Red Neck Success

My friends Tom and Barb sent me this picture from the day Shorty and I went visiting. Thought you might enjoy it. Shorty really loved Barb!


We practice intensive rotational grazing for our sheep. We usually have 3 or 4 areas that we fence off and let grow for awhile. This allows us to run a lot of sheep on our tiny farm. BTW, we are taking orders for 1/2 or whole lambs at $4.00/lb. They should be ready in the next month or 2. A dressed lamb usually yields around 60 lbs of meat. We will have it processed and packaged at Webber meats, but you must come to the farm to pick it up.




They tell me you might be a red neck if you have ever used your front yard to graze livestock. We are getting ready to do that now. In the next day or two we will turn the sheep out in our front yard. After a week or two it will be nicely mowed like this:



We were concerned about the economy over the winter. Will people still pay a premium price for our produce and eggs? We just weren't sure there would still be a market. So far this year, we have doubled our egg production and raised the price, but we are still selling out and our income from the farmer's markets has more than doubled! Thank you to all of you who support us local farmers!


It looks like the guineas might stay. The guinea eggs I blew for crafts aren't selling, but I'm hearing enough interest in them that I think I'll try selling a few fresh ones as a novelty egg. They have a very dark yoke so they should be very good. I'm going to have Grampa Tom (the picky eater and egg lover of the family) do a taste test in the next couple of days.

Here's a picture of the eggs for those of you who haven't seen them before. I threw a couple of normal sized chicken eggs in just for comparison. They are a small speckled egg with a very hard shell. Grampa says if I can make money with them, he'll put up with listening to them :)


Jesus was very fond of using common every day things to explain spiritual concepts. This week, I believe He shared 2 of these with me. They blessed me. Perhaps they will bless you too!

1. As I was harvesting lettuce on Thursday, I was finding myself breaking off and throwing away quite a bit of "stemmy" growth. I thought to myself, "There sure is a lot of waste in gardening." Then I realized it wasn't really wasted because I was going to feed it to the chickens, who in turn would make it into eggs and manure for next year's crop. "Waste" is really a poverty mindset born out of fear. "Waste", whether it's a thing, an event or even a seemingly wasted life can be redeemed! In God's economy there is no waste. He takes those things we see as "waste" and uses them for another harvest. Instead of bemoaning the "waste" we see, we should be asking God how He wants to use it.

2. A couple of weeks ago, the rugs at my back door were getting really nasty. I didn't have the time to deal with them, so I threw them out on the garden fence. Today, after they've gone through a couple of rain storms, quite a bit of wind and some beautiful sunshiny days, they were actually clean enough that I thought I could bring them back in. So ... if you're going through some storms and don't feel like you are where you ought to be, thank God! You may just be out on the fence getting the dirt knocked off of you.



God Bless You All!