Hurricane Helene: How you can help

Our family is grateful and humbled by the outpouring of support since Hurricane Helene last month. Offers have come from across the country in the form of fencing supplies, manpower, generators, monetary donations and more. We know that as a public-facing farm, we have a larger reach, so we have been able to share our story of devastation well beyond South Carolina … BUT we are just one of the MANY farms across the Southeast facing challenges resulting from the recent storms.

While it certainly hasn’t been easy, we are making progress everyday towards restoring our farm. We are getting the supplies and equipment we need, and we are blessed with the best crew and neighbors in the country. The financial losses from this event will be significant, not just this year, but in years to come – for us, and many other farms. Most of our income is provided from our two annual cattle sales (and supplemented from the pecans), so the very best way to support Yon Family Farms is to help our upcoming cattle sales and the holiday season at The Nut House & Country Market be a success.

If you are interested, we have put together a few specific ways that you can help:

CATTLE CUSTOMERS

HURRICANE HELENE & MILTON CREDITS

– Our success depends on the success of our bull customers. By our count via the FEMA website, there are at least 203 counties in SC, NC, GA, FL, TN and VA that were designated as disaster areas. Many of our bull customers live and work in these counties and are facing hardships on their farms, similar to us.

– To help support the ongoing success of our cattle customers, Yon Family Farms will be offering a $300 credit for each bull purchased by farms located in impacted counties.

– If you are a cattle farmer and purchase a bull and would like to use this credit, simply let us know at checkout following the Oct 26th sale at Yon Family Farms, or on the Yon bulls selling in the Kempfer Cattle Company Sale in FL on Nov. 7th.

– If you are a supporter of Yon Family Farms and would like to contribute to a fund to help make these credits possible, please email lydia@yonfamilyfarms.com for details as to how to contribute.

SALE DAY PICK UP

– If you are traveling to Ridge Spring for the female sale on Oct 25th and/or the bull sale on Oct 26th and planning to make a purchase, please consider bringing your trailer. Picking up your cattle on sale day, or scheduling a pickup in the following days, will allow our crew to continue working here at the farm, rebuilding fence and cleaning up debris. Customers can deduct $100 for each bull picked up on sale day this Fall. Please plan to pick up your female purchases if possible.

– That being said, we will certainly help make arrangements to get your animals to you, as always. If you need delivery, don’t be discouraged from bidding – we have reliable trucking to help us with deliveries!

FRIENDS OF YON FAMILY FARMS

THE NUT HOUSE & COUNTRY MARKET

– Our pecan orchards took a devastating hit, and our pecan crop this year will be minimal. We will continue to offer our homemade pecan candy and many other SC grown goodies in our shop. When it comes time to shop for Christmas gifts, we hope you consider buying a pecan gift tin for your friends and family. We will be happy to ship to all 50 states and take care of the gift wrap for you!

PLANT A TREE

– The orchards on Pecan Grove Road have been a Ridge Spring landmark for over 100 years. Our family intends to replant the damaged orchards and are offering the opportunity to sponsor a tree as we rebuild. Please visit https://nuthouseandcountrymarket.com/pro…/pecans-cracking/ for more information.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT

Kevin, Drake, and Corbin all serve on the Ridge Spring Fire Department and worked tirelessly alongside other volunteers to keep our community safe during the storm, clearing roads of downed trees, assisting EMS, and helping homeowners with trees on their homes. After the sun came out again, our Fire Department supported efforts to feed residents twice per day until power was restored. We have seen in our small town how important having a robust volunteer workforce is, both for “active” firefighting jobs, and auxiliary roles. Please consider paying forward these efforts by supporting the Ridge Spring Volunteer Fire Dept or the local volunteer fire department in your area.

We are all in this together! Let’s continue to help and encourage each other whenever hardships, weather-related, or otherwise arise. That is one of the beautiful things about being part of the agriculture community!

Hurricane Helene at Yon Family Farms

Our family wanted to take a moment to share how Hurricane Helene has impacted our farm and community in Ridge Spring, SC.  Yon Family Farms was established in 1996 when we moved to Ridge Spring – our primary products are Angus cattle, small grains, corn, sorghum, hay, pecans, and timber. We also operate a small retail store where we sell our local beef and pecans, along with other locally grown products from neighboring farms. Yon Family Farms is truly a family farm, run by “boots on the ground” family members and a dedicated team of around 12 other full time employees.  We raised our family here and today the third generation is seven strong thus far.

