Why we love lamb shares
Whole lamb ready to be carved up to your specifications
There are two main ways that lamb can arrive at your dinner table from our farm. Both result in delicious and tender meat that is good for your body and good for the land. Since most people are familiar with buying individual cuts of meat (like at the grocery store or farmers market), we want to share abit more about the alternative route, the lamb share, which really is our preferred way of honoring our sheep and putting protein on our table.
By the cut
The most common way of buying meat is by the cut, for example a leg of lamb or chops. Before you get the meat, this involves transporting live lambs up to a USDA inspected processor, all of which are around 2 hours from here. Lambs are kept at the facility overnight and then processed in the morning. The facilities are professional and provide an incredibly valuable service for the local food community. However, the process is understandably stressful for lambs (and their farmers), though kept to a minimum as much as we can.
Lamb share: The alternative at a local scale is to invest in a lamb share, commonly called a whole or half share, where you receive all the cuts from one lamb. We love this approach for a number of reasons:
Calm, low stress harvest. Field harvests allow for lambs to be calm and with the flock up until the very end. We feel this is important for showing our appreciation and affection for our flock, and it also translates into a higher quality meat product for you.
You can work with us and the butcher to prepare your lamb in the way most convenient for your style of food preparation. We love cooking lamb and have butchered lambs for our own family of four for many years, so we have lots of ideas for how each part of the lamb can best provide for your home. Have a large family with growing kids and little time to prepare dinner after work, school and activities? No problem, we can keep portions large and grind many of the smaller offerings, so you have plenty for burgers, pasta and tacos. Just one or two of you on the home- no problem, we can divide up some of the larger cuts so you have more meals and more opportunity to experience the range of delicious ways to prepare lamb.
You get to experience the range of flavor profiles and cooking methods that bring out the richness of lamb. From a succulent fillet or sirloin strap seared quick on a hot grill to a shank slow braised in the oven to lamb tacos, there is so much to experience that you often wouldn’t try without the nudge of a lamb share. Everyone finds their favorite cuts, and if you want more of just that cut, we will also have lamb available by individual cuts starting October 9th.
For a majority of cuts, we are able to vacuum seal your meat in bags which have a Ziploc-type top, which makes it easy to add marinade to your meat when you pull it out of the freezer and reduces waste. The bags are also sous vide ready, which is our favorite way to prepare the especially tender cuts like loin chops or filet & sirloin strips.
The care that goes into a field harvest facilitates honoring the whole animal. Providing for our community based on stewardship is what we are all about, and this means a lamb is not just meat. Its skin and wool are tanned in our all-natural micro-tannery to become a cozy and beautiful sheepskin rug, seat cover, or apparel. The innards are composted and returned to the land. Bones are roasted and simmered into nutritious and rich broth. Hooves can be kept for buttons, and skulls can be cleaned for decoration. What does this mean for you? As the farmer and tanner, if each lamb provides more value, then we can provide that in savings to you.
While lamb shares are not for everyone, we want to encourage anyone who is lamb-curious or wanting to provide their household with high quality protein to consider it as cost-effective way to enjoy lamb and get customized butcher-counter quality in your freezer.
