2021 Final CSA Delivery

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

CSA members:  The boxes you received Wednesday, 10/20/2021, was our last delivery of the 2021 CSA season.  This week was not an egg week.  Farmers Don Phil will be making the rounds to our drop sites in the next few weeks to pick up share boxes, so please leave (or return) you box to your drop site.  We hope everyone enjoyed the 2021 CSA.  THANK YOU to all our CSA members for trusting us to deliver farm fresh, in season, vegetables to you.

The weather, what can we say about the weather so far this fall.  I feel we have had our share of clouds, but this week we had some beautiful fall days - lots of sun, a light breeze, lower humidity and not a cloud in the sky.  We have had few cooler days and nights, but we still have not had a frost here on farm.  Some areas have seen frost and we were worried the other night.  This resulted in Farmer Don out with his headlamp trying to harvest any temperature sensitive crops.  But no frost here.  That night we bottomed out at 42.  

With this warmer weather, our fields look pretty good and we still have some harvestable crops to be picked.  Our collard greens are probably the best we have ever grown and our Swiss chard is coming on beautifully again.  In fact all of greens are looking great and we will be able to harvest and store some other crops, such as peppers and eggplants, before we do get a frost.  On a side note, greens tend to get sweeter as the temperatures get cooler.  So fall is the perfect season to pull out those recipes for kale, collards, Asian greens or chard.

Since we still have crops to harvest, we are finalizing plans for a fall and early winter buying club.  The details are still being worked out, so please watch your email for buying club information. 

I must say this has been a good growing season for us.  We felt the CSA boxes looked good going out and although we dealt with our usual invasion by weeds, deer and groundhogs, our crops fared quite well this year.  Farmer Don and I, for the most part, are on the mend, feeling healthier and stronger.  By reducing our CSA numbers and pulling out of markets, we accomplished one goal for the 2021 season.  This goal was to bring the stress level on farm down and have some time to spend enjoying life and the farm.  We have had a nice growing season.  We have both felt more relaxed and have been able to spend more time together, including time to create meals from our veggies, enjoying the back porch and reviving our decades old ongoing Scrabble challenge. 

Our kitchen has been quite busy this year.  I am happy to say as the summer moved along, my energy has increased and I have been doing more cooking and canning.  Farmer Don and Farmer Phil's Mom Joyce are huge cheerleaders for my "take back the kitchen" campaign.  Our pantry is filled to overflowing with cans of preserved veggies and thanks to Joyce I have green beans, peppers and corn in the freezer.  Most recently eggplant has been the chosen ingredient in our kitchen.  We have made eggplant parmesan, eggplant lasagna, eggplant gratin, eggplant stew, eggplant soup; I think you get the idea!  Lots of eggplant to be used.  I still have some in storage and may try to bread and bake them and then freeze them for later use in parmesan or lasagna.  With cooler temperatures coming on we will shift into greens mode.  I need to find a good recipe for collards.  I have to confess these are not my favorite greens.  With our collards being so beautiful (and healthy!), they are, however, calling my name and I need to start cooking with them more. 

Of course, what would a newsletter be without an update on Dilly.  Dilly has had a bit of a rough summer.  She was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease.  This explains her intermittent limping and general joint stiffness!  She is now on medication and doing much better, although she still seems to have some occasional stiffness in her back and hind legs.  However, despite Lyme disease Dilly is still Silly Dilly.  She still loves coffee and her bouncy balls.  She also still enjoys helping us with the newspaper.  The other day, while I was on the phone with the doctor, she decided to be helpful and  fetch the newspaper for me.  However, the paper never made it off the patio, where she made a nice pile of shredded newsprint.  The front page and some of the ads were shredded completely, but Farmer Don was happy that the Sport's page remained mostly intact. 

I want to again, take this opportunity to thank everyone for your continued support.  As I said above, this has been a nice growing season for Dancing Hen Farm.  Farmer Don and I have been more relaxed and I think this has been evident in the quality of crops we were able to distribute this season.  So, thanks to our farm family, our community.  And Thank You for reading my newsletters.

