You're Invited!

Please be our guest! Come enjoy a day on the farm and see where your food comes from. Bring your friends and family. We're looking forward to seeing you! (See details below)

Your farmers,

This year, our Annual Customer Appreciation Day is planned for October 1st (rain date will be Oct. 16th).

We'll be offering a tour of the farm, a delicious farm fresh lunch, as well as many activities of interest for the entire family. Bring your friends and family. (The meal is free, but donations will be welcomed.) We're looking forward to seeing you!

RSVP for this Event NOW!

NOTE

GUIDELINES

We are thrilled to announce that your very own farmer from West Wind Farms, Ralph Cole, was named Tennessee's Star Small Farmer of the Year!

Farmers from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties are nominated each year for recognition for their “exemplary efforts”. The three categories for nomination are, “Best Management Practices”, “Innovative Marketing” and “Alternative Enterprises”. Six farmers are ultimately selected, with one being named the Over All Winner in all categories. Ralph was this year's Over All Star Small Farmer of the Year.

The identification, selection and recognition was a joint effort of the agricultural related sister agencies in Tennessee. These agencies included Tennessee State University Cooperative Extension, Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Farm Services Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA Rural Development, Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, Farm Services Agency, and others.

Ralph and Kimberlie accepted their award from the Commissioner of Agriculture, Ken Givens, during a special ceremony on July 19 at TSU Extension’s Small Farm Expo and Awards Luncheon.

Zach is a young man from Madison, WI that interned with us for tens months ending Sept. 1. Zach was a big help to us while he was here and carried a lot of the routine load (day-to-day animal feeding and other chores). We, in turn, believe he learned a lot while he was here, and he grew a lot, too. We wish Zach the best in all that he does from here on out.

Now that Zach has gone home to Wisconsin, I’ve re- taken those tasks that Zach performed while he was here. It is great to visit with the animals daily and spend more time observing them. The lambs run towards me instead of away, and the pigs want to be scratched. That intimate animal contact is very rewarding.

One of the most rewarding experiences came tonight. I’ve been hand-milking two of the Jersey cows, Daisy and Violet. Each has a different personality, mannerisms and habits. During milking, Daisy likes to knock her treat bowl over, and stretch for the treat bag. Violet gets fidgety and likes to stamp her feet while being milked. (Not to mention the tail-in-the-milker’s face routine.) While sometimes cute, animal habits can extend the milking time and result in kicked milk pails and spilled milk.

So, I’ve tried to figure out why the cows act the way they do and modify the situation to remove the temptations or irritations. This way, my nose doesn’t get bruised by flying cow tails, everyone's happier, and I get to bed sooner.

After milking, I scratch their ears and neck and spend personal time with them. Tonight during her scratching, Violet licked my pants leg until the cloth was wet. If cow-licking is a sign of bovine affection, then I must be in good standing.

That’s really what animal husbandry is all about – arranging the animal’s environment so that the animal is comfortable and can do what she was designed to do. When the animals are content, so many things fall in to place that we humans so often want to fix with inventions of our own. Remove the causes and we don’t need the expensive fixes. This model has analogies in human health too, but that will require another article in another newsletter.

Ralph

West Wind Farms has a good selection of beef and pork at this time. We’ve added a few new items that are not yet posted on our website, but are being made available to our newsletter customer list first.

Grassfed Beef Skirt Steak – I have to admit, I was not familiar with this one. Thanks for the suggestion to cut and offer it. We look forward to trying it ourselves. If you have a good recipe for Skirt Steak, we’ll post it in our next newsletter.

Grassfed Beef Rump Roast – Offered once a while back, it’s here again by request. Rump roast is the ideal Sunday pot roast.

Grassfed Beef Sweetbreads – It can be hard to find sweetbreads these days, more less ones you can trust. We don’t have many, but they are available. What is a sweetbread anyway, you ask? In beef, it’s the thymus. (In pork, they are the pancreas glands.) Precook, remove outer membrane, thinly slice, batter-dip or bread, and deep fry.

In chicken, our newest product is our West Wind Farms’ Organic Cornish Game Hen. Less than 2 lbs, a Cornish Game Hen makes the ideal single serving entrée. They are also easy to split between children.

No new pork products yet, but we have some wonderful new products planned. If you like sausage, or the convenience of a ready to cook entrée, you’ll want to watch for our new organic pork products coming next month. All of these new products will be made, of course, with our pastured Berkshire Pork, a wonderful heritage breed pork, full of flavor.

Recipe of the month: Apple Juice Roast Beef

Meat and poultry can be prohibitively expensive for low-income families. When the budget is tight, meat is often skipped in favor of less expensive forms of protein like soy. Organic meat is out of the question. The economics effectively prevent some families from feeding their children meat and poultry produced without antibiotics, pesticides, or synthetic hormones. We think there's something wrong with that picture.

West Wind Farms is trying to make a difference for some lower income families. With the help of a program called Second Harvest, West Wind Farms donates a percentage of its organic, grassfed meat and poultry production every year to lower income families. Second Harvest helps by distributing our meat and poultry to families with the greatest need.

West Wind Farms also offers its meat and poultry in exchange for bartered services, products or equipment. A farm can use alot of stuff; you might say our farm is wealthy with bartering opportunities! Call us, meet us at market, or email us to discuss your service, product or equipment. Now that’s something you can’t get from you local grocer!