SATURDAY OCTOBER 5TH FARM TOUR at 4pm
Come one Come all, young and old, singles and families.
Foothill Frolic Farm on Gammon Creek invites you to Sign Up and come on out this Saturday October the 5th at 4 pm. The weather forecast is looking perfect for a casual afternoon hay wagon ride, seeing beautiful cattle herds rotationally grazing their lush green fields.
If timing works out, we might even pull out the grill and flip out some of our delicious hamburger samples for tastings. The tour wagon is already getting filled up, so be sure to sign up soon!! We would really love to have you.
CUSTOM BEEF SHARE 2025 WAITING LIST...SIGN UP NOW
Reserve your place in line to place your PreOrder once we open our updated and official Online Custom Beef SHOP this mid Fall.
Just since our last post about 2 weeks ago we have had 48 families (side note..... proud to say that practically all these 48 are returning customers!!) already fill out the waiting list form. These submissions, add up to 15 Custom Beefs "unofficially" spoken for, which is over a quarter of the 2 year old beefs, all raised from birth to beef, that we will have available for PreOrders for our 2025 Season. We plan on harvesting 6 beefs a month next year, starting in June and harvesting all the way through January or February of 2026. So as of current, both June and July on farm picks ups are filled!
Currently, we are still finishing out our Custom Beef PreOrders for our 2024 season and will be harvesting up into this coming January. We had a couple of 2024 custom beef preorder shareholders think that the SOLD OUT 2024 season meant they had missed out on their preorder for this year, but of course that is not the case. If you placed your Custom Beef Share PreOrder for our 2024 season, prior to the end of this past August, then your on farm pick up is still to come and you will be receiving all the appropriate and informative emails and texts that are necessary to let you know exactly everything you need to know.
Here is one of our most beautiful girls "Duck Seven" that we harvested on Sept. 18th.
I also wanted to Post an EXAMPLE of the email shareholders receive when their custom beef animal's harvest is on dock. Our shareholders really appreciate the personal stories shared.
EXAMPLE INFORMATIVE SHAREHOLDER EMAIL:
Good day to all 16 Foothill Frolic Farm Custom Beef Shareholders for our 11th harvest date of the 2024 season that happened a few days ago on Thursday Sept. 26th, during the midst of our record breaking rainy weather front of Helene.Â
The exciting news is that your custom beefs were comfortably and respectfully harvested and are now dry age hanging for a couple of weeks until they will be butchered. I ESTIMATE On Farm Pick Ups will start around Monday October 14th and go through Sunday October 27th, but the EXACT DATES will be given in another email, or quick text. Â
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The 3 Heifers that we took were "Little Maybelline" 212H, "Lettie Louise" 246H, & "Blooming Locust" 222H. All of these heifers were all in between 2 1/4 and 2 1/2 years old. All three were stellar and are going to make for some absolutely delicious 100% grassfed/grassfinished-regenerative-organically raised custom beef. As we do with every beef harvest, we like to express how thankful we are for these three wonderful beef cattle and the beautiful time and life they were able to live right up to their harvest. Â
"Little Maybelline" came from one of our mamma cows that sure has put her time in as being a wonderful mamma cow here at Foothill Frolic Farm. Very tried and true I like to say. In fact, Mamma Cow G36, is about to be retired as the calf she is raising out this year that was born in the spring of 2024 will be her last. G36 and her calves always form very tight bonds and during the season can always be found together close. All cow calf pairs are not necessarily like this. Little Maybelline was stocky, thick, and black with rusty red highlights, just like her Mamma. She was spry, but all at the same time very grounded from her relationship with her mamma. Â
"Lettie Louise" always seemed like she for certain had been here before, and had a matriarch type of presence. She was mild and never needed to be in the center of attention. "Brown Beauty" L22 was her Mamma, and as the name depicts is one of our most beautiful Angus Hereford Crosses. "Lettie Louise" was jet black though, with a pinch of a white belly around the teet/sac area, which is very common for calves born from our Red/Brown cows.  Â
"Blooming Locust" was such a solid, thick and beautiful heifer. Her gait and movement was very noticeable as she seemed to hold herself so well. Dark black and a very pretty face. I remember "Blooming Locust" birth well, back in 2022, as she was born to another one of our tried and true cow's of the herd "G13" on a day when the Black Locust trees were in full bloom in one of our back bottom pastures. It was a beautiful day and the scent of the Locust blossoms was in the air.  Â
All 3 were VERY SPECIAL and like so many of the 2022 born heifers would qualify for high class saved heifers, but as a custom beef share farm, we cannot save every female born heifer for a saved heifer or this would create a disbalance in our land to animal ratio, for our Main Breeding/Cow herd that we like to keep at around 65 in headcount. For example, from our 2021 calf herd, we selected 8 Heifers that were bred and made it to our main breeding herd. All 8 have had their first calves this calving season of 2024, and are thriving! Then from this 2022 heifer group we selected 5 Heifers..."Dazzle Dash", "Wednesday Wonder", "Sweet Gallienne", "Crossing Khaki", "Garden Call". Uniquely, our farm has never purchased a heifer(female) since back in the 1950's when my Grandparents purchased their first Hereford herd. Plus, harvesting and butchering Heifers is a normal process for a custom beef farm like ours that is a complete "birth to beef" operation, as we do not participate in the conventional beef industry market!!
