Well, we’re doing it… selling the farm. We have about a week left here, and we’re busy packing up our belongings. This is the longest Rich and I have lived somewhere. In the past, as college students and post college, we moved about every 2 years. We lived at our first farm in Cornelius, OR for about 3 years. That
If you lived here, you’d be home now!
So we did it. We put the farm up for sale. We are sad about leaving this beautiful place, but we’ve mostly made peace with the idea, and we are looking forward what the future holds. We’d love to sell soon so that we can move on to the next stage of our lives (hopefully in Carlton, OR!). Our farm is
Saying Goodbye…
Mossback Farm News January 2018 It’s with a heavy heart that we are sharing our news with you, our customers, friends, and family who have supported our farm since 1999. We have come to the decision to sell our beautiful farm and move to a nearby town. Some of you may know that Rich was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (M.S.)
The call for Fall beef shares!
Wow, summer has come and gone, and we were certainly busy! We’re glad to welcome autumn, and the (slightly) slower pace that comes along with it. Or, at least we may be able to slow down once we get our firewood in! We are happy to announce that we will have Fall shares Neighborly beef shares available for $4.25/lb plus
Website update – in progress!
At long last, we’re updating our website. It’s a work in progress, and we’re hoping to have most of the edits done this week, so check back in a few days! In the meantime, we should say that we do have one shared quarter (1/8) left to reserve of our Premium Summer beef. It’s $4.95/lb plus butcher charges. Contact us
Farm updates – Music, New shop, Lupine, Drones, and oh yeah, Cattle
Well, we certainly don’t seem to be updating the blog very often. Not to say we haven’t been busy, just a lot of it doesn’t make it here. I’m thinking it’s time to start posting more often…so readers, make sure you remind us! Music The item that is in the forefront of our minds these days is Val’s Kickstarter
Gullies, part 3
(Part 1 , Part 2) Gullies in the landscape cause several problems, mostly more rapid dewatering of the surrounding landscape in the dry season, and increased erosion as the gullies move upstream, taking valuable topsoil away. Mossback Farm experienced severe gullying in the years before we purchased the property, due to mismanaged cattle grazing. This grant was an attempt to
Hanging weight and final weight… some information
A customer recently emailed me after picking up her order… she was curious as to why the “take-home” weight was different from the “hanging” weight. When it comes to beef weights, there are 3 different ones of which customers should be aware. The first is “live” weight. This is what the animal weighed on the hoof, or when it was
Beef shares – availability update
We are currently sold out for our Premium Summer beef shares. We actually sold out in record time this year… which was great for us, but not as great for customers who missed the ordering window. The good news is that we are currently taking orders for Neighborly beef shares, available ~October to December. Please contact us for information about
Ram pump troubleshooting
Can you tell the difference between this video and this one? Hint…the first video, the pump is leaning to the right, downhill, and every cycle it hisses, rather than just does its positive click sound. The second version is far superior, and pumps nearly it’s historic 150-175 gallons / day. Between a tree coming down on the gravity-fed
Beef shares – update, and another option
Wow, we only have 3-4 of the Premium Summer shares left! Get your reservations in ASAP! We also have another option for Summer beef that is not on the flyer… it’s shares from a Jersey steer, selling at a lower price of $3.50/lb. We’re doing a lower price because the shares will probably be smaller, the assortment of cuts may
2013 Newsletter, and Summer beef
Hello! We’re proud to say that we got our 2013 Farm Newsletter out much faster than last year (as in, at all 🙂 ). Click on the link to see what we’re up to on the farm. Orders for our Premium Summer beef for June have been trickling in, so we also put together a new flier with the current
“Neighborly” beef shares available October-November!
