Pleasant Valley Farm

Lots of excitement going on here at the farm!  We have 3 new Dexter cattle here as of yesterday afternoon.  Mark & Edlyn Muir were kind enough to loan us a few!  We met these wonderful people last fall when we purchased Fiannait from them.  This time, they brought us Finn-Bar,  one of their impressive bulls, for us to breed Finni to.  (So far, they've hit it off quite nicely!) Although Dexters are not tall, he is a beefy, solid, well-built animal, and gentle enough to follow me into the barn calmly when we put them in away from the heat of the day this morning. He gladly followed me, but it may have had something to do with the feed bucket in my hand! As the Muirs sold us Finni knowing we were hoping to milk her in the spring, they were disappointed for us that a calf never arrived.   So Lil also came with them, along with her calf.  They were kind enough to loan Lil to us for the summer so we could have a family milk cow for a time, and the calf is ours to keep as a replacement for the one Finni didn't have this past spring.  It is just amazing to deal with breeders like that!  Plus the cattle are so tame and easy to work with, even the bull, that they are a true joy to have here.  I'm excited to try my hand at milking a cow for the first time ever this evening!

I was also thrilled to check the incubator this morning and find three newly hatched peachicks!  We set every egg the peahens laid this year, but being that these were the very first eggs they had ever produced, I wasn't expecting a great hatch.  Sometimes it takes a few tries before a bird will produce a hatchable egg.   So, I'm just tickled pink with 3 out of 5 hatching!  That's probably all for our first round, but there are more eggs in the incubator, and I'm confident that there are more chicks on the way.

The garden is looking amazing. Saturday we were able to have the first of our green peppers for sale, and more are on the way this week.  I spy some jalapeños and other hot peppers as well.   I see tiny zucchini, yellow zucchini, and crookneck squash, as well as cucumbers, that should be ready for this weekend.  The new crop of lettuce, spinach & other salad greens are going strong, although I may give them another week before I start cutting.  I have green tomatoes appearing on more plants every day. I should have green beans by now, but the deer have been munching on them and the peas, so we'll see if there are enough to pick by the weekend. We often don't have enough hot weather to grow melons properly, but these past couple weeks have been ideal.  Even the seedlings that didn't look so hot at first are thriving. This year, I'm trying 3 varieties of watermelon (2 heirlooms), a honeydew, a cantaloupe, and an exotic French heirloom melon (Delice de la Table) that I didn't have success with last year, but sounded so intriguing I had to give it another shot.   I have herbs sprouting and otherwise just going crazy in those beds as well.  I'm headed back outside to do some more weeding, so among the weeds that took over some of the earlier plantings, I'm hoping to see kohlrabi, pac choi, beets and Swiss chard, hopefully of picking size. 

It's hot and humid here, but the chance of rain looks fairly low for the next few days, so Dan is out mowing hay.  He mowed some a few days ago, so hopefully it will dry out enough later today or tomorrow to get it into the barn.  We had hay in by the beginning of June last summer, but this year it's so far been next to impossible as we need 3 rain-free days in a row, and June hasn't cooperated much!  I like to help with the horse drawn equipment, so I'll probably be raking hay, as well as driving the haywagon again when we load it.  

Another pig left us this morning, so we'll be making sausage by the end of the week to have fresh sausage to sell this weekend.  I'll also need to make a seperate trip to Hirsch's to pick up our beef, which will be available for the first time since last fall.  Plus I have more vinegar to bottle, and more bottles should be delivered tomorrow.   These is so much ripening and coming in that I may need to get another table to the stand before the weekend to have a place for all of it!  What a great time to be home on the farm!

A new season is here at our farm!  Yes, it's officially summer now, although it's been pretty hot with lots of thunderstorms for some time now.  As I mentioned in my last post, we're transitioning to a new season in our lives as well.  Tomorrow is my official last day of off-farm work.  I'm excited, optimistic, and yes, a little nervous about where this will lead.  I'm walking away from what I've known for the past five years, but during the "test run" of a 3-month layoff last fall, I came to know, without a doubt, that this is really where my heart lies.  Will I have to find another day job or will the farm be enough?  I don't know.  I do know I have a vision of what I'd like the farm to be someday.  A teaching place.  A place where anyone can learn about how food is grown. How it is possible to build up the soil rather than destroy it while producing your crops.  How to raise animals in a way that is humane, sustainable and healthy for the creatures, the people and the environment.  How to partner with horses to work the land like Americans have done for generations, before our dependence on oil put a tractor in nearly every field (and why this part of our lives doesn't have anything to do with being Amish).  What an heirloom plant or heritage livestock breed looks like, what it tastes like, why it's valuable and how we can save them.  I'm not sure exactly how this will work or what it will look like.  I am excited to take a small step in that direction July 24th by being part of the PA Buy Fresh Buy Local farm tour.  I'll be showcasing the poultry on a short walking tour, letting people see our birds and letting them know more about what we raise and why.  We'll see where it goes from there!

