Laughing Earth March News

SPRING PORK:
ORDER NOW

It's time to order for quarters, halves, or wholes for pick up May 20th. 
The bulk price is the same as last year, $8.50/lb, which is a significant savings over our retail price for the same delicious, nutritious pork from happy, organically-fed pigs. 
 

ORDER NOW

The Farm Report

MARCH UPDATE

         The season kicked into gear very quickly. We've got many irons in the fire already! Aaron got the greenhouse up and running this week, and we are starting to fill it very quickly, with seedlings for the Spring Share veggies and also the earliest planting of flowers we've ever tried. Come see it for yourself before our next potluck - March 14th at 4 pm, we will host a greenhouse tour and seed starting workshop.
          The hens are now laying with a will - we have an "eggsplosion" on our hands, as Aaron put it. If you haven't been buying our eggs, now there's no excuse not to, and tell your friends! The self-service egg fridge is stocked as long as the nights are above 20 degrees here, but we are always happy to get you eggs if you drop in. We are also starting to sell off our older hens, if you know of anyone who would like to add a few to their flock. They are still laying well, but we try to operate at peak efficiency, so we move them along at 18 months old. 
        Zack and my dad are beginning work on our farmstand renovations this week, hopefully installing a new door, as the old door hasn't been able to close for a year or two ... we are hoping to turn that area into a much more appealing "store," which will make it easier for folks to come buy our products on the farm. Keep an eye out for new wiring, new interior walls, and maybe even some real lights!
       Aaron and I are planning to begin work on the new garden next to Route 2 this month, where the black tarps have been laying for more than a year. The soil below those tarps looks great! This area will be an extension of the farmshare members' picking garden, with the cherry tomatoes moving over there since the soil is drier, and hopefully some perennials, a 3 Sisters garden, and okra!
          I am working on my annual snail-mail Spring Mailer, so hopefully those will go in the mail this month, and a digital version shortly after, with the meat-chicken order form, turkey order form, pork order form, and beef order form. Our annual seedling sale is on the calendar - it will be shorter this year, from May 15th through Memorial day 5/25. 

Spring Planning!

Buy all the eggs! We have so many! Your diet should really include at least 3 eggs a day for better health ;)

Greenhouse Seeding Workshop plus Potluck 3/14 

March 14th at 4 pm, join us in the greenhouse for a seed-starting workshop
At 5:30, join us in the farmhouse for a potluck!
April 4th at 4 pm, join us for a tree grafting and perennial plant propagation workshop!
April 26th will be Open Farm Day from noon til 4, and our monthly potluck will be at 5 pm.

Last Call for
Spring Share and Farm Share

Spring Share will be 4/29 through 5/27. Main season Farm Share will be 6/3 through 10/28.
We have a few shares of each left!

Details and sign up here for spring share, and here for main season farm share.

Pork!

So you've been buying our pork at the Farmers' Market or here at the farm, a package of bacon here and a pound of sausage there ... and you really like it. And you'd like to make sure there's a bunch in your freezer, for whenever you get the urge to cook it ...

we can help!
 

Yours in growth,
Annie

Laughing Earth February News

TIME TO ORDER
SPRING PORK

The pigs are growing beautifully in their winter quarters. They really chow down on the hay! It's time to order for quarters, halves, or wholes for pick up May 20th. 
The bulk price is the same as last year, $8.50/lb, which is a significant savings over our retail price for the same delicious, nutritious pork from happy, organically-fed pigs. 
 

ORDER NOW

The Farm Report

FEBRUARY UPDATE

         It feels like 2020 is really moving already. We attended the annual NOFA-NY organic farming conference in Syracuse and got our annual dose of good ideas for farming, our seeds are all ordered and many have arrived already, the pigs are growing like weeds, and our young up-and-coming hens just laid their first handful of eggs this week! 
        Many farmers, gardeners, and homesteaders pay attention to Imbolc, also known as Candlemas, which is the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and is usually February 1st. It's the time when we shift over from longer nights and shorter days, to shorter nights and longer days. This is a time of seed starting and noticing shifts in weather, animals, and plants toward growth. We will sow our first seeds for the Spring Share this week, and I have noticed that our rosemary plants, sheltering in my front window for the winter, have started to put on vigorous new growth just within the last week.
       We have many plans for 2020, and look forward to seeing which of them we can take to fruition. We are still on the hunt for two interns and one assistant livestock manager for the season - if you think you might know of anyone interested, please direct them here for the livestock manager and here for the intern. We are hoping to once again raise cattle for a fall harvest, and to add a few sheep to our livestock rotation, to harvest in the fall so we can add lamb to our meat share! ALSO, we just received notification today that we are awarded a grant by the Hudson Mohawk RC&D (administered through the Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation) to put in a certified kitchen adjacent to our slaughterhouse! We are very excited at all the opportunities that this will open up, and are looking forward to exploring the different ways that we can get more of our products into more of our community members' kitchens and lives!

2020 Happenings!

New Feed for the Animals!

Our chickens and pigs always receive a certified organic feed ration, made of corn, roasted soybeans, oats, and minerals. Until this month, we purchased this feed through Green Mountain Feeds, out of Bethel, VT. We loved their feed, it was always very high quality and good for the animals. However, we have now decided to switch to getting our feed from Stone House Grain, in Hudson, NY, whose values align more closely with ours. The feed is not only certified organic, but sourced regionally, with a very transparent supply chain. We hope you are happy with the meat and eggs produced from this beautiful regional feed!

Member Potlucks and Events

FarmShare members and friends of the farm are invited to join us once a month for a potluck in the farmhouse and an educational event. Dates and details are available on our calendar. 
February 8th is Book Club Discussion and Baking Workshop for "The New Breadbasket" with author Amy Halloran!

