Farm Journal 10/2/22

Oct 3rd is  the start of Week 18 (of 20) of our CSA.  If you missed this last week’s CSA pick up at the markets, please don’t use the following week as a make-up week without getting an OK from us first. We don’t want to run short on shares at market.

Click Here To Shop Our Web-Store – there’s frozen chicken, chicken livers/necks/feet, lettuce, and still more hot peppers!

Turkey Time!

Now’s the time to start reserving your Thanksgiving Turkey. We just put up 20 turkey deposits on the website. We ask that you ONLY reserve a turkey via the website – as we can’t make any verbal promises and remember that we did so. There’s a $20 non refundable deposit, which will be taken off your final total, once we know the weight of the turkey you’re buying. Pick up/delivery will be on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Click HERE to order your turkey now.

We had a bit of an adventure today while out checking on the pastured birds. A month or two ago, our broiler chickens had a visitor – a Coopers Hawk.

Well… today, our turkeys had a visiting Great Horned Owl in their pen!! What a regal and stoic animal! He munched down a whole turkey (leaving the legs) and calmly waited for someone to come help get him out. He had no intention of staying for very long, as turkeys tend towards being less demure and more squawky. (Rightly so, as they had to stand there and watch said Owl make a tasty snack of one of their own. You’d be squawky too!).

Greg climbed into the turkey pen and gently shooed the owl out the front door, while turkeys flapped and squawked a collective “good riddance and don’t come back”. I’m not so sure that we’re done with the owl. Turkeys are easy prey and I’ve done my best to block and patch areas where the owl might have gotten in. Notice the cattle panel on the ground surrounding the pen? Several years back, before we added those grates, we once had raccoons dig their way under and eat (parts) of the turkeys. We still await the onslaught of other predators….. foxes, raccoons, roaming dogs, coyotes, hawks, and….well, the turkeys themselves (who knows what trouble they can get themselves in to). We have about 25 turkeys, but only posted 20 on the website. IF they all make it to the end of November, we’ll let you know if there’s going to be an extra couple of turkeys for sale and you can tell your friends about it.

Skill Building Workdays

This Sunday (Oct 9) from noon-5pm we are trying something new here at the farm. Greg is going to host a skill building workday centered on farm maintenance and infrastructure. While the Tuesday veggie workshares have rocked this seasons harvest, some folks have inquired about the work operating the rest of the farm. Ask and you shall receive! 

Whether for personal knowledge or to get closer to your dream of farm ownership, we are making this knowledge available, for free, for anyone who shows up and lends a hand, or publishes media, or brings food to share or just brings good vibes and helps out. 

Most workdays will involve a crew with hand tools and willingness to push your own physical limits. Sturdy clothing is a must. An openness to shamelessly repurpose materials and work/learn well with other crew members are both critical for everyone’s learning. 

The first such day will focus on high tunnel construction, repair and re-plastic. We have two hightunnels in need of winterizing. The work will include joining wooden framing with screws, repairing doors, handling and fastening large sheets of plastic over steel structures and working with hardwire fence panels. 

One of the two hightunnels will house hogs this winter and needs to be built tough. The other will protect our blackberries and figs from the harsh winter, but the wooden end walls need some TLC.

Registrations/RSVP, including maybes, are very much appreciated in these early attempts because it helps us plan for food and CSA shares (and beer/wine). As with the Tuesday workshares we plan to host a community meal and provide CSA shares to each participant. Registrations again, will help us prepare for a large or small crowd. Please let us know by Thursday.

Future workdays will include reconstruction of hog farrow huts (4’x8′ tiny-homes), maintaining permanent fence lines, cutting trails, digging out springs and irrigation ditches, surveying pastures and rotational fields… basically all the work that goes into keeping the infrastructure of a farm operating. 

We hope to see you here!

Planning for post-market season

It’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to get our products when markets are over. In the past, we made a delivery into the Northside – and we’ll probably do that again. I did hear folks in Mt Lebanon asking what our delivery plans are. So – keep an eye on the newsletter, give us some feedback as to locations and times that are ideal, and we’ll do our best to make it work (in some way) for just about everyone.

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