Greetings from a
festive Dancing Hen Farm! Our tree is up
and decorated, the lights are hung outside and the wreath has been hung on the
side of the barn. Thanks to Jason, for
once again helping us with "the hanging of the wreath".
The buying club will again be open for deliveries this
coming weekend. This will be our last buying
club of 2016 and possibly our last until early spring 2017. Overnight temperatures in the single digits
by the end of the week will most likely end any outdoor greens harvest for this
season. Remember, ordering opens on
Tuesday morning at 5 am and closes Thursday morning at 5 am. If you have questions concerning ordering,
delivery or pick up times, please contact us at the farm. This week, we will continue to have apple
orchard pork, eggs, as well as a limited supply of storage vegetables and
greens.
Thinking about joining our CSA for 2017? Please consider signing up this month. Not only will you receive some early bird
discount (up to $75 plus a free egg share or buying club credit), but these
early funds received allow the farm to save hundreds of dollars on supplies
that we can buy at a substantial discount before January 1.
We are making a few changes to our CSA for 2017. We will continue to be a full choice CSA,
meaning all our members will have the opportunity to chose the exact items they
receive in their boxes each week. We
are, however, making changes to our summer, main season, CSA and we are adding
a Fall CSA. Our summer CSA will now run
for 18 weeks and our Fall CSA will run for 8 weeks. If you sign up for both the summer and the
fall season you will get 26 weeks of organically produced farm fresh vegetables
starting June 9. We will continue to
offer add on egg shares for both the summer and fall season. We will offer an add on chicken share during
the summer season only.
As always, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to
contact us.
It seems winter has arrived at Dancing Hen Farm. Snow is on the ground and temperatures are
predicted to really plummet over the next few days. The season changes are good for our souls
and the snow is beautiful! Of course,
Farmer Don may disagree, as he just got done digging us out! And it seems Shady, our older dog, also
disagrees. I just watched her look
longingly at the barn as she contemplated leaving the shoveled walk way to make
her way to the barn. Her desire is to
get to the barn so she can have her "second breakfast", as we call
it. She knows where some of the chickens
secretly hide their eggs and much to the farmers dismay, she looks forward to getting
to these eggs before him and feasting on them daily! Rosie, our border collie,
on the other hand, loves the snow. She
races and jumps and rolls and harasses the farmer as he tries to shovel or
sweep! She also likes hidden eggs, but
playing in the snow is way more fun than hunting for eggs any day.
In the kitchen, we still have not gotten our large batch sauerkraut
made! Hopefully today or tomorrow that
project will be complete. We will slice
the cabbage, most likely with our food processor, salt it and pound it to
release the juices. Once sufficient
juice has been released from the chopped cabbage we will pack the cabbage into
our fermentation crock and wait for the beneficial bacteria to do their
work. We make a very basic cabbage kraut,
preferring not to add carrots or caraway seed.
Well, I guess I should say I prefer a cabbage only kraut. Farmer Don often convinces me to add some
carrots, but has yet to sway me over to adding caraway seeds. I had hoped to have this new batch of kraut
ready for our traditional New Year's Day feast, but I am thinking it will not
quite be sour enough by then. I will keep you posted.
Time to end this note and move on to the next task at hand
(baking some breakfast bars!)
Thanks to each of you for your continued support!
Glad Tidings to All!
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