recovering

Kristen, John and Lynn

Brent and Kristen

Kristen, Jen, Michael Paul, Kristin and Brent

Greg

Kristen, John, Brent and Lynn

deep breath

We're recovering from a 2-day extravaganza of processing our first batch of birds of the season. We're overflowing with gratitude as we think about the amazing friends of the farm who donated their time to help out. Everyone did a great job and were genuinely interested, enthusiastic and so helpful. Our birds turned out big, beautiful and from what we've heard so far, very tasty!

On Sunday, once we had processed our last bird and dealt with our last customer, the second half of the job began. Clean up, breaking down chickens, dealing with organs and parts and organizing the freezers. It would be days before we could rest and before the smell of chicken disappeared from my hands.

This processing was a bit more of a challenge than the rest. For starters, it was our first batch of chickens since 2009 at the old farm, but even more challenging is that this time I was almost 5 months pregnant. Crating up birds the night before and lifting multiple crates of 8 birds weighing 6-7 pounds each up onto the truck, only to lift them off the truck again. Standing all day while processing. Unable to take as many breaks as I should have to pee, drink water and put some protein in my mouth. Preparing food to feed the volunteers. Cleaning and setting up the processing equipment, 2 days in a row. Bagging birds and cleaning up afterwards. It was, all in all, a 5 day event and it was a lot harder than it used to be.

All I can say (again) is that I'm most grateful for all who helped. Most of all though, the person deserving the most thanks and who never gets to show up in photos, is Nate. He has the hardest job. He's in charge of the general set up. He does most of the cleaning and the rigging up of tents and awnings and making sure the equipment runs well. Most importantly, he has to kill these animals we've spent the last 7 weeks caring for. . . and he does it with love, respect, humor and grace. It wears on a person, I know. But he handles it so well and I never fear that our animals are feeling anything but calm and happy until their last moments. Thank you, Nate.

Wow. Pregnancy makes life just a little bit harder. I feel like I've run the longest marathon and all I want to do is hibernate for a few days.

I know, I know . . . there's work to be done for the farm doesn't sleep.

the start of the 2011 CSA (and chickens!)

The Blackberry Meadows CSA starts today so if you've been planning to sign up but just haven't gotten around to it, now is the time! The form you need to fill out is here and here's a great explanation of why things are starting a bit late this year, though I think you know why.

And . . .


We will be butchering our first batch of chickens of the season this weekend and you'll have a chance to purchase fresh (not frozen), organic, pasture-raised chicken this Sunday.

We've switched to certified organic feed this year for all of our poultry which has been a long time coming. We haven't been able to afford it and we haven't wanted to ask our customers to pay more for chicken but we just can't morally feed or consume conventional grain anymore. Unfortunately, that means the price has to go up. Just as we were making plans for a season's worth of chickens, the cost of grain skyrocketed forcing us to decide if we can continue to raise poultry. We're still hanging in there for now and instead chose to do a much smaller batch this time.

That means numbers are limited so we need you to pre-order between now and then. We'll confirm your order by email until we run out of birds to sell.

Hope to see you!

long overdue update and some news . . .

I'm so behind on things. It's been a challenging spring. I know I've said that before but it really has been. The rain has been killing us. We managed to get into the fields with a tractor to transplant kale last week before the rain started again and now we're back to the waiting game. Honestly, we're done feeling stressed and overwhelmed about being so behind this season. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Nothing to do but wait. Everyone else is experiencing the same rain and it's putting a damper on their plans too, farmers or not. Please just know that we farmers have it exceptionally rough this year. Be kind, understanding and offer some love. In the meantime, we've continued weeding and transplanting by hand. It's hard on the back but we have to get food growing somehow!

The hens
The hens are doing great! The older girls are loving life outside and so are the little girls. They're in eggmobile training and they have taken to sunshine and grass like fish to water. I might say this every time but I think they're our best flock yet. So sweet and well behaved. They're really a joy to have around.


And remember our favorite little white girl? Well, she's still Nate's one and only. He's smitten.


