Perpetual Optimists, But for how long?

Scenes like these are dissipating. Disappearing from America's landscape. 

There are a few of us still out here eeking out a living though. It's rugged. It's hard. There's not much in the way of convenience making it easy on us. 

It's convenience though that's killing us. Folks want that tidy meat, in easy foam trays. They want to go to the mega store and buy the week's meat, a hinge for the squeaky door, and a gift for a birthday party on Saturday. One stop shop. They don't want to make room for a freezer, and unwrap white paper packages. 

The industry too is to blame. Why buy from hundreds of little guys when you can McBeef it? Huge cattle filled feedlots and semi trucks are chosen over long lines of mom and pop trailers waiting to offload the seasons cattle. Why take in mud and hair covered hogs fresh from a wallow when they can be grown by the thousands on grate-floored steel buildings? The price goes down and automation just goes up and small farmers are being squeezed to death somewhere in the middle. 

Land is also now at a premium, we humans are eating up the land that used to feed us. Cul de sacs fill the land that used to fill grain sacks and shopping centers sprawl where cattle used to graze. 

But there's the few of us still out here. Those of us who thought we were too proud to beg now find ourselves pleading with communities to know their farmer. We form co-ops and collectives. We hold seminars and conferences- talking endlessly about how we change the narrative back to the way it was. How can we get folks to understand the importance of knowing your neighborhood farmers. We work tirelessly trying to stop the housing developments eating up the land and so much more. 

And then we go back out to these hallowed places, where rusty gates creak and wind howls through barns. It's said we farmers are perpetual optimists. But for how long? That loaded question depends- like most stuff us farmers deal with- on things out of our hands. 

Just how much gravel and grit do we American farmers have left in us? Time will tell I suppose. 

For now we keep shutting the gates and bringing in feed. We continue saddling up and hitching trailers. We slap our thighs and exclaim excitedly when another person chooses our vegetables for their tables, our grain bushels for their silo, our hogs for their freezers or our beef for their barbeques. We set our faces against the emptying pens and dwindling pocketbooks. And we pray, oh how we pray for just one more day that we can all keep doing this thing called farming. This thing we hold so dear. 

#supportlocalfarms

#knowyourfarmer

-------------------------

Our pork can be found on our website. Wholes or half freezer ready hogs on sale now! We are grateful for you and you can use code thankyou50 at checkout to take $50 off your white paper wrapped pork at checkout!

Sagle, Idaho

(And if you aren't in our area, please find a farmer in your area, they too will be grateful)