Archive for January, 2009

New products for the farm?

The last few days have certainly been eventful. We have had the coldest weather in the last few years. We received the first substantial snowfall of the winter. The historical inauguration of the first African-American president is cause for great celebration. And there is another recall of food products containing peanut butter or paste that may be contaminated with salmonella.

While the cold weather has temporarily curtailed our outdoor activities it gives us time to think and plan for the upcoming growing season. Included in that category is research and evaluation of new products or enterprises that might fit into our operation. While most ideas prove to be impractical, unprofitable, or otherwise unsuitable a few seem to hold promise. There may be details of at least one of these at a later date.

With the promise of the weather moderating we are planning to be at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market Saturdays from 9:00 until 3:00. A couple of other vendors has indicated they plan to be there also, so hopefully there will be a variety of products available.

The cold weather has limited the availability of greens from our garden. There may be some kale and collards.

We still have some whole Pasture Raised Chickens and will be offering them for sale at 10% off the regular price.

Pasture Finished Jersey Beef includes steaks (fillets, NY strip, rib eye, and sirloin), shoulder roast, chuck roast, round roast, rump roast, sirloin tip roast, ground beef, stew beef, liver, and short ribs. Steaks are 10% off.

In Homegrown Pork we have beautiful pork chops, ribs, ham roasts, shoulder roasts, as well as mild and hot sausage.

We hope to visit with you at the market on Saturday.

Winter rest and renewal

We sincerely hope all of you had a good Christmas and New Year season. We are now approaching mid-winter and it is obvious the land is taking its annual rest and renewal time. Here at the farm, on still days the quietness is almost deafening. And we take every opportunity to drink it in, to renew body, mind, and soul after a busy season. At first the stillness was almost foreign. Now it is invigorating.

That’s not to say there is not plenty to do. We have been cutting fence posts and preparing to do more fencing. Plans are laid to build another small greenhouse for plants in the spring. The animals must be fed and cared for. There is the catching up on long delayed projects from the growing season. Then we must tackle the more pleasant task of scouring seed catalogs to decide what to order for the upcoming growing season.

On inclement days we hit the books to evaluate our financial status. While sales were up substantially in ’08 so were expenses. The main increases in expenses were due to sharply higher costs of fuel, chicken and hog feed, and meat processing. Well, maybe someday we can actually pay ourselves a salary. But, thankfully, we were not in the red. (unless we figure an hourly wage for our own labor)

As we mentioned to many of you, we are planning to be at the Triad Farmers Market on an occasional basis this winter. This Saturday (Jan. 10) is one of those market days. We plan to be open for business from 9:00 until 3:00. Don’t know if there will be any other vendors there but we hope you will come on out for items you might need.

From our winter garden we still have some red Russian kale, Siberian kale, collards, and mustard greens.

We are continuing our sale on pasture raised chicken. We still have some split breast at 25% off and several whole chickens at 10% off.

Grass fed Jersey Beef includes chuck, shoulder, rump, and round roasts, ground beef, stew beef, short ribs, dog bones, and steaks. All steaks are 10% off (fillet, NY strip, rib eye, sirloin)

We have homegrown pork sausage at $4.00 lb. which is 20% off. (includes mild and hot 1 lb. bulk) We hope to have all cuts of pork on our next market day.

We have thoroughly enjoyed trying to provide our friends with the highest quality and most healthy meat and vegetable products over the past seasons and look forward to serving you this year. We enjoy you visiting with us at the market and hope to see you this Saturday.