Pork!

Our happy pig pile

Dropstone Farms, with Erik Lindbergh and Laurel Powell of Wardwell Farm, has a limited amount of pork available, which will be ready in the next few days. The pigs have been happily pastured at Wardwell Farm, and fed organic grains, kitchen scraps, cider- and beer-making leftovers, and garden residue.

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Update on Territorial Seed and Seminis (Monsanto) — GOOD NEWS!

Our third most popular post is “The Relationship Between Monsanto and Territorial Seed (Not As Bad As You Think)”, a January 2009 post about the news that Monsanto had acquired Seminis, which at the time was a supplier to Territorial Seed. Territorial is a popular source for home gardeners and small farmers on in [...]

On learning to cheese

(Yeah, “cheese” is a verb now; why do you ask?)

In late November, I made my first goat cheddar.

It looked awesome, but it had several mishaps. First, the dog got into it while it was sitting curing on the counter (in a place where I didn’t think he could reach [...]

Last call: chickens for pickup, Monday 9/26 at Day Road Farmstand

We have about 30 chickens left to sell. They were processed today, so with the WSDA’s 48-hour pickup requirement, we can make them available for pickup on the farm at the Day Road Farmstand on Monday during the day. Six dollars per pound. They will be a mix of sizes, some small fryers and [...]

Last batch of chicken for the year — order now!

We’re now taking orders for our last batch of chickens for 2011, which will be ready to pick up on September 25. As usual, the details are described on our Ordering Poultry page, and you can order here: http://tinyurl.com/chickens2011-2

Please let us know if you have any questions, and order soon!

Turkey ordering [...]

Peanut hearts for poultry — who knew?

Yesterday I saw this Lehman’s blog post about feeding turkeys with peanut hearts, which are apparently the little tiny nubbins that you find between the two halves of the peanut. I immediately thought of CB’s Nuts up in Kingston, so I emailed to see if they have surplus peanut hearts. Turns out they do, [...]

Dark Days 2010-2011: Intro

Despite the fact that I didn’t finish last year, I signed up to do the Dark Days Challenge again this year. The goal of the challenge is to make and post one meal a week that is as Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical (SOLE) as possible. Since this is something we do pretty naturally [...]

Closure

We’re eating the last of the stir fry made with the last of the year’s eggplants, and making basil with the almost-last of the basil (the last-last will go into green sauce (more or less like this). Thanks, summer (such as it was). Up next is a leek, kale, squash, and smoked salmon pasta [...]

Pushing a boulder uphill

These California farmers are giving up their land and quitting farming. Most of the reasons they cite for getting out of farming could be things we are saying next year or the year after, or the year after that.

Think hard about your food and your sources, and what it takes to support [...]

Roundup of other chicken vendors

Since we sold out for our last batch of the year, we’ve gotten a few inquiries about other farms who might have chickens like ours. I thought I’d round up all our recommendations. Some, but not all, are raising the slower-growing, more chickeny breed we prefer, or other breeds alternative to the fast-growing Cornish [...]

More customer feedback

Subj: NEED MORE CHICKEN!!!

[We] are in ecstasy over here, post roast chicken. Do you have any more we could purchase? Also, could we sign up to order more now? How many can we reserve? We LOVE your chicken!!!

On being told the 48-hour deadline has passed so we can’t legally give them [...]

Chickens, round 2

Our first batch of chickens this year went pretty well. We didn’t lose very many of them, and they had a good and uneventful life. Processing went smoothly too, once we resolved three different electrical issues (wrong extension cord = another trip to Lumberman’s; tankless hot water heater not working = trip home for [...]