bushels and bushels of bulk calories, the relentless drive toward yield comes at the cost of people and the planet.  Rather than producing a wide array of crops, each addressing a need in the human diet, we instead have shopping aisles made primarily of corn- and soy-derived products.  Meanwhile, the relentless drive towards yield leads to constant tillage, loss of ...

We used to sell eggs, but we ran into a problem several months ago of chickens eating their own eggs, which can be a challenging problem to deal with. Fortunately, we found a fix! By placing fake chicken eggs in their nesting boxes, chickens can't eat them like before, and the eggs they lay are mixed with unbreakable fake eggs. The pecking is reduced, as the fake eggs break the association of eggs with food, and the pecking that does occur is often on the fake eggs, reducing the likelihood that a chicken will break a real egg. We are finally getting back to the point of being able to offer eggs to our customers, but this month, half a dozen are free for our customers!

Early in our time building the farm, we used an incubator to hatch out eggs, fed the chicks a special diet, and released them once they were old enough to forage on their own. Now, our chicks are all natural, incubated, fed, and taught by their mothers. Chickens are naturally "hard workers" that spend all day hunting insects and foraging grasses and forbs. But mother hens go above and beyond, working tirelessly to protect their hatchlings, feed them naturally from the land (the mother picks up edible bits, and tosses them in front of the chicks to eat), and teaching them the layout of the farm. The chicks will be with their mother for about 2 months, at which point they form a "click" with each other (independent of their mother), and eventually they separate into pairs or trios that socialize with each other permanently.