We’ve encountered many ups and downs, unexpected turns, drop-offs and surprise blessings since setting off on this adventure called “Fiddle Creek Dairy”. Our goal - to become rooted, find a balanced and simple life, sustaining ourselves from this land while we raise our two children and Frances continues work as a musician…well, it hasn’t been simple. And in the last couple years, we haven’t even been sure if it was possible.
This winter, we wavered many a time, starting to consider what other path we may walk down as a family, what other place we could call home, what other way we could sustain ourselves. On top of the on-going rigorous challenges of farming (which we love, by the way), our small family of four has been faced with multiple health challenges in the past several years. The farm business got put on auto-pilot while we struggled to survive one crisis after another as we waded through recurring thyroid cancer, respiratory issues and the realities of autism spectrum disorder. Now that we have more networks of support in place and are getting our feet on the ground again, our focus has come back to our farm and the on-going question of how we are going to actually make things work financially. We are not ready to give up on this dream that has been so rich in meaning, even while so deeply challenging.
Tim and I have always envisioned creating food for all who value health rather than offering an exclusive product. Because of this, we have been hesitant to charge what it costs to make yoghurt this way - a small scale product where quality practices inform our choices every step of the way. While we believe this is the path into a sustainable future, it is not always efficient or cost effective in the short term. We also realize that to continue living and working here, we need to figure out how to make the finances work.
With a growing sense of urgency, we began working with a friend, and then Kitchen Table Consultants this winter. Many small-scale farmers, like ourselves, choose farming because of our love for working with land and the beautiful transformation of life, not because we are in love with organizing numbers. However, we realized that organizing the numbers is crucial, so we dove in to this new area of growth. It has been surprisingly invigorating to develop a new skill set and finally grasp the kind of analysis we need in order to make informed, clear decisions.
Now we know we need to work towards two major changes. The first change is to reduce our herd size so that we will keep the number of cows here that the land can support right now. The soil was depleted when we moved here, and soil fertility is an ongoing challenge. Because of this, the grass in the pastures is not growing as well as it could. When there is not enough grass in the fields, we end up buying more hay for feed—hay was our number one expense last year. So, with sad farewells, we have sent some of our cows to other farmer-friends.
The other major change we will work towards is selling our products directly to customers - here at the farm, and at farmer’s markets. This way of selling will allow us to have the profit margin necessary to keep the farm going. Since our yoghurt, cheese and frozen meat have a long shelf life, we hope that folks will be able to stock up and the occasional trip to the nearest location will be worth it. At this point, our yoghurt will continue to be available at various stores in Lancaster County as well.
Happily, our model for financial sustainability is about down-sizing rather than expanding. Since restoration of health for ourselves and our land is such a necessary priority right now, it feels right to be strategically scaling down rather than increasing production. With trepidation, hope, joy and a fair amount of fatigue, we step forward into an unknown but bright future. We look forward to connecting with you and providing you with high quality, healthy food.