Did you know we have a social media presence?  We have a facebook page and a blog.  You can always find farm pictures and information at these sites.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Farm/Dancing-Hen-Farm-111155465564952/

and our blog

http://dancinghenfarmcsa.blogspot.com/

Please remember to watch your email for buying club announcements and ongoing farm news.

In closing, the words of farmer Don, "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies".

 

Thanks to this year's helpers!

 

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

We do hope that all our CSA members have been enjoying their boxes.  The boxes delivered this week are Week 13 and Week 13 is an egg week.

So, first let me apologize for being so lax in getting newsletters out this season.  I could come up with some real excuses, like hospitalizations, medication making me tired, and what not.  But in reality it is simply because I am a self proclaimed Procrastination Queen.  I can say I will try to be better as we draw the 2021 season to a close, but only the weeks will tell if I continue wearing my Queen crown or not.

After the remains of Hurricane Ida tore through the area, didn't we had some beautiful weather.  Not to make light of the destruction from rising flood waters and tornados, but I truly felt like fall had arrived.  Clear sunny days and cool nights!  I kept telling Farmer Don it looked and felt like fall.  I love fall, so this message was delivered with a bit smile on my face!  Farmer Don would patiently point out to me that it was not fall yet, as the trees were still green.  I would just as patiently remind him that we usually get our first light frost in September and look how short the days are becoming.  I mean the golden rod has been turning fallow fields into blazes of yellow and today, while running errands, I saw trees turning a brilliant red.  Only a few trees, but red none the less!  Of course recently it has been a little hot and sticky, but trust me fall is just around the corner.

So on farm we are getting ready for fall as well.  Winter squash is being harvested.  Tomatoes and summer squash harvests are coming to an end.  We have planted some cooler season fall crops, including arugula, radishes and another rotation of Asian greens.  Look for greens to come back with a flourish soon, as the kale and chard are coming along beautifully.  Our lettuce has also enjoyed the slightly cooler temperatures and should be available in both loose leaf heads as well as some salad mix 

I want to take a bit of written space now for my annual thank you newsletter.  A huge thank you to all of you, our members, friends and family of the farm.  Without your continued support, we would be unable to do what we are doing, growing food sustainably here on a rocky hillside in north central PA.  I want to specifically thank Farmer Phil.  As many of you know, Farmer Phil has been with us since year one.  Phil heads up our pack house, keeping busy weighing and portioning for csa boxes.  He also is our delivery assistant, helping our driver know where to go and helping with carrying boxes.  Speaking of deliveries, another huge thank you to Farmer John.  John has his own farm and has been helping us this year with Wednesday's deliveries.  I also want to thank our neighbor Paul for his help during the season making certain greenhouses stayed watered, seeding schedules were maintained and entertaining Dilly.  We also would be unable to do this without the help of our delivery site hosts.  Thanks to the staff at Crestwood Pharmacy, Corrine and the staff at Balance Yoga, the staff at Bloom Naturally and Gwen and all the artists at Verve Vertu Artist Studio.  And last, but not least, a huge thank you to Farmers Joyce and Mike.  Joyce and Mike also happen to be Farmer Phil's parents.  They help out the farm in too numerous ways to list, but include harvest, supplementing our production, helping me with medical appointments and helping to assure Dilly is getting walks and play time when necessary.  If you see any of these folks out and about, please take a moment to say thank you.

The kitchens, ours and Farmers Joyce and Mike's, have been really busy this year with canning and preserving.  Early on Joyce and I canned peaches and Joyce and Mike have been kind enough to freeze beans, corn and peppers for me.  In the mean time they have been busy making pickles, peach preserves and salsas.  This year Farmer Don is making his presence known in the preserving kitchen.  He and I have canned tomatoes and 2 rotations of salsa (a hotter and milder version).  Still this season, we have plans for applesauce and tomato sauce.  I have to say it has been a productive preserving season this year!  As I have said before, I love to can and preserve food in general, so it makes me feel good to be back in the canning game!

Also in the kitchen, I have been waiting patiently for cooler weather for soup and stew season to start.  I do love to cook and eat soups and stews.  I am waiting patiently to use one of remaining stew hens to make a nice pot of chicken corn soup and I am hoping to use some of our cabbage to make an unstuffed cabbage soup.  I love stuffed cabbage, but find I don't have the patience for all the steps involved in stuffed cabbage.  Several years ago I found a recipe for a casserole or soup for unstuffed cabbage and I was hooked! 