The garden is thriving in this weather.  My heirloom lettuces, Grandpa Admire's and Crisp Mint Romaine, have taken the heat well so far and didn't bitter like some of the other varieties.  Peas are here, both sugar and shelling.  The borage (a beautiful herb that tastes like a cucumber) is in bloom already.  The green onions are rapidly growing into big onions. Tiny zucchini and summer squash are appearing with the promise of being plentiful as always. Little green tomatoes have appeared, and so far no reports of the blight that plagued farms in our area last year.  More treasures appear every day.  I swear you can see the corn stalks' growth between morning and night!   The hay fields are also more than ready, and with a break in the predicted thunderstorms we'll be mowing hay Friday with any luck. A great time to be in the fields.

All the animals are thriving on pasture.  We recently got a couple more beef cows that have joined the herd without incident.  This weekend we're anticipating the loan of a Dexter bull along with a Dexter cow to milk and a calf to raise.  One of my doe rabbits just had 6 healthy babies.  The spring lambs are growing so fast on the lush pasture, some of the boys are nearly as tall as their mothers.  The turkeys are growing by leaps and bounds, with the males attempting some hilarious-sounding teenage gobbles.  While the peafowl are finished laying eggs for the year, the eggs are in the incubator and I'm anxious to see if we have a successful hatch. A wonderful time to have animals.

I've begun canning garden excess, so far I've made 2 rhubarb jams- one with oranges, the other with ginger and oriental spices.  I have new batches of homemade vinegars fermenting, and I'm excited to try some  herbal or fruit infusions with them when they are ready.  There are new mustard recipes to try, including my quest to master a good champagne-dill one.  I was trying to use Google to find an alternate recipe last night, and I had to laugh when my blog entry about my utter failure with this earlier in the year was the #4 result when I typed "champagne dill mustard recipe"! A superb time to use up the bounty of the garden, to try new recipes, to create my own.

Tomorrow, I'll come home and put the khaki slacks away.  (ok, I'll wash them first.)  I'll put on my jeans and barn boots, and begin a new day, a new season.  I don't know how long it will last or what storms lay on the horizon, but I'm excited.  I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be, and I can't wait to have more time to put my hands in the dirt. 

I've really been looking forward to this week for some time now.  I've planned to take vacation days from work and have the whole week off for what I like to call "Birthday Week!" While I don't plan on going anywhere, it's nice to catch up around the house and farm, or try some new recipes for my canned goods.  

This past week, though, I found out I'm going to have a lot more free time to do this after the end of June.  Budgets are tight, and the non-profit agency I have spent the past 5 years working for decided to eliminate a position in my office.  I did not want to take over the revamped position (essentially doing more work for less money) , so as of July 1, I will officially be a farmer with no other day job.  As I did have the experience of being laid off and able to farm for 3 months last summer, I know it's where my heart lies.  I actually feel busier, more purposeful, and more productive here than I do at the office, so I know I'll be anything but bored.  Including the commute, it's like getting 50 free hours back, but I know they will be filled.  I'd like to think that the stalls will be cleaner, the garden will be weeded better, I'll have more canning products for sale, and the blog and website will be more up to date.  I also have "me" projects like catching up on some good books or painting again.  It's exciting and I'm so happy to have Dan's support in this.  It was a big leap when he quit his job a year and a half ago, but that worked well for us.  He's now much happier to be working with his brother. (shameless plug- for those of you in the Tionesta area in need of a licensed, insured contractor, Matt's Construction will do any job, call 657-8400 for more info!)  

I don't know when or if I'll be back working somewhere else, but for now I'm excited to put my efforts into making this the best year on the farm it can be.  One of the ways I'm hoping to make that happen is by being part of the Western PA Buy Fresh Buy Local farm tour day, July 24th from 10:00-6:00.  Watch for more details, and we hope to see everyone then if not before!

We're getting ready to have beef for sale again.  We've been planning on offering it for sale for the 4th of July weekend, so that means Happy and Louie will be leaving us in a matter of days.  Although we'll still have Fiannait and Baby Buzz (who's not really a baby anymore except in personality!) it's always sad to see half the herd leave, so we've been looking for new cows.  There is always so much going on at the farm that we just weren't able to get them in the spring when there are plenty for sale, but we saw an ad in a local paper offering feeders.  We contacted the owner and took a ride after we closed the stand on Saturday to check out the calves- one Angus and one Hereford/Angus.  Both are heifers, and black, with the cross also having a white face and small horns.  We were able to have them delivered on Sunday, and after being chased by Ponyboy and Louie for a few minutes upon arrival, they seem to have settled in nicely.  I'm told they are tame enough that they would come up to be scratched or petted at their previous home, so I'm sure our two new girls will be eating cookies or a stale bagel from my hand in no time.

