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Petit Jean Farm

Weekly Farm Newsletter

February 15, 2010

Dear Folks,

You won't catch me writing about glorious spring again anytime soon!

Probably even before you read last week's words about robins and lambs, the mountain was buried in a foot and a half of snow. It was Saturday before the truck could finally get near the barn. Why didn't any of you warn us about this most unusual winter so we could have put it into our farm business plan?

Maybe for the same reason our basic farm market plan was eliminated in 2005. That year, 75% of our farm income came from marketing lambs into New Orleans. Somehow, we neglected to plan for a whole city going underwater and washing away the entire market.

My name was called out at 3 different graduation ceremonies at one of the best agriculture schools in the country. Every one of those university "educations" was completely clear about farming being a business just like any other industry.

Feeding animals has been part of my daily life now for more than 50 years. I have lived the farm long enough to know how fundamentally flawed the formal education was.

That "industry" has made affordable, abundant "food" more readily available than ever before in history while poor nutrition, obesity, and diseases related to poor diet are rampant.

But then again, you already know all that so you buy your food direct from a non-industrial farm that did not put last weeks' snow storm in its annual farm business plan.

Thank you for another great market week in spite of Mother Nature's wild ride.

Our schedule for Downtown Hot Springs is 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. at the Transportation Plaza on Fridays. The Village Community Market remains the same, meeting on Fridays from 2:30 to 5:00 P.M. Our new location at the Messianic Synagogue on Hwy. 7 in Russellville is 1:30 to 2:30 on Wednesday. The Locally Grown websites operating this week are Little Rock, Conway, Spa City and VCM.

Orders for Russellville need to be in by 5:00 P.M on Monday. Orders for the Hot Springs and Little Rock need to be made by noon on Thursday by calling us at 501-727-5659 or emailing ed@gatewayfarm-ar.com. To check our available inventory, visit our website at http://www.petitjeanfarm.com/FarmInventory.html. Earlier is always better!

Your Petit Jean Farmers

Petit Jean Farm

1039 Winrock Dr.

Morrilton, AR 72110

501-727-5659

ed@gatewayfarm-ar.com