Good Afternoon Trevor,


Each week I try to share what I see in farm country. Early July is when wheat is harvested and late July/early August is when oats are harvested around here. I find this process fascinating and wanted to share it with you.


So in this newsletter:

  • learn about harvesting oats, the old fashioned way
  • This week's new items, including: yellow watermelon
  • Nectarines. A very sore subject around here these days. We picked up a new grower who has more. The last few weeks our other grower was bad at estimating how many there would be and shorted us significantly.
  • Breakfast Promo. Try our breakfast favorites on sale this week.
  • Peach Pie, with Lattice Top. This week's pie of the week. And Zucchini bread still for $5.


Weekly Promotions

Peach Pie. With Lattice Top

We have fun each week changing up the pie flavors. This week is back to a seasonal favorite - fresh peach pie.


As always, the pies start with our signature lard and whole wheat based pie crust, for a flaky and tasty medium to hold the summer flavors of Ohio peaches.



Notables A La Carte Fruits and Veggies

  • Yellow Doll Watermelon. An early variety of seeded, sweet yellow watermelon. I enjoy it served chilled with salt and chili flake. Give it a try! $4 per melon
  • Blackberries $7 per pint or 2 for $12
  • Cantaloupe - because in my house it is one per night these days
  • Mixed color grape tomatoes
  • Peaches. 2# bags for $5
  • Nectarines. For real, they are coming in this week.
  • Transparent and Lodi Apples - make homemade apple sauce with these old timey apples.
Order Extras Here

Breakfast Items Sale

We recently realized we have been adding new breakfast items over the last few years without talking about them. Each week when we pull orders, the old standards are flying off the shelf and the new classics are slowly moving.


So, we figured we'd be fair and celebrate breakfast across the board with some sale prices.


Bacon and Eggs. Sorry, we don't have enough to put on sale and you all know how good they are! Look for a bacon focused promotion in a few weeks!


$1 off all breakfast sausages

  • New: Apple Cinnamon Brats. A hogs casing (brat size) sausage good for breakfast or dinner. Slightly seasoned with cinnamon to play well off of real apples. 4 links per package.
  • New: Country Breakfast Sausage Patties. A larger, thin "sandwhich size" patty. Perfect on English Muffins for a sandwich. Salt, Pepper, Sage and Rosemary. Sugar free.
  • Bacon Breakfast Patties. 10 little "pucks" of pork sausage and bacon ground together
  • Maple Breakfast Links - 10 small links flavored with real Ohio maple syrup


$1 off other breakfast staples

  • WVF English Muffins. Made in house at our farm from scratch, the dough starts with organic flour from Stutzman farms, farm fresh eggs, and A2 Guernsey milk. It is proofed, hand formed, and cooked slowly on our flat top griddle. Great in the morning or evening. Try as a substitute for a burger bun. They toast up great and hold up to a hefty, juicy burger.
  • Maple Syrup. Pure, Ohio maple syrup, darker for a more rich maple flavor. Sold in the glass pint.
  • Pie Crusts. Made in house with heritage pork lard and whole wheat flour. This raw (unbaked) crust is perfect for a morning quiche or evening pie.
  • Cornflour Pancake Mix. Ohio grown corn meal, winter wheat flour, and seasonings for a ready to mix pancake batter. $1.5 off.
  • Butter, Sticks. No pancakes or grits, or fried eggs, are complete without a hearty serving of quality butter from Minerva Dairy. Salted or Unsalted.

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Threshing Oats

There are few things more picture perfect than the old fashioned "shock and cap" of oats arranged neatly in a field. It is also quite a unique scene not found outside of Amish country.


For the next week or so, the old order Amish farmers have been busy cutting and binding their oat crop. The process is quite fascinating and requires the whole community to pitch in.


Oats for a farmer aren't for human consumption (although you could eat them). For the farmers around here, the oat is for their horses. It's an important component of the feed for the horses, and with all the farmers using horses for transportation and work, they must raise a lot of oats.


Ripe oats have a seed head that is firm and full. The stem of the plant will be dry and golden brown. The head begins to droop over from the weight of the full pod and the oat is ready to harvest. The farmer then needs to find a way to "thresh it." Threshing is simply the mechanical action of removing the seed from the stalk.


In modern farming, a farmer would pass through the field with a combine. The combine would separate the seeds and blow the stalk - known as the straw - out the back. For the small Amish farmer, they do it differently.

Step 1: Cut it & Bind it into Shocks. First, the oats are cut with a "reaper binder." It ties a bundle of oats together into what's called a shock (featured on the right). Next, a group of farmers go through the field and arrange the shocks into a pyramid shape. They take the last one and fan it out to make a "cap." The cap protects the shocks below from rain.
Step 2: Wait for it to dry.
Depending on the weather and the crop, oats may sit for up to 3 weeks before threshing. Wheat might only be a week or two. Both are dependent on hot, dry weather.

After the oats have cured in the field, it's time for all the neighbors in the "threshing ring" to gather. The threshing ring is just a group of neighboring farmers who all share in each other's work and share a common piece of equipment. In this case, they all care for a common machine - the thresher. It's an antique and quite a delicate piece of equipment.

The men go from farm to farm on different days and help with the thrashing. For example, my neighbor has about 6 acres of oats. He'll have about 8 to 10 men helping bring the shocks in from the field.
Step 3: Thresh It
The threshing machine uses heavy paddles to knock the seeds from the seed head. The straw is sent through a chopper with a fan below it. The seeds fall down through the air while the straw is blown up and out of the machine.

A conveyor belt brings the oats out the back and dumps them into a wagon. To the right you'll find a photo of the finished product.

Once complete, an acre of oats might yield 40 to 50 bushels of seed.
A Scoop a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
It's funny to think this way, but a horse isn't too much different than a tractor. The harder I work the tractor, the more fuel it takes. Same goes for a working horse.

Farmers using Belgians and Percheron draft horses for work need to feed more oats than the standardbred horse used for occasional buggy transportation. A big draft horse can easily exceed 2,000 lbs each! These horses are very powerful, but they also have the diet to match.

During working times, a scoop in the morning and a scoop in the evening will satisfy a big draft horse, in addition to quality hay. A standard half gallon feed scoop of oats is about 4 lbs. So the big horses will easily consume 40 to 50 pounds of oats per week, meaning over 1 ton per year!

With a bushel of oats weighing in at 32 pounds, you can see where 50 bushel per acre means that you can hardly feed 1 horse per acre of oats!
Bag Contents

Small Omnivore

Grassfed Ground Beef

Cantaloupe

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Small Vegetarian

Cantaloupe

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Sweet Corn

Red Potatoes


Mini

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cauliflower





Large Omnivore

Grassfed Ground Beef

Cantaloupe

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Red Potatoes

Grape Tomatoes

Garlic

Eggs

Breakfast Patties


Large Vegetarian

Cantaloupe

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Sweet Corn

Red Potatoes

Grape Tomatoes

Garlic

Eggs

Slicing Tomatoes

Pancake Mix

Onion




Small Vegan

Cantaloupe

Peaches

Blackberries

Carrots

Green Peppers

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Sweet Corn

Red Potatoes







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