Speaking of cows, those of you who have been following this blog know we got a Dexter heifer last fall in hopes of having a milk cow.  Although the sellers thought she was bred, either she didn't take or something happened, because w didn't get a calf this spring.  However, we're still so glad to have Finni, as she's just full of life and personality.  You just don't get that with the average Angus or Holstein in our experience.   Dan and I had just begun to discuss what to do when I got an unexpected email from the couple we bought her stating that they have a gentle bull for us to use.  They had offered to loan us one when we bought her, so I'm anxious to see how this will work out.  A bit on the nervous side too.  

Breeding animals means being around large, powerful males.  Working around boar hogs or bulls is actually considered a hazardous job in PA which means the farm worker must be over 16 to do so.  Even male horses (stallions) or sheep (rams) can and have killed people.  So it's best to use caution.  On the other hand, I truly believe that the way animals are raised and treated makes a huge difference.  I like to think that my boys are trained by friendship and respect, not fear. My boar, Wilbur, gladly lets me scratch his head.  My ram, Rambo, has charged at me at a full run many times, but always stops.  I'm never scared because I can see by the look in his eye that he just wants to beat the ewes to the cookies in my pocket.  Of the four horses, Ponyboy is the shyest and least aggressive.  (It probably doesn't hurt that he's a mini among big girls.)  But these are my animals and I work with them daily.  However, when we went to look at Finni and the other cows for sale, we walked among the whole herd, including bulls.  All were calm as could be, even in close quarters.  It also helps that Dexters are small and even I could see easily over all of their backs.  And we're dealing with reputable breeders, so I believe it to be a gentle bull, which should lead to an adorable, gentle baby calf!    

A few days ago, we moved our heritage turkey poults to an outdoor pen.This has an open bottom for access to fresh grass and a small ramp leading to an enclosed, raised floor where it is always sheltered and dry.We’d been carefully watching our little birds for the first few days, making sure that they came inside towards dusk and if it looked like rain.

Baby turkeys, at least the commercial broad breasted whites, are noted for their stupidity; it is not uncommon for them to drown in less than an inch of water or starve to death even when the feeders are full!The solution is to put a few healthy chicken chicks in with them until they get the hang of the basics.Although they did start out with chicks for companions, our heritage poults seemed pretty bright, and not only figured out food and water quickly, but were using the ramp in no time once moved out by themselves.After checking on them often the first two days, they seemed perfectly capable and we let our guard down a bit.We had fairly severe thunderstorms yesterday, and when the rain finally quit and I began evening chores, I saw what looked like multiple wet, dead turkeys piled in the lowest corner of the outdoor run.Devastated, I called across the field to Dan that half our poults were dead before rushing off to turn on the heat lamp in the brooder to dry the survivors.I was thankful that I had cleaned out the brooder and only needed to plug in the heat lamp and add some shavings to create a warm, dry environment.Grabbing a shoebox, I rushed back outside.Some of the poor little things were drenched but standing upright, obviously chilled.I scooped them up and put them in the box.One was laying on its back, legs twitching as if in the final stages of death.It wasn’t dead yet, so I figured there was no harm in picking him up, too.(I’m a softie, and have a hard time admitting when a baby is a lost cause!)The ones in the soggy pile of dead-looking birds were in terrible shape, but none had actually expired, so they went in the box too.The rest ran from me back upstairs, so I let them go as they seemed ok.(My guess is that they were smart enough to get in out of the rain in the first place.)

Under the heat lamp, it looked like life was quickly returning to about half of the eight birds I rescued.The other four were at least laying on their bellies instead of their backs, heads upright, so it was an improvement, but they were wet and cold to the touch.Like any reasonable person, I decided I needed to do more to get them warm and dry ASAP. I decided to grab the soggiest, sickest looking one and take it inside the house to try and blow-dry it. When Dan came in the house, I was in the bathroom, hair dryer running on warm, turkey poult on the bathroom counter.Actually, it worked so well, I was drying the second turkey by the time Dan was done feeding the pigs.I love that he doesn’t question my slightly eccentric ideas; he just poked his head into the bathroom to ask how the “turkey makeover” was going.The little things would stretch out their wings in the warm breeze, and were dry and nearly fluffy in just a few minutes.I blow-dried three in all, by then the rest were upright in the 100-degree brooder.They were quickly dry and active, so I unplugged the heat lamp and placed fresh food and water in the pen.It seemed to be a miraculous comeback, but I hesitated to get my hopes up too high.The common wisdom with raising turkeys is that a “chilled poult is a dead poult” so I was still expecting losses. We also locked the rest of the turkeys in the dry upstairs portion of the outdoor pen, hoping they’ll remember that as their home and run to it the next time it pours!

