As the days shorten and our harvest season has finally started to wind down, we find ourselves settling in for the long winter. I finish the last remnants of Thanksgiving goodies and I am reminded of our dreams for this farm, as well as God’s goodness. Sometimes His plan is not quite what we imagined.
The past year has been a difficult one for us, filled with sad and unexpected goodbyes. We are farmers, but we are also human. We deal with these types of losses by asking ourselves “is it worth it?”
Since we began as homesteaders we knew that one of our goals was to provide happy, healthy, meat products at an affordable price. When we moved to Be Still Farm we were delighted that we could rotationally graze animals on pasture. The added greens would help keep our costs down. This has been the case! The rising prices of grain over the past couple of years, however, have put us in a difficult situation. When we crunch numbers, we find it difficult to justify the livestock that consume large amounts of grain.
Additionally, we have been feeling a tug on our hearts. This coming summer we are planning on traveling to Africa. I will utilize my art teaching skills to help instruct art teachers, teach art to orphans, and work with widows to create marketable crafts. Adam is hoping to use his farm skills to work on teaching young people basic agricultural skills and helping the village to build their animal husbandry systems. Please pray that the Lord will use us while we are there and that we would be open to whatever He has for us. Because we will be traveling and someone else will maintain the farm in our absence, we will delay or cut down on our production for next year.
The biggest change for the farm is that we have sold off our Idaho Pasture Pig breeding stock. Adam has enjoyed being a swine herder, and may pick it back up again later, but for now he will be taking a break from that work. We will raise our remaining feeders for pork shares available in Spring 2024, but these will be our last until at least winter 2025. We did just have some pigs processed and we are selling the meat as individual cuts. We encourage you to take advantage of some freshly smoked hams and bacon this holiday season!
We will continue raising sheep and poultry, there just might be a slightly altered timeline.
As we head into to last month of the year, let this serve as a HUGE thank you to all of you who have purchased from the farm this year. We are blessed to call this our work and are grateful for your support in our endeavors.
Be Still Farm LLC 