Greetings All! It feels like a lifetime since I sent you a newsletter, but it's only been a few weeks. It probably feels like so much time has passed because of how much we've gotten done. I am here to share a few fun updates from this fall to keep ya'll in the loop!
First thing- I am going to have a survey on my email and I hope you consider taking it. We would love a way to get some feedback from our Members and it's anonymous so it's easier to give any feedback (good or bad) honestly. If you'd like me to follow up with you, there is a spot on the bottom of the survey where you could enter your info and questions I can answer for you.
I even made sure that none of the questions were "required". We appreciate it if you can fill out the survey completely but don't want you to feel obligated to answer questions if you don't want to. Hopefully everyone can find a few minutes to fill it out for us. Thank you for your time!!
THE FALL SALE
Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to the Fall Sale! We had hundreds of people come through the farm that weekend. It was great to meet so many new folks and be able to catch up with long time Members too, we had a blast! Of course it is so busy that I wasn't able to talk as much as I'd like, but what's new there lol.
We still have quite a bit of pork left and we're going to be putting together packages for home delivery. Last year we put together a 'fifth of a hog' package and charged a delivery fee for some folks who wanted us to deliver. Some folks came here to pick it up.
This year, we're going to be offering packages but we're not charging for delivery. If you are within the twin cities area up to St. Cloud, we will deliver your package for free and I'll have a delivery date set when we open up the packages for sale on our website. The plan is to assess the inventory next week and put together a few options for you.
One package we had for the Fall Sale was $135 and it included a dozen+ different packages. Snack sticks, brats, breakfast sausages, bacon, etc. which is a great deal! Those are still online if you want to purchase one of those for delivery. We have a handful of those left- and there are products in this package that are otherwise sold out, so this is a good chance to snag the variety! COVERING THE FIELDS We've had some record warm temps but right before the Fall Sale we had one night get down to 29 degrees so we needed to preserve what we could. That was the day after CSA Shares were wrapped up for the season. So we spent the whole day picking squash out of the fields as fast as possible and getting the peppers covered. I thought you guys might like to see these pictures. The first pic is the row covers over the top of the pepper patch.
We covered all of the peppers we could so that we'd have some to harvest for the fall sale. Peppers always sell good in bulk because people buy a bunch to freeze for the off-season, so we knew we wanted those peppers, but the fall sale was too far away to harvest and hold them for over a week until the sale... so we covered the whole patch!
The row coverings shown here are roughly 300 feet long. Some pieces are wide enough to cover 5 rows at a time, and others are only wide enough to cover 2 rows. This is just what we had on hand (this amount would cost thousands if bought brand new).
This row covering can be reused if cared for properly. We store ours in the top level of the barn and we have a lot of dryer sheets in there to prevent rodents from thinking it's a good spot for a nest. Without the dryer sheets it'd be full of holes, mouse droppings, etc. so I'm happy that has worked so well for us. I know in my garage I put dryer sheets in some things too- like our camping tents and that has always kept the mice out.
I wanted to get a close up on this here to show you that dirt is the only thing holding it down. We went and shoveled dirt the entire length (and on the ends), up and down each piece of fabric. That took a couple hours to do and it left us with giant ankle-twisters in every row! We were aware of that and just made sure to be really careful when harvesting the following week.
This row cover also insulated the plants and allowed for a lot of growth the week before the fall sale. If you recall, it was very warm most of that week and with the cover on there, it turned into it's own little greenhouse. We had a ton of peppers to sell at the Fall Sale!
Deer hunting is a really important tradition for our family. We hunt every year and really enjoy the family time. Now that William turned 12 and has his firearm safety certificate, he can hunt the youth season! Of course we sit with him to supervise, but he really loves being out in the woods and the peace and quiet is unmatched. The excitement too- we're so happy he enjoys this family hobby with us! Ben comes from a really big family and every one of his siblings and their spouses all hunt too basically. So deer-camp is a pretty exciting time for all the families to get together and all the younger cousins to hang out too! Mom & Dads go out hunting and Grandma Missy posts up with all the youngsters in the house- our girls don't hunt yet and they still love deer hunting season because of this!
We were able to connect with a button buck here at our farm. William took a shot, but it was running, so I came in for backup. We were happy to get some venison for the freezer! William was very excited to tell the girls about the deer and of course the girls came screaming out of the house wanting to go see it. So they took the 4 wheeler back to the pond, picked up the deer & brought it to the house.
We went out to go set out trail cams back in the woods last night and Kelsi picked me a bouquet of everything that she could find. Lots of colors and shapes, grasses and broadleaf plants. You can see we were cutting through the brush, look at all the burs on Kelsi! I was joking we look like a bunch of bird-dogs. Laundry is going to be exciting over the next few weeks haha.
Side note: We have had so much trouble with trespassers recently it's insane. We had 2 cameras stolen and an SD card taken out of another one (meaning the SD card got a pic of them so they stole it). So we've upgraded to the live trail cams so even if they steal it, I get a picture of their face sent to my phone in real-time ;)
WRAPPING IT UP
Things have slowed down for us a little bit, but we're still working everyday. There is plenty to do. This week the guys got most of the field clean up done, which is huge! I'll share pics of that in my next update. We've started on the NEW greenhouse that we started picking away at this spring! We were ready to put bows on and then it was so wet that we couldn't use the loader forks on the tractor because the ground was so soft it wouldn't hold those big bows level. They're like 25 feet wide. I look forward to sending out some more updates this fall ;)
I hope that everyone has a safe Halloween and fun festivities this weekend! I know we're excited to go to my sister's house- we haven't been there for a sleepover in like 6 months!!! We'll be doing a bunch of fun halloween stuff tmr with her kiddos- we even found a trail ride that isn't so scary, so her youngsters will have a good time too! We never grew any regular pumpkins this season because we didn't have enough dry ground, so we haven't even carved pumpkins yet this season. We're thinking we might try to find a farm stand on the way up north and stop to pick some up.
Take care & Chat soon!!
~The Farmer's Wife
I really miss you and will be looking into the pork.