Beginning the Season

The season has begun on the farm! On a gorgeous sunny day last week I set up a rather makeshift potting table outside the barn next to our new pile of Fort Vee Vermont Compost Company potting mix, and went to town seeding tomatoes, onions, and leeks. I'll do another round of seeding in a month or so when I have more table space and lighting.

For now the trays are inside under the primitive light setup I constructed in the mudroom. The seedlings will remain there until the hoop house is set up with tables instead of the cold frames that are in there now, and warm enough at night to keep those little guys alive.

In other news, the CSA still has a couple open spots for shareholders! So, if you are interested in a share for this summer season, you can still get one! I also have one remaining work share position available. So, if you're interested in a share or work share please send an email right away!

There's still time!

The deadline for 2010 CSA shares has been pushed back to March 19th. We still have a few slots left, so get your order form in soon! If you don't have a brochure, please email Claire at SundoraFarm@gmail.com for a digital copy!

In other news, seeds from High Mowing arrived in the mail the other day... getting very excited for the start of the season...

CSB Creations

Lately there's been a lot of baking going on in Sundora's kitchen! I've been creating new things each week for the CSB shareholders, like basil mozzarella bread and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting... so I thought some mouth watering pictures were in order! Enjoy!

This is the seasonal fruit tart that I've been offering, this time with apples...

Brochures for 2010 Growing Season Now Available!

It's official, Sundora Farm is now taking on shareholders for the 2010 growing season. Below is a small version of our brochure for this year, just to give you an idea of what it looks like. If you'd like a digital copy just shoot me an email and I'll get you one right away! SundoraFarm@gmail.com Spread the word!

Community Supported Baking Begins

Today was the first day of our CSB (Community Supported Baking) and it went really well! We have 7 families to start out with but will welcome more! Please let us know if you're interested in joining!

I was in the kitchen from 6:15 to 12:30 baking french bread, dinner rolls, fruit tarts, whole wheat sunflower seed flax bread, and white sandwich bread among other things. I'm going to try to have something new for my CSBers to try every week and have the opportunity to order the following week. Today I made rosemary-chive french rolls for sampling today and they were a a real hit. I'll be making those weekly, if not for customers, at least for my family. We love them!

That's all for now, but I will leave you with these photos of bread bounty...

Spontaneous Adoption

So lately our two roosters, Gus Gus and our Black Australorp(whom I will from here on refer to as Mr. Lorp) have been fighting... and Mr. Lorp has been winning. Gus doesn't stand a chance next to that guy. It had only been a little blood on his back, so we were letting them fend for themselves for the time being. However, yesterday afternoon when Ben entered their coup, Gus looked like he'd just been in the dirtiest of street fights. His gorgeous white head dress soaked in blood... it was time to intervene.

So, we took Gus Gus and his friend Big Tuna out of the main coup and set them up in a cage in the second horse stall that was being used to store hay. We knew Gus Gus couldn't return to that coup, but we had no idea what to do with him.

Gus Gus is perhaps our favorite chicken, and certainly not one we're ready to part with. At the same time, he and Tuna couldn't stay trapped in that tiny cage forever. Without a better alternative, Gus and Tuna spent last night in that cage with hay on two sides for them to nestle into, a pan of food, and a waterer full of warm water that we had to change every few hours to keep it from freezing... not at all ideal.

This morning during breakfast Ben suggested I jump on craigslist.org to see if anyone had chickens they wanted to get rid of. I had toyed with the idea of expanding the laying flock anyway, so now seemed a good a time as any. Gus and Tuna needed friends, and they needed them soon... three hours later Ben and I were on our way back from Washington, Vermont with 20 chickens in produce boxes and a huge dog crate in the back of the car... when I make up my mind about something, it happens quickly.

So now we have two coups full of chickens. Our old coup houses our 7 Black Australorps.

And the second horse stall has been fully set up to house not only Gus Gus and Big Tuna, but their new friends, a mixture of Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks.

While I ran around buying another waterer, water heater, more shavings, and food, Ben hung up our old set of nesting boxes in the second stall and made sure the chickens were safe and comfortable in their new coup.

Since these new chickens are 9-10 months old, they are already at laying age, which means that come tomorrow morning, we'll be getting about 15 eggs a day! Three Bean Cafe has agreed to buy our eggs in addition to the bread they already buy from us for their paninis! Needless to say, we're really excited about this wonderful addition to our farm family!

Sundora Bread Share 2010

It's official! Sundora's Winter Bread Share is starting on January 6th! I've got order forms at the following places in downtown Randolph:

-Three Bean Cafe -Holiday Beauty Salon

-The Depot -Fenix Fine Foods

-Patrick's Place

If you can't get downtown or would rather have a digital copy, please send me an email and I'll get it to you!

I decided to change the structure of the bread share a little bit. The session is still 10 weeks long, and now I'm going to have people purchase credit at the beginning of the session. Credits range from $50.00 to $150.00 in $25.00 increments. So once you have your credit, you pre-order your items, and come to the farm every week, or every other week, whatever works for you, and you pick up the item(s) you've selected from our list. Each week that you order something, we will deduct the price of your product from your overall credit. You can add to your credit at anytime. Bread share members also receive a discount on all our items. Those prices are reflected on the Bread Share Order Form.

Pickups are every Wednesday from 1:00-6:00pm.

A list of our products can be found a couple posts down. We're also willing to take requests (within reason)!