Heifers make the most wonderful beefs, just like steers.   Â
These three harvested heifer beefs stayed right in with their heifer herd as we took the extra effort to load up by means of portable corral, which is what we do every time we harvest our custom beef cattle. In fact, this was the first predicted rainy morning of harvest for this whole season. Instead though, the rainfall had subsided during harvest and the herd was feeling frisky and light on their feet. Our herds are so connected that the herd of 36 just stayed right there, in the vicinity, calmly saying their goodbye moos. We let them all know they were much loved and that we as farmer's of beef cattle did the absolute best we could for them all the way up till their harvest time. As a farm, it is so important for us to uphold the ethic of single source birth to beef practices as this keeps the farmer, the cattle, and the consumer/shareholder most innermost connected, which captures the true essence of what farming food should be about.  Â
We thank you all for making the effort to purchase a custom beef share from us and we know that once you have, you will never want to purchase beef from anyone else...TASTE, QUALITY, TRANSPARENCY & PRACTICES will keep you coming back, we know!! Hence, the shareholders in this 11th round, who are already Returning Shareholder Customers, of course we thank you for continuing to place custom beef PreOrders.Â
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With this said, we have Pre-Sold all 54 whole custom beefs that were available for PreOrder this 2024 harvest season and hence we are SOLD OUT for the remainder of the season. Here though soon, we will be posting our 2025 available custom beefs for PreOrder, so keep this in mind and be on the lookout for the announcement in an Allie's Farm Journal Post. We will have 51 beefs available, and will be harvesting 6 beefs a month. Our harvest season will be starting in June of 2025, but from the amount of interested shareholders that have already signed up for the waiting list, we are currently already to August harvest of 2025.  Â
One can go ahead and place oneself or your family onto our Custom Beef Waiting List.
Here is a little link that will take you to our online farm shop, where the Waiting List Form can be found by scrolling down.  Â
Also, I know a lot of you have been excited about the thought of a Farm Tour. Â
Click Here to Sign UP for our up and coming Fall Farm Tour on Sat. Oct. 5th from 4-6pm. We would love to have you!!
MOST IMPORTANT PLEASE READ AS RESPONSE IS NEEDED
...OK I need each one of you to give an answer about this topic I am about to address. Here at Foothill Frolic Farm we have decided that we LOVE grinding in the Organs (Liver, Kidney, Heart, & Tongue/Cheek), into the ground beef. We have done this now with over 22 Whole Beefs. Up to this point there have been many families that have tried the ground this way and it is a WIN WIN. We as well did our last whole beef this way as well and our whole family loves it too. More often than not, a family decides this concept is not the best idea for them generally because there is a split in between husband and wife, as for example one side is excited about it, but the other side cannot mentally grasp trying it. When a detailed analysis is done on taste and smell, often a hint of difference from our regular ground beef to our ground beef + vitals blend can be picked up, but this minute difference is still very delicious, and this difference can really only be picked up when the ground beef is cooked plain and one is trying the regular grind to the vitals blend back to back.  The great thing about this concept, which is a current trending product in most high end markets/grocery stores, is that it adds the dense nutrients from the organs into the regular ground beef, without changing the flavor of the ground beef much at all. The alternative for not grinding the organs in with the ground beef is that each shareholder will receive the amount of packages of sliced organs that are appropriate for your share size. I know some of you have perhaps wonderful recipes that you like to use specifically for your organs, but if you do not they might just sit in your freezer staring back at you for a while until you rise to the occasion and make the extra effort to use. Part of why I think the grinding of the organs into the ground is a great option to say yes to, is to avoid what I mention above along with knowing every part of these custom beefs get eaten, and moreover one does not even realize the organs are in the ground.  On the other hand, it is perfectly fine if you are not interested in having organs ground into ground beef.
So will you please give me a quick reply in the next few days, and not later than Sunday night October 6th, either a YES grind or a NO grind. You can either reply to this email or send me a quick text to 423 483 7091, letting me know your name. Â
If you are a shareholder of a 1/2 share you do not have to respond to this, as you will be making this decision separately for your customization choices. In fact, if you are one of the 2 families that have pre-ordered a HALF share please see the Attachments below. These are informative customization forms that will help you in deciding how you would like your beef butchered.  If possible we would like to know your customization preferences by Sunday night October 6th as well. Â
Also, make note that even though there is not a mention of Short Ribs, or Korean Ribs on the Diagram or Form, Ribs are an option for customization!! Â
Thanks so much,
Allie
TRACTOR BOUND, HELENE, & WORN BOOTS
With Eastenn Dutch turning 10 this late summer, I realized that he has been living the life of a farm kid for a whole decade now. He did not own a pair of shoes till after he started walking so he started out with tough feet being able to run down gravel lanes with no problem at all. He also took quick to the idea of tractors and really along with "mamoo" and "papa" was one of his first words in which he would say in a drawn out, but quick, sharp and whispery way...."traaacktar".
