Wind 1 Greenhouse plastic 0!

In the wee hours of the morning, the wind blew, the rain fell and the thunder boomed. We didn't hear anything crashing down nor did we lose power, so we thought we made out pretty good. Until the sun came up, and this was the view out our kitchen window. Wind 1 greenhouse plastic 0!! But we continue to count our blessing and move forward.

CSA Registration Closed and April News

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

It has been several months since I have pulled out the laptop to craft a newsletter.  As the harshness of winter moves into a greening of spring, I am hoping to keep in touch on a more regular basis.

First some CSA news.  We have met our capacity for our 2019 CSA and we are therefore closing registration for this season.  As a courtesy to those who have already signed up, but have not sent us payment, we are allowing you to still join the CSA, but we need your payment by April 20th.  After April 20th, no memberships will be accepted.  If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.  And a HUGE THANK YOU to all who have signed up for the 2019 season.  It is so humbling to have so many pledge their support to us. 

Didn't we just have a couple of beautiful spring days?  They have brought the buzz of spring to the farm!  Spring bulbs are starting to bloom.  The cats and dogs are shedding their winter coats.  The grass is getting greener.  The tree buds are swelling.  AND Farmer Don is getting growing.  We have learned over the years to take things slow in the spring.  Spring in this part of Pennsylvania can be very fickle and I am sure we have not seen the last of freezing morning temperatures!  But, Farmer Don has been busy!  He has been busy putting "steel to the soil" to get fields ready for planting.  The wood stove heated nursery is filling up with trays and trays of soon to be transplants.  Last week we planted a nice bed of red potatoes.  Planting peas, more potatoes and onions will be the next crops to go in the ground.  Today the high tunnel was cleaned out in preparation of early greens and tomato plantings and our unheated nursery was repaired and covered with plastic.  Putting plastic on the greenhouse was not an easy feat with the gusty wind we had today.  Many thanks to Stacy for patiently helping Farmer Don accomplish this task!  In the spring, plants move from the heated nursery, to the unheated nursery, to an outdoor hardening off area and then get planted out in the field.  Cooking greens and salad greens will be the first transplants to be planted out and hence some of the first crops available. 

We are experimenting a bit this year with some old seed.  We are worried about the viability of these seeds, so we did not want to use them for our cash crops.  But, we also did not want to throw them away if they were still able to germinate.  So, we planted the seeds, mostly kale, out in flats of soil.  And we are happy to see some germination!  Our plan is to harvest some of the tender plantlets for our consumption as micro greens or slightly larger baby greens.  If this works for our dinner table, watch for micro/baby greens coming your way in the future.  We also will feed some of the growing plants to our laying hens as green fodder.  We had noticed this winter, when our layers did not have good access to green grass, their egg yolks were becoming paler as they relied more on grain for their nutrition.  We also noticed when we find a tender bit of green (ok a weed!) growing in the greenhouse in the winter and pull it up for the chickens, they fight over this tasty morsel.  That made us think the hens must be missing and needing the greens in their diet.  So, remembering Michael Pollan's "you are what you eat eats" quote, we are hoping by offering our hens a better diet in the winter (living plants!) we will improve the quality of their eggs.  I may not have the results of our fodder experiment until next winter since with the spring greening of our fields the laying hens already have access to green plants.  Thus their eggs' yolks are already becoming darker and richer due to the hens' natural foraging. 

Speaking of chickens.  Our latest batch of pullets, or as I say "teenage chickens" are on farm and getting adjusted to life at Dancing Hen Farm.  They should begin laying towards the end of May, just in time for CSA, buying club and farm market season.  Our first batch of broilers will arrive this week.  They arrive as adorable yellow day old peeps and will spend several weeks in the brooder under some heat lamps before they are hardy enough move outside.  Once outside, they, like our laying hens, will then forage on our organically managed fields.

As much as I am a very private person, I know many of you are concerned about me and my health.  I can honestly say I am much better today than I was a year ago.  Avoiding the hospital this winter, has allowed me to continue to heal and get stronger.  Although I doubt I will ever be the physically laboring partner I once was at Dancing Hen Farm, I still have a lot to offer our operation.  Farmer Don and I count our blessing every day, not the least of which is the supportive community which revolves around our farm. 

