After a long winter slumber, the ranch is beginning to come alive once again. The weather is getting warmer, the grass is turning green, the weeds are reviving and bees are flitting around the emerging blossoms. All of this plant life is bringing the animals back out - whistle pigs, birds, badgers and deer - just to name a few. It is time to start taking action on all of our plans that have been slowly taking shape over winter!
Our family acquired this farm back in November 2017 - nearly 80 acres of alfalfa with the Weiser River Trail running through it, right on Keithly Creek and the Weiser River in the small community of Midvale, Idaho. Our plans to convert this farm into a forage-producing, grass-based animal-raising ranch have been brewing over the winter and now we find ourselves neck deep in work to get things moving in that direction!
One of the goals we have that is paramount to who we are as Black Horse Ranch, is not only sharing our experiences and passion with everyone, but also sharing our ranch. We want to be open and available for people to come check out what we are doing, and even enjoy a farm stay now and again (check back with us for more information on our future farm stay!). We plan to make a big part of our blog a chronicle of our journey - successes and mistakes, living and learning. But we also want our blog to be a place of information and enlightenment. We are firm believers in clean, whole food, and we want to be as clear and informative about that passion as possible. We want our customers to know exactly what they are getting from Black Horse Ranch, but we also want them to know answers to questions being asked in the food industry today. Why do we raise 100% grass fed, grass finished beef? Why don't we use chemical fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides on our pastures? There is a lot of misinformation out there, especially information that has political or big-industry bias - we want to help make things clear. We aren't the scientific experts, but we'll do our best to show you what we've learned from these experts!
As you browse our website, you'll undoubtedly notice that we don't have many products to offer at this point. In fact, the only animals we have on the ranch right now are our 10 laying hens and our two stock dogs! This year will be a busy year for us as we get set up for stock and starting increasing our lowly animal count. Our store currently highlights four products that will most likely be on our ledger, but details on different ways to buy this meat have not been fleshed out (no pun intended)! We also may dabble in sheep or goats and will definitely have a family milk cow for raw milk. And maybe more...?
One of our big spring projects is to get our perimeter fence established. Being an alfalfa farm previously, fences weren't a necessary part of the operation, and so half of the property doesn't have any perimeter fence, and the other half has fence that is badly in need of repair. We now have 95% of our fencing material and have been clearing brush for the last two weeks in the attempt to exhume the old fence line!
So keep us close and we'll do our best to keep you up to date! We can't wait to be your clean food partner!
Trent