MEAT DELIVERY

I've just returned from delivering fresh lamb meat to a few of our customers. It was a beautiful day with a bright sun that seemed to raise everyone's spirits. Today's clear skies, my delivery tasks, the new green grass, the very pregnant ewes, and visions of the new lambs that will soon to be joining our flock, all led me to think a bit more than I usually do about that sunshine. I'll get back to the sun thing later, but first -

I don't apologize for the pride I felt today as I delivered fresh lamb meat to my customers. When we first entered into this venture, one of our objectives was to honor the small family model of agriculture that was so important in the history of this country. It simply wasn't enough to raise healthy sheep in an ecologically sustainable way, or to conserve an heirloom breed of sheep and its genetic pool, or earn show ribbons, or sell breeding stock to others that also had similar objectives. What was equally, or perhaps even more important, was that we had an end product (or products) that a customer base would be willing to fairly compensate us for. It wasn't critical that we make a lot of money, but to honestly honor the history of agriculture we had to be rewarded for our efforts. With the help from our customers today, we met that so important objective - and thus my pride as I delivered each of those boxes of meat. Its the same pride I feel when I send out bags of fleece or batts of processed wool.

Back to the sun thing. I realize that I didn't create these products that bring me such pride. The ewes and the rams certainly had something to do with it. My pride comes in the fact that I was able to harvest the sun by capturing its energy in grass and forage, and then able to convert it from grass to meat and fleece. Of course I had to be smart about it and work a bit. But with a bit of husbandry and sensitive stewardship of this little piece of the earth, I can provide a discerning customer with a product that they can be assured was raised in a ecologically sustainable manner that fully recognized the completeness of each animal. Thus my pride. And to my customers: Bon Apetit.