So, I hear Farmer Don coming in from the fields.  I will end here as we get ready for supper and some quiet time with the pups.

As always, thank you for your support of our small family farm and local sustainable agriculture.

2019 CSA Registration and More!

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm! 

It's here!  No not spring!  2019 Dancing Hen Farm CSA details and Sign Ups!

  

Soooo............

New for 2019.  We are implementing an Online Market Share.  This share is a pay as you go, order when you want share.  This share is only available for on farm pickups and deliveries to a central pick up site.  The will be no home deliveries for the Online Market.  Online Market Shares will require a non-refundable deposit of 100 dollars to get started.  The deposit will act as a bank account and your purchases will be deducted from this balance.  All purchases will be at farm market prices, including eggs and chicken.  You will need to deposit additional money into your account when your balance gets low.  Add on chicken and egg shares are not available to Online Market Share holders.  Your items will be delivered with our CSA share boxes.

Details for our 2019 CSA.  We will continue to be a full choice CSA, meaning each week you will be able to pick the items you receive in your box each week.  You will have your choice of a full (10 items each week) or part (6 items each week) share and you can add an egg (9 dozen eggs) or chicken share (5 deliveries) to your CSA share.  Our early bird sign up is back and will run through February.  We will also, again, be offering a returning member discount.

New for our 2019 CSA:  Our drop sites have been consolidated, resulting in fewer drop sites.  We have shortened the CSA by eliminating a few weeks of deliveries at the end of the season, resulting in an 18 week season.  In 2019, deliveries will be on Wednesdays.  In addition we are downsizing the size of our CSA by cutting the number of shares available by half.  Shares will be reserved by order in which payment is received.  At this time we only accept cash (in person) or checks for payment, although we have begun exploring a system to take plastic. 

After many family and farm meeting and more heartfelt talks then we can even count, we feel it is necessary to implement these changes due to family needs, health and transportation costs.  Thank you for your support and understanding as we move Dancing Hen Farm into 2019, our 12th year of growing for you, our community! 

As we have indicated in past newsletters, 2018 was a very difficult year for us.  Like most farmers in Pennsylvania, we battled Mother Nature with all we had and She fought back hard!  Our washed out road serves as a constant reminder to us, how torrential and downright scary the rains were this year!  Farmer Don asked me to be sure to say a special "Thank you" in this newsletter to all of our farm workers and volunteers during the 2018 season.  Perseverance was the name of the game for our workers last season.  I think almost every week's harvest was completed in the rain last season!  Farmer Don also asked me to again thank you, our farm members and friends for your continued support of our farm.  Your kind emails, notes and words of encouragement at market go a long way to keep Farmer Don farming!

On a more personal level, my goal is to stay out of the hospital in 2019.  2018 found me spending many, many, way too many, nights in the hospital and many more nights and days recovering at home.  I am still recovering, but getting stronger all the time and doing my best to stay as healthy as I can.  I want to also thank everyone for their kind words, notes and prayers.  It brings me comfort to know I have the Dancing Hen Farm community behind me.  So here is to health and strength in 2019!

So, on that emotional note,  let's get back to the 2019 CSA!  As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Winter Buying Club Newletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!  Happy New Year!

Buying club ordering is now open for this weekend's delivery.  Ordering will end at 5 am Thursday morning and deliveries will be Friday or Saturday, depending on your pick up site.  We currently have half chickens available (we are sold out of full chickens until next summer).  We also have a good supply of apple orchard pork and storage vegetables available and a limited supply of eggs. 

