]]>
]]>
Even though winter doesn't seem to want to loosen it's grip we are thinking spring here at the farm. I've been really excited about planning for the upcoming farmer's market season. Mark is itching to get some sweet corn and watermelon planted.
Poultry
Our group of Rhode Island Red pullets are coming along nicely. I'm hoping they will start laying eggs this month. I've had a lot of people asking about chicken. I plan on getting some meat bird chicks to raise up towards the end of this month. I'm waiting for overnight temps to warm up so that I can raise the birds in our portable poultry pens.
Pork/Pigs
We are working hard on expanding our hog operation to meet the growing demand for our pork. Our next batch of whole hogs will be ready sometime in June or July. Then we will have another big batch for sale this fall. For those folks that prefer to buy pork by the cut we just stocked our sales area freezer with plenty of it. This is what we are offering:
BREAKFAST SAUSAGE $4.00/LB
Normally $4.50/lb. We will have breakfast sausage on sale until April 1st. Comes in one pound packages.
PORK CHOPS $6.00/LB
There are 2 chops per package and they are cut 1 inch thick. Packages weigh approximately one pound each.
PORK STEAKS $5.00/LB
2 per package. Packages weigh approximately two pounds each.
PORK ROAST $4.75/LB
This includes shoulder, loin and fresh hams. Roasts are around 3-4 lbs each.
FRESH SIDE PORK $6.00/LB
Fresh side pork is uncured bacon.
HOCKS/ORGANS $3.00/LB
Beef
We recently ran out of ground beef. We have plans to have more made but we are waiting for the animal we have scheduled for this to put on a little more weight. I"m hoping we can have more made within the next couple of months.
Dairy
Raw milk sales continue to grow. So far we have been doing a fairly good job making sure the milk fridge is well stocked. We have only run out of milk a few times in the last 5 months. This mostly happens after a stretch of bad weather. When the weather turns from crumby to nice everybody decides it's a good day to come out to the farm. I do ask that if you are planning on getting 6 or more gallons at once that you let me know a day ahead of time. This helps me make sure everybody gets what they need.
My family and I are big kefir drinkers. Kefir is a cultured milk drink loaded with probiotics. Would this be something that folks would be interested in buying here at the farm? Let me know.
Soap
I'm working on getting some new soaps listed on our site. I have added some requests such as Lemongrass & Clary Sage and Clove soap. I have also been having fun trying out some new scents. Carnation, Jasmine, Amber Essence Nepal, Monkey Farts, Twilight Woods and Wranglers. I made up a couple batches of shaving soap filled with all sorts of lovely oils. There is a batch made with a scent called Parsley Water and a batch scented with Black Vetyver Coffee. For those folks that love my Sand Plum scented soap I have found anther supplier for this fragrance oil. As time allows I will be making up more of this soap.
Odds and Ends
If anybody is in need of boxes or packing peanuts I have plenty to share. I keep some extra boxes in the sales area so feel free to grab one if you want. Let me know if you need some packing peanuts.
Thank You for supporting local!
The Faye Family
The first thing you can do is simply shake your jar of milk before each use to mix the cream back into the milk. Because whole raw milk is not homogenized the cream rises to the top. If you shake before use, all of that creamy goodness will be evenly distributed throughout the milk. Your second option is to skim your milk. After your milk has sat overnight in the refrigerator, take a soup ladle and slowly dip it just below the surface of the cream. Keep doing this until you have all the cream ladled out. I like to use straight cream in my coffee in the morning, to make butter, to make ice cream or use it in some decadent soup recipes. Cream also freezes well so you can put it in the freezer to use on a later date. When you defrost frozen cream, you may notice some separation but it will mix back together just fine.
I've had many people ask me about making butter so I put together this little video. I've never made any sort of instructional video before so I hope people find this useful.
]]>
Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays from Faye Farm's! We would like to thank all of our family, friends and patrons who have supported and encouraged us in 2009. Your business and friendship mean a lot to Mark and I and we are looking forward to all that 2010 holds for us.
One of the great things of living on a farm is that we can celebrate the joys of the season all year long! At Faye Farms we do not seek to standardize our production to eliminate seasonal and artistic differences in colors, textures, or flavor. Rather, we celebrate the differences! The milk produced from dry hay in the winter will naturally differ in flavor, color and butterfat content from milk produced by grazing the lush green grasses of spring. The hog harvested after grazing down green cornstalks will be different than the hog harvested following an autumn of gleaning windfall nuts, fruits and garden vegetables. One batch of homemade soap may vary in color and fragrance from another, as every batch is an artist's creation.
