Coming soon...from a farm near you!

Tuesday, August 31 is our next processing date. We will have White Plymouth Rocks and Delawares. These chickens are growing well and going through a ton of food each week. They clean out the pasture pretty quickly as is evidenced by the before and after photos below. They were just moved again to fresh green pasture on Monday and boy do they love it! These chickens are a different breed than the usual chicken that is raised and sold industrially in the U.S. With the recent industrial chicken & egg recalls due to disease, we are being reminded of the importance of our work on our little family farm. Our chickens are being raised in the most natural way possible. It's a lot of work but we are enjoying the process! These chickens will be $4.25 per pound and we will have them fresh ready for pickup on Tuesday evening 8/31/10 from 5:30-7:00 pm. Whatever is not sold fresh will be sold frozen. The fresh ones are AMAZING. They taste great frozen too, but there's just something about eating a fresh, home-grown chicken that's never been frozen. Enjoy!

The pasture they just cleared out



New pasture



These are the Red Rocks and the Turkens, in another part of the field...still growing and they were also just moved to new pasture so they are exploring the goods! They will be processed in September and October.





And last but not least, the turkeys. They come and greet us like this each morning!



The bigger turkeys will be processed in October to eat fresh or to freeze for Thanksgiving. There is a $20 turkey deposit to reserve a turkey. Email to reserve as they are going fast.

I LOVE these pictures below. Taking them was so fun! These Toms were so close to Saffron and I, it was almost like a turkey kiss.




That pretty much sums up the remainder of our year. December's Turkey processing will finish out our first year of raising poultry. We already have lots of ideas for next year, and want feedback on which breeds are best tasting. We're still working on a website with recipes, ability to order and pay online, and more concise, easy to find information. Thanks for sharing our adventure!

Bounty & Abundance

Well, our crops are producing like crazy. Here's what we've been up to (in the few moments we have of 'chicken-free' time).

Turning plums into plum jam (the less sugar kind so it's kind of tart...delicious)




Harvesting and eating summer squash, corn, onions, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, etc.



Making fresh salsa...yum yum



Taking care of this sweet girl




And attending weddings and reunions. It's been a busy month!

Now what do I do with my chicken?

If you bought one, you may wonder how to cook it. I found this article and recipe interesting and delicious. Includes 3 different recipes to get the most out of every piece of your chicken. Enjoy!

Third batch...and turkeys too!

Just a review: We are raising 6 different breeds of chickens this year: Cornish Cross, White Plymouth Rock, Delaware, Turken, Red Ranger, and Barred Plymouth Rock. This is our first year raising free range chickens on pasture. We have sure learned a lot! We are raising 6 different breeds in order to see which ones we like best and which ones our customers like best.

We are processing our third batch of chickens this Tuesday, August 10th. We will be processing mostly Cornish Cross chickens, which are the chickens you've probably eaten before if you've ever eaten chicken. They are bred to grow fast and big. This will be our last batch of Cornish Cross chickens this year.

We may also be processing some White Plymouth Rock chickens in this batch. White Plymouth Rocks are a heritage breed. They will be smaller and may taste somewhat different.

Our next processing date is scheduled for Tuesday, August 31. We will be processing more White Plymouth Rocks and some Delawares. Again, these will be smaller and we're excited to see if they taste different.

We have Red Rangers and Turkens (aka naked necks) still to be processed at a later date. We'll let you know the specific date soon (a few picture of the Turkens below - I personally think they have the most beautiful colored feathers).






And...our turkeys are growing quite nicely. They obviously need more space than the chickens. See these great pictures! These birds will be processed in the beginning of October.







They can be eaten fresh in October, or frozen for Thanksgiving. Since we are processing outside, we're trying to avoid processing in the freezing cold weather. Having said that, we do have some younger turkeys which will be ready around Christmas time so we're not going to be able to avoid processing those in the cold! Thanks for your interest and support to our farm!!

Here are some reasons people are buying our chicken

And last but not least, we do have a life other than farming (but not much right now)!