Welcome to 2019,our 12th year of growing here at Dancing Hen Farm!  Recently I was looking at some old newsletters from our very first season.  I am sure some of you remember these newsletters.  Farmer Don used to write all the newsletters and I would type, format and print them.  Each box received a hard copy of our newsletter.  We have come a long way from those first packed boxes.  We still stress and struggle a bit over what items will be available for shares.  Now, as a choice CSA, that stress is more drawn out, as we try to estimate our harvest of crops almost a week in advance and watch and beg these crops to be ready for harvest in the numbers we need to, fill our members' choices!  One very obvious common denominator in the past 11 growing seasons has been the weather.  I sometimes tell people our best weather for growing was our first year.  But, then I remember the hail storm.  How could I ever forget?!  The day before our very first CSA harvest, we witnessed hail do damage to our crops like I had never seen before.  Beautiful, ready to harvest salad mix and heads of lettuce were pulverized, kale was stripped from its stems, peas and tomatoes were snapped off and row covers were ripped to shreds.  We scrambled that first week to work with other growers to find product to put in our member's boxes.  And I might add we packed those first boxes by candle light, as the storm had also left us without power!  (on a side note -- we will forever be indebted to Farmer Don's sister Gail for her help packing those boxes!)  So, after the hail of season one, we saved what plants we could and re-planted others and then the better weather started! 

These long winter months are often a time for us to reflect.  Reflect on these past seasons, reflect on life before farming, and reflect where we want to go from here.  We often find ourselves wandering why we do this, why farm?  I usually turn to Wendell Berry to answer this.  For those of you not familiar, Wendell Berry is an American author, novelist and poet, he is also an environmentalist and an observer of social behaviors.  I turn to his quotes often for inspiration and reflection.  In the words of Wendell Berry:

 “Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide.”  

So, here at Dancing Hen Farm we are moving forward with plans for our 2019 season.  Please watch your email, as we will be rolling out the details for the coming season soon.  We will be downsizing, but Farmer Don is committed to continuing to offer choice CSA shares to members.  Memberships will be available for purchase soon, as well as some other new options for purchasing Dancing Hen Farm products.  

With philosophies of life and pending season opening, I will end here.  Thanks for reading and as always, thank you for your support of our farm and local sustainable agriculture.

Christmas Buying Club

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

Yes, you can still get Dancing Hen Farm items for your Christmas Dinner!  Farmer Don will be doing deliveries this weekend.  Ordering is open and will close tomorrow, Thursday 12/20, at 5 am.  Deliveries will be Friday or Saturday, depending on your pick up site.  We continue to have storage crops available, pastured chicken, apple orchard pork and a limited supply of eggs available.

Speaking of eggs, we are trying our best to get eggs to people on a first come, first serve basis.  Unfortunately, the cooler temperatures and shorter days mean our chickens are laying fewer eggs and our eggs supply is limited.  Some farmers will put a light in their chicken coop to keep their chickens laying eggs by making birds believe the days are longer.  We do not do this, preferring to allow our chickens to stay in sync with Mother Nature.  This means fewer eggs during the winter months, so fewer eggs this time of year for everyone's holiday baking needs.

The farm is in holiday mode!  We are decorated.  The wreath has been hung on the barn (Thanks Jason!) The Christmas tree is up, as are our other decorations and outside lights.  Farmer Don is in cookie mode.  Farmer Don's favorite snack is chocolate chip cookies and a milkshake.  This time of year he gets out the stand mixer and makes cookies.  As I mentioned previously he likes to use the recipe from Cook's Illustrated, but he also has a recipe for Chocolate Chip Kale cookies.  The kale cookies are not nearly as complicated to make as the Cook's Illustrated ones and we get to pretend they are healthy because they have kale and oats in them.  I think Farmer Don would prefer not to have kale or oats in his cookies, but I think I actually prefer the flavor of the kale cookies. 

I don't even want to talk about the weather.  It is winter, so it is cold and cloudy!  Friday is the first day of winter, but the first day of winter is also the Winter Solstice.  The Winter Solstice is also the shortest day of the year, with days getting gradually longer after Friday.  Another interesting fact is that the full cold moon is on the 22nd this December, very close to Friday, the 21st.  A full moon coinciding with the solstice is a rare event, so it is exciting to have a full moon so close to the shortest day.  It may be hard to enjoy the full moon, as the skies are to be cloudy, but we will turn our eyes to the night sky nonetheless.

As I mentioned last week, we are busy making plans for next year.  Please watch your email for some new and exciting changes coming your way. 

And, as always, a huge thank you to each of you for your support of our farm.  Without our farm friends and members, we would not be able to sustainable produce on the rocky hillside we call Dancing Hen Farm.

