Progress at the Farm

While my head is not spinning I thought I would take a moment to sit down and update you to some changes.  Sales are climbing so we are only growing for the CSA at this time, and what a relief that is.  It was hard growing for the larger basket requirements for the co-ops and keeping up with a wide variety of plantings for the CSA.  It also allows us to make some changes that were needed.  When we started root crops in August last year outside they did not succeed.  It was not early enough so this year we are reserving a few rows outside to plant in the next couple of weeks of carrots and other root crops.  This way we will have a supply outside and inside the greenhouses hopefully fixing a long awaited problem of enough carrots for the year.  With sales up it looks like the large onion order I made is not going to be enough so we will have to rely on green onions through the winter though I am hoping the red onions will last until December.  I am also going to try Crystal Wax onions from seed in the greenhouses that are a small bulb like onion.  We will be taking the new greenhouse out of production in August clearing it for an September planting of greens, radishes, etc. thus allowing the old greenhouse to continue production of the summer crops until they die out in November/December.  We will then clear and reamend planting as soon as the day length starts to return towards the end of January leaving January for onion/garlic planting again for the next year.  In the meantime the poultry operation is well underway with Cornish growing like crazy and little tiny turkeys who are already spreading their wings and strutting their stuff saying "Yes, I am the man"....someone needs to tell them they are not even the size of a softball yet!!  Moonstruck signing off!

Some of My Favorite Things

Some of my favorite things....roses, fresh green beans, the first tomato of the season and Molly!!  She has truly been a blessing lately with babies everywhere and new pens going in and moving animals this way and that!!  Yes, if you don't close the door all the way those laying hen babies will squeeze through and run out!!! They are fast too!  Molly catches them, and waits for me to come and get them!!  It is awesome!  One she caught and it freaked her out by playing dead so she walked away, and I thought oh know she was too rough! I picked it up and put it in the coop and it ran away!!  The piglets she corralled with a few nips on the heels and back in the pen they went!  Now, when I go into the coop to feed the laying hen babies Molly stands guard at the door to make sure none get out.  The cows are pretty docile, but if they show any agitation at all a few quick barks and they are back in line.  She is by far one of the best additions to the farm in the last few years.  Of course, she is my constant companion also, and whines terribly if I waste anytime going outside once the overalls are on....as she is right now.  Have a good day everyone!! 

P.S.

We made fresh squeezed orange juice today and received 5 cups of juice from about 3 - 3.5 lb. oranges from Glen Cairn, and it was sooooooo good!!

New ordering system!!

My daughter is the third from the left in the rear with her friends at graduation.  She has been friends with Jen on the far left since they were 3 years old when they met at the gym daycare.  This is just a little of what we did this week along with working on something that have been needing to get done for some time....a new online ordering system. 

We have been struggling with finding a new ordering system for a while and we finally found one!! Myrealfoods.com. Very affordable and will customize the site for us! Look for it coming in the next few weeks. You can even post a credit on the site of let's say $40.00 and just automatically deducts your order each week. I can invoice beef payments. You can order your chickens and pay for your deposits and then I can go in and add the proper weight and invoice accordingly!! I love it! Just will take some time to set up! Thank you for all your support. We would not be growing by these leaps and bounds without you!!

Thanksgiving turkey deadline soon!

As I sit in the kitchen hiding from the heat believe it or not I am thinking about Thanksgiving.  I know I have to have my final order in by June 18th.  Please let me know if you do need a Thanksgiving turkey I am only ordering 20% over the total preorder this year.  This is a necessity with us taking on so much this year.  We also have decided to use an old travel trailer or toy box (so if you know of one let me know), gut it except for the nice existing plumbing and electricity and add larger sinks and presto you have a poultry processing unit with heat!!  I don't know what I will do not freezing my touche off at Thanksgiving!! Everything is still pretty "messy" around here in terms of needing a lot of weeding and hardscape still, but we are growing by no doubt.  The new beds out front have added a tremendous amount of space and with the new misting system going in soon the greenhouses can stay planted throughout the year.  Winter and summer squash and corn are going in this week....200 feet done yesterday.  720 leeks in the ground and 350 red torpedos going in the last constructed bed out front.  Lettuce is being tucked in every shadowed corner I can find along with cilantro.   Piglets are escaping and keeping Molly busy herding them back in, and she makes sure she has a word with the cows from time to time to make sure they don't get any crazy ideas like Filet did, but this bunch is a WHOLE lot calmer and they are filling out nice since they are not bunco bronching across the corral all day!! We have gained a lot of new customers from Apple Valley so we are adding a Wednesday delivery from 4:30-5:00 at the Target center near the garden center.  The fruit tree order is finalized including apples of all kinds including cider and cooking Heirloom varieties, peaches throughout the season, figs, cherries and a few pluots for my daughters along with plums for pollinating and some Texas umbrella trees for the cows and pigs.  Time to eat dinner and head out to work in the cool evening air.  Remember we are closed this week, but we will see you next week and in Apple Valley too!

Filet's last day.

After a day of watching the fog roll in and then a drizzly morning I found out that even when you have a hate/love relationship with a beef cow they are just on the farm too long not to build some bond with.  Eddie from Barstow Custom Butchering came by and dropped off pork so I was busy organizing it in the freezer and could not be down in "livestock central" as Eddie began his job.  When I finally arrived there was nothing but a hanging piece of meat and that was fine.  I took the liver up to cut, the ox tail and the heart and tongue.  He showed me the marbling that I had attained that would be determined choice due to fat content...perfect.  Our goal is grass fed with just a touch of marbling that we add with the six weeks of grain.  Of course those of you who chose grass fed only will just be fed a little longer to attain some marbling with age versus grain.  He also invited us to come out when the cutting was done after the two weeks of aging so that we can understand all the cut choices better and relay this information to our customers in aiding them in making their choices.  A bittersweet day, but at the same time I thank the Lord for providing us with the beef with the awesome protein and amino acids that feeds my muscles that I so need to complete my daily chores.  Amen!!

Eggs and Giant Radishes!!

The girls took a nice long rest and boy did they come back strong!! They are laying at 98%!! We are making angel food cake, scrambles, omelettes, frittatas, cookies, Texas sheet cake and lots more!! Meyers lemons have been a terrific price from Glen Cairn so we made lemon curd, drizzled it on the angel food cake and added a dollop of whipped cream!! See why I have to work so hard in the fields...I like to eat good food!! We will have our first Moonstruck beef soon and I cannot wait!! Believe it or not it is the hamburger I am looking forward to the most. I could not believe how good hamburger could taste after I tried the Bashaws!! Tonight we are enjoying a Italian Sausage Soup with just harvested spinach...yes we have lots and lots of spinach!! The radishes are huge too!! Finally all the hard work is starting to show. We have been taking the time to monitor the greenhouse temperatures and humidity and soil testing every row and all the observations are starting to pay off! I was opening the greenhouses too early and losing precious humidity. The West field is planted with sugar snap, snow peas, fava beans and shelling peas....we lost one row to a rabbit break in, but I think I have locked them out again!! Plain Jane salad mix (speckled bibb, romaine, buttercrunch and spinach) has been a big hit right along with Moonstruck salad mix. The tomatoes are about 18 inches and I can't wait to see how early we can have this year, but I know now from my monitoring that I can push it one month earlier next year. Moonstruck signing out...see ya all soon!!

Say Hello Everybody!

These guys arrived today and not without a little excitement. The trailer was backed up beautifully to the corral so I only had to stand in a very small space that they could go through, but then they came running all at once, and Filet did not know what to make of it so she took off and tried to jump the other end of the corral...luckily she did not make it, but the corral does not look the same anymore to say the least. She is about four weeks from harvest so she is about 800-1000 lbs. These little guys just left the Cherry Valley hills where their Momma's are and were weaned onto alfalfa before coming here. Tony kept them in a corral for about a month before coming here so they are somewhat used to it, and trust me they are much calmer than Filet was, but they are also younger. Filet got to work right away bossing them around and eating almost all the food I put out for them....she will be making weight sooner than I thought!! You could see who the leader was out of the little guys right away, one very curious steer walked all the way up to me and Filet when I was feeding her her grain (by hand in a bucket so they could not get to it) ...need a good name for that guy!! The routine we establish will be that these guys will take a year or so to come to weight...grass fed a little longer so the earliest we will restock will be late Spring 2013. We have two sides still available. Just email me if you are interested.