Welcome 2025!

This year Chris and I did a crazy thing and took the kids on a surprise trip to Japan. We had been wanting them to experience how we travel. They got to fully immerse themselves in what is probably the most exhausting version of a vacation known to man. Chris and I don’t stop when we travel. We usually don’t have very long and so we have to see it all in the limited time we do have. Realistically, how we travel is probably akin to how we farm, and live our lives. I never realize how “go, go, go” we are until someone points it out, or until my body gives out and I’m lying in bed with a cold. We are kind of living the saying, “life is short”. 

Shibuya, Japan

So there we were in Tokyo with one goal in mind, sushi. And not just sushi, but conveyor belt sushi. I have been to Japan a small handful of times and have never had sushi. Including during this trip. We found the right city, we found the right place, and then we found out the wait was about three hours. Having just come off a 13 hour flight, waiting three hours in an overwhelmingly bright and busy city was going to be difficult.

Myself and Jacob held out for a couple of hours, we double checked on our wait, and apparently we missed the reservation number. But we were still in the timeframe so they told us to come back at that time. That was another hour away. Jacob and I gave up, but Chris and Jaxson held on to the dream. By the time Jacob and I got back to the Airbnb, and got into bed, Chris and Jaxson were ordering their first roll. Of Course!

Our 2024

We made some changes this year, much like we do every year. But this year we made a couple extra special changes. We opted for an up and coming, and I think rapidly growing online meat market, if you will. ChopLocal has been the best decision we have made. They now host our e-commerce platform, you may have noticed you’re redirected to their website when you want to buy our meat and coffee. While that has been a struggle for me, considering all the work I’ve put into our website, they have been nothing short of amazing to work with. They genuinely care about their farmers, and our success. They are constantly learning and sharing that knowledge with us and hosting classes to better help us attract more customers. This year they started a podcast and asked Chris and I to be one of their first guests! It will be out shortly, but it’s geared toward fellow farmers. Just another way they are helping the small farms in America succeed.

Raised/Grown in America!

I love this picture, it's hay from a local farmer who goes the extra mile to wrap his hay in American Flag netting. We first saw this in Italy and I wondered why we hadn’t seen it here. And now it’s on our farm!!

Riley goes with me to pick up meat

It’s a long-ish drive, but she’s a trooper. She carefully watches the crew at Byron Center stack our meat into the car. They love her and she loves this.

Goals

Each year I like to make a list of goals for the farm. It’s fun to look back and see how our plans, goals, and priorities have shifted. For example in 2022 I wanted to be in a commercial kitchen so I could roast coffee for retail. I accomplished that goal and discovered I needed to be home to manage everything on the farm but also have quick access to a kitchen. So my goal in 2023 was to retrofit a building on our property into our commercial kitchen.

The main goal of this kitchen would allow us to, yes, sell coffee at retail locations, but also, wash and sell eggs retail, and butcher our own chickens. Many of you got to try our FRESH never frozen chickens this summer, that was a HUGE hit! We also go to make our 50/50 Burgers, and we’re now working on our very own FBF Bratwursts!

Some goals have been slightly unattainable over the years, but I like having goals to work towards. Like my dream of having a farm store on the property. Some day...

A light at the end of a very long tunnel

2024 brought our very first employee. McKenzie. We LOVE McKenzie. Yes, she knows it. I told her that I had gotten down on my knees and asked the Lord for her. As soon as I opened her resume and saw her picture I knew she was it. I didn’t want to reach out to any other candidates because I knew my prayers had been answered.

McKenzie has been to all of our farmer’s markets and has not only been unanimously loved by our shoppers, but by our fellow vendors. Everyone wants their very own McKenzie. Because of McKenzie our family was able to take a couple of quick vacations in 2024. We were finally able to go see the Pictured Rocks, I got to go away for a night on my birthday, and of course Japan.

I was telling my mom today that working with McKenzie has been a dream, she’s literally in my head. She is answering my question before I have a chance to even ask it. She knows my next moves and can sense my concerns. She is always ready and willing to help. Sometimes I have to remind her she is allowed to say no. She is an absolute blessing!

I can’t forget about our AMAZING neighbor Rob. While not an official employee of the Fluffy Butt, he has come to my rescue a number of times. A few of those times being when I knocked the freezers off their trailers coming home from a farmers market... Rob has also come to our rescue when we were away and we had cows escape, and I can’t forget Christmas when he was recovering from the flu and still came to make sure the animals were taken care of.

He’s not allowed to move.

FRESH Never Frozen FBF Chicken

Just one of the goals we worked hard to accomplish.

It’s been five extremely busy years since we started this farm. My intention was to farm for five years and see if we even liked it, and probably just return to our normal lives. Like a lot of farmers, I have a love hate relationship with it. Since this is our fifth year, I’ve decided we should go big or go home. I’m not quite sure what this means just yet, but we’ve learned a lot over the years and I’d like to put those lessons, and our practices on display.

You, our customers are what drive us to do better, and look for more sustainable options. Before I became a farmer I knew I didn’t want to eat commercial meats anymore, purely because of the lives those animals lived. Since starting a farm my eyes have been opened and our customers have made me so grateful the has Lord blessed us with this farm, and in this community. We have received so much support from you, and we appreciate it.

So here we are, January 2025....

I’m excited to see what’s in store for all of us.

Throw back to the time I accidentally brought a chicken to the market, and she laid an egg! I won’t live this one down.