Blog - ZOE Farms

Hi, I'm Sierrah

There are many things we take for granted, especially for those of us who have our health. Maybe you can run. Maybe you can see perfectly. Maybe you can breathe out of your nose. I can’t...breath out of my nose. I’ve had chronic allergies since I was young, giving me a perpetually stuffy nose. It’s a rare and happy day when I can take a deep inhale through my nostrils. In elementary school, I remember eating at my friend’s house and one of her parents scolded me for chewing with my mouth open. “You can chew with your mouth closed?” I asked. When you have to breathe through your mouth, you chew and breathe at the same time.Both my parents have degrees in biology, so growing up, my love for research was encouraged. I was specifically fascinated with what we put in and on our bodies. The food we eat, the makeup we wear, the fabric of our clothes. I’d listen to podcasts and read blogs about health and nutrition, all the while listening to the discoveries my parents made as we talked at the dinner table.We learned about what to avoid when making wise food choices. Why preservatives such as nitrates commonly found in meats like jerky and bacon are harmful (in case you’re curious: nitrates are a preservative that disrupt our gut microbiome) which is why our bacon and snack meats don’t add artificial nitrates. We learned about the horrible effects glyphosate--a widely sprayed pesticide used on pretty much any food-bearing plant imaginable--has on our gut. This is why we team up with a family that grows organic produce, never spraying glyphosate. Early on, it was clear that what we eat has the power to hurt or heal us. All of this helped us make good decisions as consumers, but now, we get to be mindful producers too.Through all this discovery, I hadn’t given much thought to my allergies being linked to foods I ate because it seemed unlikely. Afterall, I change what I eat all the time, but my allergies are constant. It wasn’t until recently that a string of YouTube videos led me to a community of people with severe autoimmune disorders who had healed themselves through diet alone. But these folks were kinda nutty. In an attempt to find their “triggers,” they scrapped everything but meat in their diet. And it worked!“Well,” I thought, “I live on a farm that produces a lot of meat. What have I got to loose?” So I hopped on the nutball train and ate nothing but meat and eggs for 10 days. It worked. Three days in, I was able to breathe through my nose a bit. By day seven, I could hum a tune, perhaps another thing nose-breathers may take for granted. As I began adding new foods into my diet, I found the trigger. Dairy. Before my experiment, I used to drink two gallons of milk a week during the summer months. Milk was my favorite drink. No wonder I couldn’t smell! Fortunately, Paint Valley, the Amish micro-dairy with which we partner, supplies us with plenty of goat milk and goat cheese I can enjoy.I’ve experienced first hand the power of food. As farmers, we want to give our patrons the best chance at a healthy life because there are so many others out there who have problems much worse than mine. We’ve always committed to selling the kind of food we would want to buy. We aren’t the dairy farmer who buys his milk at the grocery store because it's better than what’s in his pale. We eat everything we produce because it’s the best. This isn’t a sales pitch; it’s the truth. Our food is healing and my journey has been proof of that. I’m grateful to have such an abundance of clean, nutritious food all in one place. I’m grateful, and I’m not ashamed to say it: I’m proud. I’m proud to be a part of this farm because anyone who comes to us knows we care. We only get one body. What we put in can damage or heal, and we have chosen to be part of the healing. If you’re one of the folks who buys food from our Caboose, thank you for being a part of our mission to heal our land, our soil, and our bodies at the same time.

