Know Where Your Food Comes From

December Newsletter

Why these newsletters

I have been writing these newsletters for almost a year now. In fact, this will be my tenth newsletter. It has been a joy for me to share stories of the ranch and our family; if you haven't figured it out by now, I find it extremely important. I'm a huge believer in knowing where your food comes from. Unfortunately, we have been losing a way of life that is so important to the community and the quality of food itself. I believe in getting out of the grocery store and experiencing an intimate relationship with your food and where it comes from.

Most of us have gone to see one of our favorite musicians live. Hopefully, that performance was well worth the price of the ticket you paid. Hopefully, that performance was more exciting, enjoyable, and better sounding than listening to the mp3 on your phone. The reality of it being a pure analog sound, your ears listening to the instruments in real-time, and most of all, seeing the musicians on stage should all add to a genuine experience. As a result, you leave that show feeling like you know more about that music.

Believe it or not, food is not all that different. When you go to the grocery store, it is a lot like listening to the mp3 of a song. You pull the food off the shelf but don't know much about it. You can enjoy that food just like listening to a song on your phone and enjoy it, but it still lacks that authentic experience. It is like you haven't experienced the real thing. 

For food, you can put it this way, "Do you like peaches?" 

"Yes." You reply

"Have you had a peach from Georgia orchards?" You are asked.

"No." You say.

"Will you never really have had a peach until you go to Georgia orchards, pull a peach fresh off the tree, and eat it."

Like the music, eating the peach in a Georgia orchard was a real authentic experience. So much so that you don't know what a peach is until you have one from a Georgia orchard. TriTails also falls into this category of experiences but with beef and Texas. We are a genuine Texas ranch with real cowboys. You only really had a steak once you had a TriTails steak. For the whole experience, it is not enough to know that we are just a beef ranch in Texas. You want to know that we are the rock stars of beef. We have every bit of passion for beef that your favorite artist has for their craft. We are not here to give a mere meager steak but the real authentic thing, and we want you to know that. 

We understand that our customers will not be able to come onto the ranch. You

might not experience all the practices that make our cows happy and perfect for beef. Many people don't even know that cowboys are still around, and people who do know often stereotype them. Most people don't see the aging process which makes your steak tender and flavorful. These are the reasons for my newsletters. You can come along for the ride and see what makes a ranch in the Panhandle of Texas unique. I recommend reading all of our past newsletters, especially the first one.

                                                                                                                                

Harvest Time

It is the time of year when we finally reap what we have sown. It is always exciting to see what all the hard work produced. On Harrell ranch, it is always met with much anticipation since we are dryland farmers. Dryland farming means that we have no source of irrigation. We are utterly dependent on the rainfall of a particular year. That means little rain equals a little harvest versus a significant rain that produces an abundance.

This year things landed very much between a great harvest and a poor one. We planted a bunch of milo(a grain crop) in the ground in early summer. Thanks to a large amount of previous rain, we were able to have the crop sprout before a period of drought. It was the end of June and the start of August when we found ourselves in the midst of some more extensive rain showers. The moisture was exactly what we needed as the plants were in the middle of their vegetative growth period. From then, the only problem we experienced before the harvest was a few elk herds and hogs eating a couple of acres of the crop. Nothing that was overly devastating to the harvest

We also decided to plant a hay crop this year along with the milo. That also did well, even though we grew it much later in the year. We did pretty well this year with that harvest and the milo harvest. We have enough feed for the herd this winter. We even have enough to sell some. As always, we look forward to next year with great anticipation.

Prayer Requests

You can feel free to disregard this part of the newsletter, but we always need prayers. Please do not think we are asking you to only pray for us but rather just add these things to the things you already pray for. We really appreciate and believe in this.

• For winter snows so we can grow wheat.

Thank You so much, and don’t hesitate to let us know if we can pray for you.