09/19/2023
Hello to all of our new followers! 🤩 My name is Naomi and my husband is Austin. We also have a son named Levi and 3 dogs named Denali, Cheyanne, and Eloise.
First let me tell you about the picture and then I will introduce our farm!
This was a delicious meal I made the other night with brown gravy, cream of mushroom, egg noodles, and Tate Farms cube steak 🥩🤤!
The story of Tate Farms!
Tate Farms was actually established by Austin’s parents in 1983. They had been renting land for their herd of 8. They then sold the 8 head they had and bought an 8 acre parcel that was one giant steep hill on Tate road! It used to be a tomato farm. They weren’t without cows for but a year before they bought some more.
In 1998 is when Austin’s dad, Martin had found out about this breed called Blonde D’ Aquitaine that originated in the alps of France and was almost made extinct during World War II.
The Blonde breed is known for extreme heat and cold tolerance, being able to sweat from their whole body and not just their nose like most breeds, being able to flick their muscles from head to tail to ward off flies, being extremely muscular (almost double muscled), very lean, their bones are not super dense yet still very strong, they have a small birth weight and bulk up fast, and last but not least, they are a very docile breed!
Their bone density feature allows for a much more efficient meat to carcass ratio so that when you are paying by the pound based on hanging weight, you are getting more meat for your dollar.
Their lean feature is something different than most consumers think they would want. Being a lean beef makes it very healthy for consumption. But the assumption that comes along with healthiness is that it tastes bad. That’s incorrect for this breed. We feed them out with a corn and sweet feed mixture during the last quarter of their life. Most breeds while being fed out will have their meat start to take on a marble effect where the fat from the feed starts to weave its way throughout the beef. That effect while tasty to some, is very unhealthy. Blondes take the feed and it has a very different effect. Their meat becomes tender and flavorful from the feed but still maintains its leanness!
Now that you know why Austin’s parents chose this awesome breed, you can see why Austin and I are still choosing this breed today! We of course wanted to continue for our family but eventually wanted to share it with the world! With only about 50 farmers in the US raising the breed for sale, we wanted to be the next. Now Canada and Australia on the other hand, this breed is very popular in those countries!
Austin was given his first cow on his 10th birthday in 2002. He named her Frosty! He was allowed to keep her in with his dads cows. Frosty primarily had bull calves and Austin would raise them for his family’s freezer. In 2007 though, during the ice storms, she gave birth to twin heifers. He named them Reese’s and Snickers. Shortly after their birth, Austin’s dad passed away from a massive heart attack. His mom was forced to sell their herd of over 200 head at the time. Austin was 14.
Austin dreamed of carrying on his dads legacy with the blonde breed that they all loved. He and his sister kept their cows, a small herd. They worked together to keep the only normal they had ever known.
When I came along, Austin had 6 mama cows and two heifers that had all stemmed from Frosty.
We got married and began to look for a farm of our own. God gave us the perfect one a year later in 2020 and we moved our small herd to their new forever home!
Fast forward to a year ago, we finally decided it was time to offer our beef for sale to not only share the goodness but also to help pay for the upkeep of our growing herd!
Although farming and farm life is very hard sometimes, it is Austin and I’s greatest passion! We love our cows! We love the beef they provide! We love the feeling of satisfaction after a long days work! We love to watch new calves! We love the heritage of our herd and hope to continue it for our son!
We have learned so much not just about farming and cows, but about ourselves, about our Creator, and about others through this way of life! We continue to learn and grow everyday and we love it!
Our hope is to be able to provide each and every one of you with not only a taste of delicious beef but also to further your knowledge about beef!
Thank you for reading! ♥️
