Winter CSA

We hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall weather! We had some lovely family time during our “off” weeks. We enjoyed harvesting sweet potatoes in good weather with good friends! We said goodbye to a faithful cow that had served us and you with good laughs and good milk for 12 years. Rosemary was born on our rented farm before we moved here, she spent some time in our basement once when we didn’t have a barn and she got very cold and wet as a calf. We love our dairy cows and spend so much time with them, it’s hard to say goodbye, but the cycle of life is just that way. We are grateful for her!

Rosemary’s daughter Tansy came to visit us at the front porch the other morning! Cows are always doing silly things!

There is still room in the Winter CSA if anyone wants to sign up please do so here!

I love this face! This is one of our Bernedoodles. They are so playful it’s hard to get a still photo!

We also have a wonderful new puppy website for anyone looking for some cute photos or to learn about what sweet puppies we have available! Please visit it here and pass it along to anyone looking for a forever friend.

We look forward to seeing everyone today! Pick up is here Nov. 3 and 5th from 2-5 pm. Come snuggle a puppy and grab your veggies, meat, milk and eggs!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Puppies ready for new homes and Winter CSA openings

Hi Friends and Farm-ily,

It’s been a wonderful season for us while we learn to farm without Tommy. God has blessed us and carried us along when it was hard. Seasons are wonderful as they always change. We are busy getting the gardens and greenhouses ready for winter while enjoying some beautiful weather. The turkeys are happy on pasture and we are ready to take reservations for your Thanksgiving bird here. Pick up will be the Tuesday before Thanksgiving from 2-6 here at the farm.

We have some really cute puppies ready for new homes. We have a litter of Goldendoodles and Toy Poodles! The Goldendoodles will be around 50 pounds and very loving, devoted friends. The toy poodles are so cute and have such fun personalities, they will be less than 10 pounds full grown. See our new website to learn more about them and other upcoming litters.

We will be sending out invoices for the winter CSA to current members next week, if you wish to change your shares please send us an email soon. We have OPENINGS for our WINTER CSA! So let us know soon if you would like s spot. We will have meat, veggie, egg and limited milk openings. We are not offering soap or herbal CSA currently.

We have you are having a blessed Fall and are enjoying the many blessings God provides! We have seen so many mercies along our journey that we are so grateful for our Lord’s provision.

Blessings,

Your farmers and friends! The Bakers

Summer CSA is right around the corner

Planting Kohlrabi, spring is so full of hope. The days may be cloudy and chilly, but warm days and good food are heading this way!

We are excited to have space available in our Summer CSA starting in May. We have openings for Meat, Veggie, Milk and Egg shares. We have been planting lots and it all looks great! We have lots of baby animals being born also. Make sure you look for the new calf, Daffodil, the new baby lambs and we will start having baby chicks out to see in May. Warm weather, good food and good times are coming!

Chicken tea party is great fun when it’s cold outside!

We bought a new rotary shredder for cheese and have found it is so fun and easy to shred the radishes and carrots for on top of salads! I am usually a lazy salad person and just do lettuce, but this is game changing and it’s easy to chew for little folks. Not to mention pretty and delicious! The best part is the little children can use it safely and so they are a big help with dinner prep.

Our pick up schedule for the remaining csa is this week the 14th and 16th, then we have a break before Summer CSA begins May 5th and 7th. We will have milk and eggs available on the “off” weeks and will have veggies for sale in the cabin, self serve. We will be enjoying a staycation for our family to revive after a difficult season and we will be getting new systems in place to make running our farm without our biggest farmer boy, Tommy, more manageable for us all. Prayers are appreciated as we navigate each new season and allow God to gently lead us through our grief. We are so thankful for a patient and kind, loving God to help in this and all seasons. And for our community who is being used by God to minister to us! We are thankful for you all.

Blessings,

Your farmers

The sunshine was wonderful!

Loving the herbal tea on these cold rainy days, yesterday we had it iced!

We hope you all got some free Vit. D yesterday. It was not in stock today! What a rainy, cold day. But it helps us remember to enjoy the sun when it does shine! God is gently leading us through this tender season, we are so grateful for that.

This week we have lovely greens still happy as can be in the greenhouses. Chard, Arugula and Napa cabbage. We love to have the chard sautéed with onions or garlic, the arugula is great as salad with some beets and oil and vinegar or a nice creamy dressing and the napa is my favorite winter green. We love it chopped small as salad with some shredded carrots or cooked into a stir-fry! Eating with the seasons has so many health benefits. The watermelon radish is also great shredded on salad, and oh I love the taters! We had roasted sweet potatoes tonight with a sausage stir fry with some frozen peppers from last summer and a side salad. So yum!

A few days ago I roasted two chickens and pulled the meat off the bones and put them right into a pot for broth (along with my veggie peelings) and then had chicken for several meals to create easy fast meals. The chicken goes great on the napa cabbage salad. Our favorite homemade salad dressing is just 1 part vinegar, 1 part honey or maple syrup and 2 parts olive oil.