And then there was Dilly.  What can I say about Dillburger.  She is starting to live up to her sister Rosie's title of Calamity Rose.  Most recently Dill has come up lame with one of her back legs.  We have had her to the vet twice to be checked and of course as soon as she walks into the vet's office you can't even tell which leg is the problem one!  And nothing has been found that could be causing the limping.  She has also had a slight run in with a skunk.  Somehow she seems to have been sprayed on her belly?  We are thinking she was not the target of the spray and maybe walked through some high grass with the skunk spray on it.  But, in all honesty, only Dilly and the skunk know for sure!   She also had a not so slight run in with a porcupine!  As she nursed a sore muzzle and nose, I am hoping she learned her lesson with porcupines and will stay clear of them.  Oh yeah, and clear of the skunks, as well! 

I will end here with a "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies"

Until next week! (well, I guess I should be honest and say until next newsletter)

 

2021 Most Recent Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

 CSA Members:  I hope everyone enjoyed their CSA boxes.  Thanks for returning boxes to us.

 Can you believe it is August already?  What a roller coaster the weather has been this summer.  From cool, almost fall like, with morning lows in the low 50's and upper 40's.  To a brutal heat wave with day time temperatures pushing 90 plus and overnight lows in the 70's.  Personally, I will take the cooler temperatures.  The heat is hard from me to deal with, as is the need to keep the air conditioning on and the house shut up. 

 In general our fields are looking good.  The weeds, of course, are growing nicely!  Our true summer crops are a bit slow to ripen, but this heat should push them along a bit.  Our cooking greens continue to look beautiful.  A few years back Farmer Don was all about nutrient density of certain vegetables and greens are very high on the nutrient dense list.  Meaning they are packed with vitamins and minerals for a low caloric intake.  We love our greens and add them to stir frys or scrambled with eggs.  We love these green eggs for either breakfast or a quick summer dinner.  Green eggs are simply scrambled eggs with greens stirred in.  Any of the cooking greens do well with eggs.  I usually saute the greens a bit first with some garlic and/or onion and then add the eggs and cook until the eggs are the consistency you like.  A nice salad and some bread make these eggs a fulfilling supper.  Our bok choy this season has been some of the best we have grown for a number of years.  Bok choy, another nutrient dense vegetable, and another vegetable that does nicely in stir frys.  There are also some really great salads out there which use bok choy.  We used to do some cooking demonstrations at farmers markets and would often feature a bok choy salad with a creamy vinaigrette dressing and goat cheese.  All parts of bok choy are edible, but for a milder dish, omit some of the leaves and just use the stems.  Salad greens are also coming on strong.  Farmer Don is very happy to be starting to harvest some mixed greens.  A few will be on this week's choice, with hopefully larger numbers available in the coming weeks. 

 In our kitchen, like most of you, we are busy cooking zucchini!  Zucchini on the grill, zucchini in stir frys, zucchini as a side vegetable, zucchini added to salads and so on!  Yes, it is still zucchini season.  Farmer Don is telling me harvest is starting to slow down, so if you haven't gotten your fill of zucchini yet, order some before we run out.  Yes, we do actually run out of zucchini!  In fact, I need to get some in the kitchen, as I haven't made any zucchini bread yet.  I am also contemplating making some zucchini relish, as peppers are ripening.  Often the zucchini ripens too far ahead of the peppers to make relish.  On the preservation list this year are tomatoes, tomato sauce and applesauce for sure, with some extras thrown in if I have the energy.  If you see Farmer Phil out doing deliveries, you will have to ask him about all the pickling and preserving his parents have been doing.  They have been busy!