This morning came and, despite my dire initial assessment, we did not lose a single baby.  Not one.  I am just amazed that you would never know the birds were on death’s door 12 hours before.Had I been 5 minutes later in finding them, I don’t think I’d be able to say the same, so I think I’ll be extra watchful when we let them back outside!

We survived our grand opening yesterday, and I'm happy to say it was a success!  Thanks go out to all who stopped to see us, your support of local, organic food allows us to spend our time doing what we love- farming!

I admit, I have been pretty stressed about opening.  We did open for a partial season last year, but opening August 1 means lots more veggies are in season.  However, the table was NOT bare looking even though it is only May!  I've been busy with my jams, mustards and flavored vinegars, we have a nice assortment of raw milk cheese, and in addition to early crops like spring onions and rhubarb,  I also have some hardy herbs that are already needing to be cut.   We also had lots of pork and our first chicken of the year.  While we did sell out of one or two things, overall we had enough to keep the table filled all day.  My other fear was that no one would come, but we had a wonderful turnout.  So now that the opening is over, I'll be much less anxious about the coming weeks.  

The garden is looking greener every day.  Last week we put in 10 flats of transplants, so the plastic I put down is now filled and then some!  It's hard to believe, but our last killing frost was actually in June last year, so as much as we wanted to plant earlier, we also hated to take the chance of losing all our seedlings one chilly night.  Here in northwest PA, the general wisdom is that it is safe to garden after Memorial Day, so here's hoping that it will be great gardening weather from here on out.  We're planning on putting in some of our least frost tolerant seeds later today as well as planting beans and lettuce again so we can continue harvesting them throughout the season.  The peas are blooming, so they will be ripening quickly, and I know we'll be overrun with zucchini before long.  We've got more rhubarb than I can even describe right now, so I'm going to try and come up with something fun to can this week, so who knows what will be new for sale by next Saturday!

We hope you have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend, and we hope you'll be able to visit us on Saturdays! 

Only 9 more days until we reopen for the year!  I'm excited and overwhelmed all at the same time.  I'm glad I was able to take 2 more days away from my day job next week, because as it is I put in almost a full day every evening after I get home.  There is so much to do!

I bottled my first homemade vinegar this week.  It's champagne vinegar, made with nothing but champagne (ok, domestic sparkling wine) a little water, mother of vinegar, and time.  It's fantastic!! I'll have a few bottles for sale and I've already started the next batch, but it will be a few months before it's ready.  I've been drying herbs in my little food dehydrator, so far I've packaged chamomile and some oregano.  I need a bigger drying space!  

We got some quail eggs and set them in the incubator last night, along with some Delaware chicken eggs from my girls here.  If all goes well, we'll have quail eggs & meat for sale by mid summer.  The Delawares will be to increase my laying flock, because those are my most productive and favorites of all the breeds we raise.

I was going to transplant some zucchini and pepper plants just now, but I see a wild turkey at the edge of the garden right now.  They are so neat to have around, I'll let him clean up some insects before I go out to plant, as I still have a few hours of daylight left. 

We still need to clean up the stand, but the fridge is plugged in and full of cheese.  Tom, Dan's father,  picked up our first order of raw milk cheese from Whispering Brook Cheese Haus, so we're set to go with that again.  New this year (for us) is a cheddar made from goat's milk and an Italian cheese with sun dried tomato chips, basil, and garlic.  We also got a lot of the Dill & Bacon cheddar which was so good we sold out of it the first day we had it last year.  We also have Longhorn (Colby), Mild Cheddar, Smoked Sharp Cheddar, Jalapeño, and Horseradish again this year as well. So now I just need to forget it's down there so there is some left to sell!  

I've been working on updating the website page with products and prices.  A good portion of it is already live, but I'm holding off on listing the veggies yet.  I don't want to advertise things only to find they just didn't ripen in time for the first weekend.  I do try and go out to the garden nightly while I'm tending the rabbits... maybe if I just stare hard enough, I'll magically make the peas ripes or something...

I've also been working hard on getting the June e-newsletter completed.  It's almost ready to go out, hopefully I'll have the time to get that out next week.  We also participated in donating wool & hair for the oil spill, but that's a story I don't have time to type out tonight!  There is still so much to be done, and I won't get it finished if I'm blogging.  We hope to be seeing you next weekend! 

