Sundora Bakery Pricing

Word is getting out about my bread! So, I've decided to list some of the items I offer as well as some prices to give people a better idea of what I have going on here. But before I begin, let me give you a quick snapshot of what my baking is all about. As a local farmer, I'm looking to use as many local/ethical ingredients as I can. Right now I use local wheat from Butterworks Farm, local eggs and honey, and fair trade sugar. I'm hoping to use fair trade vanilla and chocolate, and local sunflower oil (which is also from Butterworks) when it's ready in a few months. My loaves are made in small batches and are mixed, kneaded, and shaped by hand.

Prices*

Loaves:

100% Whole Wheat $5.25
Whole wheat with flax $5.50
Whole Wheat with Sunflower Seeds $6.00
Whole Wheat with Sunflower Seeds and Flax $6.25
White/Wheat Hybrid Sandwich $5.25
Cinnamon Swirl (which has a white/wheat hyrbid based dough) $6.50
My take on a French Bread $4.00

Rolls:

White/Wheat Hybrid Dinner$3.00 for 6/ $5.50 for 12

Bulky Sandwich $3.50 for 4/ $6.50 for 8

Rosemary Chive Dinner $3.50 for 6/ $6.50 for 12

Sage Dinner $3.50 for 6/ $6.50 for 12

*Prices are subject to change slightly as I incorporate more local ingredients.

I am also open to taking requests if you don't see the kind you're looking for!

To place an order or get any remaining questions answered please call Claire at 802-522-6877 or email her at SundoraFarm@gmail.com. Orders must be placed by noon on Sunday for pickup on Tuesday at the farm. Pickup is between 8:00am and 4:00pm. We are located at the intersection of Beanville Road and Route 12 in Randolph.

Community Supported Baking on the Rise

Lately I have been spending a great deal of time in the kitchen every week baking. As we move out of the regular growing season and into the colder months, I find myself wanting to bake almost constantly. I think this is because last winter I worked at Great Harvest up in Burlington as an early morning sweets baker and absolutely loved it. It's the best job I've ever had outside of farming. So I have been continuing to use the skills I picked up there to feed my family and make a little money on the side.

I've been making both whole wheat and wheat/white hybrid sandwich loaves, all kinds of dinner rolls, and even some french bread in addition to almond white chocolate chip brownies, almond vanilla cakes, apple crisp, cinnamon raisin oatmeal cookies, and chocolate chip pecan cookies. I've been selling bread, rolls, and cookies every Monday during our retail time here at the farm and I'm also providing Three Bean Cafe with bread for their paninis.

So, with all the fun I am having baking, I've decided to do a winter bread share from my home, I'm calling it Community Supported Baking (CSB). It will work just like Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in that people will pay up front for so many weeks of bread, rolls, or sweets, and then come pick up their goods on a designated day each week during the baking term. The first round will start in November. I'm still getting prices together, and a few other logistical things, but once I do I will have order forms available via email and also at a few locations in downtown Randolph. In the meantime, if you're interested in ordering bread, rolls or sweets from me, please don't hesitate to send me an email or stop by on a Monday between 1:00 and 6:00pm to check out my baked goods.

Winter Veggies

Okay, Part II: Cold Frames

We farmers have the veggie bug, and we've got it bad. The short growing season in Vermont just isn't long enough for us to get in our full helping of cultivation and little greenlings (a.k.a. baby plantlets). So, we do the only natural thing, extend the growing season as much as we possibly can! How? Cold Frames! This way we can keep growing mesclun, onions, leeks, carrots, and asian greens even after there's a blanket of snow outside.

So, the other week I threw together a prototype of a cold frame out of some spare wood we had left over from the tomato trellises. Here is Ben being his own interpretation of Vanna White.

My cold frame is 8 inches tall in the front, and 12 inches in the back. It's got a storm window for the top(also called the light), and I just sized it to fit the window perfectly. There aren't any hinges on it, and I didn't include anything to prop it up because I wanted to be able to completely uncover the cold frames on the random warm days of fall. I plan to prop it up with different sized pieces of wood later on in the season when neccesary. Keeping it simple.

This is the cold frame uncovered in the green house, all ready for me to direct seed carrots into... and then me actually seeding the little guys.

Each cold frame will have its own thermometer mounted in it so we can carefully monitor each one's temperature. We want to do this to make sure that we prop them open when they get above 70 degrees. When you're transplanting into cold frames, it's important to keep in mind that the plants you start in seed pots aren't used to really high temperatures. Plants that are tolerant to colder temperatures from the beginning will do better over the winter of freezing and thawing.

Now, keep in mind that I have never grown anything in cold frames over the winter. All the information I have shared here I learned from Eliot Coleman. He came to the NOFA Winter Conference last year and gave a wonderful, informative workshop on his winter harvesting. He also has a great book called "Four Season Harvest" that's a fantastic resource for this kind of winter food production. I recommend him highly.

That does it for now, but I'll write more on baking and the approaching end of the 2009 growing season in the next few days! Stay tuned! Same veggie time, same veggie channel!

