Category: News, etc.

I posted that we were out of so much stuff, we shut down the scheduling book for this week.

Today we have some good news. This morning, thanks to our wonderful chicken farmers, I have an order of fresh chicken being delivered along with a complete restock on dairy products. That means we’ll have unfrozen (till they freeze in our freezers) chicken, along with chocolate milk, cream, ice cream, etc. all on hand for your shopping needs by lunch time today.

Thursday I’ll be on the road most of the day picking up our pork order. We dropped off two hogs last week at the processor. They weighed a staggering combined weight of 688 pounds! I can’t wait to see the size of the pork chops on these suckers.

We are also getting in a few of our special order 4 bone roasts on this order. A customer rightly took me to task on why I didn’t have them in stock to start with so I ordered a few roasts for him and for anyone else who is so inclined. They will be first come, first serve. I expect them to go fast, not only because you fine folks will gobble them up but when SWMBO sees them in the freezer she’ll probably grab whatever is left. I’ll make sure to get some from out next hogs going to the processor as well so we can keep some in stock for the next little bit.

We did get a nice surprise that our bacon is going to be ready on Thursday as well. Although we still technically have bacon pieces, we were out of sliced bacon. However come Thursday we should be back in bacony goodness.

On Friday, Lord willing, I’ll be picking up our beef from the processor so we can finally get the beef freezer filled back up. We have three pages of pre-orders so a lot of what comes in will be going right back out. But while I was there I sat down with our processor and booked our schedule out till December. I was able to negotiate two cows per month a number of months for the rest of this year. I think I can meet those numbers for 2016, but we don’t have a concrete plan for how to do it for 2017 yet. However I met with a landowner last night to lease part of their farm, I’m meeting with a customer tonight who has a farm they may want to lease, and I’m still looking at property around us that is available. I’ve also contacted Animal Welfare Approved, to see if we can locate an AWA cattleman who would like to sell weaner calves to us exclusively so we can increase our herd to match the land we hope to secure. We are working as hard as we can to get more beef in the freezer!

No, not to the man. You’ve sold us out of meaty goodness!

Until I can pick up some pork, chicken, and hopefully beef this week, we’ve closed the appointment book for new appointments for this week. We ran out of pork chops at the end of the day on Saturday and with very few steaks and no pork chops, I just decided we needed to restock before we added more new appointments. If you are looking for something, especially pork, shoot me an email and I’ll let you know if I have it on hand and we can manually setup an appointment for you. I do have dairy, most cuts of pork, most chicken still but I just didn’t want new customers coming into a relatively empty store.

Also, we are having a kids party here on Saturday and will have the store shut down this Saturday as well. If you are one of our regular Saturday customers, I’ll be manually adding appointments for first thing in the morning (between 7:30 and 9am). We should be flush on pork, dairy, and chicken at that time with beef about to arrive so we’ll be ready for you.

So the last time we went to the processor, we were lucky and were able to process two cows instead of the normal one. At the time it looked like we’d be in pretty good shape till April 11th when we took our next cow. But everyone heard we had beef in and it’s been nonstop in this place ever since. Today, when you open the beef freezer you can hear the echo it’s so empty. We have chuck steak, beef stew, liver, and beef bones for stew. That’s IT. I can’t get this next cow to the processor fast enough. We will have our next cow on the trailer early Monday morning but in the meantime we are painfully short of beef.

We do have a well stocked pork freezer and I just dropped off two huge hogs at the processor on Thursday, so we have more coming. We also just restocked our dairy and I bought all the chicken that my chicken farmer had, period. She couldn’t even go to the market herself because I’d cleaned her out. So don’t despair, we have plenty of meat in the store and we have more coming shortly. But for now, it’s slim pickings if you want beef.

We do have a good list of people who have put in their pre-orders so don’t feel like you can’t come in if you were looking for beef. We can get your beef pre-order down while you are here and then let you know when your order is ready for pickup so you don’t have to try and get here right when the next cow arrives.

The rain hasn’t slowed down our sales on the farm today. Especially for cookies.

A pic from one of our customers who stopped by today. This is what he had when he got home.

We still have openings for pickup only, which means you can get some goodies and stay out of the rain. Although it has barely rained here today.

1. I’ve been a shooter all of my life. I spent my youth roaming the farm with a brick of 22s and a rifle. Although my active shooting has waned over the past few years, I’ve put a lot of rounds down range in my life.
2. I’ve been a gun collector for most of my life. I’ve owned, handled, shot, and taken apart, just about every gun there is. From WWII vintage to modern black rifles.

   

3. I’ve attended months of classes at the fantastic NRA program at Montgomery Community College. This is one of the finest programs in the US and we are blessed to have it right here in NC.
4. I continue to take classes, every year, at MCC to keep building my skill set.
5. I’m a lifelong wood worker with decades of experience.
6. I’ve been a metal worker for over a decade. I am a MIG and TIG welder. I am also an accomplished machinist.
7. I have a fully equipped wood shop.
8. I have a fully equipped metal shop.
9. I have a fully equipped gunsmithing shop (these are all different shops)
10. I’ve been in the service business for my entire working career. I know how to take care of customers.

