Save A Local Farm

Good afternoon friends,

I wish I weren't writing this but I felt called to share this for reasons I'm sure will soon make sense. 
A very dear local farm right here in the Dayton area (Farm on Central) is under attack with local officials. Warren County has come after them with a restraining order, demanding they close their doors because they are “operating as a food retailer like Kroger or McDonalds.”  I can assure you, they are nothing like these two businesses. 

The county has been sitting on this for a couple months, and then after they received a Warren Co business award, they launched this after them.

Unfortunately, after a court hearing yesterday, the judge ruled in favor of the TRO and their business is shut down until further notice!

This is so disheartening, as a fellow local farm owner here. I can attest to the fact that the County/State/Government officials are not in favor of small farm businesses. We have personally experience being reported on with letters from the health department as well.

Reminder: Farm on Central has done NOTHING wrong. They are operating legally, with a PMA (private membership association) and this is how they sell their food to over 3,000 members. These members who rely on their clean, organic food, are now closed off with no access.

Additionally, Farm on Central has 25 employees on the farm who rely on this income solely. They ALL need your support!

Here are some ways you can help:

  • Reach out to your local officials. Warren County Healthy Department for starters, as well as many other state reps. A list can be found on their website savefarmoncentral.com

  • Consider donating. They not only have legal fees to pay, but again, 25 employees who depend on this job full time.

  • Share this story! Head to their website, facebook page, or instagram and share this story. The more eyes that can see it the better. They need our support!

  • Finally, be thinking and praying for the Kilpatricks. Savannah and Michael are friends of ours, and we pick the most delicious strawberries there every year. In fact, we were just there two weeks ago (see photos below). Their farm is gorgeous, organic, and produces MUCH wholesome food for the community. Seeing them shut down is just so saddening.

Again, follow their website for updates, and consider supporting them in any way you can.

We are with you, Farm on Central!

www.savefarmoncentral.com

Chicken. It wasn't always my favorite.

The first time my husband brought up the idea of raising meat chickens, I thought he was weird. I’ll be honest.

He wanted to raise 18 of these smelly birds first in our basement, gross, and then in our backyard where they just sat and got fat and pooped.

Then he mentioned that we would also be butchering them in our yard too. Sorry, what?

I said have fun! And then refused to use them out of the freezer.

Listen, we all have to start somewhere right? Lol. I was just slow going. Because the next year, ugh, he wanted to raise them again. I said why? We still have all 18 birds in the freezer! 😂

But after our first son was born, and I had to start feeding and providing for another human life that I created, I felt the nudge to look at food differently. I started caring about where it came from and what ingredients were involved in the process. Was this processed? Is it real food? Do chickens really come from other places besides the grocery? Lol again.

Slowly, after raising 15-18 meat chickens per year, I started to come around and realize what kind of control we held. After we moved back to Ohio, just a couple years after those first few birds grew up in my basement, we graduated to raising 22 meat birds. Whoa. We had to find space to store 22 whole birds! I didn’t even know how to cook a whole chicken, but I felt secure knowing they were in my freezer.

Fast forward a few years, we now raise 100% of our meat right here on our homestead. (If I could find a way to raise wild caught salmon, I’d do that too).

See I didn’t start out in this homestead journey knowing, or even approving of each new thing we ventured on.

Did I also mention when we first married my husband had the audacity to put raw milk in our house fridge? (nose is stuck up here).

HA! Now I’m the one with a milk cow, and he’s the one refusing to milk her. ;)

My whole point to this post is that sometimes we build a homestead because it looks dreamy. Sometimes it’s because we grew up doing that, so we continue the skills in our future families. But sometimes it’s because we desire to provide the best of the best for our kids & family, even though it looks or seems gross, hard, intimidating or impossible.

I’m here as proof, it’s possible. It’s possible to completely shift your mindset from “you’ll never catch me doing that” to “that needs to become apart of our lives”.

If you find yourself in the same boat, check out the resources on our website, and consider coming to one of our homestead events. We teach lots of classes on all homesteading topics and are here to help you! It’s a passion of ours to see more small scale farms popping up across the area. So if we can help in any way, we’d love to!

This summer we will be offering chicken butchering classes. Small, 10:1 classes where you’ll get to butcher alongside us and practice for yourself. We will teach you everything you need to know about raising and butchering chickens. Including the best (and cheapest) place to buy chicks, how long it takes, how much to budget for feed, which breeds are best for you, how to butcher, what equipment is needed, how to package, and how you can get your meat paid for.

I haven’t offered this to the public yet so if you’ve read this far, consider yourself an insider. Lol.
And if you’re wanting to be an early bird ;) go ahead and sign up for the class now! It’s open, just not announced yet.
Each class comes with everything I listed above, as well as lunch, handouts, and everyone will go home with one chicken that they butchered and packaged.

CLICK here to learn more.

How to use your entire [whole] chicken

Because we’re not going to be afraid of purchasing or cooking a whole chicken anymore, k?

All jokes aside, buying a chicken as a whole bird is the cheapest way to buy it! Especially if you’re putting in the effort to make room in your budget for quality, pasture raised meat - why not use the whole thing and really get your money’s worth??

Sure, getting already cut and packaged chicken breasts or thighs is very convenient and takes all of the prep work out, but a. the price goes up significantly per pound, and b. you’re missing out on so many nutrient dense parts of the bird!