Today is my 4th day off in a row, and by "off" I mean not commuting to my day job, because as usual, I've been busier here than I am at work!  Friday, Dan and I worked until 1 AM getting the butcher shop finished.  Although the Stevensons have always done some of the processing here, the kitchen was in need of a good cleaning and a coat of paint.  Not only did we paint, but we also put down a new tile floor, added much needed shelving and built a larger butchering table.  It turned out wonderfully, will be easier to clean, and if yesterday was any indication, a better workspace makes the whole process easier and more efficient.  We'll be butchering 3 more hogs today with the help of Dan's father, Tom, and that will complete our freezer pork orders.  Soon we'll be moving on to hogs we'll be selling at our stand when we reopen for the season on May 29. 

Of course butchering hogs & making sausage makes for busy days, but I've also been working hard on getting other things ready.  This weekend alone I made Honey Mustard, Cranberry-Peach Compote (like a chunky jam, but with almonds too!), Thai Hot & Sweet Dipping Sauce and repackaged all of my flavored vinegars into the new bottles.  Today I hope to bottle a bit of the champagne vinegar I made, buy more champagne because it turned out so well, and split the mother of vinegar to make some real white & red wine vinegars as well.  I also have some Blueberry Basil Vinegar that's nearly done and will need bottled in a week or so as well as some Dried Herb Vinegar, so I think I need to order more bottles too!  I filled some of my new herb containers with dried chamomile and the oregano in the dryer should be done today, so I'll package that and set more oregano on the racks to dry.  

The baby turkeys arrived, but they must have had a bad trip because only about half survived the 48 hour period after we picked them up.  There was a guarantee though, so Welp's hatchery sent us replacements.  There weren't enough turkeys to ship safely, so they filled the box with extra chicks so everyone would stay warm.  They look like Barred Rocks, so I'll gladly keep any hens and add them to our egg laying flock, since that is a breed we have here.  To date, the new turkeys and the survivors from the last batch are doing great and growing like weeds! We also picked up a batch of broiler chicks Saturday, and they are all doing well too.  We've been getting to know our postal workers pretty well, because this morning we went to the office before they opened again, this time to pick up hatching eggs.  We're going to try raising Cortunix quail for eggs and meat, so if they hatch well we may be offering those products at the stand by the end of July!

Most of our plants survived the early frost, so we're anxious to be offering things like rhubarb, spring onions and lettuce when we open.  But for now, I've got to go, we've got lots to do today! 

I'm commonly asked how we control weeds if we don't use pesticides.  The rototiller and hand weeding between plants are the main tasks once the plants are up.  For other veggies, like peppers & tomatoes, we put down a thin layer of black plastic, called mulch, and then make small holes to put the transplants in.  The black plastic absorbs the sun's warmth, heating the soil surrounding the roots up more quickly, but since light doesn't pass through, weeds don't grow underneath it.  The past two season Dan and I have put it down by hand, stretching it tight and straight before heaping dirt along all sides so it won't blow away in the wind.  This year we wanted longer rows, and frankly, putting it down can be a real pain, especially if even a tiny bit of wind kicks up.

Shortly before the farm went on hiatus, Dan and his family purchased a piece of horse drawn equipment called a plastic mulch layer.  It holds a large roll of plastic as well as a roll of drip tape, which goes underneath to provide irrigation.  There is a seat and a foot pedal which can be used to turn the wheels in case the horses step aside, since it's pretty important to keep the row of plastic as straight as possible. There are also two discs in the back to cover the sides of the plastic as you go along so it won't blow away. It had only been used a year or two, and besides the cobwebs from being stored in the barn, is practically new.

 The trickiest part was remembering how to thread everything through the rollers, but once that was finished  the job went very quickly.  I've been wanting to learn to operate more of the equipment this year, so I got to drive.  Once Dan covered the end of the plastic with some garden soil for a little tension, we put it in gear and away we went!  Overall, it was fairly straight...good enough that we didn't have to pull it up and do it over!  Although I'm getting much better at driving the team, this was absolutely my first time steering with my feet and hands at the same time, and it took a bit to get used to the feeling!  The plastic and drip line were cut, we turned around, centered the freshly tilled row, and Dan again covered the end.  Getting the hang of it a bit more, it was much straighter this time.  I was excited to learn about a new piece of our equipment, and was wishing just a bit that we needed to put down more than two rows.  I know it's pretty unusual for a non-Amish family to farm with horses, even more so for young farmers.  Also, few teamsters (originally the word referred to those working horses, not driving trucks) are women, so I'm both excited and proud to be one of those few.

