This summer has flown by. Between haying, moving cattle and a building project we did not have last year, it has been one of the busier ones we can remember — so here is where things actually stand at Pure Valley Farms partway through the season, and one piece of news a lot of you have been asking about.
Quarter beef is coming back this fall
This is the question we get most often, so we will lead with it: we expect to have quarter and bulk beef packages available again in late fall or early winter. They are sold out at the moment, which is why you will not see them in the shop right now.
We would rather say “late fall or early winter” and be right than name a date and miss it. Timing depends on when the animals are finished and on the abattoir’s schedule, and neither is fully ours to control. When we know, you will know — and the people on our email list will hear first, because bulk packages usually go quickly.
If you are thinking about a quarter for the first time, the short version: it is the most economical way to buy beef from us, you get a spread of cuts across the whole animal rather than only the popular ones, and it needs real freezer space. We will write a proper guide to that before the packages go live.
The rain finally came
The biggest news out on the land is water. We have had more rain this year than we have seen in many years, and after several dry seasons it has made all the difference. The pastures came on thick and have held, and the hay crop came with them.
Here is what that actually means, in the plainest terms we can put it: we will have enough feed to carry the herd through winter without buying any.
If you have not farmed through a dry year, that may not sound like much. It is an enormous relief. Bought feed costs money you had not planned to spend, you have far less say in what is in it, and in a genuinely dry year it is not always available at any price. Growing our own winter feed is also the only way we get to know exactly what the cattle are eating from one end of the year to the other — which is the whole point of how we do this.
So the last while has been spent putting it up. We have just finished moving green feed bales — a mix of fall rye and clover — off the field and into storage for winter feeding, and we cut an alfalfa field this week to put up more hay on top of that.
The cattle
The cows have just been moved onto fresh pasture, which is always a good day to be out there — they know exactly what is happening the moment the gate opens.
The calf crop has done well this year. Every cow we bred calved, and we did not lose a single calf. That does not happen every year, and we are not taking credit for it — we are counting it a blessing and saying so plainly.
What has not changed is how they are raised: no antibiotics, no added hormones or steroids, moved onto fresh grass through the season, handled as calmly as we can manage, and cut and wrapped at a provincially inspected abattoir.
We’re building a house
The other reason this summer has been chaotic: we are building a house on the main farm yard site. It is a long way from finished — realistically a good number of months out — but the idea of living right on the yard, rather than driving to it, is something we are very much looking forward to.
We mention it partly because it explains why we have been quiet, and partly because it is the direction the whole thing has been heading since we came back to this land: putting down something permanent here.
What’s in the freezer right now
Well stocked on the everyday cuts and the smokehouse items that carry a summer:
- Ground beef — premium lean, in 1 lb and 2 lb packages, from $10.50
- Steaks — strip loin and tenderloin, two to a package
- Hot dogs and smokies — all beef, no fillers
- Snack sticks and jerky — for lunchboxes, glove boxes and hockey bags
- Soup bones — roast them first for a deeper broth; genuinely good value
See everything that’s in stock →
The new website is live
If purevalleyfarms.ca looks different, that is because we rebuilt it from the ground up. It is faster, it actually works properly on a phone, and ordering takes a fraction of the steps it used to.
A few things worth knowing while you are there:
- Delivery is free on orders of $125 or more, with a $20 flat rate under that.
- We now deliver along the whole Saskatoon–Prince Albert corridor — the farm sits between the two, so Prince Albert is no further for us than Saskatoon.
- Anyone anywhere in Saskatchewan can order for farm pickup. You no longer need to be in the delivery area to buy from us — collect at the farm near Rosthern and we will arrange a time by email or text once your order is ready.
If you run into anything broken, please tell us. We would much rather hear it from you than not hear it at all.
Thanks for sticking with us. For an operation our size it genuinely matters.
— Jed & Lucia
Pure Valley Farms, near Rosthern, SK