Final Stop on Gate to Plate Tour: The Harward Sisters
Today I am going to tell you about the five hardworking sisters that I recently met on the Gate to Plate tour. If you missed the other posts about this tour you can check them out here and here.
As I mentioned in the other post, we traveled to Stanly County to tour two working cattle farms. At Ms. Elaine’s farm, we toured her whole facility as her farm is more of the starting point for cattle. After we left her farm, we head to the Harward Sisters farm. We were very fortunate to have Catherine, one of the sisters ride on the tour bus with us to their farm.
Their farm was a little bit different as they raise cattle aka cows for show. Not sure what that means, these cows are often seen at fairs and cattle shows vying for blue ribbons. I will say while we were there I did fall in love with one of their cows, she had a white streak on the top of her forehead just like a certain Shih Tzu we all know and love.
But back to The Harward Sisters. They are 5 sisters that have taken over their dad’s and granddad’s cattle ranch. Not only do they raise show cattle at their ranch, but they also have a marketplace for ranchers to sell their cattle.
The tour of this farm wasn’t as long as the one we did at the Elaine Moore Farm, it was just as informative. After walking down to where the pampered cows live. ( Yes, they are pampered in every sense of the word. They have fans blowing on them, and our brushed and bathed twice a day. So yes pampered in every since of the word.) It was time for lunch.
Y’all let me tell you about the lunch we had. It was from a local food truck, Jon G’s Barbecue. Let me tell you if you are ever in the Charlotte, NC area and see their food truck, stop what you are doing immediately and pull over and get you some of this yumminess.
Our lunch was so delicious. Barbecue brisket tacos with all the fixins’. It was so yummy, but so much I couldn’t finish eating it all. I totally felt bad about not finishing my plate but I could only eat so much. (I know I should have asked for a doggy bag.) In fact, months later think about how delicious that food was. I mean just look at it.
After lunch, we were able to hear a panel discussion about cattle farming. The panelists ranged from feedlot owners, cattle farmers, a nutritionist, and a veterinarian. I was actually surprised by some of the things I learned from this panel. Like for instance, did you know that there are such strict guidelines in place that all cattle is already antibiotic and hormone free? I didn’t know that. I also found out that there is a thing called the Vet Feed Directive. Basically what this says is that if a cow gets sick and has to have medication there has to be a withdrawal time before they are sent to market. Wow, right. Plus when they do use antibiotics because you wouldn’t want to see a cow sick, they have to keep tight records of what was administered and they avoid using drugs like penicillin that people may use.
So the truth is that all cattle are antibiotic and hormone free when they go to market. The biggest thing I got from this tour could be summed up by what Leah Ingles, the nutritionist said in the panel. And that is MAKE CHOICES BASED ON FACTS NOT FEARS.
I urge you to get behind our farmers. I encourage you to start a conversation with them about what they do and how they go about doing it. Because honestly, there is too much misinformation floating around you need to make yourself learn the facts and with that knowledge make a choice based on what you know.
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