Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm! Happy Spring?
I mean Winter?
Our buying club is open this week. Ordering in underway now, and will end at 5
am Thursday morning. This will be our
last delivery for the year. Watch your
email for winter deliveries. Farmer Don
has purchased in some produce from area farms this week, including sweet
potatoes, carrots, kale, chard and onions.
All veggies are grown organically.
We also have turnip greens, mustard, Asian greens and braising mix from
our farm. If you are looking to do some
holiday baking, our chickens are still laying and we have plenty of farm fresh
eggs available. Our apple orchard pork
has been very popular and cuts are starting sell out. We also have half and whole chickens
available. As always, if you have
questions concerning the buying club, please see our website or contact us at
the farm. This will be the last buying
club of this year.
Registration for our 2016 CSA is now open! We are offering early bird and returning
member discounts. Early bird discounts
of $30 are available to anyone registering and paying by December 31,
2015. The returning member discount is
$20 and can be redeemed by all renewing members, regardless of when they sign
up. As with previous years, we will have
3 delivery options and two vegetable share sizes. Our base price for shares starts with pick up
at our farm in Stillwater, Pa. Then
there are one time delivery fees added to this base price if you choose to pick
up at a central pick up site ($50) or have your share delivered to your home
($125). Dancing Hen Farm is a full
choice CSA with all CSA members able to choose the vegetables they receive each
week in their box. Our CSA runs for 22
weeks, from approximately June 1 to November 1.
In addition to vegetable shares, we also offer several add on share
types, including egg shares and new this year, a chicken share. CSA members are also able to participate in a
CSA buying club. This buying club is separate
from our winter buying club and requires a $50 deposit. Purchases are deducted from your deposit and
delivered with your shares. Please see
our website or contact the farm for more details.
How about this spring weather? Forsythia and dandelions are actually
blooming! And my flower bulbs are trying
to poke their heads up. We have not
checked our garlic, but I am sure it is growing as well. But, a change is on the way. High temperatures are predicted in the 30’s
this weekend. However, Farmer Don tells me
this cool down is short lived with warmer weather returning again next
week. I am not complaining about the
warm weather. I actually am kind of
enjoying it. But, it is so very odd to
not be wearing a coat outside in December in Pennsylvania!
On farm, we are still in clean up mode, although this
weather makes us itchy to start planting seeds!
This year we did not plant our large unheated greenhouse for the winter
and in the next few weeks we will remove the plastic from this structure. This will expose the soil inside this
greenhouse to the weather. The soil will
freeze (hopefully!) and be exposed to rain and snow. Although we will miss the early spring
greens, removing the plastic will help to reduce disease and insect pressure
and rejuvenate this otherwise protected soil.
We are also getting our supply lists together for next year. Seed catalogs are rolling in and we are
already pouring over them comparing varieties and prices. We try not to over order seeds, but it is so
tempting to order one of everything!
I almost forgot!
Other farm news includes the purchase of a new delivery van. Our new delivery vehicle is a shiny black
minivan. For the last half of this
season, we rented a minivan for deliveries and found it more than large enough
for our needs. We are gradually starting
to downsize our farm operation and a large gas guzzling cargo van was just way
more vehicle than we need. Our biggest
challenge was finding a used minivan within our price range and with low
miles. The internet has really changed
how we shop for cars! Farmer Don was
finding vehicles all over the east coast.
Thankfully we located this vehicle near Scranton.
With this I will end this newsletter. Thank you to everyone for your support this
last year. Take time to enjoy the magic
of the holiday season!
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