The view from the driver's seat is pretty neat, don't you think? 

The trailer from our local meat processor just left with some of our pigs on board.  By law, we're required to send them to a USDA-inspected slaughtering facility.  We are able to process the sides of meat here at the farm, which means a busy week next week.  I'm usually in charge of the wrapping & labeling of our pork products, as well  as mixing up the herbs & spices for our multiple sausage varieties.  Some of the pigs that left today will go towards filling last fall's freezer pork orders, and the rest will be frozen for sale at the stand when we open at the end of the month.  We'll have fresh pork as well, but we like to have some frozen on hand too, and this allows the necessary time for the smoking & curing of the hams and bacons so we'll be able to have those as well.  It was nice to have a break from meat processing over the winter, but it's that time of the year again. It really takes a lot of planning to get everything scheduled properly!

We moved our broiler chickens to a larger pen today.  We want to get them out on pasture as soon as possible, but it actually snowed here today and these birds just don't handle cold & wet weather well.  To keep them healthy without pumping them full of antibiotics, we decided it was best to put them in another indoor pen with a raised floor, but we'll be watching the weather to get them out on grass as soon as possible. Unlike the pork, we are able to process our chicken start to finish here at the farm, so that will take place just a couple of days before our opening day.  Not only will we have some chicken available at the reopening of the stand, we also have a new batch of broiler birds arriving this week.  They will be able to be out on grass for a longer period of time, as we hope the weather will cooperate when they no longer need their heat lamps in a few weeks. 

The cold continues tonight, with frost forecasted.  We're a bit concerned about some of the crops, like sweet corn and blueberries, but the majority of what's in the ground, like lettuce and onions, won't be damaged if it gets nipped by frost.   It's so exciting to actually see veggies up, and I even have some early radishes to incorporate into our dinner tonight.

I was delighted with the new bottles that arrived this week and have been in the process of filling them with flavored vinegars.  Our Thai Sweet & Hot dipping sauce will be in them as well, so be sure to check them out when you stop to see us! 

I'll be watching the mail carefully, as we've got some exciting packages scheduled to arrive this week!

If all goes according to plan, I'll have my new vinegar bottles and herb jars delivered tomorrow.  I've got a new batch of Blueberry-Basil Vinegar to package, but I've been waiting on our new containers.  I think these salad dressing-style bottles will be easier to use than small canning jars.  I'm also very excited to finally package some of the champagne vinegar.  The mother of vinegar has been working for the past few months, and it's finally ready!  I'm excited to try it in some of my favorite recipes. If you've enjoyed any of our flavored vinegars before (we also sell Dried Herb and Mulled Blackberry) be sure to look for them in the new containers as well.  Once the herb garden gets going, I hope to have some new varieties this year too!

The oregano is growing rapidly, thanks to the warm temperatures and the gentle rain we got this weekend, and I'll be putting some in the dehydrator this week.  I'm hoping to expand our line of dried herbs from the organic coriander and dried basil we offered last year, and oregano seems like a great place to start.

I'm really excited about Friday though, because that's when our turkey poults will be arriving!  Dan and I have talked for the past year or two about getting a starter flock of heirloom turkeys.   While we have raised the regular broad-breasted white before, and will have some again this year,  they are a completely artificial breed.  To satisfy the American taste for white meat, the breasts on these birds grow so large, they cannot even mate naturally.  All eggs are fertilized via artificial insemination.  While I like to think I know my birds quite well, that's more up close and personal than I'm willing to get with a turkey!  Happily, there are a variety of heirloom breeds of turkeys.  While not as fast growing or large breasted, they have the ability to breed naturally, they have the "motherly instinct" to sit on a nest until the eggs hatch, do well in free range & pasture based systems like ours, and are an intelligent, beautiful bird.  The hardest part was deciding which breed to raise.  I quickly decided on the Bourbon Red.  A native of the Kentucky area, this breed is a beautiful reddish brown with edges of white on its wings and tail.  Dan, however knew from the beginning that he wanted the Royal Palm, which has a stunning black and white pattern.  What to do?  Since we just couldn't agree, we decided to order some of both.    Our broiler chicks are now three weeks old and have gone to an outdoor pen, so the indoor one will be cleaned and ready for our little turkeys when we get the phone call form the post office telling us to come pick them up!

I feel like I've been neglecting my blog, but it's just been so busy here!  We've been busy planting, and with the much needed rain we're getting this weekend, I'm sure the potatoes, onions and other seedlings will be sprouting in no time!