“Neighborly” shares are from heifers raised on grass and hay by our next door neighbors, and available in fall. We have quarter (or half) shares available October – November. $3.25/lb (hanging weights have been ~145-180 in past years), plus butchering charges which usually average about $120 per quarter. Final cost will be about $600-700 for a quarter. Email us now
Taking reservations for Premium Summer beef shares
Alright, orders have been rolling in, and it turns out that we have just a few quarter shares still available. The price is $3.75/lb (hanging weight), plus butcher charges (which will probably come out to ~$110-130/quarter). We’re estimating these quarters to be between 165-215 lbs (hanging weight). (You can request a smaller or larger quarter.) 4/29/12: edit/clarification: At $3.75/lb, a
Answering the age-old question
Back in January, our friend Jeff came out to help out with some fencing and clearing out some trees and brush to make our woods a little more walkable. We came across some damage that our local black bear did to our beehive, ripping the frames to shreds and killing the oft-neglected bees. It might be too late to get
What Makes Mossback Farm Beef Special, Part 3
Continuing our discussion about how our beef and our farm practices differ from some of the other farms out there. In this 3rd and final installment, we’ll talk about the seasonal nature of our beef harvest, and about following the rules relating to butchering. 4) Seasonal harvest I’ve seen some farms offering beef nearly year round. I can appreciate being
What Makes Mossback Farm Beef Special? Part 2
We wanted to expound a bit about how our beef and our farm practices differ from some of the other farms out there. In this 2nd installment, we’ll talk about the benefits of grass/hay-only beef, and also about the scale of our operation. 2) grass fed and grass finished No grain, repeat, no grain! Not a handful right before butchering,
What Makes Mossback Farm Beef Special?
or, Why Our Beef Rocks (Part One) ________________________________________ A customer recently asked us a very good question. She pointed out that she had found information about a farm selling “grass-fed” beef for a significantly lower price than us, and inquired about why there was such a difference in price. Her questions prompted me to do a couple of things. One
Long delayed updates – butterflies
It’s been a pretty eventful summer, so much so that actual blog updates were the ones who suffered from neglect the most. So in the interest of catching up, for starters, our endangered butterfly habitat were recently showcased on the Farm Service Agency’s blog. And, as Val mentioned, we were recently awarded Yamhill Conservation Landowner of the Year for our
Honored by SWCD…
We spent the last week on a fun vacation in Sunriver with family, but Rich made a trip back to our county on Wednesday to attend the SWCD’s Annual Dinner where we were honored to be the recipients of this year’s George E. Otte Conservation Landowner award. The award recognizes agricultural or forestry landowners for their “long-term conservation planning and
Spring Open Farm/House day: May 21st!
We’re re-inaugurating our old tradition of having a farm open house once a year. We usually do it in the spring since that’s when the farm is at its most beautiful (green is our favorite farm color!) This year we’re holding it on Saturday May 21st, from 1-4pm. Check out our farm’s page on Facebook for more details, and please
Mossback Farm… 10 years later!
In the process of preparing our annual e-newsletter to send to our customers, I realized that we’ve passed a major milestone… We started Mossback Farm back in 2001, and this year marks our 11th year. I decided to post here some reflections (with some additions) that I included in the email that is going out to all our customers… ____________________________________________________
Spring Newsletter
I had hoped to get this out a month ago, but life and other stuff got in the way. So here it is: our Winter/Spring Newsletter. It includes info about ordering for this year (we’re sold out for Summer, but are taking reservations for fall “Neighborly” beef shares).
Urgent call for action… Oregon Farm Direct Bill
HB 2336, the Farm Direct Bill is scheduled to have a vote in the Oregon House of Representatives this coming Wednesday Feb 16th. This bill was started out of a need to make sure that the rules (from the Oregon Department of Agriculture) regarding farm direct marketers (including farmers’ market and CSA farmers) are clearly stated. For many decades, farmers’
Ram pump progress
Last summer we installed our ram pump to get us more water for the farm. Our well pump recently failed, which drove me to write up the details of this recent project. Our property is split by 4 seasonal creeks, one of which is nearly perennial. Work in the past has focused on increasing the riparian cover and shade on