Greetings
from Dancing Hen Farm!
Welcome to
Week 6 of our 2020 CSA. Week 6 is not an
egg week. Ordering for Week 7 is now
open. Thanks to everyone for treating
their CSA boxes gently and returning them to us. Please also remember to return the green pint
and quart boxes for the farm to reuse.
And as always, if you have questions or concerns for us, please do not
hesitate to contact us at the farm.
Welcome to
August! Can you believe it is already
August! Soon we will be talking
fall. I already think the days are noticeably
shorter!
The weather
for this summer has been hot and dry. We
had a couple of downpours Tuesday morning and some nice steady showers last
night. But what we really need is a good
soaking rain. The weather forecasters
are saying Sunday may bring us a soaking rain.
We are dry here on Dancing Hen Farm, but we are counting our blessing as
farms to our west are drought dry. On a
recent drive, we saw corn stunted and dying in fields and soybean plants
wilting in the fields. Without some rain
soon, the harvest will be greatly reduced from these fields. These farmers will therefore see not only a
loss of income, but also a reduction in the amount of feed available to for
their livestock this winter. On a
positive note, on some of these same drought stricken farms, we saw some
beautiful hay being bailed and stored in barns.
So I am asking you, to keep your fingers crossed, say a collective
prayer or do a rain dance, that Sunday brings us a nice soaking rain and some
cooler temperatures.
The harvest
of our summer crops is pushing into full swing.
Last week we saw our first eggplants hit CSA boxes. We should have more eggplant in the coming
weeks. Peppers are near ripening and
tomatoes and summer squash should continue to be available. We are hoping to continue to make cooking
greens available and with any luck (and some rain) lettuce should also continue
to be harvested. We have broccoli in the
ground and after fending off a small groundhog attack it is now struggling to
make heads. We are hoping as the weather
cools a bit the broccoli plants will react with some fruit.
In the next
few weeks we are anticipating a real burst in our egg availability. Unfortunately this spring we had a fox in our
hen house and lost quite a number of laying hens to Mr or Mrs Fox feeding their
babies. Thanks to some helpful
neighbors, we now have our chicken house on lock down! Electric poultry netting now encases the
house as well as an area of pasture and so far (knock on wood) we have not lost
anyone to the fox. In the meantime,
Farmer Don got word of some pullets (teenage chickens) which were available
from a friend of ours. He arranged to
pick up 150 pullets and they will be starting to lay any day now. For a few weeks they will lay small eggs, but
before we know it they will be laying one large brown egg a day. So, look for more eggs on our buying club and
available for sale at market. Chickens
by nature go inside their coop to roost each night and Farmer Don now shuts
them up as an added protection against predators. In the morning when Farmer Don goes up to
open the coop door, he reports the chickens rush out in a big red wave. If he doesn't quickly get out of the way he
will have multiple chickens fly full speed into his head and face! Not an enjoyable experience!
Farmer Don
asked me to thank everyone for coming to market on Saturdays and saying
hello. He really enjoys catching up with
our members and meeting new members. As
a reminder Farmer Don and Farmer Phil are at the Back Mountain Farmers Market
every Saturday from 9 to 1. This market
is at the Dallas High School. Come by on
Saturday, support your local farmers and say hello to Farmers Don and Phil!
Our kitchen
has been fairly quiet lately. We are
cooking lots of veggies, of course.
Farmer Don made Lion's Head meatballs this week. Farmer Don loves meatballs and these are a
favorite of his. He uses a recipe he
found in one of his favorite magazines, Cook's Illustrated. It is an interesting recipe in that it calls
for the pork to be worked with a stand mixer.
This is opposite of what I have always been told about making
meatballs. I was always told to handle
the meat lightly or the meatballs will become dry and tough. But, this recipe really does produce a large,
tender and tasty meatball. This week he
served the meatballs with ramen noodles and kale, as we had both of these on
hand. Here is a link to a recipe which
seems to be based on the Cook's Illustrated recipe. https://lynnandruss.com/2019/12/21/here-me-roar/.
I didn't do any preserving this week and I have decided not to can
peaches this year. Instead I am hoping
this fall to can extra applesauce.
Farmer Don and I eat more applesauce than canned peaches, so extra
applesauce just makes more sense.
It is
getting late and I need to start to unwind before bed. Thanks again for all of your support. We feel so very lucky to have so many friends
and members of our farm.
So, in
Farmer Don's words: "be safe, be
well and enjoy those veggies".
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