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".