I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. I will be sharing number five today.

We are so thankful and undeserving to be expanding our little beyond organic farm to an extra 22 acres this spring. We have not been able to meet the needs of all of our customers, and we are looking forward to growing our sheep, milk cows, pigs, and chickens to serve more people with beyond organic, pasture raised food. Praise the Lord! We are purchasing this land from Cory’s mom and dad, and it is located just north of our house. We are planting cool season cover crops in most of the area and doing an experiment of oats and peas together on the rest. The cover crop mix we are using contains several varieties of plants with our hope of suppressing weeds and improving soil health at the same time. We will mob graze the area to add even more fertility naturally.  We would love to have you out for a farm tour!

I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. In this fourth tip, I think I need to say that I did hear this, and I wish I would have listened sooner to this wisdom. I will be sharing number four today.

We discovered that there is a real need for soy free, beyond organic, truly pastured chickens on Saturday and will be doing another round for sale in the fall. Our newsletter subscribers will be the first to hear about reserving our fall birds. You can sign up for our newsletter by going to our website and putting your email address into our pop-up menu or simply sending us a message through Facebook, giving us a call, or sending us an email. We would love to hear from you!! I figured a very high loss for our chickens in the spring, so Lord willing if all goes well, we may have a few extra in June. We will also use our newsletter first to let you know. ? Email: mentinkfamilyfarms@gmail.com and phone number: 402-764-2212. Have you tried chickens that were raised outside on green grass? What did you think? You can learn more about our practices at this link.

Yesterday Annika asked if they could play on the sledding hill. This is the worst pasture area on the farm for weeds. When I went to check on them, I found them very excited and proud. They happily reported that they were “weeding” the hill!

Fun Farm Fact: It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. It can actually take even more with silver maples, compared to sugar maples, which are more common in our area.

All of our hams that we sell and use ourselves are uncured. Meaning this is a fresh piece of meat with no nitrates/nitrites, colors, or harmful preservatives added. I have been having a great time experimenting with a lot of recipes. Thankfully my family hasn’t minded being my guniea pigs! HA! This ham roast was incredibly easy and had great flavor, but don’t expect it to taste like those processed hams you get at the store. It has it’s own unique sweet and spicy.

Ingredients:

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp. cloves

2 tsp. salt

¼ cup maple syrup

Directions: Thaw your ham roast (something I forget to do too often!). Combine your seasonings and rub them all over the roast. Place the roast in a pan and cover it with aluminum foil. I like to use my glass baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 3 ½ hours. After this time baste the roast with the maple syrup (I started with about 1 tablespoon in a bowl so I didn’t waste any precious syrup), stick it back in the oven uncovered, and continue basting it every 10 to 15 minutes. Once the temperature reaches 170 degrees your roast is ready to eat. This usually takes another 45 minutes to an hour. We paired this with fresh lettuce salad, cooked carrots, and fresh sourdough bread. Yum! If you try this recipe, we would love for you to share your thoughts in the comments.

One of our goals on our beyond organic farm is to be transparent in everything we do. I no longer trust labels, and I believe there is a lot of fraud and lies in the organic/natural farming industry. As part of our transparent farming practices, we really encourage farm visits and welcome them any day, but Sunday. Anyone is welcome to see anything they want and we are happy to answer any questions about our farming practices. You may want to watch this video first though as part of our transparency. You can click the link here.

I shared eight things I wish people would have told me when I was in high school in a recent presentation. I will be sharing number three today.

•  Get as much free knowledge as you can.

Rather than spending a lot of money to learn a new skill, first we go to the library or the internet to learn as much as we can for free. Yes, there is a lot of bad information out there (just try running your chickens in your garden and you will see what I mean!), but there is a lot of good as well. After doing some research, if it still interests us, we start by counting the cost. Then if it makes sense financially, we start experimenting on a small scale (okay maybe that’s what we should do at least). If this new skill requires special equipment or tools, I will start by looking at Facebook Market Place or Craigslist and often find a good deal on what we are searching for. Sometimes it makes more sense to buy these items new. It may take some money to buy a tool or supplies, but if we have counted the savings, we will know if it’s worth it. If we like doing something, then we may want to invest some money into learning more about it, or more importantly how to become more efficient at it, because let’s be honest, you get what you pay for. If we start doing this new skill and don’t enjoy it, we aren’t out much.

Not many people want to talk about this, but let’s be real, you can spend a lot of money learning a new skill.  Too often what happens is we are encouraged to get educated before we even know if we really like doing something. When we get done and put that education to practice, we may find that we don’t enjoy doing what we thought we would love, or even worse, maybe there’s no way to create an income with this education. Then we get done and we often don’t get to do what we want because we have become a slave under a mountain of debt.

We have a lot of improvements to make on our farm as we strive to be as regenerative as possible, but thankfully each year is getting better.  After 7 inches of rain fell on our farm a week ago, some of the areas turned to quicksand-like muck. We were so thankful to be using a bale grazing program that we implemented a few years ago, because this helped our animals to have areas to lay or stand out of the mud. What may look like a waste to some, has actually allowed us to improve our soil and keep our animals more comfortable.