2011 chicken season email

Dear Customers and Friends,

I am pleased to announce the schedule for my pasture fed chicken
program this year. I know many of you are hooked on our high standards
and I apologize for making you wait so long for this announcement.
We've been busy! We now have a new farm in Sebastopol with excellent
soil (but no driveway, water, or power yet :) and we'll be farming our
chickens on that good grass starting in just a few weeks. Now our
investments in topsoil through careful ecosystem management will
permanently benefit our own programs.

Because we supplement the natural forage diet with the highest quality
USA grown organic grains from Modesto Milling, we need to raise our
price slightly to $5.50/lb this year to ensure the viability of this
program.

Chickens will be available on the following dates:
4/10 & 4/17
5/8 & 5/15
6/5 & 6/12
7/3 & 7/10
8/7 & 8/14
9/4 & 9/11
10/2 & 10/9
11/6 & 11/13
12/4 & 12/11

Those are all Sundays, but customers will also be able to pick their
chicken from that harvest up on Monday for convenience. After that
self-pickup out of the walk-in is arrangeable for emergencies but is
discouraged.

If you like a smaller chicken 3.5 - 4 lbs then try to order from the
first week. The second week birds tend to be a little bit larger,
4-4.5. But there are always larger ones in the first harvest and
smaller ones in the second so don't worry too much about this
guideline.

In other news, I have a few lambs available that will be harvested
next month. My sheep are hair sheep, they shed out their wool when the
weather warms up, so they do not have the strong lamb/lanolin flavor
that some people when they've tried lamb have decided they do not
like. Give mine a try in that case, the flavor is out of this world
and you will broaden your cooking horizons as you seek recipes for the
various cuts you will receive. I only sell whole live lambs so they
can be harvested onsite for minimum stress. The price is still $3/lb
on the live weight so its around $7-8/lb once all the butchering is
done and paid for. I ask for a $40 deposit to reserve your lamb.

It is with great pleasure and excitement that I make this announcement
to open the 2011 chicken. Now, let the hard (but rewarding) work
commence!

sincerely,
-marc

p.s. if you want to be removed from my mailing list please reply to this
email with some words to that effect and I will make it happen. alternately,
if you know people who like local high quality food, I have expanded my efforts
this year and would welcome new customers. thanks!

harvested today

We had a goat and lamb harvest today. I was quite pleased with the sizes, most lambs broke the 60 lb barrier which is what I'm shooting for in the hair sheep. You might wonder why I farm such small lambs, when wool breeds easily get 80 lbs or more? Well, some people really dont like that strong lamb/lanolin flavor, and my hair sheep don't have it. So most of my lamb customers can't believe the mild and delicious flavor and they come back for more.

Sorry for the squeamish about this pic, but this is how a stress-free lamb graduation ceremony looks when its done on farm. They get to meet their maker with a minimum of fear.



Here's a pic of Nate the other day doing one of his favorite things. I'm looking forward to the help of this farm hand:



for now though, this is pretty good Nate and Daddy time:

its been a while

Here's us in the middle of moving the eggmobiles on the new farm. All but eggmobile2 are moved to their new location. Eggmopbile4 is red (youngest birds) Em1 is yellow (second youngest) Em3 is blue (second oldest), Em 2 is green (oldest), with the tractor connected in foreground. Em2's replacement birds are on pasture in the hoop tractors in the deep background which have been depicted in previous blog posts.



Carrie is grabbing a feeder in the old pasture. We have adjusted the space we give each flock, the old birds need less pasture and the young birds more, you can see the pasture degrading as it fades into the background.



Jeremy turned 7. We had his birthday in conjunction with another kid in his class so as to help minimize the amount of birdthay parties for the class this year...



And finally, they got hold of the entire bottle of bubble bath. Yup, daddy checks his email for one second and this is what happens: