1st day at the Mansfield Farmer's Market

This past saturday we ventured into new territory by attending our first farmer's market. My morning started at about 5:00 to do some last minute loading and just usual getting around stuff. Mansfield is about 35 minutes from Cleburne. The market opens at 7:30 and I wanted to get there by 6:45 to have plenty of time to set up and to avoid any unforseen mishaps. The weather was fairly nice. We had a bit of mist in the early morning and it threatened to rain all day but except for an occasional drizzle we were spared any major wet spells. It did keep it nice and cool though. Being the first weekend in May and not too much produce available yet, the market was a bit slim on farmers. There were only about 10 booths set up counting us. The traffic was light but steady. I don't have an official count of the day but there were probably not many more than 50 people who showed up. Luckily the Mansfield News Mirror had a little write up about the market and mentioned Aquilla Hill being in attendance and that brought some people by to see what we were about. I would like to thank those folks that came out as it made us feel like we were really providing a needed product. I also want to thank my wife Belen and son Rex (2 1/2 yrs old) for coming out to keep me company for part of the day. All in all it was a great first day and I look forward to many more saturdays this season. See ya at the market!

Continual Learning

I firmly believe that continued education is essential, not only for self improvement but also as an act of social improvement. If we all could learn a little more everyday then the world would be a better place in my opinion. I like to read. Some people don't! There are several ways to learn but if you don't read I think you will greatly hinder your abilities to progress. In the absence of reading, listening and active participation is another great way to learn. The prompting for this blog was a clover field day held in Iola, TX that my father and I attended wednesday May 25, 2007. We left the farm at 5:00 in the morning and arrived in Iola at 7:45. The object of this trek was to listen to a man named Gene Sollock speak who is said by some to be Texas' premier management intensive grazier (MIG). Mr. Sollock has been practicing MIG for over 20 years on his own place and been a proponent for many more years. This was a very informative day. It was encouraging to see so many attendants who were interested in this very sustainable practice that is so essential to the quality of our (the worlds) pasturelands and meat animals. The basic concept is fairly simple and there is much literature available (Management Intensive Grazing by Jim Gerrish comes to mind) but the implemetation takes dedication and to become good at it takes time. We are committed to this learning curve and find the benefits of what we are doing to be extremely rewarding for us personally and to our customer's cullinary sensations.

From Water Cometh All Things

During the last year or so we have been in the grips of a drought unlike anything I have seen in my life and from what I have been told we haven't seen anything like it since the 50's. If you have never experienced a drought you may not appreciate the importance of water. Well, we all "know" the importance of water from an academic stand point but until you have access to it limited then you don't really understand the importance, at least I didn't. Well now I do. We actually had some rain during March so things didn't look too bad for the first part of spring. Then the long hot summer hit and it was dry like it was during the winter and previous fall. Luckily at Aquilla Hill Angus Farm we had begun to implement a water distribution system back in the spring. This system allowed us to provide fresh water from a 200' well to most of our paddocks with about 2400' of underground pipe and allowed us to make new paddocks that other wise wouldn't have had water for our cattle. This is a big improvement over watering out of stock tanks which was our main source of water prior to this new system. As an after thought the system has also been able to provide some irrigation for us that allowed us to actually grow green grass when all around us pasture was dying. With the success of this irrigation we are now in the process of doubling the system to provide even more paddocks with fresh water and the capacity to irrigate more pasture. We are appreciative to our customers for their patronage that allows us to improve our processes to provide consistent quality meat to them.
Regards,
Blaine Morgan