Skagit River Ranch Newsletter April 2013

Newsletter Skagit River Ranch, LLC 28778 Utopia road Sedro Woolley, WA 98284 (360) 856-0722 www.skagitriverranch.com              April 16, 2013             Message from Farmer George   Organic Grass-fed WAGYU (Kobe) BEEF in production now! It’s been 5 years in the making.  I now have Certified Organic, 100% grass-fed, Wagyu Beef to offer you at our ranch.  Eiko and I wanted to add “Extra Tenderness” to our already award winning steaks.  So I bred my prime Angus herd with pure breed Wagyu bulls to produce extra tender steaks--and oh boy, are they good!  You won’t believe them until you taste them.  The American Wagyu mixed with Angus flavor, I am really excited for you to try them.  A few selected restaurants and our farmer’s market will carry the products.  Hope you enjoy them…it was a lot of work and there were a lot of expenses (Yikes)!     Farmer George      Skagit River Ranch Wagyu Cattle            Our Wagyu Ribeye Mark Schatzker said in The Wall Street Journal in May 2010 article about beef:  “….Ask about the breed. Be wary of "Continental" breeds, such as Charolais or Limousin, which do very well in feedlots and terribly on grass. Look for British breeds like Hereford, Galloway and Angus. And if you should find grass-fed Wagyu, buy it….” Organic Chickens, Pork, & Grain Prices   The drought in the Midwest caused all the grain prices to double/triple during the winter.  It has limited our chicken production and forced us to raise the prices of pork items.  We are maintaining current pork productions, but we decreased our chicken production. We will have some chicken again in June, but it will be in a limited quantity.  We are hoping the price of grain will come down this fall.  We will not buy cheap “certified organic” grain from China, since I’m skeptical if they are even organic.  A grain miller we deal with told us that 60% of Chinese grain “tested” fails organic inspection.  I am glad I mill my own grain, and I can verify the local farmers who grow grains for me. This winter was fairly mild temperature wise, still lots of rain.  But our animals made it though the winter fine, finally fattening on our spring grass.   Our New Website is Up, and Yes, We Have Online Shipping!   You can order some of our products on-line now.  We began shipping our new organic Wagyu steaks, a few of our organic beef and pork products, and we plan to add more product as the demand grows.  Shipping is expensive, and for those of you who can buy locally, please do so.  However, some customers who had no way of getting good quality meat now have access to our quality meat. Check out our new website at www.skagitriverranch.com!     Outstanding In The Field Event July 9, 2013   The popular Outstanding in the Field event comes to our farm this year.  Chef/Owner Brandon Petit of Delancy and Essex will prepare an amazing dinner at our farm on July 9th.  Tickets are on sale now at www.outstandinginthethefield.com.  Molley Wizenberg, co-owner & Brandon’s wife, writes the popular “Orangette” food blog site.  We are excited to welcome them to our farm.  Hope to see you there.                        People have been asking us when this is going to happen.  This is a bi-annual event, so be sure to mark your calendars.  There will be George’s famous farm tours, our Chef’s cooking demo, good food, raffles, petting zoo, kids activity, and live music.  You don’t want to miss this, it won’t happen again until 2015!          George's Farm Tour                        Live Music                              Chef's Demo Egg Production   We invested in a large, “grass sprouting” rack system to produce live wheat grass to feed our egg laying chickens for extra green grass especially for the winter months.  Customers always ask why our eggs taste so much better than  the other guys.  We raise our chickens outdoors, with sunshine, lots of greens, and good wholesome organic grains milled at the farm.  Pretty simple.                     Rack System                             Happy Chickens                         Healthy Eggs Quick Note on GMO Issue I believe that people have a right to know what they are eating and where their food comes from.  If this GMO food is the same as any other food as they claim, why did these companies spend $42 million in California to keep GMO off the label?  I just wonder how many millions of dollars the same companies will spend to defeat I-522?   Twitter and Facebook             If you are not already on Twitter or Facebook.  Get onboard.  Follow me on Twitter because I do update farm stuff all the time.  If I can learn it, you can.  You will be thoroughly entertained as I “routinely” make typos or send messages prematurely because my finger slips, etc.  It will be entertaining as well as informative of what’s going on at the farm.  Shannon at our office faithfully updates our Facebook for us (I am still afraid of Facebook) but I promise I’ll get better!              George & Eiko                           Our Farm Crew                                    Nicole       Be sure to check out our new website at www.skagitriverranch.com!!   Copyright © 2013 Skagit River Ranch, LLC, All rights reserved.

100% Organic Wagyu Beef Now Available For Online Purchase!

Wagyu (known as Kobe beef) was developed in Japan in the 2^nd century, known for its extraordinary genetic traits of tenderness and flavor.  We have introduced the breed to some of our existing Angus herd four years ago to create an extra tenderness to our already award winning beef. 

We now have the cleanest, most humanely raised (organic), most nutritious (grass-fed) and most tender and flavorful (Wagyu) meat you will ever taste, and we are now pleased to announce its availability for online shipping! Please check out the updated site and familiarize yourselves with our selection of products!