Greetings to all from one of the newest employees at Homestead Farms!

Some of you wonderful customers may have already met me (pleased to make your acquaintance), and some I have yet to meet (I look forward to it). To those who I haven’t met, I’ll give you a little insight about myself

My name is Katie Shaw.

I’m originally a Keller native, but I currently live in Denton, TX.

I’m a senior at the University of North Texas, and if the stars align I’ll have a degree in English Literature and Russian Language Studies in December of this year.

Why am I here?

I’m here because Michael and Sarah are rock stars (figuratively, not literally, of course). I dropped by the store one afternoon to pick up a few goodies, and I randomly asked Michael if they could use some weekend help. His response? “I thought you’d never ask.” I wasn’t expecting such a quick, definite answer, but the timing couldn’t have been better for both parties.

Aside from wanting to make a little extra money, I wasn’t able to answer the “why am I here?” question until after my first day. Initially, I just wanted a weekend job for a little extra cash, but working at Homestead Farms has turned into more than that. This isn’t a just a job for me, it’s a chance to reach out to my community and help educate my neighbors about how important it is to know where your food comes from, and how it’s raised. I may not be able to answer all the questions you have right now, but I’m constantly learning to better educate myself and others. If I can’t answer your question, I’ll make sure to do my research so that next time you stop by the store I am ready to give you the best answer I can.

Before starting here, I was aware that the need for sustainable farming was great, but I didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude. I don’t know about you guys, but the idea that food comes from a factory freaks me out. My life hasn’t been the same since I watched Food, Inc. during a Netflix documentary binge. If you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest you watch it.

On a less serious note, here are some of my favorite things about working at Homestead Farms:

All of you customers! Okay, that may sound a little cliché, but I don’t care because it’s true. I meet so many interesting people, and you all bring me so much joy. I’m constantly learning new things from each person, like how to properly cook and enjoy beef liver (shout out to Reed and Daneen!).

Farm Camps. I’ve only been a part of a few farm camps so far this year, but they’ve been a totally new learning experience. I get to teach children about life on the farm, the importance of farms in the local community, and the role each animal plays in their life. Seeing the knowledge slowly seep into their budding minds is pretty cool to see.

Goat Milk. It’s raw. It’s fresh. It’s delicious. Need I say more?

Kombucha. Although this is a new product, and I kind of badgered Sarah to get it in the store, it’s probably one of my favorite items. I’ve tried brewing my own time and time again, but I have a hard time getting it to taste just the way I want it. I’ll probably end up spending my whole paycheck solely on kombucha, it’s that good. For those of you not familiar with kombucha, it’s a fermented tea beverage jam packed with great bacteria and probiotics. Delish.

The Green House. I’m not even going to try to explain everything going on in the $125 greenhouse, but it’s wicked awesome. Aquaponics. Fish. Recycled water. It’s super fancy, and way over my head, so maybe Farmer Michael can it explain it all to you one day.

I like many things about this place, and I can’t wait to continue to watch the farm grow; it’s an exciting occurrence. Sarah and Michael’s passion for this place is inspiring, and their enthusiasm is contagious.

So, if you’re in the area on a Saturday, drop by the store and say hello. I’d love to meet you!

I’ve be hearing this phrase quite a bit recently.  It probably has something to do the lots of kids picking out the perfect size and price pumpkin, but it’s been relevant in our farm’s growth too.

As you know we’ve been desperately trying to raise money to remodel the house, at the front of our property, into a new store. EVERYTHING has been much more expensive then we’d anticipated, the city of Fort Worth has given us a mountain of hoops to jump through, and our fundraising efforts have been failures.   We’ve made a little leeway on raising funds and making progress on construction, but not the leaps and bounds that we had imagined when buying the property.

A little defeated, we’ve gone about in our daily business of running a retail store and a multi-enterprise farm, and abut two weeks ago a miracle fell into our laps.  It has nothing to do with the new store remodels, but it’s almost better…almost (hey, I run the store, so I’m bias.)

10 years ago, one of the high schools at Birdville built a fancy-shmancy green house for the ag department (oh so big it is.)  We’re talking the Lamborghini of all green houses- fully automatic temperature control, hard plastic cover, automatic waterers, and a shade cloth that automatically covers the house when the temperature gets too hot.

The ag department has shrunk, and the principle wanted the “eye sore” gone.  So they put the green house in a closed bid auction.  Michael’s father works for the school district, knew about the auction, and made a low bid… a REALLY, REALLY low bid-$125. There were no other bids.