The lambs
They're great too. They're outside nibbling on grass and slowly getting less and less bottle feedings as the days go on. (yay!) Meet Clarice and Midge!

Clarice and the milk mama

The chicks
We got broiler chicks a few weeks ago and they're doing really well. They're already much older than these photos. They're looking like chickens now and will be ready to move outside very soon. Here are some photos of their younger days...




The goats
We have 2 goats on the farm, Tiny and Sugar Pie. Sugar Pie is Tiny's grandmother and the two are inseparable. Sadly, Sugar Pie left this world last week. It has been a challenge keeping Tiny's spirits up since then but he's making progress. It's been heartbreaking hearing him cry for her and watching him continue to search for her. He's finally getting back to his old self though. Poor guy. We miss you, Sugar Pie.

Tiny and Sugar Pie ~ Summer, 2010

The high tunnel
... is DONE!!! WooHoo!!! Many thanks to Nate and Greg for their countless hours of stress, sweat and frustration. And thanks to all of those who donated their time to help!



The farmers
Nate, Greg and Lynn, traveled to Southern Virginia last weekend to attend a workshop on working oxen. All of this rain has gotten us thinking . . . we could get into the fields to do work with animals a lot earlier when it's too wet for tractors. Also, they require a lot less fuel and engine maintenance so they just may be in our future plans. The gang learned a lot and had lots of experiences to share upon their return. Nate's off this week to a 3 day grazing school in Ligonier to learn from a master grazer.





This farmer
Well, this farmer has some news to share which might explain why I'm so behind on things. I'm pregnant and the baby is due in early December. This has definitely contributed to this being one of the hardest springs EVER. I have much to say about farming and pregnancy as well as much, much more but right now, I'm trying to decide if this farm blog is the place for that sort of thing. I'm thinking of starting a personal blog so if you're interested in following me on this new journey as well, stay tuned. And if anyone has any feedback on that, I'm open.

Me, miss hen and future farmer baby

If you thought that was it . . . think again. There are actually 2 babies scheduled to arrive on the farm in early December. Jen's pregnant too! I know it sounds crazy and impossible but that's just the way it turned out. Now I can really be honest about how hard it's been around here and quite frankly, we couldn't have made it through our first trimester without our hard-working intern, Lynn. She's truly amazing and has insisted on working while we were feeling awful and trying to sneak in much-needed naps. She's so brave and understanding taking on a farm with two pregnant women. Thank you, Lynn. You rock!

Future farmers in the making at Blackberry Meadows Farm, folks!

Come buy your organic seedlings from us this weekend!

We'll be selling our vegetable, herb and flower seedlings and we'll also be featuring our new line of Heritage Seed Collective Heirloom Seedlings!

Look for Blackberry Meadows Farm at three places this weekend:

• Friday and Saturday, we'll be at Phipps Conservatory for the annual May Market Plant and Garden Sale Fri., 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sat., 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

• Saturday, we'll be at the Farmers at Firehouse market in the Strip District, near 26th Street and Penn Ave, 9am-1pm ***in addition to seedlings, we'll also be selling our pasture-raised chicken and quail eggs (now fed certified organic grain!) as well as ramps, stinging nettles, garlic greens and green onions!!***
  

• Saturday, we'll be at the Community Gardenfest at Boyd Community Center in Fox Chapel. 9am-3pm.

Hope to see you there!

wet farm, tired farmers

This weather is testing our patience and threatening to dampen our spirits. I think it's safe to say that this spring will stand out as one of the most challenging for all farmers. I know it has been for us, for many reasons. Still raining here with a bit of sun in between and more rain in the forecast. Let me start off by saying that we're feeling incredibly grateful to just have rain to complain about while folks in other states have felt much, much worse. I mean seriously, we're happy to still have our farm, our home and our animals safe.

But this weather had made it really difficult to farm. Unfortunately, even though we've had days of sun here and there, it's still too wet to get into the fields with a tractor, which we desperately need to do. We have to start transplanting things into the ground so there's food ready for the start of the CSA. We need at least 2-3 days of consecutive dry, sunny days to be able to get into the fields without doing irreversible damage. If we drive on the soil now and try to work it with a tractor, we risk every farmer's worst enemy...soil compaction. And that's something that never goes away. So, we wait.