I did take some time earlier this week to finally get around to watching the movie Food, Inc.   Honestly, I didn't think I'd learn much by watching it since I've got Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and several of Joel Salatin's books on my bookshelf, but I was wrong.  It's a great movie for anyone, it's very approachable for folks who don't have a lot of prior knowledge about food safety or agriculture.  Parts of it certainly are depressing, from a mother who lost her child to e. coli to the seed-cleaning farmer who was sued out of business by Monsanto- my heart broke watching. However, it was the ending that has really stayed with me- a hard working farmer telling the camera that farmers want to do the right thing, all consumers have to do is ask, and America's farmers will find a way.  Watching that part, I felt so empowered.  

The Gandhi quote "Be the change you want to see in the world" keeps running through my head.  Our animals are raised naturally and humanely, free to enjoy the outdoors, where they can express their pigness, cowness, chickenness...where a row of potatoes may veer to the side a bit because it seems unnecessary and cruel to run the rototiller over the killdeer's nest for the sake of symmetry...where the stream that runs through the pasture is able to be a great habitat for trout and frogs downstream...where the food is safe, honest, and healthy.  All these things are so important, and so often overlooked.  

When I was studying for my Master's in Social Work, I learned about lots of great people who changed the world for the better- women's rights, civil rights- and the fact that a group of caring people changing the face of our country always struck me as so inspiring.  I thought that I would never have an issue in my lifetime that could be so revolutionary as desegregating schools or getting women the right to vote. It seemed like all the good causes were already taken, so to speak. The more I learn about the way our food is mass produced, and the effects it has on the citizens of this country, especially children, the more I come to realize that this is my issue.  And it is something I'm fighting, every time we plant an heirloom vegetable seed here, every time we sell a dozen eggs we collect by hand, every time we sell meat that was raised and processed like a living creature rather than a protein-producing machine.  I can get up every morning, look in the mirror, and say "I am the change I want to see."  It's powerful, and awe-inspiring.  You can help be that change too, every time you choose to buy your food from a farmer or a restaurant that gets its food locally.  If we all do it often enough, we really will change the world.

For weeks now, the temperatures have been summer-like and the entire landscape has been turning green.  So although it may seem strange that we haven't been letting all the critters out to bask in the spring sun, until this week only the sheep were outside full time.  This is how we overwintered our farm, and although the fields were starting to turn green, it wasn't quite time.  While it may seem like a no-brainer to let the animals out as soon as there is something green out there to eat, if you do that you will run out of pasture quickly.  While we love to let the horses, cows and goats roam free and relieve ourselves of the stall cleaning, pasture takes maintenance too.  

Our farm is only 50 acres, including woodlands, house, barnyard, hog yard, hayfields, gardens and pastures. That doesn't leave all that much pasture for 4 horses, 4 cows, 15 sheep and a half dozen goats, plus the pastured poultry and pigs.  So we need to manage our pasture according to how many animals we have if we want it to last the whole summer long and into the fall.  The first step is by not turning everything out as soon as possible.  We need to let the plants get a bit of a head start so they have enough energy to keep going.  We will also close off parts of the pasture at different times during the growing year, allowing one part to be eaten down while the other part grows lush again. Another benefit is that we have a diverse herd.  Goats love the brushy stuff-scrubby trees, multiflora rose and other browse the rest of the animals won't touch.  The horses select the plants they like, such as clover or alfalfa first, as do the cows.  Sheep eat all the soft grasses down nearly to the roots.  Each has its own preferred food, and when you graze all of them together, it grazes the field down in a nearly even manner.  If you had only one species grazing a spot at a time, it is easy for them to eat their favorite plants up until they were no longer present in the field.  Like any of nature's environments, the pasture thrives on balance.

So how do we know it is time?  For starters, when we let the horses and cows out in the evenings, they refuse to come back in!  The lawn needs mowed already, and in some ways, the pasture is the same; the more you cut it, the more it grows back.  So we let the goats out to play last night too.  We've gotten away from the goat breeding business, but have 4 favorite adults and twin kids here still.  

What happens if we're wrong?  Maybe it is too early, but we'll monitor the pasture growth by walking through the fields.  If the grasses are being eaten down too much, we can always restrict the fields that the animals are allowed into, or put then back in the barn for a week or two.  It's a fairly forgiving system as long as you keep a close eye on what's going on.  The other side of the coin is that if you don't let the animals out until the grass is tall and lush, they go and gorge like a kid with a basket full of Easter candy.  While the child will likely suffer no more than a bellyache, for our livestock, the bellyache can result in digestive upsets (colic in horses, bloat on the others) which can actually kill the animal if not treated properly.   So the wise farmer strives for a balance between letting the grass get a good start, but not so much that the animals are knee deep in food they haven't seen in months.