Preparing for the Cold

Fall is upon us, with our flowers starting to close up shop and the threat of frost in the wee hours of the morning. But even with the season’s end on the horizon, there are still many things going on on the farm. Let me catch you up on what you’ve missed… there’s a lot so I’ve broken it up into sections. Today I will do the pigs, and over the next few days I'll post about the cold frames, the end of the season, and the baking I've been doing! Okay, onto the good stuff...

The Pigs

Well, let me start by saying that they continue to be hilarious and lovable. We are having great fun with them. Last week we built them a new house on skids. I have included step-by-step pictures so you can see all the little pieces that fit together…

This is the base frame the rest of the house sits on...

The bare-bones frame and walls going up...

Ben putting the trough on after the tin roof had been attached...

We built them a new house because they are far too big for the other house they’d been in all season, and they were beginning to show us how bored they were in that same pen... ripping down their tarp, nosing branches onto their fence, etc. So, we called up our mentor Steve to see if he’d be willing to lend us some portable sheep netting and a couple batteries, he was.

So, we hooked up our pig house behind the truck and I took off driving over small boulders and through waist high weeds toward the site of the pig's new home. With Ben guiding me I was able to pull the pig house back behind the barn and back the truck out of there safely without falling off the cliff right next to me... all it all, it was quite a successful off roading experience.

Once we had the house in place, we set up the sheep netting, hooked up the chargers, filled the trough with food, filled up the water bucket, and got ready for the pigs to make the big transition the next morning.

The next day, with mom and dad along for the adventure, we all gathered around the pig pen, each at our stations, ready to help the pigs get acquainted with their new house. Ben distracted them with some corn while I snipped off the ties that held the end of their old fence in place, opened it up, and connected the (non-electrified) sheep netting to each side of the opening. Then Ben called the pigs over, showing them the new opening.

Now, I had thought the pigs would go charging through the opening into their new pasture land, so excited at the site of new soil to plow up with their little snouts. Not so. Those pigs stood at the opening of that fence, where the electric fence had been, sniffing the air, rooting in the soil, and not moving an inch. I had read that it's thought pigs associate some level of magic to these electric fences, and while I don't know if I quite believe that pigs even understand the concept of magic, it certainly seemed that that hypothesis wasn't far off. Those pigs knew that they had gotten shocked at that exact spot before and weren't about to risk that happening again.

After a while Flo Jo got over her fears and went alone, into the unknown wild of the new pen, grunting happily the whole way. Meanwhile, scaredypants #1 and scaredypants #2 were still in their old pen, grunting at Flo Jo, probably getting a report of the new digs. After Flo Jo had collected a sufficient amount of data, she headed back to the old pen to have a chat with the other two. But even after their pow-wow, they weren't sold. So they settled in to take a nap under their shade tarp. Ben and I had already been out there for an hour or so, and mom and dad had gone inside. We were running out of patience. So, we took down their shade tarp which stirred them up, but they still weren't crossing over. After trying watermelon, cracked corn, and pig pellets, we finally gave in and hand fed them corn chips. This did the trick!

After just a couple corn chips, backing up after each one, I was able to lure all of them over the "magic" line, and into their new home. They were rooting around and grunting happily almost immediately. So what we thought would be a quick 2 minute transition, turned into a 2 hour coaxing game of lure the pigs with tasty treats.

And now the pigs are happier than ever...

Fresh Veggie Mondays

Ben and I have decided to open a little farm store here on Mondays during the season from 1:00 to 5:00pm. We will have veggies and herbs for sale every week, and hopefully some baked goods and t shirts as well! We're working on finishing the sign for it right now and will make sure to post pictures of it when we get it up.

Please feel free to come by the farm on Monday afternoons and tell your friends! We'd be happy to give farm tours and/or answer any questions you might have about local sustainable agriculture as well!

Chickens are out and flowers are in bloom!

Things have been pretty busy around here now that the weather is finally cooperating! The veggies are in full swing, the pigs are getting huge, and the laying hens are out in their brand new chicken tractor complete with nesting boxes and roosts. Ben has been working long hours to get this thing up and running, and I have to say it gets the job done. The hens seem really happy and safe, which is all we can hope for. Ben is a proud papa.

The chickens are mostly black australorps but there is a white sultan chicken(among other random additions) that we've named Guss Guss. I think she looks like a mad scientist. She's a tough ole bird and seems to hold her own pretty well despite her dainty head dress. She's my favorite.

The rest of the chickens seem healthy and lively.

Constantly up to something and always with that guilty expression on their faces... I don't trust them for one minute.

This is our first season growing flowers, so our "cut flower" garden was a huge experiment. I had no idea what varieties to choose or when exactly things would bloom or for how long. So I just got a random assortment after reading their descriptions in the Johnny's catalog, and hoped for the best... and I have to say it's been wonderful so far and seems to be thriving despite this crazy season we've been having. The flowers are beautiful and they attract a great variety of beneficial insects. Here are some pictures...

OPEN HOUSE!

Yes, Ben and I are opening up the farm for an afternoon so that you all can come see, in person, what we've been up to this season. So, please come by the farm this Sunday, August 2nd, between noon and 6:00pm, take a tour, have some iced tea with us, and bring your friends! We hope to see you soon!