We at Dancing Hen Farm want to wish everyone a Festive and Happy Holiday Season.  Take some time to enjoy the magic of this season and as always, don't forget to count your blessings.

Newsletter and Buying Club Open

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

We will be delivering Buying Club orders this weekend.  Ordering is not open and will close Thursday (12/13) morning.  Availability includes eggs, pastured chicken, apple orchard pork and storage vegetables.

It was so nice to have sunshine for a few days this week.  The sun always helps to bring a smile on a winter day!  I know this part of the country is not known for sunny days, but it seems we have really had your share of clouds this year, so the sun has been very welcome!  Warmer temperatures, but rain over the weekend, so more clouds on the way.  But, in about a week and half we will be celebrating the Winter Solstice and then the days will begin to get longer.  Slowly getting longer, but longer none the less!  Seems strange to be talking about longer days when there are still so many winter filled days ahead of us.

Farmer Don has been busy with the "wood stove shuffle" recently.  He replaced a large (homemade?) wood stove from our main nursery greenhouse with a much more efficient air tight wood stove.  This air tight stove will allow us to keep a fire burning for longer periods of time and also use less wood.  Hopefully we can avoid our transplant freeze out from occurring again this year.  But, I fear the dance of the wood stoves has just begun, for now Farmer Don is convinced the stove in the greenhouse is better than the one in the house! 

We have started to make some tentative plans for our 2019 season and the word of the year will be "change".  We are excited to be implementing a new marketing and business plan for our farm.  And we want to thank everyone in advance for their continued support.  Watch social media and your email for announcements concerning the 2019 season.  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead.

With less than 12 hours to get your buying club orders in, I need to end this newsletter and get it into the email stream! 

We wish you a peace filled holiday season!  Be safe, be happy and count your blessings.

Buying Club this weekend!

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!

Yes, we will be delivering for buying club this weekend.  Ordering is now open and will close early Thursday morning.  Deliveries will be Friday (12/7) and Saturday (12/8) depending on your pick up location.  Look for a good supply of Dancing Hen Farm Apple Orchard pork, pastured chicken, eggs and storage crops (potatoes, beets, carrots, etc).  We also have a very limited supply of salad greens and baby salad turnips.  More information about our winter buying club can be found on our website (www.dancinghenfarm.com) or by contacting us at the farm. 

The farm has most definitely made the transition into winter.  The snow and very cold temperatures a few weeks brought an end to most of our crops.  Even the plantings in our unheated greenhouse did not respond well to the cold temperatures.  But, as a fellow farmer once told Farmer Don:  "we aren't supposed to grow vegetables in the winter in Pennsylvania".

Speaking of snow -- the heavy wet snow several weeks ago, almost also brought an end to our chickens.  During the storm one of our coops collapsed.  Farmer Don was out at 2 am trying to rescue chickens and salvage the structure.  This was our "summer" chicken house, so it really was never built to withstand snow.  Generally we move all the chickens into a more sturdy coop for winter and the summer coop is partially dismantled prior to the first major snow.  We are lucky to have not lost any chickens.  Farmer Don was happy to report that most of the birds had already moved into the other coop by the time he realized there was a problem went to their rescue.

Farmer Don has been very busy in the kitchen lately.  He has been pouring over past issues of Cooks Illustrated to make everything from the perfect turkey to the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  And to think for years turkeys have been roasted at 325 until done and chocolate chip cookies were made following the recipe on the back of the bag!  But, no, Farmer Don's turkey was brined and rested and even flipped during the roasting time!  And his cookies involved browning the butter, rather than simply creaming it and as with the turkey there were several times when the cookie batter rested.   But, I have to admit, the turkey was delicious, very juicy, tender and flavorful.  And as the recipe promised, the cookies were tasty and have remained soft and chewy.  So the next time I make cookies, will you find me browning butter and resting batter?  No, you will probably find me smoothing the wrinkles out of the bag, so I can read the recipe better!  But, I have no problem eating all the food which flows from the kitchen when Farmer Don wears the chef hat!

Ok, it is getting late, the dogs need a walk and I need to get ready for bed.  I will bid you all good night!

  

May this holiday season find each of your safe, healthy and happy. 

Thanks again to each of you for your continued support of our small family farm.