As this year in particular, has been a step up year for him as far as his tractor work allowances....bush hogging and disc mowing on his own, I just looked at the last picture I took of him cleaning off the hay baler and realized how tall he has become and how capable. Just yesterday morning, his first day of school break, he woke up with a plan in his head to get the International 986 hooked to an older 10' bushhog so he could bushhog a 19 acre field that needs a bit of rejuvenation, so he knew we needed to bush hog back to the ground all the summer and fall growth. He knew there were some simple maintenance chores that needed to be done before he started and he knew exactly what and how he needed to get all this done. We just had to drive him over and drop him off and then he would be able to navigate the task at hand that he had planned out. He sure has had a clear path of access to his interests, as these few select photos show over his years. Both Grampy, and Matthew both were born with skills to understand mechanics and working systems so I guess he gets it squarely. My love of course is much more for the land and animals and living systems so it works out to be a fortunate balance here at Foothill Frolic Farm, as we all complement each other to get to where we need to be at the end of the day.
Lastly but not least, the Helene weather front, brought us 6.5" of accumulated rain here on the farm. So yet another extreme weather flip of the season and Fall decided not to be mild and balanced after all like I hoped and spoke of in the last Farm Journal post. I will now for certain completely remember and record on stone as 2024 being the "All or Nothing" farm weather year.
Helene, started it's set in mode right after we rounded up our 3 beefs for harvest on Thursday morning. We had already received about 1.6" at this point over the last couple of days, so the dry ground had already been prepped for soaking up what fell and for us right here in the Holston Community, even though it rained a lot, we never flooded. Our creeks never went over the banks and our fields and herds heading into the fall, only saw the rain as a pure benefit, because this type of supper soak, if temperature remain moderate, will allow our cattle herds extended fall rotational grazing. The only losses we had were a handful of big ole cherry, maple, and cedar trees that were uprooted and fell into fence lines that had to be cleaned up and repaired.
Overall after hearing the aftermath devastation of our surrounding region, only 30 minutes to our southeast and northeast, we cannot really express how thankful we are for being so close to the origin of spring fed creek watersheds. The rains had a definable end on Friday afternoon and the clouds broke and the sky turned blue and the winds were lovely. When we took our afternoon herd walk, we found a newly born fall baby calf all curled up in the lush grass, fresh and content with "Milkseed", her Mamma. The energy was high and the fields were absolutely beautiful and the animals were beaming. The in the moment feeling of happiness and love almost seemed wrong knowing what destruction had unfolded so close to home.
We do sympathize though, and our hearts, thoughts, and prayers go out to all those that will need much strength, energy, and resources to recover over the next month. Matthew and I, when we farmed and lived along Leipers Creek that was a tributary to the Duck River in Columbia, TN, experienced the 2010 Middle TN floods firsthand and know the feeling of helplessness and immense force of watersheds that keep rising higher and higher, stronger and stronger, much beyond disbelief! Topsoil lost indeterminately, and weeks of cleanup and repair.
I include a photo of my worn boot and my new boot. I just finally broke down and got a new pair. Same boot, same style. This will be my third pair I have had since 2020. I believe I had worn my boots about as long as I could and probably if you had seen me out in public you might have been a little embarrassed to see me with such tattered and worn boots, but if asked I like to stretch comfortable conveniences to their limits. Almost so I can put myself in the shoes of those that have been put in unfortunate situations out of their control, so I can remember that my worst days here on the farm and in my life thus far, is nothing compared to the devastations and tribulations that go on nationally and in the world daily that have been endured throughout time amidst mankind and nature. My worn boots stand for my belief in a simple utilitarian life, no fancy bells or whistles needed, and the fact that one pair of shoes can endure till they cannot function well anymore. Because really, in all catastrophic situations and unjust events we ALL just need clean water, clean food, clean air, shelter, clothes, good health, love, determination, ethic and morals, spirit, and support. And really if everyone could be granted these simple necessities all the time, then wouldn't we all were ours shoes a little longer??!!
Regenerative family farming for Local communities and families stands for and upholds quite a few of these basic & simple necessities on a regular basis and we here at Foothill Frolic Farm are really proud of that!!
Until Next Time, Eat Well and Be Well and Please Pass Along through your favorite media.
(even though we have held off on having a social media presence, we are perfectly fine for our readers to share.)
Allison Mills Neal of Foothill Frolic Farm
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