It's a busy weekend here, as the first weekend of trout fishing weekend means lots of our seasonal residents are here.  If you're one of them, feel free to slow down when you pass the farm.  There's lots to see in the fields these days! 

Anyone who has come to visit our farm has likely seen some of our more exotic-looking poultry.  We raise Polish chickens, with crazy crowns of feathers that look like a wig, Golden Phoenix roosters have tails that can grow to be two feet long, and Cochins whose feet are completely obscured by feathers, making them appear to be wearing slippers.  All these birds are kept in a pen visible from our parking lot, and the do get quite a bit of attention.  However, they are not the most attention-grabbing birds we keep.

Two summers ago, Dan and I bought peafowl.  Most people know these beauties as peacocks, but that is really only referring to the males of the species.  Our ladies are properly called peahens.  The babies, not surprisingly, are called peachicks.  We got our birds as chicks, and peafowl are slower to develop than many birds, as they are long lived...they can live to be 50 years old!  Our males are developing the first real tail feathers with the characteristic eye spots, and although they will get longer still in years to come (up to 6 feet!) they are beginning to be beautiful.  Our hens will lay their first eggs this year, and we hope to hatch them in our incubator.  However, peafowl can fly well and we worried about them escaping, so it's taken us some time to get a proper outdoor run set up.  We were able to do that this weekend, complete with a roof made of netting, which makes it look like a real aviary pen.  It's also located right along the road, which I'm sure will slow traffic going by!

It took our birds a day or so to get used to leaving the safe confines of the barn, but they truly seem to enjoy being outside now.  We're thrilled to get them out where we can enjoy them as well, and it's a great time of year to be able to watch them.  The males have been strutting, trying to impress the hens.  Like turkey, they are able to raise their tails into an impressive fan.   They can also vibrate them, which makes an interesting soft rattling noise as they follow the girls about.  When all four peacocks start, it's quite a show!

They also make a variety of sounds, especially around dusk and dawn.  The one noted in books as sounding like "help"  does sound a bit like the word, but is an eerie, haunting cry.  I'd be pretty worried if I were outside by myself around dusk and heard it without knowing the creature making it!  There is also another cry that sounds...well, the closest I can come to describing it in print is like a bicycle horn!

In other farm goings-on, Dan broke ground for the first time this year with the horses.  After discing under some cornstalks, he began plowing the cornfield and garden areas near the road.  There are many more days ahead of working Dixie and Dolly to get our fields through spring planting, and it's always exciting to get that process underway! 

The summer-like sun is still shining here, making it hard to be inside blogging when there is so much going on outside!  We covered the rhubarb with floating row cover, a white, gauzy fabric that lets light through but helps keep the temperatures above freezing during frosty nights.  It's like a little greenhouse for the beds, with the added benefit that the free ranging chickens won't be able to scratch the new shoots when they're searching for bugs in the compost.  We also broke out the rototiller in a small patch of garden over the weekend and got some cold-hardy seeds into the ground.  Peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, beets & radishes will all survive a light frost or snow, as will the onion sets we planted Saturday.  We covered that bed with floating row cover as well, so if you're driving by, I didn't lose bed sheets from the line on a windy day, we're just keeping our sprouts warm!I'm looking  to having the first green treats from the garden, and hoping for good initial harvests.  We're opening the farm stand for the summer on Memorial Day weekend, so it's time to get things in the ground so the tables won't be bare!  We did decide that the weather is sure to turn colder yet this month, so we held off on planting my much anticipated strawberries.  I suppose the wait will seem worth it later when I have productive plants instead of frost-killed nubs.

We've been hatching and selling our own chicks for a couple of weeks now, and it is going very well.  However, we don't hatch the meat birds we raise.  Our first batch is expected to arrive this Friday, and so that also puts us on schedule to have fresh, farm-raised chicken for opening day.  It takes a lot of planning to time things like that, and it's exciting to move from the winter planning stages into the spring doing stages.  Also on the week's agenda is castrating the male piglets and shearing the sheep (this weather has been extremely hot if you're still wearing a wool coat!).  We're happy to have some extra help for these tasks, as Dan's father, Tom, is visiting.  He knew well in advance that this would be a working vacation here at the farm, but we try to at least feed him well with good home-raised food.  Depending on the amount of rain we get, we're also hoping to be breaking ground with the horses this week.  We're giving last year's garden and some of the other fields a rest by using cover crops, but they still need to be plowed, as will this year's garden and corn fields.

Among the many things I was able to complete this weekend was the next installment of our farm's monthly e-Newsletter.  If you'd like to be added to that list, feel free to email us at pleasantvalleyfarmpa@yahoo.com.