Hurricane Helene came in around 4 am on Friday morning, September 27th and raged for a full three or four hours.  Three of our family members who serve as volunteer firemen were out responding to calls from 2 am on Friday morning, all day, until darkness fell again, assisting with clearing trees from roadways and helping people with damaged homes. Those of us left at home alone (moms and wives – with young babies and small children) hunkered down in darkness with howling wind and beating rain being the only sounds we heard, unable to communicate, except for the occasional text urging us to move to the center of our homes, that it was not safe elsewhere. We storm-shocked gals and the children all migrated to one house after the storm passed, where we eventually cooked supper on the grill and ate, before returning to our dark homes alone. When the guys, tired and weary, did safely return to our homes, they had to cut numerous trees from the roadways to do so. We were happy to see them home –  two firemen in our county lost their lives responding to a call earlier in the day as a tree struck their vehicle. It could have just as easily been our guys. They were responding to the same call before being turned around, as it had become too dangerous to travel.  Two members of our small town were also lost due to the storm’s fury.  All power was quickly lost during the storm and snapped poles, downed lines and transformers remaining in the streets are commonplace.  We are now on day 7 with no power as of October 3rd. The loss of power has been at best, an inconvenience to residents and an unexpected nightmare for farmers with livestock, poultry and perishable products needing refrigeration and freezers. We all knew the storm was forecasted, but the wind speeds and severity were grossly underestimated, which in turn, meant we were grossly unprepared.

 
 

Yon Family Farms has been dedicated for years to producing high quality Angus cattle, which we run across roughly 5,000 acres.  Across the farm, numerous downed trees on fences have required a skeleton crew of employees (who have their own issues at their homes) to spend their days running chainsaws, clearing debris from fence lines, accounting for missing livestock, trying to get them back to safety, and then patching fences non-stop. Most of our fencing is high tensile electric, so scrambling to secure multiple generators for different locations has been a real challenge. Those we have now secured are running for dedicated use to power fences and wells to provide water for the animals. There is no gas available for purchase in our town and fuel deliveries are not being made to the farms as entire fuel pumping stations are facing their own storm related issues. On a bright note, our animals made it through the stormy morning and are now doing well, in makeshift fences, with a cool drink available, due to the tireless efforts of our team members going at it from sunup to sundown for 7 days now. There is no end in sight. There are literally miles and miles of fence repairs ahead, much brand-new fencing that was just built a few short years ago, at great expense. Ironically, the same crew that did the original construction was there the day after the storm hit to start the repairs, as they knew the importance of keeping the livestock safe.  The owner of the fencing business went to high school with our kids. We are a tight knit community and here to help each other; he didn’t think twice about sending help right away.     

 
 

The Nut House & Country Market (our small retail store) on Main Street in Ridge Spring began scrambling on Friday afternoon to prevent the loss of many thousands of dollars of frozen beef and pecan inventory,  with the sure to be, extended power outage, which we quickly realized was our new reality.   After hours of searching and calling around, we were fortunate to locate an industrial generator to rent and drive the five hours round trip to pick it up and get it going within 24 hours. It is still humming outside as I write this, which has become a strangely comforting noise. We have been able to open the store and provide milk and meat for sale, as well as offer storage space to another local meat market in danger of losing their inventory.  Our town has been blessed with selfless residents, cooking daily on the town square for those in need (300-400 people per meal). Donations of non-perishables and water have started pouring in, a blessing to many.  As you drive out of “town,”just past the only gas station in town, is our pecan orchard bordering Pecan Grove Road, which is also the same road we live on.

 
 

The pecan orchards were loaded, heavy with nuts, ready to harvest within the next couple of months.  Many of the trees have stood for over 50 years and provided a livelihood for the former owner’s family, and now for ours.  The orchard took a hard hit, as the combination of drenched soil from heavy rains with wind forces clocked at 70 mph resulted in uprooted trees strewn about the entire orchard. Some of those trees have stood for over 100 years, and in a three-hour span, 75% or more were laying on the ground, like corpses, along with hours of labor, care and inputs.  I am certain each member of our family has had a private moment of weeping over the sight.  If you know much about pecan trees, it’s not a crop that can be replanted for next year and put you back in business in short order.  It’s a sickening loss and will have a devastating financial impact on our business.  As fate would have it, a new pecan cleaning facility was already under construction on our property, creating an added financial burden that will not result additional income, as there will be no nuts to harvest this fall and limited amounts for subsequent years.

Just past the orchard, our beautiful grain sorghum fields, ripe with full seedheads, were ready for harvest soon.  I was just thinking before the storm, I should grab some of the sorghum and make a fall flower arrangement – now they are all battered and prostrate on the soaked ground, no longer worthy of harvest. Same story with timber land. Multiple trees on the ground everywhere you look– never to be harvested.

