Any farmer will tell you there’s a universal law that extra work always stacks up on a holiday. That’s the spot we found ourselves in this Labor Day. As an employer, I wish nobody had to work on a holiday, but we haven’t trained the turkeys to take a day off, so our team rotates through the holidays to share the load. This Labor Day was different, though, because of the extreme heat in the forecast.
I knew we’d need to spray our oldest flock all day to keep them comfortable. On hot days, we use a tractor and water tank to drive through our range, spraying our turkeys to keep them cool and moving toward water. Top that off with a long-scheduled turkey loading that evening, and we’d have a lot of folks working hard this Labor Day: people spraying turkeys, people loading turkeys, truck drivers transporting turkeys. At one point from the loader, I looked out and counted almost 20 people hard at work on this holiday representing rest from labor.
Almost as if it was scripted, I noticed that one of the truck drivers that night was wearing a t-shirt that said “No Farmers, No Food.” Now, that’s a more in-your-face message than I’d typically use, but the sentiment rang true that evening. Here we all were, hard at work on a holiday, caring for our flocks to provide for our customers.
There’s no complaint because this is all somewhere in the farming job description, but I wanted to share this story as a way to extend my thanks to our terrific team here who work hard every day of the year to care for our turkeys. We don’t do it alone, and I’m grateful for all the ways we work together toward a common goal. Even when it’s a darn hot holiday!
Speaking of work, our market team is busy prepping for our first-ever Fall Fest on Saturday, September 30th. Many of you know that our annual fall event has evolved a few times over the years, but we’re really excited about this festival format with fun and food for the whole family. We’re thrilled that local brewery Tilion will be here, so you can even kick back on the farm with an Oktoberfest beer. I’ll hope to see you here!
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