And we wait.

We're hoping that our CSA members will understand if things end up being slightly later than usual. This past week we resorted to doing some of the tractor work by hand just to get some veggies in the ground. It was 3 days of back breaking work. The rows had already been spaded but it has been so long since we've been waiting to plant that grass had started to grow. We knew that if we didn't weed the grass out now, it would be a weeding nightmare in the future. It took us 3 days to weed and plant 2 whole rows by hand but we did it and we finally have some broccoli, chinese cabbage and kohlrabi in the ground! Add that to the few things we already have in the field and the things growing in our high tunnels and we just may squeak by.


The lambs are doing well and are spending the sunny days (few and far between) outside frolicking. They're even starting to nibble on some grass. All of the winged creatures on the farm are being shuffled around as we prepare for the arrival of our first batch of broiler chicks coming this week.

And the new high tunnel? Well, we're getting there!

what's growing

More rain here, though we caught a glimpse of sun today and are feeling hopeful with the promise of more tomorrow. The lambs are hanging in there and seem to be doing well. They're keeping us busy with bottle feedings.

We're dealing with some heavy issues concerning our poultry feed here, but that's a separate post of it's own.

In other news . . .

Our full-season intern, Lynn, has arrived! She worked on the farm last year and is here again this year. She's a huge help!

Lynn watering the high tunnel

Since the last greenhouse update, we've started:

• purple coneflower
• bachelors button
• marigolds
• radicchio
• sweet annie
• statice
• ishikura scallions
• coleus
• morning glories
• anise hyssop
• cumin
• chervil
• sorghum
• sweet alysum
• cosmos (double click, sensations, picotee and sea shells)
• more tomatoes (mortgage lifter, chalks early jewel, shebotgan, german pink, hillbilly, black from tula, yellow brandywine, snow white, black cherry, toronjuna, amish paste)
  
• sweetie and sun gold cherry tomatoes
  
• more peppers (chervena chushka, beaver dam, georgia flame, sheep nose, cubanelle, hinkelhatz)
• husk cherries
  
• delphinium
• dianthus
• lavatera
• coreopsis
• digitalis
• globe amaranth
• siberian kale
• nufar basil

Despite the rain and sometimes in the rain, we've been working outside too. In the fields, we've started lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots and fava beans. New apple, sourwood, pear and hickory trees have been planted around the farm. We had to stop starting seeds for the time being because we have no more room in the greenhouse.

Some of our potted up seedlings are leaving the farm this week to be sold by our good friend at Garden Dreams Urban Farm & Nursery in Pittsburgh (Wilkinsburg) for their opening day this Saturday! Don't miss it!

rough day

Some days on the farm are just plain hard. I buried the tiniest little lamb this morning. After making a comeback yesterday, she surprised me and took a turn for the worse overnight. She was gone by this morning.

I agreed that these lambs would be my project. It's not like I have time for a new project but I was expecting these lambs to be like our last bottle-fed lambs; cute, fun and relatively easy. Not so. These three girls each came with their own issues and honestly, the jury's still out on the other two though they're in a much better place than the girl we lost. I've never lost a farm animal bigger than a chicken and while this little girl wasn't really much bigger. . . it still sucked.

It sucked enough to make me have one of those days where I felt like everything was out of control. Like all the animals were having 'issues' and things were falling apart. A few deep breaths and some quiet time spent weeding the kohlrabi in the high tunnel and I felt a bit better.

It doesn't help that we are knee deep in the season of mud. I'm pretty sure that only a farmer can really grasp the intensity of what this means. It's an inevitable passage into Spring on a farm. Not only is it not fun to farm in the cold rain and mud (the show must go on, rain or shine!), but it puts a lot of important projects on hold while we wait for things to dry out.

Universe, if you feel like doing me a favor, could you please help these 2 lambs along? I'm tired and not feeling up to losing another. Oh, and a little sunshine wouldn't hurt either. Thanks.

Tomorrow will be better.