Things are Looking Up



A warm front is on its way.  Thank you God!  It's supposed to be 44 degrees today and I've heard reports of as high as 55 degrees on Friday.  It's going to be a mess around here with all of the melting snow and ice, but to be honest I need it to melt off some because we are running out of places to put it.  The warm weather will also do the animals around here some good.  So much snow and terribly cold temps for such a long stretch really takes its toll on them as you can imagine.  Heck, all of these cold temps were starting to take their toll on my psyche as well.  I'm suffering from a bad head cold right now.  Last night I thought it was going to kill me, but this morning I feel much better.  We'll see how the day progresses.

We've been getting about a dozen and half eggs a day here and thanks to my lovely wife I no longer have thirteen dozen eggs in my fridge.  She started talking to some people at school and sold all of the eggs I had here and then I was actually in the hole six dozen eggs.  I'm caught up now and have got orders scheduled through the end of this week.  And I've decided that whenever a customer is interested I will definitely put them on a standing order list.  Right now I've got four egg customers who have asked for the eggs to keep coming.  One wants two dozen a week, a couple want one dozen a week and one wants a dozen every other week.  It's nice knowing those are guaranteed sales and I don't have to worry about what to do with them once they are laid.  I am pretty sure that next year prices on the eggs will be going up.  It won't be more than three dollars a dozen, but we were in Wal-Mart last night, and I was checking egg prices there and Great Value brand Organic eggs were $3.38 a dozen.  Cage-Free brown eggs from Eggland's best were $3.22 a dozen.  So although, I'm still making a slight profit at $2.00 a dozen I think that the quality of egg we are offering demands a little higher price than two bucks.  A farm needs to be well rounded and not have all of its eggs in one basket.  My hope is that we'll be able to create an egg enterprise that generates a few thousand dollars revenue a year and that we'll be able to add several more pieces to balance the farm out including broilers and veggies.  The key to our success will be offering real food and not compromising our beliefs in growing food with integrity.  We need to build relationships with our customers and be transparent with them so that they can see where and how their food is grown.  That will be what makes this farm profitable and a success.  I'm feeling better and more encouraged even as I wrote this.  Have a great Sunday everyone!!