21 Sep 2005
Lots of News

Hammerstead's New truck

Well, that's our new refrigerated truck pictured above. It's a 1998 Nissan Frontier with a ThermoKing V250 reefer unit. This will help on our energy usage quite a bit: it gets 26 mpg, even with the compressor running, while my old truck/trailer combo barely managed 12 mpg.

I traded the old delivery trailer to Kevyn for a steer, which was promptly slaughtered and sold our in less than a week. I kept the milk cooler, which runs really well as long as we never shut it off (good thing we're not in the path of a hurricane, 'cause if it loses power, I lose it). This give me an on site "cold room" with a capacity of 72 bottles, or about a days delivery. Which keeps me from making so many back and forth trips to the creamery to pick up product.

We started brooding 100 more laying hens last month - so far so good, as we've lost less than 10%, and they're fully feathered and ready to go out on pasture as soon as I can get a paddock set up for them.

A reporter for a regional publication rode with me on my Boone County route today - they're doing a story for the November issue of their magazine (more on this when it's published).

We're running the petting zoo and driving in the parade at the Festival of the Turning Leaves in Thorntown this weekend.

I've found enough local egg producers to meet demand for the foreseeable future - that was quite a challenge! I've held off on any advertising or really selling for new customers because of concerns about my egg supply, but that's straightened out now, and milk looks to be stable as well.

Gas prices hit sales pretty hard when they spiked after Katrina, but seem to be stabilizing now. We'll see what happens to gas with Rita running loose in the Gulf. I added a $1 per order surcharge when gas hit $3, but promised to remove it if it falls below $2.50. At this point, I imagine it'll be in place for quite a while.

So, as you can tell, it's been a busy month. And it promises to get busier still. So while I'll do my best to keep on blogging, until things level off a bit, don't look for me 'til you see me!

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