 
 

Ours homes are all fine, without structural damage, just trees and limbs galore in our yards – which will likely be the case for a long time, as the farm clean-up will take priority.  Many of our neighbors here, and in the surrounding area, were not so fortunate and have trees at rest on rooftops and tarps on the roof where damage occurred. Our barns and buildings are all fine for the most part as well.  It was a strange storm, marking each area it hit, with a different set of blows.

 

Coming home after full days, post Helene, is an odd feeling, a throwback of sorts to a time years ago when everyone relied on candles and lanterns for light.  When the alarm clock was the sun and birds chirping and when dusk meant time to settle in for rest.  Seems that I am noticing things more – like just how very dark the night is, except for the occasional fire someone is using to cook from in their yard. The stars seem to shine brighter and look more marvelous when I look out the bedroom window at night. I’ve also noticed the lack of the daily trains coming through our town, the ones that cause us to stop talking until they pass – I miss them… they are part of “our normal.” I’ve noticed the strong character of my neighbors, serving others with a smile, despite being weary.  I’ve noticed the teamwork of our own family kicking in, everyone doing what they can without complaining and still making time to run more fire calls and help friends in need.  It’s funny too how most of us aren’t talking about our own problems, but are more heartbroken for the footage we see from our neighbors in the high country of western NC and eastern TN.  Despite the horrendous damage, Helene has renewed hope in my heart that there is still much good in our country.  She will go down in history as one of the most notorious natural disasters to hit the Southeast, and maybe the only named storm I will have experienced firsthand besides Hugo. Her effects will be loud financially and without continued help, many in our rural areas will not recover well. Here’s hoping that Helene, will be the last storm that we can recall by name in these parts in our lifetimes.

 

The Yon Family

318 Aiken Road

Ridge Spring, SC 29129

803-622-8597

DEEP CUTS: Flat Iron Steak

We almost don’t want to tell you about this one because we love it for ourselves… – THE FLAT IRON STEAK 🥩
We’re continuing to shine a spotlight on the lesser known and sometimes under appreciated cuts through our ⭐️ DEEP CUTS ⭐️ series so you can add new hits to your beef repertoire! You can’t go wrong with anything that you choose from Yon Family Farms, but this one is one of our favorites!
The Flat Iron Steak is cut from the top blade of the shoulder (or chuck) section. It’s called “Flat Iron” because its shape resembles an old-fashioned metal flat iron. Despite coming from the shoulder, this cut is incredibly tender, second only to the filet mignon in tenderness. 😱
Swing by The Nut House & Country Market to grab a pack and let us know in the comments how you plan to prepare it!
Stay tuned for more hidden gems in our “Deep Cuts” series! Whether you’re a seasoned chef or a home cook looking to expand your beef repertoire, we’re here to guide you through the delicious world of lesser-known beef cuts.

Deep Cuts

⭐️ Introducing: DEEP CUTS
Sure you’ve heard of Beef’s “Greatest Hits” 🎶 (Think: Ribeye, Filet, and a NY Strip) but what about the lesser known and sometimes under appreciated cuts? There are so many equally amazing parts of the carcass that deserve just as much love! Throughout August we’ll be shining a spotlight on these “Deep Cuts” so you can add new hits to your beef repertoire!
Our first feature? The Coulotte Steak! 🥩
The Coulotte Steak, also known as the sirloin cap steak, is a flavorful and tender cut from the top sirloin. It boasts a rich beefy flavor and is known for its great marbling, making it juicy and delicious. It is perfect for grilling, roasting, or searing in a cast-iron skillet.
Already familiar with the Coulotte Steak? Share your favorite recipes below and let us know how you enjoy Yon Family Farms Coulotte Steaks! Stay tuned for more hidden gems in our “Deep Cuts” series! Whether you’re a seasoned chef or a home cook looking to expand your beef repertoire, we’re here to guide you through the delicious world of lesser-known beef cuts.

Where to find us: August 2024

While our retail store in Ridge Spring, South Carolina stays open Monday – Saturday 10 – 5, we’ve been taking a few of our products on the road, meeting new customers, and participating in various markets. This August you can find us in Batesburg at the Fulmer St. Market and in Lexington at the Market at Icehouse with raw pecans, pecan candy, and of course – Yon Family Farms Angus Beef.

Help us spread the word by sharing with a friend in Batesburg or Lexington! 

  • Thursday August 8th: Fulmer St Market –  4 – 8pm Batesburg, SC
  • Saturday August 10: The Market at Icehouse – 9am – 1pm, Lexington, SC
  • Thursday August 22th: Fulmer St Market –  4 – 8pm Batesburg, SC
  • Saturday August 24: The Market at Icehouse – 9am – 1pm, Lexington, SC