First let’s talk about cooking.
The fastest and easiest way to cook up your whole chicken is in an instant pot. You can cook the entire chicken on high pressure for 30 minutes! Or, if you don’t use an instant pot like me, you can roast your bird in the oven at 300 for about an hour and a half or until the inside reaches 165 degrees. (the longer it cooks, the more it’ll fall apart) We cook ours in a dutch oven but any covered oven safe dish works. Recipe below!

Now that the whole bird is seasoned and cooked, you have many options! You can pick all of the meat off the bones and save it for future meals, or you can serve the fully cooked bird to your family for dinner. After you’ve gotten all the meat off the chicken, save the carcass! Now we’re going to make nutritious bone broth.

The best part is if you roasted it in the oven, you don’t have to do anything except leave the carcass in the pot and add your ingredients! There are a few ways to make bone broth. You can add veggies and herbs if you want to, or you can leave them out. Both options work great. I personally only add some veggies if I have extras laying around. Sometimes I’ll add onion peels or ends, carrots broken in half, and I’ll throw in a garlic clove. But most of the time, I just add my water, salt, pepper and garlic powder. You only want enough water to reach the top of the bones. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar (this draws out the nutrients in the bones, therefore making it bone broth not chicken stock). You can cook your bone broth on a low temp in the oven over night like I do, or a crockpot, or wait and cook the next day. I roast mine on a lower temp of 200 degrees for 8-10 hours. I like to just do this over night while I’m sleeping so I can then deal with it in the morning when I get a chance.

By using your whole bird this way, you’re paying one set price for so much meat, plus about half a gallon of nutrient dense, quality bone broth! Way to kill two birds with one stone! ;)

I realize this may seem like a no brainer for some. But we have a lot of customers who aren’t sure how to cook a whole chicken this way, or are just unfamiliar with handling the whole bird.

So, I wanted to create a post showing you exactly how to cook a whole chicken so that those of you who have never done it this way, aren’t afraid of purchasing the bird in whole. Because it really is the most inexpensive way to buy.

Recipe for roasting a whole chicken:

Ingredients:
Whole bird
1 tsp garlic powder (or more to taste)
1 tsp onion powder
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
Squeeze of lemon wedge (optional)
Olive or avocado oil

Instructions:
Remove whole chicken from packaging and pat dry. Drizzle with olive oil and rub to coat chicken.
Sprinkle your seasonings on top of chicken and rub in.
Roast chicken in a covered dutch oven at 300 degrees for two hours or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
After finished, let sit for 5 minutes and drizzle with lemon juice.
Serve immediately.
*Save carcass afterward and add water to just above the bones, sprinkle of garlic powder, onion powder, or leftover veggie scraps and splash of apple cider vinegar. Put back in oven for 8-10 hours at 175-200 degrees. Strain and store bone broth.

MY Favorite Way to Make Money on my Homestead

One of the key aspects of running a homestead is finding ways to make money from your land. And this isn’t about greed, but rather about sustainability. If you want to continue to grow in becoming self sufficient, it does cost money. Even though we’ve found ways to raise/grow a ton of our own needs right here on our land, it still takes money to do so.

So, finding ways to generate income from your property is not only wise, but helps your community at the same time! You’re providing something of value to your friends and family around you and we need more of that in our day and age! We are huge supporters of small scale farms, and love to see more and more people building their dream homestead.

I have had to get creative in finding ways to generate income from our land over the past 10 years, and I’m here to share with you my favorite (small scale) way I create income right from my backyard.

Selling plant starts.

The first year we did a plant sale, it occurred to me while I was nurturing and watering tiny seedlings in my basement on a cool March night, that I could and should plant the rest of my seed packet even though I wouldn’t be needing every single plant. Why? Because someone else in my community might! If I was going to do the work already, why not add a few more seedlings and then sell them when it’s time to plant? This covered all of my seed starting supplies, and basically had my garden paid for.

All I did was grab some 50 and 72 cell trays, good quality seed starting soil, a couple grow lights, 4” pots, and quality seeds. That is all you need to do this! It might be a bit of money to start up if you’re starting with zero supplies, but once you begin selling seedlings, you’ll make that money back and then some! You can even find every bit of your supplies right on amazon. I’ve linked some items down below that are a great price, and great for this little side gig!

4” seedling pots

Cell trays

Grow lights (8 pack - great deal!)

For the seed starting soil, if you’re in the Midwest I recommend Rural King’s organic compost mix. It’s only $6.99 per bag. If you are local to Xenia, I recommend Deal’s Landscape in Beavercreek as they have the best price for specific seed starting soil with great germination results. It’s a bit pricey at $15 per bag, but very high quality soil. And if you are not near one of those options, Lowe’s has a great price on a bag of organic potting mix. Just be sure to check that it has at least .06% nitrogen in it, which you can find on the back of the bag. You’re looking for something with added fertilizer.

I hope this post encourages you to find some creative ways to make some profit off your land. If you’re taking care of multiples acres, it might as well work for you and serve your family. :)

Also if you enjoyed this post, CLICK HERE for my free guide where I show you 5 super easy ways you can make money on your homestead. This post is one of them.

Do you enjoy this type of content? Are you ready to learn more about making your homestead sustain itself? Possibly even profit off your land? I will soon be offering more in depth teaching/discussion about ways to make your homestead pay for itself. A monthly subscription based learning, where I’ll set up monthly zoom calls and classes, show you exactly how we manage our homestead, what our numbers look like with selling chicken and beef, and much more. If you’re ready to dive deeper into the management side of homesteading, Click Here to be added to the wait list. You’ll be notified as soon as it comes out!