Best winter warm up and Meat Pick up details

Salad every day!

I love salad, it’s the easiest way to get some really good nutrition! Lately I am using any of the choi’s for salad. I love to chop the greens up small for salad and then use the stems in a stir fry, or even like celery in soup or a chicken salad. We have Bak choi, tatsoi, Pok choi and more, honestly I forget which is which sometimes because farmer Sean does the planting. I just love them all, so green and so tender and mild!

This week we have choices for you since it is the meat pick up we will offer the veggies market style from 2-5 (Thursday and Saturday) like we do all summer. We have some choi, kale, lettuce, cabbage, scallions, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, pumpkins, butternut, delicata and spaghetti squash and more! Remember if you don’t make it during pick up times we will leave your share in the cabin labeled for you.

This time of year is perfect for thawing a whole chicken (or for us about 4) and then cutting it up for parts. It’s so fast and easy, anyone can do it. I love to serve the legs and thighs first. I just cut the off the bird and put into a pyrex pan with some herbs and salt and start cooking. I bake them at 350 for about an hour and a half to get them nice and tender and juicy. Next I cut the breast meat off and put the backs directly into a pot of water with herbs, salt and vinegar. Simmer about 12-24 hours and strain for some amazing bone broth. I keep this on hand 24/7 in my fridge for quick soups. Then I like to save the breast meat for a quick dinner or nice way to top a salad. We marinade ours in pickle juice for a 1/2 hour before cooking. Enjoy!

We have a limited number of Christmas trees and wreaths available during CSA pick up as well this week. We also have fresh centerpieces that will bring cheer to anyone’s table! Come on out and visit! We hope you all are enjoying the colder weather and taking time to slow down and sip some tea or hot cocoa with loved ones. I love to remind folks of our favorite hot cocoa recipe this time of year:

Frothy Hot Cocoa

4 cups raw milk, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1/4 cup raw honey or maple syrup, 2 Tbs butter, 2 Tbs coconut oil, 1/4 cup gelatin

Heat 3 3/4 cups milk in pan, in a small bowl mix remaining milk with gelatin, honey and cocoa powder. Stir with a small whisk until a smooth paste is formed. Pour the cocoa past into the heated milk and whisk until smooth. Add the butter and coconut oil, whip with an immersion blender until frothy. Serve with whipped cream for a big treat! It will warm your heart and make someone smile!

We love seeing the little crops grow in the greenhouse, I think the slower growing during the winter makes it more fun to watch. We are enjoying our little calf and in a few weeks will be on baby watch again with our next heifer due shortly before Christmas. The barn yard is more quiet these days with most of the poultry gone, but we will have more piglets arriving in the next month or two.

Have a blessed week!

Blessings,

Your Friends and Farmers

Thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father (and farm details)

First of all we are to thankful to our Heavenly Father for all the blessings of this year. Every year brings trails to all people and someone somewhere is always suffering. This year is no different, there are trials and blessings. We are thankful for the trials that help us grow and learn more about our Creator. His love and grace carry us through the trials and they make the times of peace even sweeter!

Psalm 9:10 KJV “And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”

Philippians 4:6 KJV - Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

CSA pick up details:

Week of November 16th: Thursday and Saturday pick up as normal: Shares include Scallions, Baby head lettuce, Romaine, Pak choi, Dellicatta squash (like acorn), and White potatoes. Enjoy!

Week of November 23rd:Pick up and Delivery will be Tuesday the 24th 2-6 and Saturday normal hours. Shares will likely include: Braising greens, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Chard, and Bak Choi.

Turkey Pick up: Tuesday November 24th 2-6 PM, Pre orders only ( we are sold out)

Baker Girls Bakery available for pick up Tuesday 2-6PM: (all baked from scratch here with organic ingredients) Taking pre-orders only on our website farm store page. Orders must be in by Sunday night. Thanks! Also gluten free crusts available upon request.