 Do any of you remember a number of years ago when I had some snakes take up residence in my herb bed?  Two to be exact and I was convinced they were going to have some huge number of babies.  At that time we had two CSA members who were amateur snake charmers.  Ok, so they were amateur snake hunters, but doesn't charmers sound so much better!?  Anyway the snake charmers were unable to capture the snakes and I never saw any babies.  At some point the snakes left my herb bed and have never returned.  Well this year, earlier in the spring, Farmer Don came down to the house carrying something.  He stood outside the window holding up a long ribbon of some sort.  This "ribbon" was really long - at least a foot longer than he is tall and he is about six feet, making the "ribbon" easily 7 feet long.  What in the world?  I got up to get a better look to discover he was holding a snake skin!  A 7 foot long snake skin!  Oh my!  "Where did you find that?"  I asked.  He told me laying on top of the bushes along the edge of the orchard and then he showed me a second one which was only 5 or 6 feet.  Only 5 or 6 feet!  Ok, so I do not mind snakes, but I have to be honest and say I do not want to run into either of the snakes which left behind those skins.  I mean what are they eating?  They aren't making too huge of a dent in our groundhog or fox populations, but I cannot imagine they are getting that big on field mice and voles?  Anyway I had the great my plan to take a picture of Farmer Don holding both skins and use the picture as a lead into this "snake newsletter".  It was getting dark when he brought them down to the house, so I told him I would take the picture the next day when the light was better.  Farmer Don hung the skins on our back porch where he felt they would be safe.  Of course he did not account for Dilly Dog's ability to get at anything we are trying to keep from her, so first thing the next morning, she ran out the door and snagged a snake skin even before she pottied!  Before I knew it she had the second one down as well.  I decided a half chewed skin didn't make a great picture, so I had fun watching her play with them.  Shaking them, growling at them and rolling on them and yes, also chewing on them like snake jerky.  Eventually we picked them up and poor Dilly had to go back to chewing on her toys.  I have yet to see any super large snakes on farm, but I am treading lightly and keeping my eye out!

 Ok, considering this newsletter has been sitting on my computer for several weeks, I think it is time to simply consider it done and send it out for everyone to read.

 As always Thanks to all members and friends of our farm.  Without your continued support, we would not be able to farm and care for this rocky hillside we call Dancing Hen Farm.

 Closing in Farmer Don's words: "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies"

2021 CSA Week 4 Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

CSA members.  We hope you are enjoying your Week 4 boxes.  Week 4 was not an egg week.  Week 5 is an egg week.  A huge "Thank you" to everyone who has returned boxes to us.

Ah yes, the weather.  Today brings clouds and cooler temperature.  I just checked radar and it looks as though we may remain dry this evening and night.  But, that has not been the case recently, when each day brought high temperatures and evening storms.  Other than Thursday, I cannot remember a day recently without the storms and rain.  On farm, we have been easily getting 0.5 to 2.0 inches of rain a day.  This much rain is almost as challenging as a drought on farm.  With these heavy rains, we are lucky that our fields drain fairly quickly.  However this much rain and days of high humidity means foliage stays wet and wet plants leads to disease problems.  Weeds also love the rain, so many of our fields are starting to look a bit like a jungle.  Time to get out the hoe and even the weed eater to tackle those pesky weeds.

 Our fields are filling up and believe it or not, soon we will be transitioning to planting late summer and fall crops.  Cucumber are setting fruit, so we should have cucumbers available in the next week or so.  Greens continue to be harvested and look really good thanks to the rain!  The Chard and Red Russian kale are both looking beautiful right now.  Red Russian is my favorite kale.  I think it less bitter and I am convinced the red hue is giving me some different, healthy, phyto-chemicals then green curly kale.  Try a massaged kale salad with this red kale for those hot days when cooking seems exhausting.  Our Romaine Lettuce continues to be harvested and we are waiting a new planting of leaf lettuce to size up soon.  A second planting of eggplant went in the ground today and our next planting of summer squash, cucumbers and lettuce has also been planted. 

