Lau Family Farm, LLC grass-fed meats available on Oct 22nd
Lori Anne Lau
LAU FAMILY FARM, LLC
Grass-Fed * No Antibiotics * No Hormone
We will attend the Idaho Falls Farmers Market one last time in 2011 on Oct 22nd (market as a whole will continue until 10/29). This market runs from 9 am to 1 pm in the Key Bank parking lot along Broadway. We will not be at the IF market on October 15th. We will then begin delivering to Idaho customers in early November, with further trips each month.
While we encourage pre-requesting/ordering we want to remind our customers that we are always willing to adjust an order up until the time it leaves our possession. We don’t want our customers to feel that they must buy something just because they included it in their pre-request.
· End of Farmers’ Market Special: Buy 5 or more ground beef packages and save 5%, buy 10 or more and save 10%. Ground beef can be used in so many yummy ways. We had tacos with homemade seasoning for Miss B’s family birthday dinner on Sunday, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/taco-seasoning-i/detail.aspx. There are several great recipes on our website as well-we encourage you to check them out, http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/recipes-journal/category/ground-beef.
We shared this delicious sausage soup with my Dad and stepmom a little while back. While I used our beef sweet Italian sausage I’m sure it would be equally wonderful with our Italian lamb with sundried tomato sausage. I hope you will consider giving it a try! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Italian-Sausage-Soup-with-Tortellini/Detail.aspx?prop24=etaf
· Our lamb supplies are still strong for nearly all cuts. We are completely out of kabob and lamb stew, but have a fairly plentiful supply of most of all the other cuts. We have some whole bone-in leg of lamb, half bone-in leg and whole boneless legs available.
· Beef supplies are really tight until we get more beef cut and wrapped in late October. We have some t-bone, tenderloin and ranch steaks. We have a few eye of round and London broil roasts as well as ground beef and patties. We have a few other single packages of this and that but many of the orders we get may have to wait until our November delivery. Pre-ordering for November may be a really good idea!
· We have had a few 1/3 lb patties made, as well as our standard ¼ lb patties. We also have some larger ground beef packages made (approx 1.5 lbs each).
· Orders are rolling in for quarter, half and whole beef which will be delivered in early winter (approx March). Please consider getting your deposit in soon for an earlier delivery date. More information can be found at http://laufamilyfarm.com/quarter-beef/ or http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/whole-half-beef/. We are also taking deposits for whole or half lambs to be delivered in approximately February. See http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/whole-half-lamb/ for more information.
· We have gift certificates available for our products. They can be made out for any amount and will be good for 6 months from the date of purchase.
· We always offer discounts on 10, 20, 50 and 100 lbs/packages of ground beef- see the details at: http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/ground-beef/. As many of you know, we also have 3 beef bundles that save you 10% off buying the same items individually. You can see the details on our bundles website page (http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/beef-bundles/ )
· We have beef and lamb dog and marrow bones available. We also have lamb heart and a variety of beef organs. Let us know if you would be interested in purchasing some for yourself or your animal friends.
· We have several kinds of sausages available: Beef Andouille, Beef Bratwurst, Beef Frankfurter and Beef Sweet Italian, Lamb & Apple, Lamb Garlic and Rosemary, Lamb Merguez, and Italian Lamb with Sundried Tomato.
· We have several yarns that are from our naturally colored ewes-Spot, Shooter, Jenna, Amber blended with a white, and Darky blended with a white. In addition, we have made a fingering weight yarn from our Targhee ram’s fleece-it is so soft and is a lovely natural white. We have picked a name for our yarns etc- Meadow Made Fibers (by Lau Family Farm). You can meet some of these ladies on their new webpages: http://www.laufamilyfarm.com/our-wool/.
· We have a Facebook page for Lau Family Farm, LLC. I hope you will find it interesting and useful. http://bit.ly/laufamilyfarm.
It is most definitely fall here in Soda Springs. Cooler days and nights, leaves changing, grasses going dormant, hay all stacked and covered, grain all cut and fall livestock work beginning are all sure signs. John is working on repairing/revamping our livestock corrals so the animals and humans will all be safe and secure as we bring them in to check and deal with any health issues. He has a multitude of other chores to accomplish before the snow comes and stays. The kids are fully adjusted to being back in school, though I can’t say Tom has adjusted to having a fair bit of homework each week. I am relearning the basics of algebra as I check his homework and help him with it. Volleyball and soccer seasons are beginning and with it the chaos of getting Becca to all of her practices and games.
