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2021 Update and goals

6/18/2021

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We continue to farm on our little plot of land. We enjoy gardening and our animals even if it is small scale.
The kids are grown up, we are no longer involved in farmers market (except for the occasional shopping visit) but knowing where our food comes from is still our goal!
This year we are growing more food that we will eat and plan to sell it to our community. We hope to have an official farm stand up and running in August.
Eggs are available daily and fruit and veg as it becomes available. At this time it is located by the end of our driveway in a cooler.
Follow us on our social media to stay up to date. 
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Our original story post

6/18/2021

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The Haskins Family Farm is a lifelong dream for Both Mary and Bob Haskins. It is a 14 acre property located in Middletown, Virginia.

It all began in 2006 when we moved to Virginia and began our search for a new house. We knew we wanted more space to have a larger garden and place where we could have a few animals (mostly chickens). Finding a place that would allow for "agricultural use" or "livestock" was challenging but we finally hit upon an old Victorian farmhouse with 14 acres. It needed lots of love and attention but was a well built place with lots of room to work.

Next Bob began to read. Books with titles like: You Can Farm, The Omnivores's Delema, andPastured Poutry Profits. Mary read Barbara Kingsolver's book about eating locally for a year:Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Together we began to talk about how we might make good use of our farm, eat better and share it with our community.

We set out with a very clear goal to preserve this little farm and improve it so that it will provide food for our family and community. Our hopes are to pass it on to the next generation. We take this stewardship seriously and will work to give back to the land more than what we take.

We live here, our children live here. We would never put our home, family or health at risk. Therefore we grow using organic methods that will allow the land to prosper. We use no growth stimulents (hormones or antibiotics) and animals are fed an "animal free" ration.  At this time we do not use organic feed but would like to add that sometime in the near future. Keep in mind that animals on pasture have free access to grass, roots and bugs which are their natural diet.
Our animals are treated humanely and are out running around the pasture as they are meant to. They scratch and root while eating roots and bugs just like nature intended.

In the end we get to enjoy walking amongst our critters and enjoying their antics. It is a real joy to be surrounded by the abundance of our land. We truly are blessed.
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June 18th, 2021

6/18/2021

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​Changes on the farm 2013 - We have attended our last farmers market as a chicken, pork, egg and turkey producer.

We plan to take a bit of time to recoup and spend time with family before we head off in another direction.

Our next step is to start raising goats. Goats will help us keep our pastures clear of weeds and shrubbery. These will be meat goats and at some point we will sell them for just that.
Below is the letter we wrote to all our market family in April. It explains why we have stop producing chicken, pork, eggs, and turkey after doing so for 6 years.


It is with mixed emotions that Mary and I announce the shutdown of Haskins Family Farm to the world at large. As you might expect, this has been a very difficult decision for us since we have worked very hard since 2006 to produce what you see at the market. The process of shutting down our business has already begun and is almost finished. Much of our chicken raising equipment and laying flock has been sold, with the rest up for sale with active buying interest.

We expect to sell out of all of our available pork by May 30, 2013 (or before) and will not have additional product (chicken, turkey, pork or eggs) going forward. We will cease selling our products from the farm and from Farmers Markets we sold at last/this year (Leesburg, Palisades and Crystal City).

The only reason we have stayed with this little experiment so long is due to you, our loyal customers. You have kept us going when the times got tough. If it weren’t for the extraordinary support we have received over the years, we would most certainly not have made it this long. We consider you, our customers, each to be friends of the family.

You might be wondering what caused us to have to wind down our beloved farm business. In November of 2012, we had two events that significantly impacted our ability to continue:

1)      Our USDA chicken cutter informed us that they would no longer be cutting our chicken
2)      Our farm helper, who committed to working for us until December, 2013 told us she was leaving us a year early, at the end of December, 2012

Of course, both of these problems can be overcome. But, both would take additional time and money which is where the problem lies. In addressing the issue of USDA chicken cutting, we could use the processor we used for turkeys for processing our chicken but there are a couple of issues with this plan:

1)      We would have to drive many more miles in order to accomplish the chicken cutting, requiring a large expenditure in equipment (trailers)
2)      The alternate processor is much more expensive than our existing processors combined

As for interns, we have found finding a good one problematic. Furthermore the cost of paying a fair wage and offering housing is an issue. We have tried to work through this but money is really at the heart of it. Our little farm does not make enough to support hiring help and building more infrastructure.

Both of the issues outlined above would cause us to have to outlay more cash. We were in a time crunch and needed to find someone quickly to replace our intern, as we only had about 45-60 days before the preparation started again for the 2013 season. We were getting burned out and needed help desperately.

In addition to all of the above problems, when we looked at the return on our investment, it was very small and doesn’t support all of the required funds/cash flow to fix the above problems. Basically, we could hire someone and give our meager return to them and not have anything to invest in the farm for the future or to keep for ourselves.

Without some help (labor), the amount of time required to keep this experiment going was also problematic. As many of you know, Bob has an off-farm job that in fact pays the mortgage. This required a lot of late nights caring for the 4000 chickens/year and 50 hogs/year that we raised. While Mary was doing the daytime chores it was Bob who came home from his job and did the heavy work. In most cases we were working alone. Most nights we would throw some dinner together (usually after dark), eat, and head to bed. Bob took up a Mountain Dew kick and Mary drank Coke...not exactly fitting with our lifestyle. We were tired A LOT! Let’s not even talk about time together as a family. Getting everyone together for one of the kid’s concerts was about all we could manage.

So we came to the very difficult decision to shut our farm business down. We know that we are impacting our customers, but we have no other choice available to us. We will do our best to refer you to other producers who use similar methods to ours to help you with the transition.

So what will we be doing now with all of our free time? We hope to stay in the agricultural arena by raising meat goats. We feel that goats are a good fit for our property (lots of rocks, brush and hills) and for our marketing goals by not attending farmers markets. Our sales will be in the form of live animals for breeding, meat and wholesale carcasses to restaurants/etc. Bob is interested in performing vendor inspections for market operators to ensure each vendor adheres to the rules of the market operator. Also, we plan to stay in the farmers market scene by blogging with a unique perspective about all aspects of the subject. (Before we were farmers we were, and still are, farmers markets junkies of the first degree!!) So stay tuned, as exciting times are ahead!

In closing, we would like to thank every one of the customers who have supported us over time, as well as all of the people who have helped us get going and stay going over the years. We will most certainly miss you, but we expect to be seeing many of you as time goes on. We will continue writing about our adventures on our new re-designed web site and our existing Haskins Family Farm Facebook page.

We’ll end this writing with what Bob has ended each and every electronic communication since the start of our little adventure:

Thanks for your support of our farm!!


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    Bob&Mary Haskins

    Bob and Mary have run HFF for the since 2007. After a great run of selling chicken, pork, eggs and turkey at nearby markets they  have turned to goats in order to simplify life together and spend more time as a family

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