The farm is still collecting pets.  The most recent is a chicken.  This chicken has decided she should live at the house, not in the coop with her 100 or so sisters.  Each night she makes her way to the porch.  We watch her walking down from the barn, through the yard, a bit before dusk.  She then walks along the railing, cooing and clucking, until she finds her spot to roost.  When chickens roost they tend to poop a lot, so now Farmer Don has to muck the porch!  A job he is not fond of.  We have tried several tactics to get her to go back home, to the coop, at night.  We have shooed her off the porch only to have her clucking and cooing her way back before we even get a chance to sit back down.  Farmer Don has carried her back to the coop and placed her in the far corner near the roost, but she was not deterred!  Nope, she followed he and Dilly all the back to the house and proceeded to once again find her roost on the porch railing.  She has been doing this long enough that Dilly now considers her a member of the house pets and rarely even gives her a second look.  We have to be a bit careful with the chickens and Dilly.  She is not as gentle as Rosie was with them.  Rose would herd the chickens away from the house and back towards the barn.  She sometimes would nip at them to move them along, but she never grabbed them with her mouth.  Dilly, on the other hand, does not have any herding instinct.  She would prefer to grab the chicken and proceed to carry it back to the barn.  Kind of comical to see Dilly, who as I have said before, is not that large, carrying a full grown chicken around.  And as you can imagine, Dilly is not as gentle with the chickens as we would like.  She usually initially grabs them by the neck and unfortunately the outcome is not always a positive one for the chicken.  Since our chickens are free range, Dilly has fairly constant access to them.  For that reason we have spent a good bit of time teaching her not to "carry" chickens and for the most she has learned.  Only occasionally do we now find her with a chicken in her mouth.

It seems our kitchen has been filled with leftovers recently.  We seem to only cook one or two dinners a week and eat the leftovers the rest of the time.  I think we need to learn to cook smaller quantities!  Farmer Don made a really good ratatouille which we had for three meals!  As a side dish to chicken the first meal and over pasta for the next two.  I also made use of beets to make one of my favorite, pickled beets and eggs.  My sister and I are already starting to plan for canning.  We are hoping to can peaches this year and of course tomatoes, tomato sauce and hopefully applesauce.  Last year we didn't get much canning done, as I was not feeling up to it.  This year we are determined to get some jars on the shelves!  Stay tuned for our canning adventures!

Let's see, I talked about the weather, the fields and harvest, the adventures of the farm and now the kitchen.  I am thinking it is time to wrap this newsletter up.  I am ashamed to say I started it over a week ago!!!  

So, as Farmer Don would say:  "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies"

Until next week (hopefully)...

2021 CSA Week 1 and 2 Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm! 

We hope everyone had a safe and happy July 4th.  We had a simple picnic here on farm with Farmer Phil and his family.  With illness and the pandemic it had been quite a while since we had people over for a meal.  It felt good to plan the meal and cook for others!  I think everyone had a good time, nothing too exciting, just a relaxing early supper on the back porch.  Of course beware, because next time we are threatening to get the games out!

Welcome to Week 1 and Week 2 of our CSA. 

I apologize for blending 2 weeks newsletters in to one.  I need to get back into the habit of weekly newsletters.  With that being said, I hope our CSA members enjoyed their Week 1 and week 2 boxes and are ready for their Week 3 Box.  My plan is to have a Week 3 Newsletter out to everyone later this week.

First some CSA notes.  Members, please remember we reuse the wax boxes your shares are packed in. This week we have a lot of brand new boxes being used.  They are stiff and will require patience to keep them from tearing when you open them. Farmer Don says please remember to push not pull to avoid tearing the tops!  Thank you, these waxed share boxes are an expense for the farm as they cost over two dollars each.   We also reuse clean egg cartons and berry boxes.  These items can be returned to your pick up site and we will collect them.  Another reminder:  The window to choose items for your share opens on Thursdays at 6 pm and closes Sundays at 6pm.  Forgot to sign on or finding most items not available when you do sign on?  Please consider a Farmer's Choice box.  These boxes have looked really good going out this year. 

The weather, what would a Farm newsletter be without me talking about the weather.  What a roller coaster ride the weather in June provided!  We had a heat waves early and late in the month with some chilly weather in between.  We actually had an overnight low of 43 in mid June -- that is very cold for June!  These cool overnight temperatures were good for our lettuce and kales, but not good for peppers or Asian greens.  Peppers will actually drop flowers and fruit at these temperatures.  Temperatures below 50 cause some Asian greens (such as napa cabbage) to bolt or set a flower stalk.  For this reason we are in the process of re-planting our napa cabbage and our peppers may be delayed in harvest this year.

