Wow! Another crazy year behind us… It was a very dry winter this year and a pretty dry summer too…This winter is looking a little better so far.  We had one heifer and one bull this year.  The heifer was named Beretta in a contest and I named the bull Dieter. 

We had a great Elizabeth Stampede Rodeo in June.  Simone is in charge of the VIP contestant tent Bret takes care of the sponsor banners and signs.  During the rodeo Justin and Bret help with tickets.  Amanda works in the beer tent.  The Elizabeth Stampede won the award from the PRCA for best small town rodeo beating out over 400 other rodeos.

We lost our Dog, Shy-Anne during the rodeo.  She was hit by a car.  We miss her.  She was a very fun dog to have around.  One of our friends from the rodeo had to get rid of his dog (Jade) so we took her in.  She is Golden retriever, Chow and Timber wolf mix.  She is working out fine.  We did have to train her not to eat the chickens or the kittens. 

We built a drip system and planted about ½ acre of pumpkins.  We watered about 600 gallons per day and ended up with a little over 200 pumpkins.  We are going to expand to 1 acre next season, working our way up to 1000 pumpkins, some day.

The summer was busy working with the animals, the garden and the pumpkins.  We continued to get more chickens all summer.  We had up to 35 at one point but we still couldn’t keep up with the egg demand so we are probably going to get 50 or so more chicks in the spring this year.

Amanda and her boy friend Darren live 5 miles away.  They have a nice log house on 80 acres with a big garage that Darren uses to do some more side work.  Darren works forElbertCountyand Amanda is the shift manager at IHOP in Limon.

 Justin is now a junior volunteer fire fighter with the Simla Volunteer Fire Department.  He is doing well in school (Mostly A’s) and is the vice president on the student counsel.  He is a Center and Nose-tackle on the football team.  They ended up making it all the way to the Simi-finals.  He got his first letter in ‘match wits’ where they answer trivia questions as a team.  He is really into hunting – We got 3 Antelope this fall and had a lot of good jerky and other meats from it.

Simone had to sell her horse to get tickets for Germanyto see her mom but she has another horse she is training now.  

We brought one steer to process this fall.  We sold 3 quarters and kept one for ourselves.  We bought a goose from the auction for $4 and had that one for Thanksgiving diner.  Our neighbor gave us 4 more geese and a turkey that weighed in at 47 pounds.  We also traded some antelope for pork so the freezer looks pretty good right now.

Bret built a new web site for the farm www.wadeacres.com . There is not too much going on with it right now but we are going to have live farm animal video on it soon and we will be able to schedule events.  There are continuous changes on it so keep checking back.  We still have the blog, www.ranchwabble.com. We hope this new year is your best year ever.

Happy New Year,

Bret Wade

Wade Acres

Simla,CO.

Hey all! We’re going to be promoting our awesome olive oil this weekend at Tony’s Meats on Dry Creek from 11-5. (that’s in Colorado) Come by and check us out for free and say hello! or OPA! 

Heli’s Bistro Breakfast sandwiches

8 slices of sourdough

4 slices, or enough cheese to cover 4 sandwiches- cheese that works:

            Fresh edam, feta, havarti, or irish white cheddar, torn in pieces or shredded

¼ c chopped onion

¼ c chopped green pepper

¼ c chopped tomato

¼ c chopped fresh spinach

1 c of chopped meat of some sort (*veggie friends* leave this off*) – meat that works:

            Gyro meat, leftover lamb or beef from a roast, pastrami, corned beef

¼ c Mani Royal Olive Oil

4 eggs

Brown the pieces of bread first in a non-stick pan with a little butter on med high heat

Remove the bread and set aside

Make yourself a veggie hash with the vegetables. And really- you can use whatever veggie combo here- the ones above are suggestions only. Brown vegetables and the meat in the olive oil until crisp tender.

Remove the vegetables and meat, and toss them in a medium bowl with the cheese and set aside

Same pan- wipe it out and put a little more olive oil in there. Break  4 eggs and separate.

Beat 4 egg whites together with 2 yolks and a little milk or water and toss the eggs in a delicate scrambled format in the pan

Spread some Dijon on the bread pieces and, with the same butter knife, spread the vegetable/meat/cheese mixture on 4 of the 8 slices of bread and top with the other 4 slices.

Serve with a side of fruit.

January – In Colorado, when I see snow I always think about the National Western Stock Show in Denver.  We also got some new Lowline Angus Cows and Heifers.

February –   The pipe to our septic tank broke and everything backed up in to the basement.  Simone, Justin and I dug a 7 foot deep hole by hand to repair the pipe.  That pipe was sticking out of the ground all summer long.

March – New horses come into the Ranch and friends chip in to buy more chickens for eggs on the farm.

April – Gathering supplies such as seeds and compost for spring planting.  A bull calf is born… We name him Junior.

May – Our Family volunteers for the Elizabeth Stampede Rodeo every year.  May is when we really start to get ready.  We also started to plant the garden and the pumpkin patch.

June – The first weekend in June is the Elizabeth Stampede Rodeo.  That’s the most fun we have all year.  It was very hot and someone has to run home every day from the rodeo to feed and take care of the animals.  All the plants really start to grow good.

