This Week's Fruit Trio - $14.50

2# peaches, 1 quart shiro plums, and 1 pint blackberries

FRESH PICKED - NEW FRUITS THIS WEEK

Nectarines

This one is a real treat. I love the intense acid and sweet/tart flavor of a nectarine. And the firmer flesh. Just an amazing fruit from our friends at Quarry Hill in Berlin Heights.

Shiro Plums - small yellow plums

This one is also a great treat. These small, yellow plums are sold in the quart basket and are a great snack.

Cantaloupe, Aphrodite - larger, tender flesh and plenty sweet - a medium large sized muskmelon with a looser netting, tender flesh, and floral nose.

This is a combination of two of my favorites. The bold color and flavor of blueberry paired with the tender gooey goodness of our peach pie filling.

Served in our signature crust of house rendered lard, organic whole wheat flour, and local butter for a flakey and tasty double crust pie.

Zucchini Bread - Healthy and Delicious

A summer classic, our zucchini bread features organic flour, organic sugar, and homemade applesauce for a natural sweetness and moist texture. Great toasted and slathered in butter.

Just $6

Sweet Corn - just in

I was expecting another week still, but the hot days and warm nights (and plenty of rain) helped it along. Extra sweet corn available in the online shop.

Weekly Meats - 10% Off

As usual, the meat in the shares is 10% off. This week that's:

Steak Burgers - 4 patties per pack, 1.25#. Thicker burgers.

Beef and Pork Hot Dogs - 6 per pack, 1#.

Christmas in July - Cookie Dough Sale

Lauren and I were talking about promotions this week and she suggested Christmas in July. I asked, "What Christmas foods could we do?"

She didn't skip a beat. "COOKIES." Of course. I don't have capacity this week in the kitchen to do sugar cookies, but we do have plenty of cookie dough.

If you haven't tried the cookie dough, here' s a good chance. There are 14 cookies per package. Simply take them from the freezer and pop them in the oven. It's a great item to have on hand at all times.

Flavors:

Chocolate Chip, Salted Double Chocolate and Oatmeal Raisin

Summer Meat and Cheese Board - $20

A great snack as you are waiting on the grill to heat up.

1 chub beef summer sausage (12 oz)

1 piece Charloe Cheese (6 oz)

1 half pint Strawberry Jam

1 bag WVF Crackers

We put this together to celebrate the return of Charloe. Charloe is a difficult cheese for us to handle because it really should be sold at a cheese counter and wrapped as it is cut. It's a washed rind, semi-soft cheese. It's made from raw, 100% grassfed milk and aged 2 months.

This award winning cheese is only made in the summer when the cows are on pasture. Cheesemakers Ralph and Sheila have determined that the cheese expresses the characteristics of the grass so much that they prefer it only in the summer - it's sweeter and buttery. In the winter, the dry hay and fermented haylage lend a "barny" note to it. We agree and are grateful to be able to continue to showcase this cheese.

The summer sausage is a smoked beef salami. It goes through an overnight ferment where the pH drops quickly to give it a signature tang. It is cured with the nitrates naturally occurring in celery powder and smoked to finish.

Raw Dog Food - Back in Stock

That's Hank. He's one of our Great Pyrenees guard dogs around the farm. Evening chores end with feeding the dogs. I don't know if treats make them or us happier. It's always fun to take them something special.

This week, they celebrated with us the return of raw dog food. We should be stocked up for a while.

Made with whole muscle grassfed beef, chicken livers, chicken hearts, turkey hearts and livers, and a little pork. It's rich in minerals and has a signature offal characteristic - dark red and loose in texture.

Feeding recommendations. We blend it with their dry kibble to help keep a consistent diet and some fiber. You don't need to cook it. The dogs love it raw.

In 90 Degrees out, but 99 in the Brooder.

There is no relief from the heat right now on the farm. Chores outside can be tough and exhausting, and usually a chance to step inside is a relief.

Not in the brooder. The brooder is where the baby poultry are started. Chickens like it hot - 95 degrees - but turkeys like it hotter - 99.

For the first week, we try to keep the brooder toasty, then start stepping down the heat over the next few weeks to harden them off.

This is our big group of "Market Turkeys", the broad breasted bronze that most customers enjoy at Thanksgiving

Turkey Time is Real - The Logistical Shuffle of Birds



In just 2 more weeks, these curious little birds will get moved back to another building - our "Flex Barn" - to make room in the brooder for another group of broilers (meat chickens).

But first, we have to empty the flex barn.

• heritage turkeys need moved outside to their pasture
• laying hen "pullets" need moved to their pasture housing

Our poultry rotation is intense in the summer and a logistics nightmare. There are a lot of 3 AM morning wakeups to catch birds before the sun comes up.

Right now, we are at full capacity. The heritage turey hatch has been great and we are trying to build a new outdoor perch structure and pasture setup for them. The laying hens are a project we squeezed into try to solve the egg shortage problem this past winter. Those birds are about 12 weeks old and will start laying eggs around Labor Day.

Once the flex barn is cleared out, we'll reset it for these Market Turkeys. This means making it Turkey Proof - anything and everything to keep them from perching on top of the water and feed lines where they can break things and contaminate their food source.

From there, they go out to the pecking patch

The turkeys will spend the better part of August in the brooder sizing up to be hardy enough to go out on pasture. By end of August, we'll start them on a rotation outside.

Their first stop is the "pecking patch." You'll hear more about this in future newsletters, but it is a tall pasture of sorghum, sunflowers, and buckwheat designed to provide feed and shade during the heat of summer/early fall. This also keeps them from crowding and piling up in bad weather.

The pecking patch was planted on June 23 this year and it's already waist deep. It's fun to watch it grow, seeing literal growth on a daily basis.

Like the weather, subject to change.