A Symphony of Symbiosis

At first glance, you might think you’re going to be reading a story about music… that is, unless you already know what symbiosis is all about. If we take a look at Webster’s textbook definition of the term, we might simply believe that it applies to only some critters living together. Around here, though, we see it as the foundation of our farm's food production model.Textbooks are good and all, but they generally only describe a small portion of what we can really experience in the real world. I like to think of complex principles in simple terms. I get through my day a whole lot easier if I try not to wrap my head around too many complex things at once. The easiest way I can relate to the real-world benefits of a symbiotic relationship is to apply some fuzzy math. To me, symbiosis means 1+1=5! You read that correctly, it’s wrong math but in the real world it makes sense. Sure, peanut butter is great. Strawberry jam is yummy too. Slather them together on a piece of bread and voila – it’s better together! Let’s see how this relates to farm animals though.Our farm is what’s known as a multi-species, or diversified operation. That means we have many different things going on at the same place and usually at the same time. We’re not just “cattle farmers” or “chicken farmers”. The opposite of diversified is specialized. The opposite of a multi-species crop is a mono-crop. As a general rule of thumb, Mother Nature despises sameness. Let’s put that another way, she loves diversity. I’m sure most are aware of the term biodiversity, but how many of us really know WHY this is important? There’s more to it than just the nice thought of “all the pretty little birdies” are just more colorful! Natural systems are highly complex and highly ordered. Everything has a function and provides a service for the overall well-being of an ecosystem. Mother nature doesn’t use tractors, sprayers, seeders and harvesting machines to accomplish the tasks needed for a well-balanced, highly productive ecosystem. The right species are in the right place at the right time performing the right functions for the whole system to function smoothly. One could say it’s a “well-oiled machine”.When you look at a beautiful forest, have you ever wondered how it survives without fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation? It just works, doesn't it? Can we apply the lessons learned in this ecosystem to a farm? Oh my word – if we are to believe the doctrine coming from the high priests of our modern industrialized agriculture system, we can’t possibly imagine a highly productive farming enterprise without the latest techno-glam, genetically modified, GPS precision-placed seeds and sprays. Who planted that forest? Who applies the fertilizers and pesticides? How in the world has it survived all these thousands of years without our tinkering? I highly recommend pondering that for a moment.We’ve asked ourselves these questions in our pursuit of an efficient, scalable food production operation. Rather than finding answers from all of the agricultural scientists with fancy titles, or fertilizer salesmen with the latest cides-concoctions (herbicides, pesticides…) we've listened to Mother Nature. Be careful however. Don't write this off as some whimsical, hippy-dippy tree-hugger strumming koombaya around a campfire with expectation of hearing nature’s secrets whispered through the tree leaves. Not hardly.Here at our farm, we study how these highly productive ecosystems actually work in nature, then set the stage for it to work on our farm with the end result being human food production. We study the types of animals in these natural systems performing major ecological functions, then try to mimic their actions with a commercially suitable analog (similar critter). Here’s an example. A well-managed herd of cows (herbivores) can be used in a savanna environment in Ohio much the same way a wild herd of wildebeests functions in the Serengeti. A population of yellow-throated-sandgrouse serves the herbivores of the Serengeti by scraping through their dung piles to eat parasitic (harmful) larva. We use a flock of hens (chickens) to perform the same function in our pastures. What’s best is that they give us an egg every day! Think about it - they actually pay us for doing a job we would otherwise need to spend money to accomplish! 1 + 1 = 5! By closely studying symbiotic relationships in natural settings and mimicking those in our own production operation, we are able to operate a highly productive whole system. We don’t have to use toxic fly sprays on our cows because the chickens ate all the fly larva before they could hatch. We don’t have to fertilize our pastures or even spread manure because the cattle naturally do it every day as we move them through the system. The end result of it all is a food product raised in a way most closely mimicking its natural design. Just like the beautiful forest ecosystem, we can do it with zero chemicals of any kind… not even the “organically approved” ones.Our experience with this type of operational mindset has proven to work quite well. To be honest, it’s performing better than we originally thought it would. Many of our traditional farmer friends (yes - we don’t demonize our friends growing GMO corn. They are our neighbors and we love them) still think we’re hippy-dippy tree-huggers, but we’re fine with that. They’re amazed we don’t vaccinate our cattle or inject them with de-wormer. We’re OK with being the odd-balls on the block. To us, it’s far easier to just line up the right animals at the right time for the right job than it is to make a monthly payment on a quarter million-dollar machine.With all our talk about "eco" this and "mimic" that, what’s the real bottom line? Eat an egg, a pork chop or a rib-eye steak from a critter that’s lived its life in a setting doing exactly what it’s designed to do and you’ll taste the difference immediately. It’s the nutrient-dense, wholesome, amazing taste that can only come from a well-conducted symphony of symbiosis.

