Sharing Information

The exception to the "boredom" thing is kids. We've got some small kids who finally got brave enough to ask if they could pet my dog. When they figured out he was not going to try to bite them, they wanted to see ALL the animals and birds. Parents are city folk. They all think our dogs are vicious since they will protect our property. They never bothered to ask about them, until the kids got nosey enough to start asking questions. The mother insisted on accompanying the kids to see all the stuff... sheep, turkeys & chickens. Next day, kids brought over some watermelon rind left over from their dinner. They remembered that I said the chickens love watermelon. But when the kids wanted to touch the eggs I was collecting, the oldest reprimanded the younger and said "Mom told us not to touch anything!" They asked endless questions about the birds. What's the problem with just washing their hands???????

I really enjoy the endless curiousity the kids have when any visit. DH & I don't have any :waa: so I savor the visits! Most adults just glaze over, TMI, one friend on her first visit called me an encyclopedia when I was explaining the life cycle of our bienial raspberries!

Sorry about the delayed response Jena. Compared to some people (like myself) you are absolutely tight lipped.

I'm not super worried even when I'm talking with locals or even my competition. We tend to be oddball enough in the things we do (honey, black walnuts) for market that we won't have too much competition.

Most of the people I speak with face to face don't have as much foot/road traffic (location! location! location!) and/or the desire to make it into a living. Our competition for honey is people who have a few hives or else non-local. No one else locally cold caps and cold processes and there isn't anyone else avoiding chemicals (like apistan and checkmite) like we have been.

No one else in the area is doing black walnuts commercially either.

I'm perfectly willing to talk with people. If I think they are taking advantage of me then I'll stop talking with them <G>. There's plenty of opportunity out there (per capita consumption of honey in the U.S. is a little over 1 lb).

One way of discouraging people is to talk about the bad with the good. One of the first questions people always seem to ask is whether we have been stung. I think most people get disabused of the beekeeping notion when DW mentions the time she took 20 or so stings to the head.

Just waggle that finger at them and tell them how dangerous raising turkeys is.

In any event, a little paranoia can be a good thing. Even if you don't tell people everything there will still be competition. So always have a few tricks up your sleeve.

Mike

Tell me Jena, if everyone in the country were of a notion to buy products from small producers such as yourself, would it be good for your business? Of course the answer is yes. If new producers work to expand the market, it will be good for everyone (except cargill and tyson foods.....)

Interestingly, on the morning show this am they were discussing the city's farmers market. Seems the growers are selling out early in the morning and not able to supply nearly as much as the public wants. The market is well advertised and the city is around 400,000. A great amount of people go there. They are saying it is partially due to the growing market of people wanting to buy from the home grower types. I wonder if this is a trend through the US.?

Jena by the way... how is your farmers market selling going?

Here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about...

Yesterday I was at the farmer's market. A local man comes up to me, introduces himself and says..."So how many hoops did you have to jump through to sell like this?" He was talking about being able to sell meat retail, off the farm.

I answered..."Oh! It's easy!" and proceeded to explain how to apply for the license, who to call....even told him not to bother with the folks in the office at the dept of ag, but to ask for the inspector and gave his name. He asked a few more specific questions and I filled him in on everything he needs to know. He listened very intently and even came back later with a couple more questions.

My initital thoughts are...."I'm so happy I knew the answers this guy wanted and could help him out!" then later I wonder if ought to keep my mouth shut!

Oh well....I'm just not going to worry about it. Not worth the trouble of worrying.

I do actually wish there were more local people producing here. the biggest seller at the farmers market buys wholesale produce and re-sells it. There are a couple others who really appear to be local, but they live in a city an hour away and have one field in this county that they grow corn on. They put up a sign saying "locally grown" when most of the stuff they are selling is not!

The most asked question I get is "Where are you from?" I tell them right here and people really like that. They have not heard of me and are surprised and apparently pleased to actually see someone who does grow local!

