Flat Branch Farm Newsletter - October 2, 2025 - Vol. 7

Hey there, Reader!

It's a new month and while a lot of good and exciting things happened for us in September, I was definitely excited to flip the calendar to October yesterday. Here's what's been going on in our neck of the woods lately...

Dairy Cows

We're cruising around the final turn of our raw milk license journey. Sometime in August I submitted all of the paperwork to apply for an Illinois Raw Milk Permit. We had our on-farm inspection mid-September. Now we are sending in milk samples for testing. We have to send in 4 batches of samples over the course of 3 weeks. This permit will allow us to sell milk to the public in addition to having our herd share membership program. I love the consistency of the herd share program - there is no way we could sustain this business without consistency, but I also understand that it just doesn't fit with everyone's schedule and life. We intend to keep the herd share, and it will be the primary outlet for our raw milk; the permit just gives us a little more flexibility when we have a surplus and will also give us another option to reach more customers. And of course, we will always fill our member's reserved shares before any extra is available to the public.​

Re-Quoting

“What you do makes a difference. You just have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
– Jane Goodall

Product Spotlight

​Digital downloads and free resources are slowly but surely popping up in our Creator Profile. This is the same spot where you can go back and read previous weeks' newsletters. Some items are paid products, but most are free resources. Just be sure to read the instructions regarding how to get the freebies. You should NOT be asked to enter payment information for anything that is marked "FREE DOWNLOAD" or shows a price of $0.00. If you are prompted to enter payment information, click back and re-read the product description to find the link. 😉 Check back often!!

Recipe Share

Although it's not cold (or even cool) out yet, the combines are rolling, and a few leaves are starting to turn so I made stew last weekend. I'm in the process of "cooking through the freezer" so that was part of the motivation behind this decision. Normally, I would use some type of roast but this time it was several packages of cubed steak that I ordered a little thinner than we like for dredging and pan frying. They were actually perfect for this stew and thawed in no time!

Other Farm Happenings

I can tell the seasons are changing because the time it takes to do "farm chores" is steadily decreasing. During the spring and summer, we were constantly running... there were cows to milk, and calves to feed, and pigs to feed and water, and Cornish cross chicks to feed/water/move, and goats to tend to, and a couple dozen eggs to collect and put away, and a small garden to tend to. Every day and most things twice a day.

Now, the meat birds are gone, the pigs are gone, the calves are gone (except Cheeto and Elna takes good care of him); the laying hens are quickly approaching "freeloader" status, so the boys are collecting fewer than a dozen eggs each evening. And as far as the garden goes, the chickens have full access to it. I don't even try to shoo them out anymore, so they are scratching around and cleaning up tomatoes that have over-ripened or grown too close to the ground.

During the busy season I am always thankful for the abundance. But I also love the slower pace, enjoy the earlier evenings, and appreciate having fewer things on the "must do" list. It's nice to be able to breathe again and do the things that, a few months ago, just had to wait.

If you know of someone else that would like to join our little-but-growing community, feel free to forward the newsletter to them. Anyone can join here. Just remind them NOT to click unsubscribe in your forwarded email...because that will actually unsubscribe YOU instead of them.

Talk soon,

Lori

P.S. You can also go back and see all of our weekly newsletters here.