After two weeks and much discussion (since they were expecting to get much more for it) by the principle, the school board, and the superintendent; Michael’s patience reached new heights, and they decided it made more sense to practically give the structure, worth about $100,000, to us instead of paying someone else to tear it down.  Ignoring the injustice to the tax payers this is, WE GET A PIMPED OUT GREEN HOUSE!!!

The boys have been tearing it down all week and are planning an old fashioned Green House “raising” next Saturday (Nov. 17- Come check it out, while you get your goods!) It’s going to be a massive chore to get the whole thing back in working order, but once it is, we won’t have an excuse not to grow you some awesome produce.  There’s all kinds of ideas running through Farmer Michael’s head, and we are hoping this new structure will justify hiring more help this spring to completely focus on produce growing!

A few days after learning of our farm’s new acquisition, I said to Michael, “I really think God just isn’t ready for us to be at the new store yet.  We don’t have the vegetable farming going good enough and the store would just be so empty. God gave us this green house because we needed it first.”   Michael completely agreed and said he’d totally been having the same thought.

We got what we got, and we’ve had a little epiphany and reminder that our farm and business is ultimately God’s and He knows the perfect timing for everything.  We are still going to plug away at the new store, but we’re also extremely grateful and excited to see where this green house takes Homestead Farms!

In July we finally convinced the bank to loan us enough to purchase the one acre directly in front of our current store.  We’ve been busy drastically cleaning up the property, tearing down old fences and we have even started growing crops on the front field.

We have big plans to remodel the old house right off of Keller Hicks into a new bigger store.  The new store will include a commercial kitchen for preparing produce for convenience and full butcher counter where we’ll be able to custom cut fresh cuts of meat.  With more customers being able to find us and stop in quickly, we’ll be able to grow more and a larger variety of our ‘better then organic’ produce and other local healthy products for your family.

We’ll be turning the current store into “Sammy’s Playhouse,” a children’s education building for fieldtrips, tours and birthday parties.  Educating our next generation about real and sustainable farming practices is close to our hearts, and with better facilities we will be able to host more children’s events.

We just have one little problem.  We don’t have any more money for the remodels.  Since everything will have to be in code with Fort Worth’s regulations, we believe it is going to take about $70,000 to remodel the new store.

Our gross income has increased (about 50%) every year, for the last 4 years of operation, (during a “recession” with no advertising and absolutely no road frontage) so we have complete faith that the move will create a tremendous amount of growth for our farm.

How can you help?

Buy a Spring T-Shirt. Purchase a spring T-shirt for $15 in our store and all profits go to new store remodels. (Youth sizes XS-L and Adult sizes S-XXL)

Give us a tip. We not only want to know how to make our farm better for you, but we’ll take any spare change you might have for our tip jar on the store counter.  All these pennies add up and will go straight to remodel costs.

Invest.  We are willing to take on long term investors.  It’s not a get rich quick investment, but we aren’t going anywhere and as previously mentioned, our gross income has increased yearly.  Come out on earth day or in to the store to visit more about this opportunity.

Come to our Earth Day Event.  Farmer Michael will be explaining in more detail about our future plans for the farm as well as selling the spring T-shirts.

Due to rising feed prices caused by last summer’s drought and general price increases, this spring we’ve had to go up on milk prices.  After a winter of playing with the books we’ve if we don’t we won’t be here much longer.

Our raw goat milk is now $13 and half gallons will be $7.   To a non goat milk drinker this seems outrageous, but Meyenberg goat milk at the local Central Markets and Sprouts averages about $7.50/ half gallons and that’s the stuff shipped from California, taste awful and is pasteurized.

Here’s a breakdown of where that $13/gallon goes:

Capital Improvements (Barns, Fencing, Feeders, etc)…$0.73

Milk Supplies (Soap, paper towels, bleach, jugs, caps, labels, etc)…$0.47

Formula (to feed baby goats)…$0.07

Grain …$2.18

Hay and Mineral…$1.34

Guard Dog Care…$0.25

Breeding Cost…$0.06

Health…$0.27

Maintenance…$0.27

Management…$0.11

Labor…$5.27

Overhead…$1.21

Total Cost/ Gallon…$12.23

We obviously don’t farm for the money, but we love the way of life.  We appreciate all your success stories, especially about the little ones who survive on the goat milk. You’re why we do what we do!

Homestead Farms has so much to be thankful for this year.  Here are our top five:

5. Getting to do what we love.  Farmer Michael always says “I don’t have a job.  I get to do what I love and play every day of the year.”  (Seriously everyday… as he is currently out doing chores.)  I am so grateful I get to keep on working while and raise my daughter at the same time.

4. Our family.  Homestead Farms wouldn’t be around if our family didn’t trust us to care for and farm this land they have entrusted to us.