It's About Time

In one form or another, we are asked the question a lot – “I want to buy my family’s food directly from farmers, what would a family budget look like?”. There are so many variables at play, it is nearly impossible to come up with an appropriate answer. It is a lot like asking – “how much is a car?”. Do you want the car to have heated leather seats, or are you fine with warming them up with your rear-end? Will your automobile auto-correct your driving if you veer into another lane, or are you willing to put down your phone and pay attention to the road? How much we spend on food follows much of the same thought process. Am I going to put in the work, or will I pay for convenience? I can easily thaw out a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and whip up an easy dinner. If your family wishes to make the transition into ZOE Farms that way, plan on paying $13 per pound for that convenience for ONE MEAL. On the other hand, if you wish to extract maximum value from a WHOLE CHICKEN, then follow along. A chicken has two breasts, two breast tenders, two wings, two legs, two thighs and a back that they are all attached to. If our chickens average five pounds and we sell them for $4.29 per pound, you get all that for about twenty-two bucks. Here is what that one whole chicken does for us: a family of four, full-size appetites. Meal 1 – fajitas stir fry using breasts and tenders Meal 2 – grilled legs and thighs with wings Meal 3 – chicken veggie soup using the back and neck as a base stockFor twenty-two dollars, we fed our family three times. Compare this to thirteen dollars for one meal and it is easy to demonstrate the cost of convenience. If I want to text message while driving, I should probably pay for the technology to keep me safe. If I put my phone down and watch the road around me, I don’t need that safety feature on my car. If I want to do the work in the kitchen, then I spend the time to save the money. Saving a ton of time, a family can hit the drive-thru to pickup four chicken sammies, four fries and four toxic sugar-fiz drinks (That should be the lawful name of them :-) for about twenty two bucks. On the flip-side, a family leaving our farm with a twenty-two dollar chicken will go home, cut it up and stretch it into three meals. In both situations, nearly the same money is being spent. The difference is choosing how to spend TIME. If the line-ups at the chicken sandwich joints are any indication – there is plenty of MONEY available in food budgets. Similarly, our rapidly increasing group of farm patrons tells me that there is a growing number of folks dedicated to giving their families the most important resource they have when it comes to food – the TIME to prepare it.

We all need to eat - thoughts on resiliency

Text below. Audio here ->> The 2008 financial crisis swept across the globe like a swift wind, knocking over every frail financial institution in its path. The chilly breeze blew into the lives of families all over our nation in the form of foreclosures, frozen credit and skyrocketing energy prices. All of this taking place just moments after our leaders promised that “the housing market will never go down.” We all settled in for a “new normal”. Gas prices hitting $4.00, adult children and their families moving back in with their parents and wages being smashed by what was being called “The Great Recession.” I remember it and its teachable moment well. I was a Vice President at a global fitness equipment company, traveling the world on a weekly basis. One day in Los Angeles, the next in London followed by a week in Japan. What I witnessed over this decade-long chapter of my life being a hot-shot, bigtime business-man served to shape the lens through which I see the world today. The entire thing is holding on by a thread, and it could snap at any time. Fast-forward to today and that sentence will sink in like a stone cast into still water. Just as a boulder sends out ripples across a smooth lake, Coronavirus 2020 is reshaping our perceptions of a “new normal”. Six months ago, “social distancing” was not in our vocabulary. Sixty days ago we could shake hands and -- Wait for it – buy toilet paper! That was yesterday. Today, we wear masks and hand sanitizer is nowhere in sight. Today, headlines herald the closure of meat packing plants, farmers dumping milk, vegetable crops being plowed under and shortages at the supermarket shelf. Our world we once knew seems turned upside down. The entire thing is holding on by a thread, and it could snap at any time. Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen and backseat drivers can always second guess. The reality is, however, we’re in the driver’s seat and the vehicle is hurdling forward. We don’t need a tinfoil hat or a loud voice in our left ear telling us that we made a wrong turn. The windshield needs to be clean and the headlights on bright to see what lies ahead. What can I do TODAY to soften the landing should that thin thread suddenly come unraveled? In 2009, I took up the study of global financial institutions. Fractional-reserve lending and fiat monetary policy fascinated me. It’s much the same today as everyone becomes the neighborhood’s most well-informed virologist or epidemiologist. Suddenly, we all know how viruses are spread and how to contain them. We become experts at understanding hospital bed capacities and population-based pandemic statistics. After all, we flattened the curve! A decade ago is the same as today. Becoming an expert on what just happenedis a mental merry-go-round that gets us no further ahead in preparation for the next shockwave to inevitably hit our fragile society. Ideas need to get out of the head and onto the ground. Intelligence needs to be actionable. The common denominator that I discovered over a decade ago has become even more glaringly obvious today. We all need to eat. True one thousand years ago. True today. While technology has brought us marvelous advances like Zoom rooms and remote worksites, it has not solved this age-old biological reality. In the wake of The Great Recession, our family listed out the necessities of daily living and set forth a plan to secure a buffer supply of each item on that list. Ultimately, I left the global fitness equipment business in disgust only to find myself today as a farmer. If you would have told me in 2011 that today I would be making a living from the land, I would have laughed at you. On that same day, however, many laughed at me when I told them I had a one year supply of food and – wait for it – toilet paper! Coronavirus 2020 may have changed everything, but one thing remains the same: we all need to eat. Suddenly, a deep freezer and a well-planned pantry seems less like a laughing matter, and more like a life insurance policy.