The idea has been simmering for years. Decades. Each year brought more ideas, more experience and now being pushed to DO instead of planning. One can only plan so much but it takes money to farm…for land, equipment, foundation. So it meant looking at ideas for CSA and other types of farming which would work but didn’t quite fit our ideal.

Then came a conversation with someone I interviewed for an article – we were talking about farm finances as it affects large farms vs smaller farms. (Hers was 32 acres). Size alone doesn’t deem if someone is “serious” – many can make a living on smaller acreages. Then she asked the question that started the final barriers shaking. “Have you heard of the ‘slow money’ concept?”

Well I got home and got looking. It’s what I had been thinking all along! Only now it had a name, a professional outlook and gaining the views of people who, as I’d been told years ago, looked for “safer” investments on Wall Street. Unfortunately we’ve all seen how “safe” some of those were as many lost life savings and have nothing to show for it. Community, a solid food supply, a place for family and friends to gather…these are the lifelong images from the farm.

So the whittling began, finding ways to balance giving someone a good value on “real food” (although I dislike that term!) and yet get the up front funds necessary to grow it. Heritage livestock has been an interest for 25 years and grazing area is needed to keep the larger species.

We’ve upgraded our pages here to make it easier to see what we have for sale, as well as to get information about our farm shares as a means of helping our operational costs and helping your grocery bill.

For those interested in poultry yes we are certified with the National Poultry Improvement Plan – NPIP – which insures health of our birds. We maintain a closed flock as much as can be, only purchasing birds to add that are also from NPIP facilities.

Our animals provide beauty and function. We appreciate the support of folks who entrust us to provide their food. It provides a reason for keeping these rarer breeds as well as supports multiple families – our own to start but also the processor of the meats is a family run operation. We will probably from time to time have tasks that require machinery that is too costly for us to justify purchasing, but easy to hire another family farmer to do some custom work for an afternoon.

If you’d like to purchase items from SlowMoneyFarm or get more information visit our website and other pages or email us at slowmoneyfarm@yahoo.com for more information. Thanks!