Welcome, Gabriel!

Gabriel

We are almost at midwinter.
Most of our seeds have been ordered.
Rachel had her calf on January 16.
I picked three possible names for him; Santiago, Gabriel, or Michael. We chose Gabriel.

The weather has been quite strange; snow, rain, freezing rain, temperature fluctuations.

The winter CSA is almost at it's close. The summer CSA brochures are ready.

We have been busy cutting firewood. Along with trying out some new recipes in the kitchen. For some delicious recipes, check out my other blog: http://inthekitchenwithfrancesca.blogspot.com

Isabelle, our pig, has been spending the winter in the company of the cows.
And, a very exciting fact, the days are getting longer!

Happy New Year!

Looking ahead to another year of farming and unpredictable weather.

This what the farm looked like December 23, 2011

The weather has been crazy; snow, pouring rain, warm and cold.
We covered the strawberries with straw.
The gardens are officially closed down for a little while.
We are mid-way through the Fall/Winter CSA.
We have started planning the CSA for the summer (our brochure will be ready soon) .

Our Jersey/Red Angus cross cow, Rachel, is in a calving pen. She will have her Jersey calf any day now.
We are going through all the seed catalogs, purchasing the seeds we will need for the season.

Beef Products:
ground beef
stew beef
steaks
roasts
beef ribs
beef liver

(from left to right) Chief, Buddy and Roscoe

Deck the Halls!

I have been very bad about blog posts the last month; my apologies.
We had our first snow storm of the season a few weeks ago. I stumbled through snow drifts continuously repeating under my breath "Ew, ew, ew." . Yes, I was a little turned off about the weather. But now the situation has changed! Texas has snow, and we have 60 F weather.
We are still harvesting carrots and leeks out of the garden. And the deer are eating the cabbage, and the leek tops (something I never thought they would do).
The Fall/Winter CSA has started, and is so far going well.
Fall/Winter CSA list:
carrots
apples
turnips
beets
garlic
onions
eggs
meat
squash
greens (HKSB, kale, etc.)
leeks
dried herbs
pesto
granola
honey
cider
potatoes
dried hot peppers

All the animals are doing well. The calves have been weaned from their mothers.

Our Wreath 

The Windsor Farmers' Market is still going. We have two more markets left; December 10, and December 17.  Also, with the holiday season we have been attending a few Christmas markets too.

  

But The Cold Still Remains...

This weekend we got a small storm, escorted by wind, rain, hail and biting cold. I hope all you kids are wearing long johns under your Hallowe'en costume!
The CSA is over, last week was the final week. It was a wonderful experience, and we plan to do it again next year.
We planted our garlic a couple weeks ago. And the only thing really still growing in the gardens is greens; lettuce, mustard greens, kale, swiss chard and Health Kick Salad Blend. And cabbage and carrots for storage still need to be harvested.

Garlic for planting

All the animals are doing well, and are getting a taste of the end of season pasture. The chicks are nearly large enough to be moved into the chicken coop with the other chickens.  Also, in spirit of the holiday, we slaughtered 9 of our ducks, and we have one cow hanging in the slaughter house.
Happy Hallowe'en!

Winter Squash

Red Hot Chile Peppers

It has been a busy two weeks on the farm since I last blogged. Last week the rain fell, wind blew and hail pounded down on all the crops. We were left with flaccid beans, lettuce with wind burn, and flattened spinach. I'm laughing as I write this, but it wasn't all that funny.
Most of our winter squash has been harvested, and is now curing in the greenhouse. And on the weekend we pulled most of our onions. The bean pole tipis have been dismantled, along with most of the tomato trellis.  
I have started stringing up our hot peppers in the drying room; hence "Red hot Hot Chile Peppers".
The Saturday markets are going well; come down this Saturday morning!
On Thanksgiving I did a demonstration on how to make Kale Chips and Kale Smoothies at the Maritime Fall Fair; check out http://inthekitchenwithfrancesca.blogspot.com for those recipes.

CSA week 18 (!)/Market
lettuce heads
potatoes
peppers, sweet
peppers, hot
eggplant
kale
carrots
cabbage
garlic
onions
winter squash
broccoli
cauliflower
tomatoes

This autumn morning

Windsor Farmers' Market day and time change. Don't forget that the WFM will be changing back to Saturday mornings as of October 1st. We are open from 9am-1pm, hope to see you there!




Our first week of fall has been a beautiful one. All the haying is done, now it just needs to be stacked in the barns. What little is left in the garden, we are trying to keep as weedless as possible.  In a few weeks time we will be harvesting more peas and string beans.

Vegetable list/CSA, week 16:
lettuce, head (red bibb, leaf, oakleaf, romain)
peppers, sweet
peppers, hot
carrots
potatoes
zucchini
beans, pole

Squash plant growing on a bale of hay

tomatoes
onions
garlic
peppermint
basil
beet greens
kale
Swiss chard
lettuce, mix
HKSB (Health Kick Salad Blend)

All the animals are enjoying the year's last lush grass.

Chief 

Billi

Mulie

Hay days

Finishing up our haying this week. The beautiful September weather is making it much easier!
The farm is busy as usual, but the gardens are winding down a bit. The animals are enjoying the less humid weather (though it was pretty warm yesterday), and are spending more time during the day out grazing.
We are also organizing our Fall/Winter CSA share program.

Vegetables on the farm this week are:
carrots
tomatoes
kale
peppers, sweet
pole beans (Garden of Eden, Fortex, and Scarlet Runner)
zucchini
potatoes
lettuce heads (yay!)
onions
cucumbers
pickling cukes
garlic
lettuce mix
Health Kick Salad Blend (spicy mix)

Everyone, meet Buddy!