Pumpkin Pie

Apple Pie

Creme Brulee Pie

Williamsburg Peanut Pie (with chocolate ganache)

Thanksgiving mixed cookie box

Fresh Cranberry Relish (Great Grandma’s Recipe)

Due to the holiday we will have CSA pick next week on Tuesday instead of Thursday (if you are normally a Saturday pick up and want to have your share on Tuesday please send us an email, we are happy to change your day so you can pick up your sweet potatoes in time for your Thanksgiving meal!). ** Delivery will also be Tuesday instead of Thursday, please let us know if you can’t pick up that day and would rather pick up here sometime that week.

Farm news:

We have a lovely baby girl calf! This year our breeding program has been a true blessing. The cows mostly got pregnant when we wanted and we had safe deliveries and lots of calves! We will be naming this darling shortly, but any ideas are always welcome! Her mom’s name is Daisy! So let’s think flowers!

The poultry is growing smaller around here with nothing but the egg laying hens left after this Sunday. The meat chickens are all in the freezer and the turkeys will be gracing your tables soon! It’s quieter around here except for the bull calf who is getting weaned! He is complaining a lot! But it’s kind of like seeing a large child walking around drinking out of a bottle :), this guy was much to big for a bottle still!

We are thankful for business and mostly your friendship and for allowing us to serve you. We pray you have a peaceful and joyful Thanksgiving!

Love,

The Baker Team

Winter CSA welcome!

The Baker Team

Dear Farm-ily members,

Welcome to Winter on the farm! Well it’s almost winter, and we are preparing anyway! The Winter CSA begins tomorrow! The cows are growing extra hair for the cold, the plants are going in the greenhouse and not the field, the chickens are laying less eggs, life is moving and the days are growing shorter. There is always something changing here on the farm. We are off to a slow start with somethings because of the passing of Sean’s dad, Grandpa B. We were blessed to have him as a father, father in law, and grandfather. We look forward to seeing him in heaven.

We look forward to serving you again or for the first time! This week we will have lots of fall goodies and some summer ones hanging around too! The veggie shares will be farm market style like summer csa, some of the choices are peppers, eggplant, winter squash, pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce mix and more! This week Thursday and Saturday 2-5 we will have meat, veggies, milk and eggs ready for you.

Next week and the remaining weeks in November we will have bags packed for you and a swap bin in the cabin self serve. The veggies, milk and eggs are available 12-5 Thursday and Saturday and it’s self serve. Milk shares are available on normal days Monday -Saturday 8-8 AM.

If you want to try making your own pumpkin puree try this! We love to make our own and make pies, and smoothies! We can’t wait to start cooking the sweet potatoes, I’ve really been missing them! We haven’t done our total dig yet, so keep your guesses coming! Remember last year we dug 4,400 lbs! We plant 2,000 plants each year.

See you soon!

Blessings,

Your farmers

Autumn is rolling in!

We love fall! The sweet potatoes are almost ready to harvest. Remember last year, it was 4,400 pounds we harvested! Anyone want to guess what it will be this year? We will keep you posted! The greens are starting to thrive again in the cooler weather. Madison grew the baby greens mix this week. The farm children all help where ever needed, but sometimes they take a linking to a certain crop and want to handle it by themselves. So Madison is going to be doing the mesclun mix for the fall and winter. The winter squash is starting to come in and it sure is soup weather!

I love making kale and potato soup, and we also froze some of the corn and love to make potato corn chowder. Lately we have been eating a lot of eggplant in stir fries and roasted. It won’t be around much longer! We just sent lots of pigs to the butcher so we have some nice pork coming back. We really enjoy meatloaf with some ground beef and some pork sausage. I can’t wait for pumpkin bread, soup and cheese cake! We also took an extra beef to the butcher this month so we have bulk boxes for the winter you can order online. Stock up now!

Don’t forget this week is normally meat week, but it will be October 8th and 10th for meat pick up (veggie and milk pick up will be as scheduled for this week). We still have a few openings for winter CSA so send an email soon if you would like a spot. We will send invoices next week if you have signed up. The last week of Summer CSA is October 15th and 17th. Then Winter CSA begins October 28th and 31st.

We have been enjoying Baby Bethany and we thank you for sharing in our joy! Thanks for the prayers, kind words, gifts and friendship! We are waiting for two other “farm-ily” members babies to arrive and we enjoy watching the “farm’ily” grow! Little ones enjoying the farm are such a blessing to watch! We had a little bull calf born Sunday evening. We named him Asparagus! You can see him over the fence with the other little calves. Some of them are getting a little large and need to be weaned soon.

