The Family Farm
Two well marbled Buffalo Creek Beef Ribeyes
Chas Potter, 6th Generation, 1988
Potter Family Farm
Potter Family
THE FAMILY
The Potter Family traces it's farming history back 7 generations. In the mid 1800s, Issac Potter began farming along Buffalo Creek near Collierstown. The family later owned and operated the mill at the bend of Collierstown Road, Potter-Wade Mill. Generation three, Ray Lee first share cropped, and later purchased the property that is now Churchview Farm. Churchview Farm is the home of Buffalo Creek Beef.
Charlie Jr. (generation five) and his wife Joan restored the farmhouse in the 60's and raised their family on the farm. Their son Chas is an active participant in the family farming operation. Their oldest daughter, Marnie, and her husband Seth, operate a commercial sheep flock in the Effinger area. Charlie and Joan's other daughter, Susanne and her husband, Bert O'Neal, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Buffalo Creek Beef is very fortunate to have Bert as a management consultant for the operation.
Chas (generation 6) and his wife Rosalea, have a beef cattle and sheep operation at the foot of House Mountain, with their three young daughters.
Farming is more than an occupation it is who we have become. We start each day with the same zeal and enthusiasm about the day ahead as we experienced when we were youngsters on our very first tractor. We are satisfied at the end of each day knowing that we have put in a hard days work and created good, wholesome, healthy food. We end most days as exhausted as that youngster on the tractor.
The tradition lives on, as we farm with a passion for raising cattle and farming the land.
Locally Grown Food
There is a great tradition of farming in Rockbridge County. In the "old days", people produced their own food, and bartered or traded for the things they could not grow on their own. As progress came to the Valley, peddlers delivered locally grown food directly to markets and homes. Continued "progress" led us to to the supermarket phenomenon and our general expectation that we could buy anything. We thought little about the miles the food traveled before it got to our table. Today, thankfully, the new "progress" is moving us back to our roots. People are learning that growing and buying food produced locally, is far superior and more ecologically wise, than buying food grown thousands of miles away.
Our family has been growing beef for over 100 years. And we have been eating our own beef and selling halfs and quarters to our friends for many of those years. With the renewed understanding of the general public that eating food grown within a few miles of your home is the far superior to eating food that has been trucked or flown in from thousands of miles away, we are thrilled to be able to provide high quality, healthy meat direct to your table. We welcome your visit to the farm. And we will be delighted to show you around and answer any questions you may have about how we grow and process our animals.
Our Animals ARE All Natural Raised with no hormones or antibiotics
We feed out only the best of our calves. Our cow herd is Angus Based and we used Angus and Wagyu Bulls to breed our cows. Our animals are hand fed and cared for in small groups. This allows us to observe each animal's performance, which ensures that each animal is harvested at the right time. The calves are raised on grass for the majority of their lives. No hormones or antibiotics are ever introduced to these high quality cattle. At approximately 900 lbs our calves are put into small groups for roughly 120 days where they live in a large barnyard, with ample room to move around and grass to supplement the finishing feed. Feeding takes place in a clean barn with a sawdust covered concrete floor. The cattle are free to move from the barn to the barnyard at will.
Our Feed
Once selected, the cattle are fed a custom mixture of farm grown silage, brewers grain (byproduct of Devil's Backbone Outpost Brewery beer production) and ground corn grown on the farm. The mixture is fresh and tasty and produces a beef that is subtly marbled and extraordinarily tasty.
The Result is Ground to ground
A wonderful, well marbled, tasty beef. Our meat comes from cattle who are hand managed from beginning to end. We see our cattle all the way through from the time they hit the ground as calves until it becomes your ground beef.