Monday, April 27, 2015

Another Update and Buying Club

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

Yes, the buying club is open this week.  Ordering will begin tomorrow, Tuesday, 4/28 at 5 am and will close Thursday, 4/30 at 5 am.  Deliveries will be made Friday to Bloomsburg and Saturday to Dallas and Forty Fort.  On farm pick-ups will be ready after 4 on Friday and all day Saturday.  This week we are featuring protein.  Dancing Hen Farm Apple Orchard Pork, pastured chicken and free range eggs.  We will have a limited amount of greens on this week's availability.  This week will be offering two herbs, sage and lavender (the lavender will be leaves only, as it is not in bloom).  Farmer Don will also be putting together a spring gourmet salad mix for sale.  This mix will be made up of early spring greens, including several varieties of lettuce, mustard, spinach and more.  Spinach will be available, but in extremely limited quantities, so order early to assure you can select spinach.  New this week and for the farm, we will be offering some radish micro-greens.  These tender young radish sprouts have a peppery flavor and are packed with nutrition.  Again all greens will be in very limited supply.

This week's buying club makes Dancing Hen Farm history.  We will be offering our eggs at a discount price.  The is the first and most likely the only time we will discount our products.  Our profit margin is so low, we honestly cannot afford to discount.  However, spring has sprung in our chicken coop and our hens are ramping up their egg production, leaving us with a surplus of eggs.  We will be donating some of this bounty to our local food cupboards, but also want to share the bounty with our customers.

Today was planting day on the farm.  Farmers Don and Matt spent the entire day planting in our lower field.  And boy were they productive!  Farmer Don just handed me the list of what all was planted  Today, bok choi, Chinese cabbage, Swiss chard, tatsoi, mustard greens, zucchini, yellow squash, arugula and cilantro all were planted.  The zucchini and summer squash are under plastic row cover and the other crops are under fabric row cover for protection from cold temperatures and insects.  It is good to see our fields filling up.  These newly planted crops join our earlier planted peas, snap beans, sunflowers, new potatoes, carrots, beets, beet greens, spinach and radishes.  We have been monitoring our perennial herb beds to see what plants survived the winter.  We are happy to say our oregano, sage, lavender, thyme, mint, parsley and sage are re-growing nicely. 

Today is Farmer Phil's birthday.  If you see him on Saturday's deliveries, wish him a happy belated birthday.  Last year Farmer Don and I started a tradition of going hiking in honor of Don's birthday.  This year we decided to include Farmers Phil and Matt in the celebration.  So, on Sunday we joined Phil, Matt and their family for a birthday hike, followed by a picnic supper,  to celebrate Phil, Matt and Don's birthdays.  The six of us, along with 3 dogs, spent the better part of the day hiking a loop in the Loyalsock Forest.  I think I speak for everyone in saying we all had a great day and we all slept well last night!  I will try to get some pictures posted soon.

Farm markets have already begun for the season and our first CSA delivery is a little over a month away.  This Friday Farmer Don will again be at the Bloomsburg University Market.  In May we will be at Forks Farm on the 9th and the 23rd.  And we anticipate the first CSA delivery to be around the week of June 5th.  We will need to see how our crops are maturing before we can give you an exact date for the CSA, so stay tuned.

Speaking of our CSA, we would like to welcome all new and returning members to our community.  We do still have some memberships available for this season.  We hold memberships in the order in which payment is received, not when registration on the computer is made.

Just another friendly reminder about our web presence.  In addition to our website, we have a facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dancing-Hen-Farm/111155465564952) and  a blog (http://www.dancinghenfarmcsa.blogspot.com/) where we post our newsletters, farm pictures and farm updates.  If you are looking for recipes, please visit our pinterest page (https://www.pinterest.com/dancinghencsa/). 

Have a great week!



No comments:

Post a Comment