3. Growing pains. Our farm is growing by leaps and bounds, and we’ve hit some bumps in the road, but we are so thankful for all the progress our farm has made in the last year.  Our biggest growing pain is affording to remodel the new frontage we were able thankfully able to purchase this last year.

2. Our AMAZING employees.  We have a great team that is always will to step up and keep Homestead Farms running.  It’s hard to find people who are willing to get up before the sun, work in the dirt and weather, and on Holidays.  Thank you Shar, Dillon, Cale and Michael Murray!

1. Our LOYAL customers.  We appreciate y’all’s support!  We don’t do any advertising, but more and more people know about the hidden farm in Keller- THANK Y’ALL!!!

If you’ve been missing or looking for Homestead Farms’ all-natural humanly raised pork, your wait is almost over!  In the first years of farming we kept a hog or two around to be  garbage disposals for spoiled produce and milk, but as our goat herd has increased, we have ran out of space for our garbage disposals.  We’ve not only had space limitations lately, but all along Farmer Michael has had a plan in his head and was never quite happy with our minimal pork production.

This spring we heard about a grant through Green Fellows Inc. that would support sustainable and green practices of all kinds in the North Texas area.  Here are some excerpts of the grant we sent in, and a summary of how the master planed hog/composting facility works!

“Our hog/composting facility will not only provide a comfortable and natural living space for the hogs but will also double as composting facility.

The focus at Homestead Farms is a goat dairy and a produce market, which both create substantial amount of waste.  The hog/composting facility will include six composting pens that will be layered with manure, straw, spoiled produce and grain.  The hogs will then be let in to the pens in a rotation to turn the compost with the use of their natural plow (their snout.).  Not only will this help decompose the compost faster and save Homestead Farms labor, but the hogs will be happy doing what nature intended them to do; rooting in the earth, and getting fat on grubs, worms and spoiled produce. “

“Our hog/composting facilities will be able to provide healthy pork and produce to the local community with little or no carbon foot print and will promote green agricultural education to the community.  While most swine facilities in America create huge amounts of a waste, are bad for the earth, and are a hindrance to the community, our project will enhance the land without polluting surrounding air and water.”

We are super excited that a portion of the project was funded by Green Fellows Inc. and the hog/composting barn is almost finished.  We hope to have young hogs in the barn by the end of August and hopefully pork will be ready for sale by the holiday season.  Look forward to that pork freezer finally being filled again as Homestead Farms adventures into adding hogs to our new barn.

Read more about Southlake Green Day and Green Fellows Inc. at www.southlakegreenday.com

As many of you know and for those who don’t, farmer Michael and I are expecting a new two legged addition to our little farm family in September.  So if you’ve been in the store in the last couple months and I haven’t been the sweetest peach on the tree…sorry I have a good excuse. I was probably either nauseous or starving.  

We are 4 months in and beyond excited, scared, nervous, and stoked to meet the treasure we were given.   Don’t get us wrong though. We are completely aware we have absolutely no idea how our lives are going to be turned upside down in 6 very, very short months.  We are working on moving farmer Michael’s office out of the house and turn it into a nursery, finding money for a car seat compatible vehicle, and trying and figure out how to keep up with our ten hour days.

But all those worries were washed away in a few short moments out in the dairy barn last night.   Surrounded by two 18 year old farm hands, my father in law, farmer Michael and his best friend, we got to see our little munchkin on a 12 inch screen.  Wait-What? No, you didn’t misread.

I’ve always been a road less traveled individual, but when you are a farm girl that road can be WAY off the beaten path! Yesterday we had a reproduction specialist from Oklahoma down to sonogram 40 of our does to find out if any are bred, so we know who to artificially inseminate in April, so they have babies in October, so we can have a little milk for the winter months.  Of course I was #41, since my goofy husband just had to use the sonogram machine on his “bred” wife. 

So picture this- I am STANDING in the middle of the milking parlor, with CORN OIL on my growing belly, as farmer Michael plays with a sonogram machine that was previously used on half our herd of goats, with an audience of 6 males staring at a really dirty 12 inch screen.  But, wouldn’t you know the little booger waved (or just moved) at its daddy and all of a sudden our world got really small and we decided yeah, we CAN do this.  We even got to see its little head and body and even the heart beating. 

I am sure I have to be the only women who goes in for her 20 week sonogram and says “yeah, I’ve already been sonogramed by the vet and seen the baby in our barn.”  As silly, unexpected and one heck of a bumpy road as this farming life all is, we are so excited to get to raise a family with kids who can get dirty, gather their own eggs and go to work with dad any day of the week.