 

I’m not about to get into the gun debate. It’s the third rail of political topics and just one more that I won’t talk about. Gun policy, abortion, prayer in schools, same sex marriage. You aren’t going to find me debating these topics.

This is a simple topic. Guns are mechanical. Guns are legal. Mechanical devices break, need maintenance, and need upgrading. In order to perform properly, people need trusted mechanics to do the work. I do not know how to work on cars. I do not know how to work on airplanes. I do know how to work on guns, and I’m pretty good at it. And there are more guns in America now than people, which means there are opportunities for people with the skills to do the work.

For a number of years now, I’ve been traveling to Montgomery Community College to take continuing education classes on gunsmithing. Nobody can figure out why, especially the Mrs. I already work 70 hours a week, why take time to learn another trade?

Because farming full time on a small farm doesn’t pay the bills.

Ok, that’s not the only reason, but stay with me.

We are growing a business here. I have my kids working in the business and some day soon, they will be old enough to handle a day’s work without me. At some point, years down the road, they may even come back home and decide that they want to make farming their livelihood as well.

The best thing you can do as a manager is train your replacement to a point where you are no longer needed. The best thing you can do as a parent is to make your children self supporting and successful, where you are no longer needed. It’s fully my intention to do both to the best of my ability. Which means at some point, if I’m lucky, I’m going to be in the way and holding them back.

When that day comes, I’m not going to fight it. I’m not going to be scared to relinquish control (ok, maybe a bit). I’m going to be proud the kids are complaining about the old man being in the way and I hope that they’ll be right. When that day comes, I’m going to go to my shop and work on the guns that are waiting there for me. But you can’t turn on a switch and become a gunsmith overnight. It takes years of training and years of experience. And like our farming business, it takes years to build up a clientele to get to a point where it’s sustainable. So for the last several years, I’ve been building up my amateur gunsmith repertoire. This year, I’m making the step into professional gunsmithing and actually hanging out my shingle as a public gunsmith.

This does a few things. For one, it supports the farm because this is a revenue stream outside of farming. Two, it begins to build a business that I can grow into as I get older and cannot handle the physical demands of farming. Three, it allows me to utilize down time I have now, early in the morning, or between customers, or when the family is out of town and I’m home alone at night.

So if you support our farm, and you support farming, please support our gunsmithing if you happen to need a gunsmith. If you don’t like guns, that’s fine. You won’t see them on your visit. This is a totally separate business.

This week we had an accident on the farm. The worst we’ve ever had. Thankfully nobody was hurt and the damage to the equipment was minimal.

I once almost turned over a JD Gator because we had it overloaded with rocks and were going up a steep incline. It didn’t turn over, the bed released and the load dumped, dumping us unceremoniously back on the ground instead of going over backwards like we were about to. I forget what we were building but something that kids build on the farm in the summer. Probably a new pond, by hand.

One time I turned a three wheeler over because I wasn’t watching where I was going. We had green army men with parachutes and we were conducting parachute experiments. We had them tied to the rack of the three wheeler and I drove right off the road, right up an incline and it rolled over, as three wheelers are prone to do. You see I was watching the parachutes behind me, not the road in front of me. The parachute experiment failed. My buddy, who owns Buck Naked Farm now, was on the three wheeler at the time with me and got trapped under it when it rolled. I jumped free and then saved him from being pinned. We still talk about this one.

Once I got a Gator (actually an AMT 600, this was a long time ago) so covered in mud that it took us hours of washing (under the very stern and pissed off direction of my father) to get the thing usably clean again. We didn’t actually turn it over this time. Instead we were testing the new Gator against our old three wheeler. We wanted to see which would win in a tug of war. As the Gator kept winning, we decided to even the playing field by putting it in the mud to mitigate its extra traction. At the point I was standing on the seat in a sea of mud while the three wheeler was on dry ground, the three wheeler finally won.

All of these, combined, pale in what happened this week. Yarik was driving the tractor down our paved farm road, apparently in low gear, and simply ran off the road and into a ditch because he wasn’t paying attention. The tractor slipped down then rolled into the fence, barely missing Yarik in the process.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see we have the skid steer chained to the tractor, and the bucket truck in the background. On the bucket truck is a 30,000 pound recovery winch. It’s hooked to the back of the tractor. By pulling the farm tractor back onto it’s wheels with the skid steer and holding it there, I used the recovery winch to slowly walk it backwards and up out of the ditch.

Yarik had a scratch on his back. The tractor had one broken hydraulic line and a bent exhaust. The fence got a bit squished. Yarik managed to scramble back onto the tractor and turn it off before it ran out of oil on its side, saving the engine. All in all very, very minimal damage to what could have been terminal. I explained to Yarik how close he came to getting killed through inattention. I tried to be gentle, to understand the instances I told above. I thought I was pretty nice. Then Dustin pointed out this picture to me.

