Buying Club deliveries this weekend

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm.

The holidays are over, the tree is down and the decorations are packed away for another year.  And farm life is returning to a more predictable winter rhythm.  AND Farmer Don has decided to start up the winter buying club again. 

Ordering will open up tomorrow, Tuesday, 1/10, morning at 5 am and close Thursday, 1/12,  morning at 5 am.  Deliveries will be on Friday to Bloomsburg and on Saturday to Dallas, Forty Fort and Mountain Top.  We will have apple orchard pork, free range eggs, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, garlic, cabbage, beets and hopefully onions and carrots available.  We are also getting a new salmon delivery from our friends at Wild for Salmon, so salmon portions and feta dill burgers will also be available.  And Whitenight's raw milk and raw milk cheese will also be on the list.  Happy ordering!

On farm, like all of Pennsylvania, we are dealing with a roller coaster of temperatures and weather.  It was 3 on farm this morning and to be in the 50's on Thursday!  I am not complaining, each week that goes by is another week closer to spring and another week closer to farm fresh veggies!

Today we went on a very chilly farm walk and quickly peeked in our greenhouse and under some plastic we have in our lower fields.  We have some tiny lettuce, kale and Asian green plants in these locations, waiting patiently for the sun to get higher in the sky.   The plants looked cold but, healthy!  Hopefully they will survive the rest of the winter and begin to grow again towards the end February and by March we will have greens to harvest!  Those late winter/early spring greens are my favorite!

Farmer Don is still working on his heated greenhouses.  He is close to putting the plastic on the houses.  The woodstoves have been added to both houses, but one stove is frozen into the mud.  He moved it in when temperatures were in the 50's and the heavy cast metal stove immediately sank.  His plan is to put the stove on a large piece of stone we have.  Unfortunately Don ran out of daylight the day he moved the stove and the temperatures sank as quickly as the stove and now the stove is frozen solid in the ground.  Hopefully adding plastic to this house will allow the ground to thaw and the stove can be positioned onto the stone.  We are really excited to have these heated spaces to grow next season's transplants.

Farmer Don is also still busy in the kitchen.  I cannot complain, he is a good cook and it has been nice having him taking over much of the cooking these past few weeks.   A personal cook is a real luxury!  Come planting season, I will be lucky to get him to come in to eat supper, let alone cook.  But, that is ok, we both love what we do and the seasonality of the farm gives us this chance to re-energize in the winter and gives Farmer Don time to spend in the kitchen.  One of his recent meals was a beef stew topped with floating biscuits.  Nothing better than a soup or stew on a cold winter night!

We want to again send out a huge thank you to everyone who already signed up for our 2017 CSA!  We have already begun to order supplies and seeds for next year.   This will be our 10th year of growing at this location and we are eagerly planning for the upcoming growing season.

Enjoy winter and don't forget to place your buying club orders!  As always if you have questions for us, please do not hesitate to contact us.