We hope that you will enjoy celebrating these, and many more, differences with us. Please know that we are working hard for you to produce healthy, natural products and will continue to grow to meet your needs in the coming years.
Have a safe and happy holiday season!
Mark and Heather Faye
We have added to the chicken flock! I only have around 70 hens right now and that is hopelessly inadequate to supply all my customers with eggs. To make matters worse my hens have just gone through a molt so there has really been an egg shortage at the farm. So 6 weeks ago I had some Rhode Island Red chicks shipped to me through the mail. I have never raised this breed before but I figured many of the hybrid laying hens come from RIR foundation stock so they must be really good birds. So far the chicks are proving to be very hearty, fast growing little birds. They are already almost all feathered out. They soon will be outgrowing their brooder (a.k.a old stock tank) and will have to be moved to their own special room in the chicken coop. I always take joy in watching little baby chicks. They have very comical antics. From what I have read RIR's start laying when they are 5 months old. So that would put the first eggs coming from this group sometime in March.
I'm also seriously considering starting another batch of chicks once this group is moved out of the brooder. It is much easier for me to raise chicks in the winter. Every spring I try to hatch out as many of my own chicks as I can but it is always a challenge. You see, the snakes come out in full force right about the same time that all my hens decide to go broody. The snakes are very smart about their dining practices as well. They leave a nest of eggs alone until they are just about to hatch. It's very frustrating to check on a clutch of eggs, get excited because the chicks are peeping in the eggs, and then come back the next morning to find them all gone! Right now all the snakes are hibernating so I don't have to worry about my chicks getting eaten.
Another thing that I have figured out is that hybrid laying hens just don't work in our particular situation. When we moved down here I bought a huge batch of chicks. Half were Black Australorps and half were a hybrid called Golden Stars. After a year and half I only have a handful of the Golden Stars left. It seems like all the sense was bred out of them. They were all picked off by predators. The Black Australorps had sense enough to keep themselves safe. So I will continue to try the different heritage breeds of chickens to find what works best on our farm and stick with those. These birds take a bit longer to mature and may not lay as many eggs but a live bird will give me a lot more eggs than a dead bird. Not to mention, the heritage breeds make for nice stewing birds when their egg laying careers are done.
]]>
What I love so much about a small family farm is that there are so many projects that we can involve the kids in. We had the kids out with us building a great deal of this fence. They did plenty of nail pounding, attaching fence clips, and making sure the wire wasn't snagged on grass when being tightened. They did their fair share of playing as well. We even had the family dog, Prairie, out with us. I think she appreciated spending quality family time as much as we did.
13 acres of our 40 is native Prairie Grass. This is what the buffalo used to live off of. It looks brown and dead but still has lots of nutritional value. When we put the cows in this section of Prairie Grass we noticed that the first thing they did was to eat the seed tops off of the tall grasses.
]]>
I have one more farmer's market to do before I am totally done for the season. This is the VA Hospital market in Wichita. It is on Thursday October 22 from 2:00-5:00. I certainly hope this wet drizzly weather is done by then! I would like to remind our customers that just because the farmer's market season is over does not mean that you cannot keep on purchasing soap, eggs, and meat from us. If you are in the area just drop on by. If you are making a special trip out to the farm you may want to give us a call or drop us an email to make sure we have available what you want.
]]>
The Winfield market is a really exciting place to be. We had a record number of vendors show up last week. We had 28 vendors! What's even more exciting is that we have 4 new vendors this week. First we have Chelsea's Cakes & Creations. My mouth is watering already! Then we have Chinese Painting and Calligraphy from the talented Zhiqun (Timothy) Qian. Kathleen Ramsey is representing Jarboe's Riverside Garden and last but not least we have Marilyn Hahn and her grandchildren offering lots of fresh veggies. To add to the fun, don't forget about the food demonstration. There is always lots of tasty food to try and recipes to take home.
The Andover farmers market is also doing quite well. Things have been going so well that we have decided to keep the market open through September instead of wrapping things up this month. This market is a little smaller, I believe we had 15 vendors last week, but there is a good variety of goods offered and we are growing every week. Last week's new vendor made kettle corn, fresh on the spot. That certainly was a treat! I can't wait to see what the market has to offer this week.