Speaking of harvest we continue to bring in some beautiful bok choy.  Our kales and Swiss chard are also looking really good right now.  Zucchini continues to be harvested and with any luck we should be able to keep zucchini and other summer squash going for the majority of our season.  We have started harvesting romaine lettuce and it is looking really nice.  Our pea harvest is pretty much over as the heat has taken its toll on the pea plants.  Next week we are hoping to have spring onions and garlic available.  This year we are again partnering with some other growers in our community to bring you the best selection of items.  One of these growers has greenhouse space which is where the early tomatoes and eggplant are coming from.  

Dilly is still ruling the farm.  She has outgrown some of her puppyhood and is starting to settle down.  Never did I think I would say Dilly and settle down in the same sentence!!  But she is suddenly content to hang out with us on the porch or lay on the couch for an afternoon nap.  She is learning the workings of the farm, learning what is good and what is bad and learning what to avoid!  I am fairly certain she now knows porcupines and skunks are bad and she is slowly learning that chickens and barn cats are good.  She has most definitely determined that groundhogs are bad and one of her personal vendettas is to eradicate the farm of them.  Dilly s not a large dog, so she can handle the smaller groundhogs by herself, but needs help from Farmer Don for the larger ones.  This leads me to a classic Dilly story!

The other afternoon, Farmer Don was off farm, and Dilly was patrolling the property.  I was inside and heard a ruckus outside the garage door.  Dilly and another animal seemed to be in the fight of their lives.  Being an overprotective doggy Mom, I decided Dilly needed help and made the decision, the WRONG decision, to open the garage door.  With the garage open barely a few inches in ran a groundhog with Dilly close behind.  As the groundhog made a run for me and inside of the house, I screamed and quickly slammed the inside door.  But, the fight continued, inside the garage now.  Every time I open the door to check things out the groundhog seemed determined to run for the inside door.  When I heard Dilly yipe, I opened the door to find that the groundhog had Dilly on her back!  Now all three of us were screaming.  Dilly had recovered and was now on all fours growling and barking at the groundhog, the groundhog was on its haunches hissing and squealing at Dil and I was standing in the doorway yelling for Dilly to get inside.  Dilly did eventually listen and came running in the house with me.  At about this time the back-up calgary (my sister!) arrived to help.  She helped me back the car out of the garage and scoot the unhappy hissing groundhog out with the broom!  Thankfully Dilly escaped the fight without a scratch.  I am not sure about the groundhog, as handling a hissing, angry groundhog is not high on my list of things to do.  If nothing else, I think Dilly convinced it to not hang out by the garage door!

There have been some changes here on farm over the last year.  Most notable is that we have downsized quite a bit.  Our CSA membership is less than half of the members we had last year and we do not anticipate attending farmers markets this year.  Farmers Don and Phil will miss their friends and customers at market!  We are trying to figure out the logistics of a setting up a pay as you go summer buying club, so our market customers can still order from us if they like.  Pre-ordering will most likely be required and you will need to meet us at a designated place and time to collect and pay for your order.  Watch up-coming emails for more information and details.  Please send us an email if you think you might be interested!  (dancinghenfarm@epix.net) 

Ok, ok, I know this is getting really long!  So, I will close this saga here.

Thanks again for your support of our farm and local sustainable agriculture.  

And as Farmer Don would say "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies".

2021 CSA Details and Farm News

 

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

We have finally made some decisions concerning our 2021 growing season.  Farmer Don has been writing this newsletter for over a week, but his life is quite busy right now, so I thought I would take over the task. 

So, first for our CSA.  We will be offering a CSA to our customers again this season.  We will continue to be a full choice CSA.  You will again be able to sign into our website and choose the items you want in your box each week.  We are hoping to start deliveries sometime in June and end regular deliveries in October.  Deliveries will again be on Wednesdays.  We will be making some changes to our CSA.  We will be eliminating our chicken shares from the CSA.  If you already purchased a chicken share for this season, we will touch base with you on an individual basis.   In an effort to be more sustainable and cut our fuel and delivery costs, we will not be offering home deliveries this summer.  Again, if you already sent in payment for your 2021 CSA to include home delivery, we will contact you individually.  Farmer Don is very optimistic about this year's growing season.  He is feeling well and is ready to get growing for us and for our community.  Thanks to everyone for your continued support of our CSA.  It is hard to believe this is our 14th season!  If you have questions about the 2021 CSA or our farm, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

The 2021 CSA is now officially open for registration.  Like last year, we are limiting number of members.  Shares will be reserved in order in which payment is received.  At this time we take cash (in person) or check.  We are not set up to take plastic.  Please visit our website to register and sign up for a share.