An increasing amount of my time is being spent with my Dad and Stepmom as her health struggles continue. We are blessed with great home health care resources, and friends and neighbors but there is still a lot to be done to ensure her quality of life is as good as possible. If I am increasingly “flaky or preoccupied” this fall/winter I hope you will forgive me. I tend to overextend myself in the best of times, and this situation is taxing my resources. It may be that John will have to take over some of my “customer relation” chores after the snow settles in and limits his outside chores.
The last few weeks were filled with some canning, dehydrating and some garden work. We got our first frosts at the beginning of September, and last week we had 6 inches of snow so the garden is all but done now. I’m still hoping to find some plums to dry and to make into jam-the blooms on my father-in-law’s trees were damaged by frost so we don’t expect to have any fruit this year. My father-in-law wanted me to utilize all the elderberries in his yard to make some syrup or jelly so my sister-in-law and I tackled that Monday. My beloved dog has enjoyed the majority of the pears we dried last week so I may go thru that whole process once again in coming days.
I’m also hoping to get some white yarn back from the spinner soon so I can get some more dyeing done before the days get really cool. Lynn of Spinderella’s Creations and I had another of our wonderful chats the last time I was in SLC. They now have the ability to create felt, thick rug yarns as well as roving batts. They even have someone who can be hired to weave rugs or saddle blanket type blankets (http://www.spinderellas.com/weaving.html) . I’m trying to decide if I want to branch into those types of wool products as well as the worsted weight yarns. She also gave me some interesting dyeing ideas-dyeing wool of different colors in the same dye and then blending them into a yarn with natural variations. If you have any suggestions/opinions please let me know.
Yesterday we brought all of our cattle in and had the vet determine which of the cows and yearling heifers are bred. There were a handful that the vet diagnosed as open (unbred) but it may just be that he simply could not feel the fetus especially, if the cow conceived in the last 45 days. Some of these cows may get a second look before they leave the herd. We like a very compact calving season and so tend to only give the cows 2 estrus cycles to bred. We also gave all the cows, yearlings and this year’s calves booster vaccinations to prevent them from getting some of the most common diseases that could affect their health. The cows’ vaccine also included protection against diseases that cause spontaneous abortions. The vet also gave this year’s heifer calves a vaccination against brucellosis, a disease that causes abortions in cattle and ungulate fever in humans. This is the disease that many of the wildlife (elk and bison) around Yellowstone have so we want to ensure that our cattle are protected from this disease. Infected elk are known to winter in the feed yards in Alpine, Wyoming after summering in Caribou County so it is possible that these animals will “visit” our farm on their migrations or if they get trapped here before they can migrate to Wyoming.
Our bovine ladies (aka cows) are expected to rebreed after giving birth to a live calf 90 days earlier, and while nursing that calf. We will wean our calves in November, at about 7 months of age, this helps the cows to put as much nutrition as possible toward their growing fetus, and to maintaining their own body condition so that they can rebreed the next summer. The cows will get lower quality hay once the snow cover prevents them from being able to access the standing feed in our pastures and hay fields. We save our higher quality hay for the last trimester, with special emphasis on the final month of pregnancy and the first month of lactation. This is when the growing calf puts the most demands on the cow. Our pastures tend to green up shortly after calving which helps to reduce the need for high quality feed to support the cows needs during lactation.
It looks as though our good friends who have run a large scale sheep operation are going to be selling out. The challenges of getting sheep herders thru the H2A guest worker program (they advertise a great deal locally trying to find domestic workers), ongoing issues with their grazing leases/permits being under attack from those who don’t think that having livestock convert the suns energy into lamb or beef is a good idea, challenges with finding affordable hay, etc have all forced them to look at other options. We will miss having them in Soda Springs each summer and fall VERY much, they have been great friends and neighbors who have always been willing to trade work and equipment back and forth, as well as being great people to hang out with. We wish them well in their new endeavors on her family’s multi-generation ranch in Southwest Idaho. Hopefully our loss will be their gain!
We thank all of you that have supported us over the last 7 years!
Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can improve our products or services.
Thank you for your continued business!
John, Lori Anne, Tommy & Becca Lau
Lau Family Farm, LLC
Grass-Fed Beef & Lamb...A Natural Choice
PO Box 337
Soda Springs, Idaho 83276
1 Fall has arrived at our "meadow farm". Gold and amber are now the dominant colors as the plants tend to go dormant for winter.
2 On the 6th we got about 6-8 inches of snow at the farm-these temps will cause all of the hay plants to go fully dormant
3A close-up of some of the sainfoin seed we grew to be planted in the coming years. It is a highly palatable and nutritious legume.
4These large square "bags" are called totes and they are so large they must be lifted by the tractor. These are full of the sainfoin seed we grew and harvested this year.