Here we are hooked up, chained up, shackles in place. I’m just waiting for Vicente to take some pictures since I’d jumped up and ran down to this scene when they came and got me. I’d left my phone laying right where it was so Vicente had to take the pictures.

The other side of the scene. Yarik is standing there wanting to help but the adults have shown up and we won’t let him. Unfortunately he got yelled at, by me, a few times because he kept stepping into dangerous areas during the recovery. Only enough to get him clear and safe but yelled at just the same. Even after the accident, I don’t think he understood just how dangerous all this was. At this point nobody knew just how bad the tractor was, or even if we’d be able to get it out of the ditch. I also wasn’t convinced he was ok. Adrenalin can mask injuries but I’d inspected him to make sure he was ok and he appeared to be so.

I’ve heard of resting bitch face, only because one of the ladies where I used to work joked about it. I don’t think I actually have it naturally. However, being a kid, scraping mud off of a Gator, under the physically palpable glare of a Staff Sergeant/business owner/father, I was shocked to see what my face looked like when Dustin pointed it out in this picture. I know that face. Impatient but patiently waiting, pissed off, worried sick, planning the next 10 things to do, angry and sad all at the same time. I’ve been on the wrong end of that face more times than I care to think about. What I didn’t realize until now was that I had that face. I hope I can make it another 40 years without having to use it again for something like this.

Ninja Cow Farm LLC, an organic principled farm located near Garner, NC, is growing! We are looking for lease or purchase opportunities for farmland within 30 minutes drive of Garner. We prefer areas South of Garner, away from town. We are looking for an opportunity to expand our cattle herd and need a farm with 50-100 acres of cleared land available. We can reclaim cropland into pasture land but would prefer existing pastureland. Fencing and facilities are beneficial but not required.

Ninja Cow Farm improves the land through the principles of Allan Savory and Ian Mitchell-Innes and currently leases land from other property owners and has references available. We have an immediate need for land and would be interested in talking to landowners within the geographic boundaries described above.

Please contact Dan Moore at dan@ninjacowfarm.com or call/text at 919-810-2530 for more information.

Ninja Cow Farm LLC is owned by the Moore family who have been farming in NC since the late 1700s. They currently operate their agritourism, cattle, and pig farm on Old Stage Road near Garner. They were recognized as the Farm Family of the Year in 2015 by the Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District in recognition of their farming and conservation practices. Through their unique operations, Ninja Cow Farm recycled over seven million pounds of produce in 2015 that would have gone to the landfill. Along with 200,000 pounds of cardboard and 24 truck loads of pallets also recycled.  Dan Moore currently serves as the President of the Wake County Agribusiness Council, is an active board member with Wake County Farm Bureau and North State Bank’s Garner office. Ninja Cow Farm is a proud member of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, The NC Agritourism networking association, Farm to consumer legal defense fund, and The Goodness Grows in NC program. Ninja Cow Farm has a very active website and much more information is available at https://ninjacowfarm.com

I had occasion to drive down to Simply Natural Creamery last week to pick up my weekly order. Normally our chicken farmer brings my order when she comes this way or when we meet half way but this time I went all the way to the mother ship! I’ve been to the website, I know the family, I’ve been to the Facebook page. But I’ve never actually been on site at the creamery. The pictures do not do it justice! The creamery itself is a sparkling new building, with an awesome sales area right out front.

I made the mistake of not taking enough pictures while I was there. Just to the left in this picture is a huge glass wall. Behind that wall is the creamery itself where all the milk is handled. You can sit in the ice cream parlor with your cone of awesome ice cream and watch them work the milk and do their magic. Sadly, I was drifting towards the ice cream instead of thinking, looking to get a few scoops for the ride home. It’s not my fault. They make their own waffle cones there and they whole place smelled like waffle cones!

The front of the building has a playground and room for kids to run around. The parking lot was pristine and everything was like a shiny new penny. It was very impressive.

While I was there I got a tour of the back of the place, where all the ice cream is, looked around at the retail stuff, and then it was time to get my load (and my two scoops of mint chocolate chip!) on the truck and get out of there. I still had other farmers to meet and needed to get back to my farm to meet customers, after unloading and putting everything away of course.

Just another day on the farm.

I mentioned before that we were going to get some duck eggs in the store in the future. We are slowly ramping up our duck egg business and we’ve not been able to supply but just a few customers.

Till today.

One of our farmers came through for us this week and we have a bunch of duck eggs in the fridge. If you’ve ever wanted to try duck eggs, and why wouldn’t you want to, now is the time to come and get a dozen to try. We still have some spots open for tomorrow, which is rare. I guess people are wrapped up with Easter. But even on Easter, you need to eat! Schedule an appointment to stop by and get some duck eggs, or chicken eggs, or chocolate milk, or some of the 600 pounds of pork we just put in the freezer. We have plenty to choose from.