July – There was a huge hail storm on July 4^th.  All the vegetables were turned to salad.  We replanted some and hoped the others would come back.

August – Remember that septic pipe issue?  We used the pipe and built an outhouse on top of the pipe.  This month was also the last time that we got rain this year.

September – Built a pond fir the cattle and horses in the pasture and turned our driveway into a circle around the outhouse.

October – The fall party was a blast – Pete Pino and his some took first in the blind tractor races.  We gave away the pumpkins to people who came to the party and we shot the rest.   They didn’t fully recover from the hail and were all very small.  I started buying equipment to grow lettuce inside.

November – I was still trying to perfect the indoor lettuce and we started to get the basement in our house finished.  Purchased 2 Angus cross bottle calves.

December – In the last 3 months we went from having 10 horses to having 3.  We are cutting down for the winter because we had such little moisture.  We had our first promising lettuce growth and some tomatoes.  I guess we’ll see how that turns out in 2011!

 A friend of mine at my day job asked me the other day, “don’t you think higher quality food should cost more?”  I said “NO, all food should be high quality.”  I think everyone should know the problem here, even if everyone doesn’t.  We have too many people and not enough food. We’ve had this problem for 50 years.  That was about the same time we went from farming to industrial everything.  Science helped us make more out of less and we’ve been doing it ever since.  The question is: is it really good for you?  Check out Eric’s article that points out America as one of the sickest countries in the world. 

 Mom’s home cooked dinner has changed to dinner out of a box or bag for most.  Is it that we are too busy or too lazy or we just like it easy when we can get it?  The cheap food just gets cheaper?  I don’t think so.  You can buy a whole chicken for about 5 bucks.  8 ounces of pre-cooked, sliced hickory chicken breast is about 8 dollars.  I can’t afford the 8 dollar chicken so I buy the 5.  I have more work and more chicken.  That same whole chicken costs the farmer about $10 to make and process.  So the farmer makes up the difference selling ‘premium’ products like nuggets and chicken pot pie.   Call me; I have a ton of examples.  Right now I’ll just stick with the chicken example.

 Today the farmer can also sell ‘organic’ products that are more expensive because they are better for you. That’s B.S.!  The government charges farmers to certify their food ‘organic’ causing the cost of the production of the food to go up.  The food is not more expensive because it’s healthier.  If I sell more than $5000 worth in a year I can not say that it’s ‘organic’ unless I pay up.  All we do by buying organic food is support the government’s interests to regulate it.  Farmers markets are the same thing.  The farmer pays to use the space at the market and the price for the food goes up.

 Why not buy directly from a farmer?  You get produce and meat from the store.  If you buy it from a farmer that is not paying extra to sell food then the price of the food goes down.  If you’re in a hurry you can buy food from places that buy directly from the farmer.  Check out Burgerville in the north-west or Colorado Proud right here.  You can find a farmer on Local Harvest or Real Time Farms online too. 

 Now that’s a good start, but brings us back to our original problem.  We don’t have enough food.  So what we need is more farmers making more, better food instead of less farmers making more, cheaper food.  Or at least more support for the farmers that do.  Then the price would go down and the food would be better.  People would stop buying the cheaper food because the healthy stuff would be the same price.  I know, I’m a dreamer. 

If you didn’t realize it, we are in big trouble.  It’s like before you went bankrupt.  At first you thought you were living large.  Then you had some issues… and then BLAM!  You were broke.  If someone doesn’t do something fast we are going to either run out of food or have to eat nothing but corn the rest of our lives.  IT WILL TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.

Some people are making changes and I hope more follow.  Check out Randy White from Oregon or Everett and Missy Sizemore on their new farm.  I think these changes make life more simple.  Lets all get together and help everyone get the good stuff!

I am taking a week off of work starting this Thursday.  I return on Friday the 10th of September and I will probably be bringing in about 20 dozen eggs that day.  I am putting in a round-about in front of the house for the driveway with a working outhouse in the middle,  building a pond,  making 3 ponds bigger, putting a fireplace in the barn and redoing my shooting range.  You can follow Wade Acres on Face Book at the link bellow.  I may have some more squash, zucchini or maybe green onions when I return to work.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ranchwabblecom/189241706408

Corn Fed – Animals finished or raised on corn

Grain fed – Animals finished or raised on grain

Grass fed – (there is a pattern here) Animals finished or raised on grass

Pastured – Animals raised on pasture land (Usually free to roam) could be Cattle, Sheep, Chickens or Hogs. **Side note – Hogs are not considered grazing animals in the US.

Free Range – Used to mean the same thing as pastured but now it just means ‘not in cages’.  Some times chickens are “free range” inside a warehouse.

Cage free – Same as Free Range

Family Farm – The general concept of a family farm is one in which ownership and control of the farm business is held by a family of individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption. ‘USDA’

Farm – any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the year. ‘USDA’

Small Farm – Less than $250,000 in sales per year

Large Farm – You guessed it!  Over $250,000 in sales per year

New Farmer – According to the USDA and FSA a new farmer does not own farm land.  So if you are a new farmer and you own farm land, you are not a new farmer.  **I have learned that this depends on what department of the USDA you are talking to.  Let me know if you have questions about that.**