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Mission
Our Farm Goals
It has been a long standing goal of ours to raise our sons on the farm. There is so much about life learned on the farm and we feel the more we are removed from the farm the harder life gets. We loose the connection with our food and with our creator. To quote Goeff Lawton "All life's problems can be solved with a garden". This rang true with me. I grew up in the city and would only occasionally visit my grandparent's farm. I loved the time I spent there and I always learned something. We feel very fortunate to have raised our 5 children on the farm and have been able to give them what I would have loved as a kid. They may say something different but they have gained a knowledge that most American's don't have the chance to get. Now that our children are almost grown and will soon be venturing out on their own, we hope they will take this knowledge with them wherever they end up. Elijah and his wife have taken the mantle and are heading to Kenya Africa to set up a demonstration farm to help the Maasai tribe transition to a new way of life that is being forced on them by the powers that be. Read more about their plans by clicking the tab on the side bar.
It is one of our goals to bridge that farm gap for you (our patron). We want you to be connected to the farm and the produce that it provides. There are several different ways that we hope to achieve this goal. Providing a means to purchase our produce at your easiest convenience. This would include farmer's Markets, our online store, and on farm pickup. We attend farmer's markets in locations that our produce can be purchased at. We have our online store for those that can't get to a market with a delivery service for even more convenience. The last way is still a work in progress but we hope to get our u-pick up and running again. We started our business venture with a u-pick but quickly found out that a chemical free u-pick is very hard to manage. This is the best way to bridge that gap, but isn't as convenient as the ones mentioned earlier. Because it isn't as convenient to make a trip out we are going to attempt to publish some videos about our farm and what we do. We hope this will allow you to visit our farm without having to make a trip. We will also have a blog to share our experiences so you can read about our perspectives of farm life. Sometimes it isn't all it is cracked up to be.
To be completely honest, this is a two part situation, let's say it should be mutually beneficial. Not only do we want to bridge the connection between you and your food, but we need your support to be able to continue to grow on the scale we do. So it is important to see that we are in a symbiotic relationship. Any time you try to create an ecosystem, balance is everything. We strive very hard to be profitable and economical but we aren't always perfect.
Another goal of ours is sustainability. This is a multi-faceted and on-going endeavor. If we can't be sustainable then we are always going to struggle. In many ways we do have a sense of sustainability now but we have so much more room to grow. Here is the main ways we started; We consider our farm it's own ecosystem and within this ecosystem there must be balance. This is critical and everything we do hinges on this one understanding. Nothing on the farm goes to waste. This is key to a properly balanced system. Even the waste accumulated by the chickens and other animals gets used. The outputs from one part becomes an input to another, this is critical to maintaining the balance. If, for instance, we produce more manure than our crops can handle then it becomes pollution, but if we produce too little then our secondary system begins to lack what it needs. Nature was created in a way that everything is mutually beneficial, but once the balance is tipped then everything in the system begins to suffer. Just look at the current situation we find ourselves in. Our health is on a crash-course; cancer is on the rise along with many new strains of bacteria and viruses. The FDA tries to control things, but only in a futile effort to keep us safe. It is all in vain; you can't control a system unless you understand the balances between inputs and outputs. It all starts with the soil! From the dust we were created and to dust we shall return. As a society we must understand this system if we are to properly steward it. We have long term goals for the farm to completely supply it's own inputs and to produce enough outputs to provide for the inputs, to complete the circle. That includes growing all our own feeds to saving our own seed, but this all takes infrastructure and to build that takes money and lots of it. To properly maintain a balanced ecosystem you have to understand 3 main points. The first is, if the system can't provide it's own inputs then that becomes work. The second is, if the yields from the system can't be used then it becomes pollution. The third is, work and pollution results in drudgery. Drudgery is punishment for stupidity and this effects our health whether that is physical, emotional, or spiritual. For us to be balanced in body, soul, and spirit we need to recognize what system we are partaking of and change our lifestyles to reflect the system we want to be a part of.
This goal comes without saying really and is a result of the previous one, Quality. Quality of our soil, our animals, our plants, their yields, but most importantly our quality of life. When we recognize the importance of the system we are choosing to partake of, only then can we change the quality of life for ourselves and those around us. As a society, we can continue to partake of a broken, unbalance system and pay the heavy price or we can choose better for ourselves and our families. We were where most American's are. We choose to be apart of a broken system for so many years and we have only recently, within the last 10 years began to walk out this journey for ourselves. It is never too late to make changes and alter your future. We are extended grace by our creator to make these changes and sometimes we need more grace to press on. The amazing thing about creation is that it's ability to heal and the drive to fix itself. We only need to jump on and go for the ride. Grace is easy but it isn't always simple
Education is an important but difficult part of the goals of the farm. With a society on the brink of a health crisis and some would say we are already there, it is important for us to do our due diligence in helping to curve this trend. This can only be done by education. As with any educational system it is only as good as the people who hear it. I believe, however, that our society is getting fed up with the current way of thinking and are ready to hear of a new way. Well, not really new, but an old way; sometimes to move forward we mush go back and find the place where things went wrong. In an effort to make things more productive and efficient we have tipped the scales of balance and our environment has suffered as a result. We have been given power to govern this land and like the prodigal son we have squandered our inheritance for the prospect of quick cash. Now we must humble ourselves, return, and seek forgiveness. We have had our own experience with that and this is where we have ended up, not to say this is the end but only the beginning. We have only begun our journey and you get to come along with us. We have several new ideas to, hopefully, make this a little easier.
So jump on and take this ride with us, ask questions as we all seek new ways to emulate the Creator and His creation. For all creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For creation was subjected to frustration, not by it's own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from it's bondage to decay and brought into freedom and glory. Roman 8:18-20