We are busy planting all the spring cabbage and broccoli, not to mention tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and flowers and herbs! Where does the winter go? Well this year I am very ready for spring. We usually want some more time to hibernate, but not this year. The sunshine is so welcome even it means the time for slow winter evenings will end for us soon.

We brought two of Tommy’s sheep back to the farm and Grace will be in charge of them. We still have some of his lambs from last year that are keeping the girls company. They will have their lambs in March and April. We look forward to that with excitement!

Dates to remember:

Meat delivery Thursday next week and pick up Thursday and Saturday. 2-5 pm. Don’t forget to look for your add on shares as well. We still have some lamb available for your Easter dinner, please e-mail for details.

Blessings,

The Baker Team

Meat CSA today!

We are enjoying the snow even though it makes more work! Just a quick reminder that meat CSA is today from 2-5 and Saturday from 2-5. We hope you are enjoying all the winter goodies! The sweet potatoes are still plentiful and I love chopping them and roasting them with other root crops. We also have been enjoying fried cabbage and lots of meat balls! Madison makes a great meatball recipe like this one.

We still have some extra pork and lamb if you’d like to grab come today or Saturday, it’s available to anyone! Thanks!

Blessings,

The Baker Family

What do farmers do when they go on vacation? Milk other people's cows!

We had a blessed time celebrating 3 farmer birthdays while on vacation last week. We went to TN to visit our dear friend’s farm and continue healing, rejoicing and grieving Tommy being in Heaven. The children loved helping them milk their cows! Then we went on to KY and spent some time at the creation museum and ark encounter. What a blessing it was a so sweet to learn more about our heavenly Father and His creation. Our farm sitter took excellent care of the farm and all the animals in these cold days!

We are learning how to farm for God with one less team member. We started this way of life that became a passion for all of us because of Tommy’s childhood illness and we enjoy continuing it. The hardest part was figuring out how to manage the scale we have without a fulltime partner! God has been leading us along and we are finding we are still a great team and can get it done. Our heavy hearts are made light again when we see God’s hand helping us along. Sometimes through joy of new life like the puppies and sometimes through the smiles on your faces when we serve you or reminisce about Tommy!

Enjoy the veggies this week! We have some you may not recognize…..watermelon radishes and bok choi! Time for stir fry! We had a curry with Tommy’s lamb kabobs last night and it was excellent! We look forward to seeing you in a few weeks for February meat pick up. Spring will soon be here, thought it doesn’t seem like it! Please be praying that we don’t loose power as it’s hard to keep water from freezing and many other tasks become harder with power outages on the farm. We were blessed with a mild beginning to winter to allow us time to adjust to being without Tommy.

Blessings,

The Baker Team

Happy New Year! Meat pick up this weekend!

Our first litter of Bernadoodles is a few weeks old! We are enjoying them so much! Freedom is a proud mama of 8 babies! She had a C section, but is back to nursing full time and loving it.

Friends we are looking forward to serving you at the meat pick up this weekend. Please mark your Calendars for January 1st and January 6th. We will be open behind the cabin from 2-5 both days. If you can’t come during those times please notify us ahead of time and we arrange to get your share a different day.

We will also have bulk boxes of Lamb. Tommy raised some really nice lambs this year and we can’t wait to see how you like them. We’ve got leg of lamb, loin chops, rib chops, loin roasts and more! This isn’t limited to CSA members, we’ve got plenty for all. We also have extra pork this month if anyone wants to get a bulk box of pork as well.

Thanks for your patience as we learn how to make changes and adjust to life. We are constantly reminded of why we love serving our wonderful community of people here at Day Spring Farm!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Merry Christmas and our love to all!

Tommy in is 4 H years.

Friends, family and community we hope you have a blessed Christmas wherever you may be. We plan to have a cozy celebration here on the farm and spend plenty of time being thankful for Tommy and remembering our favorite stories about him. With that in mind we have asked our children to write a letter about their memories of him. We plan to keep these and read them to our younger children that won’t have the privilege to remember his joy and infectious personality. If you have special memories of Tommy please send them to us at dayspringfarm.va@gmail.com and we will print them and add them to our book. Thank you for ALL your support, YOU are the body of Christ surrounding us during this painful, but blessed journey. We don’t always understand His way, but His ways are higher than ours. Merry Christmas!

Few Things:

Pick up and Delivery remain the same for Thursday. Saturday pick up can be done Friday or Monday (PLEASE let us know if you want to come Friday.) Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Our friend did an amazing video of Tommy’s celebration of life. We treasure it and watch it often.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R2hnCtahWL7Xr0uLjiQLwFnxssNAXe0d/view?ts=61b13b1e

Thank you again for ALL your generosity and love for our family and for grieving with us for our son and friend, Tommy boy. What may seem to some as a tragic, sudden end is just a piece of God’s wonderful plan for us all. Some of his plans are harder to adjust to. Working, living and breathing without him nearby is the hardest thing we have ever been through. We started organic farming as a result of his unknown source of neuropathy (neuromuscular disease, Lyme disease and vaccine injury) from his childhood as a way to keep him active and healthy. It’s our joy and privilege to carry it on for his memory and the health of our family and community.

Blessings,

The Bakers