Greetings from a cold and windy Dancing Hen Farm!
CSA Members:
Tuesday's delivery, Week 8, was the final delivery for our Fall
CSA. Week 8 was not an egg week. Thanks to each of you for your support!
Winter Buying Club:
We will be delivering for the winter buying club this weekend. Ordering is now open and ends tomorrow,
Thursday, morning at 5 am. This will be
the last buying club delivery until after the New Year.
This weekend we will also be doing a market at The Whole
Life Center for Health on Route 309 in Drums from 1 to 4 pm. Farmer Don will be there selling some organic
produce, pasture raised chicken, apple orchard pork and CSA Shares for 2018. If the weather allows he will also be
grilling and handing out samples. We
will be discounting our 2018 CSA memberships for this market only. If you pay in full (on Saturday, at the Whole
Life Center) you will receive a $50 discount!
This is on top of our early bird discount and returning member
discounts. We will donate $25 of each
discount to the Valley Food Pantry. Come
on by on Saturday, learn about the Whole Life Center, say hello to Farmer Don
and pick up some locally produced goods.
It looks like cold weather has arrived! On farm, we have only received a dusting of
snow, but today the temperature is struggling to reach the 20's and the wind is
howling. But, a quick check of the
weather shows, temperatures returning to the 40's by the beginning of next week. It is hard to believe that in just about a
week we will be celebrating the Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is marked by the shortest
day of the year, but more importantly is also means days will start getting
longer! Yes, longer! I know there are many, many weeks of winter
weather and snow still ahead for this winter, but longer days already brings
joy and hope for an early spring.
On farm, we are preparing for the holidays. Our Christmas tree is up and decorated and
the house gets more festive each day. Our
Christmas tends to be very low key, quiet time at home. This week brought our annual hanging of the
barn wreath. Thanks to Stacy, this year,
for her wreath building talent! Farmer
Don has started baking cookies, chocolate chip, of course. Unfortunately he needs to bake them
frequently, as one batch tends to only last a few days in our house!
We will be announcing the opening of our 2018 CSA in the
next week. For 2018 we will be offering
a Summer Season Share of 20 weeks. Add
on egg and chicken shares will also be available. We will be limiting the number of CSA shares available
this year to 75 members. Egg and chicken
shares and buying club options will also
be limited. Please note: Memberships are reserved in order by which
payment is received. Watch your email
for 2018 CSA registration opening and details.
I want to take a bit of time to talk about our buying club
options, as this is a bit confusing. We
offer 2 different buying clubs. One is
our Winter Buying Club. This is a stand alone
buying club and is free to join and no deposit is required. With this buying club, you will need to
purchase a free Buyer's Club membership and you will need to place your order
online using our website. We meet
members with orders at a designated spot and designated time on Friday night or
Saturday depending on the location.
Orders are paid for at the time of pick up. Our other buying club is offered to CSA
members. This CSA buying club is offered
to allow CSA members to purchase additional items to be delivered with their
weekly boxes. The CSA buying club does
require a deposit. Your orders will be
deducted from this deposit. As always,
if you have questions concerning the buying clubs, please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Farmer Don has, once again, been the resident chef. Over the
weekend he made a really delicious pork roast with sauerkraut. Pork and sauerkraut is one of my favorite
meals, so it is always a winner for me.
Even if he did serve it with roasted, rather than mashed potatoes! We will repeat this meal for a traditional
New Year's Day meal. We once again have
chicken to eat. For most of the season we had been sold out of chicken and this
included the extra chicken we produced for ourselves! It is nice to bring chicken back into our
rotation of proteins. There is nothing
like a Sunday dinner of roast chicken!
Well, the hours is getting late and my creative juices are
succumbing to sleep, so I need to end this newsletter and move on to a cup of
herbal tea and bed.
Be well, be safe and have a joyous holiday season.
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