I know I am about 15 days behind on the blizzard news, but our entire farm has been busily de-thawing in this beautiful spring weather. But when the winter wonderland set on North Texas Farmer Michael and I bunkered down for the chaos.  

During North Texas’ version of a blizzard, my mentor who taught me how to cowgirl posted this perfect statement on facebook:

“BREAKING NEWS: There will be no farms or ranches closed due to the upcoming BLIZZARD. Every farmer & rancher will be out in the blistery, cold, blowing wind and heavy snow fall tending to their livestock. They will be praying for machinery to work and non-frozen water pipes. Say a prayer for our farmers and ranchers and thank you for our food.”

There was absolutely no going stir crazy around our farm that week.  After rolling black outs, frozen oil in the milk pump, having to hand milk 32 goats by hand, raising 6 baby goats in our laundry room, and repairing 3 water pipes during and after the blistery cold week we are welcoming spring with open arms!  

We are thankful the spring is just around the corner and we don’t have to deal with temperatures in the teens very often.  We can’t wait until that one March cold front has come and gone and we can start to plant on every flat and plow-able piece of land we have.  

I am also thankful for Ms. Doreen who taught me how real cowgirls work, since the horses still had to be cared for in the rain, shine, triple digits or snow.  Had she not started to drill that into me 16 years ago, I might have had a minor break down two weeks ago. 

Every farm is well acquainted with “If you pray for rain prepare to deal with some mud.” Well, at Homestead Farms January has been more correctly summed up with “If you pray for milk prepare to deal with lots and lots of babies.”

In the last two weeks, 32 of our sweet mama goats have given birth to 67 babies.  Most of these births happened in the ten days between January 5 and 15.  This amazing miracle of life is beautiful, but also creates loads of work for your friendly dairy farmer and his wife.

We knew we had about 30 moms due the first week of January, so the last week of December there was this huge dark green cloud hanging over head, like right before a big Texas storm, warning us of what was to come. I think the smell in the air even changed. We would sneak out to the goat lot to feed and wait to hear the quiet cry of a new baby. But we made it through the holidays and we even enjoyed our calm before the storm by sleeping in, staying snuggled up on the couch reading and napping. Because we knew what was ahead.

You remember the only “kind of, sort of” snow we have seen this year, that brought 10 days of freezing temperatures? The chaos ensued that quiet Sunday morning with 9 new babies to kick off the New Year!  For the next ten days every time we turned around the corner we would find a mama licking off her new trembling baby.  Our lives were consumed with making bottles, warming bottles, and feeding 4 times a day (including a midnight and 6am feedings) and hand milking moms twice a day. 

Because all babies take time to learn to find the nipple, drink standing, and then out of a bottle rack there were a few days it was taking both Farmer Michael and I almost 2 hours to feed all the babies.  Milking also takes twice as long, due to colostrum production.  We have to hand milk mama the old fashion way (and get that specific milk to her baby) for the first five days after she has kidded.   Thank goodness for our amazing farm hands James and Cale, as we would have been a mess without their help.

Things have slowed down and we are feeding only 23 girls three times a day straight out of a bottle rack and Farmer Michael can now milk directly into the milk line.  As I finally have some time to tackle the mountain of yellow pooh and milk stained laundry I can now smile thinking back to those long and seeming like never ending weeks, knowing we now have plenty of that much sought after white gold!

I know this farmgirl is no good at blogging.  Transferring my random cluttered thoughts to complete sentences can be terrifying and getting started often overwhelms me. But my promise to you this year is to be a better blogger, exposing our life as young farmers trying to make a business as old as time a success.

While I am making resolutions for 2011, why not reminisce the best of 2010? In the last year, we sold 2,771 gallons of goat milk, built a new 100 foot barn (like in the last week),  paved our entrance driveway, fed  1500 square bales of hay, gave over 200 hay rides in our pasture, and the store even had a short cameo on Good Morning America. Homestead Farms received the Family Land Heritage Century Farm award from the agricultural commissioner, Todd Staples in July.   In 2010 homestead farms reached our goal of increasing our sales by 50% during a recession and hidden at the end of long hard to find driveway.  

Needless to say we consider 2010 a thrilling success and have even bigger expectations for 2011! We are planning on 2011 to be a year of “more” and to really grow this farm a larger, more well oiled machine.  We are expecting more milk, more Homestead Farms grown produce, more kids groups and tours and maybe even the accusation of more land.

We have had a blessed year and we have all of our loyal customers to thank for your continuous support and help making our dream start to blossom into a full blown company.  We wish you and your family a splendid Holiday and a happy new year!