Blessings,

The Whole Baker Crew

Winter 2020-21 CSA sign up time!

Farmer boy delivers wildflowers to the new baby and her mama!

TIME TO SIGN UP FOR WINTER CSA!

Either reply to this email or go online to sign up!

It’s time to plan and prepare for winter! We’ve been doing this for months already! We’ve got pigs, chickens and beef cows growing. We’ve worked with our local butcher shops to secure dates to make sure we can harvest the animals in a timely manner for you. We have been planting and preparing to have veggies for the whole winter. We just got another delivery of hay for the animals for the winter. This year more than any I feel like we are planning and preparing even further in advance. I’m a planner so I actually like it! Though at times it does make more work! Like getting a butcher date for animals that aren’t even born yet!

We have some baby piglets to pick up next week, just in time for a big load of grown up pigs to head off to the butcher. It’s certainly always a visible circle of life around here! Just like watching the greenhouses transform from spent summer crops and some weeds into a fresh clean bed ready for planting winter crops in! It’s never boring and never ending!

Speaking of never boring…..we are missing our guardian dog Ruth. Two nights ago we woke up to more than 20 laying hens lifeless in their field. Very disturbing! When the fox hunts, he takes only what he needs. When the possum or raccoon come they just kill everything they can and then eat one and leave the rest. We had to secure the fencing a bit and make sure the electric was hot. Then we waited to see who was going to come back for more “free” dinner. We like to coexist with nature and we love that possum’s eat ticks, BUT we have to draw the line somewhere. He won’t be eating our chickens again. Because of this, we won’t have extra eggs to sell besides the shares. Sorry, we may find some more chickens before too long, but it’s the wrong time of year for that.

We have the website up and ready to take payments for the CSA options. If you will be paying in full then you may go ahead and pay online. You may also fill out the online form and we will send you an invoice. Or you can reply to this email and just say what shares you want or tell us you want the same. We have tried to secure pricing for feed and butchering animals so that we don’t have to change pricing mid season, however prices will be subject to any major changes in the market. We would give you plenty of notice if we need to make changes during the next CSA season. Thanks for understanding.

Current CSA will end October 15th and 17th, we have 1 week off and resume for the winter on October 29th and 31st. We will keep you posted about when the meat pick up for October and November will be.

Thanks for allowing us to be your source for safe, local, organic food!

Blessings,

The Baker Team



So many Blessings!

Bethany Sarah Baker born August 20, 2020 into the loving hands of her Daddy! She weighed 10 pounds and has tons of hair! What a gift from the Lord she is to us all!

We are so thankful for the safe arrival of our baby Girl! Also so thankful for all the support and prayers for us. What a wonderful community we have here among our “farm-ily”, friends and family! Thank you for being a blessing to us! Mom and baby are doing great and look forward to saying hello this week. We are all enjoying lots of baby snuggles. She was well worth the wait!

This week is a busy one for us, we have some new things coming to CSA. The new butcher we used had some great sausages to offer and that will be fun! We are also watching the fall crops come along nicely. We are patiently waiting for broccoli, cauliflower and salad greens. What a challenge the salad was this summer, we had a few crop and irrigation failures that really set us back on the greens, but there was plenty of other veggies that did really well! The change of seasons is so fun to watch and eat! It seems unreal that summer could be winding down, but the days are growing shorter and cooler for sure.

We have a farmer boy turning 6 tomorrow! He has requested scrapple and donuts for breakfast and grilled corn on the cob for dinner! Summer birthdays are great fun. We have been loading up on kale salads with tomatoes. And the melons will soon come to and end, but boy have they been so good! We haven’t had much time for preserving, but before long we will be cutting the extra peppers and freezing them to add to stir fry in the winter. The okra makes great pickles so if you have some extra give that a try.

Be sure to mark your calendars for this Thursday and Saturday 2-5 as the meat pick ups for September. We look forward to seeing you then! Also, later this week we will open the registrations for the winter CSA so watch for a second email and reply, or sign up online, or let us know at pick up and we will reserve your spot.

