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Alan and Nancy
Brown About the farm |
The first day of fall is just behind us and the air is crisper and breezy. We have picked most of our vegetables and have our home freezer filled with tomatoes, beans, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, and peppers. Our currant cordial and wine from last year is aging in the root cellar. We are also filling that space with fingerling potatoes, onions, and garlic. It was a great year for vegetables despite the drought we are having now and we have eaten well all summer. My fall plantings however, have a turn for the worse, when last week our little pigs got out, and began to run straight for the garden! It only took them a hour or less to rifle through all the broccoli and the newly planted rows of seedlings of beets, lettuces, kale and arugula to completely annihilate them! They got out a few times and each time we ran them back in and checked the electric fence and found another fault that was limiting the shock they got. It got so even when we touched it was a big surprise. They still knew that if they ran fast enough it would only feel funny for a second and then they could be eating the broccoli again! In all the years I have lived here, this is the first time the pigs were in the garden. It was quite a disappointment, but luckily we still have plenty of Swiss chard, squash, leeks, tomatoes and other things to eat. Needless to say, the piglets are locked up in a much better fence now and won’t be in the garden again too soon!
We picked all of our grapes early this year when one day we saw a few calves visiting the arbor and then the two roosters nearby and then the little pigs also scurrying all over the place and ending up in the mulch around the grapevines. A few bunches of grapes were on the ground two nights in a row after all that and we guessed a critter of the night was also visiting and eating up our crop. It has been a bit chaotic chasing all the youngsters around the yard lately! So we picked about four 5 gallon pails of grapes and got out the wine press. Ashleigh and I squeezed all the grapes with all our might and the pressure action help of the press. We now have 5 gallons of juice in 2 wine carboys waiting to begin bubbling in a corner of the kitchen.
We miss our nephew Brian, the vintner, and his wife Allie, the herbalist, who stayed with us last year and we married on the farm two years ago. They moved to Maine this spring to start their own winery. They not only have a new farm in Warren Maine to start planting grapes but a new baby girl, born Sept. 21, named Sadie who is the first grand niece on my side of the family.
The next batches of beef items are due in our freezers by October 6 and we have estimated what we will have so that your orders can include some of these items we do not have today. If there is something you are looking for that is not shown, please write comments on your order and we will provide it if we can. We do have a new batch of Beef liverwurst (which also has pork jowls as an ingredient) in slightly larger gold tubes. We have a new all Beef Kielbasa made by Noack’s Meats (who also smokes our products and makes our hotdogs) with no nitrites or preservatives. It comes in a pork casing and is about 1.25 lbs. for each link. We do have a couple of party sized links (what were they thinking when they made these two feet long?) and what a party is could be!
New items are available from Argyllshire Farm. Barbara is busy with restoring her family’s farmstead into a bed and breakfast and still finding time to manage her herd of sheep and lambs. A few of her 100% grass-fed lamb cuts are once again available through the website. She expects more items back from the processor soon. Check out her grass-fed & finished lamb offerings.
The next time you log on to our website, www.csapasturedmeatandpoultry.com the newest feature of the website is our special turkey order form for your Thanksgiving orders. We have found a holiday bird provider at Stonewood Farm in Orwell VT, operated by the Stone Family. Paul Stone was once the commissioner of Agriculture in Vermont and the farm has been in his family for three generations. Orwell is just an hour or two north of us along the shores of Lake Champlain. see www.stonewoodfarm.com for more information, but please direct your questions about your order to me you’ll see the turkeys are offered in 2 pound increments and the order deadline for our Thanksgiving delivery is November 3rd. Hope that gives you all plenty of time to make your dinner plans. Your turkey order is a separate order from the normal November order but all your November frozen items will be packed together if we can.