Things here on the farm have slowed down a little over the winter. Other than feeding the cows and the few layer chickens we have, there hasn’t been a whole lot going on in the means of actual farm work. We have been doing a lot of planning for the new year. One of the things we have been working on is being able to open a store here on the farm. Many of you have seen on our Facebook page that we are looking for some funding to get it started. We have decided to go ahead with our plan of selling gift cards to raise the money to get it started. I figured the best way to explain how it will work and how to sign up for it was to put it on my blog so everyone can see it.
We are going to make available 20 gift cards. They can be purchased for $500 or $250 by cash or check only. They can be used anytime, you don’t have to wait until we get the store open. You will receive a 10% discount on purchases of our meat with the card. The cards can only be used to purchase our beef and poultry products. You may purchase the cards here at the farm starting Feb 22 or for some of you that live farther away, you can mail us a check to: Phil Greenlee 759 St Rt. 850 Bidwell Ohio 45614. We can mail you the card back, or can make special arrangements for those that get special delivery service (usually my brother). When we get the store up and running, the cards can only be used for our meat products. If you have any further questions please message us or call us.
We are hoping to get our store open by Memorial Day weekend. Our goal is to make this a market for not only our products, but also other locally raised products. Our goal is to for almost everything we carry to be from within a 100-125 mile radius of our farm. As much as possible will be within 50 miles. Working with local producers is our main priority. Our other priority will be that we are totally GMO free. We know to most of you that buy our meat that this is a big purchasing point, therefore we do not want to go back on our laurels and provide you with products that we feel are as safe and clean as our products. Some of the things we hope to have will be seasonal like fresh produce. Others will be available year-round. We are starting to look for and trying to line up producer/suppliers. To start, we hope to be open about 3 afternoons and evenings and every Saturday. When school starts back in the fall, we will probably have to shorten that schedule but plan to be open every Saturday.
With the addition of the store, and our boys becoming more involved, we are going to change some of the way our farming enterprise is structured. The biggest of these is our beef business. We will still be doing 100% grassfed beef. We are limited on the number of animals we can raise. We currently have about 20 breeding animals, plus all their calves and yearlings. Our current inventory is about 60 head. We need to cut this back to about 30. We have been working on an arrangement with a close friend that has a cowherd similar to ours. He is all grass fed, GMO free. In the future we will be buying his calves at weaning and raising them here till they are processed. This will allow us to raise and butcher more calves each year without having to find more land to rent. We also plan on increasing the number of chickens and turkeys we raise. Our sons are also working on increasing the amount of produce they raise, their focus is going to be lettuce and other greens, and we are hoping to add a hoop house by fall, so they can produce many of their crops nearly year round.
Be watching our FB page for an announcement about being able to get our products at another restaurant. I met with a restaurant in Gallipolis last week, and we are working on some proposals to get on their menu sometime next month.
Until next time, Phil