Blessings,

Jessie and Bethany

Time to can tomatoes!

Homemade PIzza is our favorite!

We don’t preserve very much food anymore, since we grow year round and think eating fresh is best! However there are some items we can’t do without during the winter. Canned tomatoes is one of those things! We usually can ketchup, pizza sauce and rotel. Then we can pull some out anytime and make an easy meal. This week we have very ripe heirloom tomatoes ready to can! They are in 10 pound boxes for $15 and can be picked up at the farm store Thursday or Saturday 2-5 during CSA pick up. Or we can leave a box for you in the cabin. Head over to the farm store to purchase and reserve yours now. They will need to be canned soon as they are very ripe. You can also freeze them and make them into something later. We will likely have some again, but grab them now while you “can”!

We are getting the greenhouses turned over to be ready for fall and winter growing, which is always a special challenge while also harvesting and weeding the rest of the gardens. But we are making good progress. We will soon be announcing the Winter CSA sign ups so stay tuned for that info. We hope to have the farm baby arrive before we begin that! But he or she is taking their sweet time to arrive! And I am looking like a swallowed one of our yummy watermelons whole!

We have been loving the cooler days and the animals have too. The thanksgiving turkey babies are growing great and our calves are getting bigger. The puppies will all go to their new homes this week so get one last visit with them Thursday as they will be gone by Saturday. The rain has been a blessing to the hay crop, we hope to do another cutting at some point. We will have new sausages for the September meat pick up and can’t wait to try them out!

So many blessings abound that we are so grateful each day. We may go to bed tired, but well nourished! We have really enjoyed seeing folks taking their time to visit the animals and get some sunshine and peace! And watching the little ones play in the mud puddle! Thank you for allowing us to grow for you! Thank you so much for your prayers and well wishes for a safe and healthy delivery!

OH and if you find yourself with too much milk, my favorite thing lately is chocolate pudding! We made two gallons this morning so we will have nice snacks when baby does come! It’s not very hard and there are tons of good recipes online.

Blessings,

The Bakers

Animals everywhere!

We are so excited to see everyone enjoying the animals that moved closer to the cabin. What a blessing to see folks walking around and enjoying things! We’ve had the horse visitors to the CSA tent that we posted on facebook, and neighbors coming in their strollers to get their shares! It’s a joy to visit with our farm-ily members and see you enjoying the farm. At whatever distance makes you comfortable, but it’s good to be social! We are a community here and love to support each other. So keep smiling and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, oh and the great nutritious food!

The melons, corn, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, okra, green beans, squash, kale, (and seriously I can’t list it all) are so good I never know what to make for dinner. Summer is so bountiful, you can’t go wrong! I am going to outline our ham recipe again since it’s one of my favorites and it’s easy to brine, pull out and cook and serve along side any veggie combination. It’s also a great brine to use for a chicken as well. I love this because it’s thawed and ready to go in either 3-6 days, then just pop another piece of meat in and in another 3-6 days it’s ready again.

Day Spring Farm Ham Brine Recipe

It’s so easy folks……2 liters of water, 3/4 cup sea salt, cup maple syrup or sweetener of choice, combine in a med stock pot and stir until mixed. Then add a 3-5 pound ham or chicken and put in the fridge for 3-6 days (this recipe is a little salty for some, you can adjust according to your taste). I have reused it up to three times in a month before tossing the brine, just make sure it doesn’t sit out of the fridge for any time. After 3-6 days I take the meat out and bake as normal. Add more meat and repeat!

We are happily waiting for the farm baby to makes his or her appearance, but thankful to have extra time to be ready! It’s wonderful to hear everyone’s encouragement, birth stories and well wishes! Thank you so much for the prayers! We can’t wait to have good news to share with you!

We will open enrollment for the winter CSA shortly after baby arrives, you all will be the first to know! We will not open membership to the public before current members have had the chance to sign up. Our current 25 week CSA shares go through October 8th. Details for the winter shares will be coming post baby, so be watching your inbox! Enjoy your food, family and last few weeks of summer!

Blessings,

The Bakers