Jena

IMO I think you told that paticular person too much info. Yes you are a nice person, but sometimes it turns around to bite ya in the butt. As in: Maybe the inspector gave you a free ride on a paticular area. Now when this guy shows up and says Jena said that this and that. And she sells meat and why can't I. So if there is a rule change and now he has to make you comply because of this guy.

Hope you understand what the babble I'm talking about . Inspectors can like one person and not give them a hard time, where he might dislike another and make him toe the mark.

No, Jena, do not show them your hand...they may think that's the secret ingredient behind chicken fingers, then your sales would drop!

I think that the remarks about Jena's finger are not amusing. Most people don't appreciate that kind of humor, even though Jena's been very gracious thus far about the crude remarks. I know that Jena will very likely come on here and start trying to smooth things over, but what if you had a wart on your nose for instance. You wouldn't appreciate everyone reminding you of it. You all ready know it's there. So I think it's about time you stop teasing her about it. She seems to be handling it quite efficiently.

About inspectors ... I think it could be extrapolated to other foods ... we had to deal with three levels of inspectors or field men when we milked cows, ffrom the dairy, state board of health and federal milk inspectors.

They do have a lot of lee-way and individuality. One guy made us repaint the milkhouse. Why ... I don't know. And they mentioned as an aside, they had to mark down every farm for at least three things or their supervisor would think they weren't doing the job.

During one state survey, one of the conservative Mennonite guys sounded off to the female state inspector ... I'm not sure what all about, but seemed to be irked that a woman was in authority over men ... adn the more he talked the more irritated she got and the more problems she found. So, all the producers flunked the state survey that time around (THANKS a LOT, dude!)

I was surprised, actually, how much lee-way they had.

Interesting point about the powers-that-be might not treat everyone the same every time.

Ann

__________________
"In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity."

Inspectors do have a lot of leeway. My county health inspector uses her common sense based on what I do. If she chose to throw the book at me...she could make my life miserable! She takes a more relaxed view because I don't do food service...I don't prepare foods, just sell pre-packaged foods.

I have found that most inspectors recognize that their job is to educate people and they are willing to work with you when getting started. We discussed my plans for my trailer and she gave me her comments on how it fit in with the codes. She didn't tell me I had to do anything, but told me the things she would like to see (I'm putting vinyl flooring in rather the painted wood and going to patch and paint the walls too). She would have let me keep it the way it was.

As for the fingers.....

Yesterday the stubborn finger did the big peel again and...it is finally healed over!!! 8 weeks, but finally! I'm going to Dr. Frankenstein (the physical therapist) 3 times a week now and he says I'll get all function back if I let him hurt me enough He takes my fingers and just cranks them down to where they should be! Then he rubs them with sand paper and other things. Fun, fun, fun..

I don't mind the jokes though. Laughter helps keep things in perspective. It's just a couple fingers. yeah, it's been a major pain and way more trouble and pain than I would have thought, but it's still just two fingers. Totally jokable in my opinion.

Jena

I have to agree with Boxwoods about inspectors. I had a vociemail from the county auditors office Friday about CAUV status. Called back today and spoke with him. He had driven by our place but didn't drive up to check things out as I had the "gate" (some cinder blocks with landscape timers through them) closed.

He wanted to ask about the new parcel and what we were doing. I gave him all the nitty gritty and told him that if he wanted to drive up to verify to just close things up afterwards. It went real easy.

Year before last when we first bought the place it was a lot tougher. There's been a fair number of folks buying land and trying to hold it under CAUV even though they plan on subdividing and selling a few years down the road.

Now that they know we are serious, generating revenue and making a go of it they are going easier.

Mike

Thanks, Jena. I would never knowingly make a joke to hurt anyone, but you have used humor so wonderfully to deal with your crisis, I didn't think it was a problem. How come all the negative vibes come from "Unregistered"? Not enough gonads to speak as themself maybe?