As we celebrate the spring equinox and the first day of spring, I do believe we are making the turn from winter into spring.  The sun is getting higher in the sky and we are starting to get some warmer days.  The snow seems to have finally melted.  I know we can still get some snow storms, but it is so nice to feel this rebirth we call Spring.  Here on farm the crocus are blooming and the other spring bulbs are pushing up from the soil.  Animals and birds are slowing returning and waking from their winter slumber.  We have seen robins, groundhogs, chipmunks and skunks.  If you see Farmer Don you will have to ask him about the skunk.  The other week he had a minor and very much unwanted encounter with the wrong end of a skunk!  His story gets more and more animated with each telling.  I am convinced soon he will be telling everyone he fought the skunk off with flaming arrows! 

Dilly, Dilly, Dilly; yes, Dilly is still ruling the farm and the house.  She is a very active pup!  She is busy learning what does and doesn't belong on farm.  Farmer Don is convinced she will be a good varmint dog.  Only time will tell, she does seem very interested in our farm enemies, but she has yet to have a one on one encounter with any.  Shady also was a good varmint dog until she had a run in with a groundhog and after that she watched things from a safe distance.  I don't think Dilly has seen the chipmunk yet, but she is very interested in the groundhog and the rodents in the barn.  And, of course, the barn cats.  We are very thankful Dilly was in the house when Farmer Don was doing battle with the skunk!  Dilly is also our resident kleptomaniac.  She is the ultimate counter and table surfer, stealing whatever she feels is of high value.  She chews her finds and then hides them under the couch!  Yesterday this was a pen.  She brought the rubber finger grip to me in the bedroom.  It took me awhile to determine what she had and where she got it.  When I went looking for my pen, I realized what Dill had and then panicked that it had exploded and ink was seeping into the rug.   Luckily the pen seemed to be fairly Dilly proof.  It sustained enough chewing it became trash, but thankfully no leaking ink. 

Several weeks ago Dilly was spayed and needed to wear the collar of shame, only she didn't seem to mind the collar.  Any other dog I have ever owned or been around has tried to remove this big collar as soon as it is put on, but not Dilly.  She even learned how to manipulate it to get into small places and even was still be able to steal off the table.  It was so cute to see her jogging around outside with this big plastic cone on.  Secretly, I think she may have actually liked the collar!  The vet was amazed that all her stitches were still intact when we took her back for the follow up appointment. 

On farm we are busy planning and planning for this upcoming season.  We have lined up some help for the summer.  Farmer Don will be working some off farm, so we have arranged for our neighbor Paul to stop by and water plants and animals.  He has also agreed to allow Dilly to run while he is here.  I am sure he will become one of her best friends!  We also are welcoming Jason back to help up on Saturdays.  Rumor has it he will be bringing his boys around as well to help with chores and projects.  We are also planning on our friend John assisting Farmer Phil with deliveries this year.   I am sure there will be more people added to this list as the season moves along. 

We hope everyone is weathering the COVID pandemic well.  Hard to believe it has been over a year now of masks and social distancing.   On farm we are thankful toilet paper is again available at our local grocery store and that for the most past we have remained untouched by the virus and the pandemic.  We very much feel getting vaccinated is a personal choice.  Farmer Don decided he would feel safer, being off farm if he were vaccinated, so he spent a bit of time this morning at the Benton Fire Hall getting his first of the series of two COVID vaccines.  Hopefully his second shot will be available when he needs to receive it.  I am waiting to get the vaccine until I can feel confident it will not aggravate any of my pre-existing health concerns.  Please, everyone, stay safe out there. 

Ok, this is getting long!  Time to print and have Farmer Don read and review this newsletter before I send it out to everyone.