Happy New Year!

We are off to a snow covered start to 2022. This means we are longing for warmer days and green grass. At the same time we are enjoying the harvest from 2021 and making plans for 2022. We hope and expect 2022 will be our healthiest year yet. Healthy land, healthy animals, and healthy people will continue to be our focus. Here are some goals/changes for 2022...

1. New Logo - this change is small but we are excited about it. This will be the topic of a separate Blog post.
2. New Enterprises - 2021 saw us add Pork. 2022 is still unknown what we will add but one of our favorite mottos is "never stop improving" and growth in this case is a way to improve because it will add biodiversity to our soils as well as additional proteins to our diets. We are adding farrowing as our first baby piglets are due in February. We want to add ruminants (cattle and sheep) to our land. Turkeys are also on our to do list. Stay tuned!
3. Growth - we raised 500+ birds in 2020 and 1200+ in 2021 along with 10 pigs. The benefits of growth are full freezers, positive impacts on land, and more families are fed. We want to make a positive and lasting impact on our animals, our land, and as many people in our community as possible.
4. Personal Health - this will be the subject of an additional Blog post but the short version is taking as many small positive healthy steps as we can. Less sugar, more pastured proteins, more sleep, less caffeine, more exercise, etc.
5. More communication with our customers. We will post at least two Blog posts per month, 2 Instagram posts per week, add recipes to the website, more farm tours, and find other new and exciting ways to share our farm with our community.
6. Incorporate more "family" into the farm. Bailey is now a licensed driver and amazingly Will could hit this milestone in 2022. This frees up many new possibilities. Everyone has learned and grown this last year and we will get to put that into practice in the coming months.
7. Improve cooking skills. This is an area where we have really grown. Things we have learned...better ingredients really do matter, variety is nice, pork actually is delicious, it helps to have some "gadgets" (Air fryer, Instapot, Traeger pellet grill/smoker, griddle grill, etc). I really need to improve food photography!
8. Measurement - I want to measure our progress. I know our soils are improved. You can see it. Land that had to be mowed once annually could be mowed 3-4 times in 2021. You could see it in the forage. I want to know how much we are improving the organic matter (water holding capacity) in our soils. I want to know how much healthier our meat is. Anecdotally you can tell the chicken is more nutrient dense because it is more filling when you eat it. I'd like to know our numbers and watch as we improve over time.
9. Local partnerships. This has all happened unofficially but we work closely with multiple small businesses and we want to see them thrive. Our processor is Eco-friendly foods in Moneta, VA. We appreciate Bev and his team at Eco-friendly foods and want them to succeed and continue to fill this important niche in our community. We buy feed from two Virginia small businesses/farms. Sunrise farms in Stuart's Draft, VA and Green Sprig Ag in Rocky Mount, VA. We feed surplus apples from Morris Orchard to our Pigs. You should visit them and definitely get some apple cider! These are just a few of what I expect to be a growing list.

Get to know your farmer! Brian Alexander, known on Social Media and Podcasts as the Red Hills Rancher, says it best "Shake the hand that feeds you." I want our customers to have a knowledge and appreciation for where food comes from. I want to be transparent and accessible. I want to meet more farmers and know where more of our local food comes from.

Let's walk through this together,