Supply chain woes hit Ninja Cow Farm

You’d have to live under a rock to not know about the supply chain issues we are all facing. Diesel prices are crazy, you can’t get tires, and the grocery store has empty shelves….again.

But our supply chain is much shorter and has different kinks.

Pork We are mid switch from our pigs raised here on the farm to our new pork farmer. It took a bit to get things moving and we ran short on pork for a few weeks, especially on our most common items.

Chicken Our chicken farmer usually meets us every week. We get chicken and dairy products on the same delivery. But with fuel prices so high, we don’t get to meet every week now. We only meet if the order is big enough to justify the trip. And she’s behind on growing birds. Again. So a lot of what we order isn’t available when we order it, which makes the “is it worth the drive” game even harder to play. And now there is some bird flu going around and she can’t get chicks. Chicken has been a mess the past few weeks.

Beef I started a new job off the farm and I ended up being late to delivery this month’s cow. Which of course means we ran short on beef because I was a week late getting the cow to the processor. A job? Me? Wait. Wait! I can hear the questions now.

You got a job? Are you still going to farm? Yes I’m still a farmer.
Are you selling the farm?! No I’m not selling the farm. Hence the whole, I’m still a farmer thing.
Why did you have to get a job? Does the farm not make money? What? You thought the farm made money? Heck it never made money. Nobody farming makes money.
If you don’t make money, how do you keep farming? This new job isn’t my only off farm job. I’ve had an off farm job the whole time.
But this is an adult job, real work, nose to the grind stone kind of thing? Oh heck no. No adulting for me. This is definitely a kids job. A big kid, but kid for sure.

I’m flying for hire now. Currently flying a jet (which is cool) and soon to be also flying a King Air (which is cool) and even flying a Cirrus (which is cool). Can you tell flying is cool? Can I tell you about it? My wife is tired of hearing me talk about planes…… No, oh ok. So about that farming….

So back to our beef being late. I got stuck in the Caribbean with a broken airplane and was late getting the cow to the processor. Yes, being stuck in paradise, and getting paid for it, was as bad as it sounds. The only car available to rent was a convertible. No really…. Yeah, my family didn’t believe me either. But I’m back and farming has kicked into gear. This week I drove 35 gallons of diesel out of my truck hauling product around NC and back to the farm.

The stupid beef picture won’t post correctly. Sorry it is so large.

So the store, which was kinda sad last week, is back in full swing. We have most of our products in stock again and more stuff to pick up in the pipeline. I’m sorry for the things that we were out of. It was out of our hands for the most part and we had to just do the best we could. I’m mostly around this month so deliveries should be normal. And we already have our next cow in line to go to the processor so we should stay in beef heading into summer. So all in all, things are back to normal. Or as normal as it gets around here.