Friday, October 5, 2012

Sweet! Potatoes

Hot, baked, sweet? No. Just regular white potatoes are coming into SwissLane by the truck load.  And the cows are loving it!  They are sorting through their Total Mixed Ration just to find the potato to nibble on, much the way I would eat an apple.  We are loving them too!  They are bringing our feed costs down. 
We made it through the physical heat of the 2012 Drought.  But the ramifications of this summer are going to make an impact for many months to come. 
Corn is an important part of a cow's diet because it provides energy.  The drought has brought the cost of corn from $4.50 to $7.50 or more.  And the price we are being paid for our milk is staying the same.  That means we need to be very creative if we want to stay in business.
 So bring on the potatoes!
Apparently, hot and dry conditions are primo for potato farmers and they are experiencing a bumper crop.  They have already fulfilled all of their contracts so the leftovers are going for a great price.  These are some pretty good quality veggies here- we actually ate some in our Breakfast Burritos this morning too!!




Cottonseed, Gluten, distillers- are among some of the other commodities that we have added to try to reduce costs too.
 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Say Cheese!

It's official...SwissLane Farms is now a place to buy cheese! 
A friend of the family is an award winning Cheese-maker from Wisconsin.  Our family is what you would call Cheese Snobs and big fans of Decatur Cheese.  For years, we have been talking with him about making/selling cheese and one day he showed up with a whole cooler full of cheese- and that settled it. 
No more talking its time to start doing.  
So its not "our" cheese made with our milk- but its a start!  
We've got big plans and one small step at a time we will get there.
Stop in to get your Specialty Cheese- no shipping and lots of flavor!

(The New sign)