Spring Share and Farm Share

Spring Share will be 4/29 through 5/27. Main season Farm Share will be 6/3 through 10/28.
We are already half full on both of these shares, so don't hesitate to sign up if you're considering it!

Details and sign up here for spring share, and here for main season farm share.

Pork!

So you've been buying our pork at the Farmers' Market or here at the farm, a package of bacon here and a pound of sausage there ... and you really like it. And you'd like to make sure there's a bunch in your freezer, for whenever you get the urge to cook it ...

we can help!
 

Yours in growth,
Annie

Laughing Earth January News 2020

BOOK CLUB and COMMUNITY POTLUCK

January 11th - Letters to a Young Farmer
At 4 pm, we will start discussing our Book Club selection: Letters to a Young Farmer . If you want to participate and don't have time to read all the essays, focus on the following authors and we will target the discussion toward them: Barbara Kingsolver, Raj Patel, Mary Berry, Joel Salatin, Wendell Berry, Allan Savory, and Amy Halloran.
At 5:30, we will come together for a potluck! Bring a dish to share!
 

Questions? EMAIL ME

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The Farm Report

JANUARY UPDATE

         It's official, our 2020 season is fully begun. Many of you have already signed up for the main season farmshare, Our spring pigs have all been born, and are growing like weeds in the comfort of our winter barn. Our pullets, who will start laying in spring, are also growing quickly and thriving. We completed the review of our 2019 business, and have our 2020 plan laid out. 
       If you haven't yet signed up for the main season farmshare, you get a small discount if you sign up by 12/31. It's also now time to sign up for Spring Share! Thanks to our new hoop house, we are doubling our spring share from 25 to 50 members, so we won't fill up quite as quickly. That said, I still anticipate filling up in pretty short order, so don't hesitate if you'd like to be a "salad share" member for the month of May.
       We are just settling in to winter, with solstice just past, but we can't help but think ahead to the green seasons. 

2020 Happenings!

Member Potlucks and Events

FarmShare members and friends of the farm are invited to join us once a month for a potluck in the farmhouse and an educational event. Dates and details are available on our calendar. 
January 11th is Book Club Discussion for "Letters to a Young Farmer" and a potluck
February 8th is Book Club Discussion and Baking Workshop for "The New Breadbasket" with author Amy Halloran!

Spring Share!
Once again, we are offering a Spring Share for the month of May. We call it the "salad share," as it offers the freshest, tenderest greens of spring for the month before the main season farmshare begins. The share sizes are a bit smaller than the main season, and are a great way to celebrate the start of fresh veggie season.

Details and sign up here.

Farm Share!

It's already time to sign up for next summer's share! We have sold out for the last two seasons, so if you are considering it, don't hesitate too long. 

Sign up form and details available here.

Email me with questions!
 

Yours in growth,
Annie

Pastured Pork

Today I spent several hours working on the fences for three pigs.

These three pigs are our boar (the daddy pig) and our two sows (the mom pigs). The boar is arguably only useful two days out of 365. The sows work hard for a few weeks a year, when their piglets are nursing. The rest of the year, these are animals that we have to feed and water every day, and maintain their fences lest they go wandering. Many small- and large-scale pork producers opt to not maintain breeding stock (as they are called) on the farm, and rather buy in weaned piglets from other farms. It’s tough to make a profit with an on-farm breeding program. Yet we continue with our farrow-to-finish operation - where the pigs we raise are born here on the farm, and spend every day of their lives here, on our land, moving through our pastures.

As I worked on the fence for these three pigs, I thought about all the other things I could be doing (weeding! bookkeeping! marketing! etc. etc.), and how this job was the one I had prioritized. I know I made the right call. Those gals (and guy) needed some fresh grass. Parts of their fence were sagging. It was time.

What I also thought about was why that job existed on this farm in the first place. It would be easy to abandon the breeding program, to buy in piglets, raise them to slaughter size, and sell them. But that’s not what feels best. If I’m going to be eating pork, I want to know that pig had an awesome life. I want to know what its childhood was like. Maybe this makes me a weirdo, but it’s what I want, and it’s what I have with my pigs. We are there the day the babies are born. We are the ones responsible for weaning them when they are big enough. We are there to feed them every day, and to complain when they bust through the fence and go wandering. I know these pigs like I know my own child. I know the individuals who like to be scratched behind the ears, and those that prefer to not be touched. I know that one tubby boss who lays down in the feed trough every day and blocks his siblings from their breakfast. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The only change I would make is that I would like it to make money to raise animals this way. I’d like to be fairly compensated for my time. I’d like to feel like I’m not tempted to cut corners in order to see profit on this venture. I’d like for my prices to not be questioned. It costs more to raise animals outdoors, with fresh air, without a “lagoon” for their “waste” to collect in. Guess what - our pigs’ poop is a valuable component of our soil fertility program. We want their poop, right where it lands. It’s not a waste product. It’s not toxic to our neighbors, it’s not polluting our local waterways and causing dead zones in the ocean. But consumers need to pay attention to more than just flavor. They need to pay attention to the consequences of their eating and their diet choices.

Our way of raising pigs is far from perfect, but today, while I was working in the sunshine, the contented grunts of sows in a wallow filling my ears, pollinators working hard on the late season flowers in the pasture, it felt pretty close.

I hope that all the pork eaters out there can think about the life of the pig they’re eating and feel content. I hope that if you stop and consider the environmental impacts of the meat that you cook in your kitchen, that you have a clear conscience; that if you consider the lives of the humans who interacted with that animal, that you feel their working environment is safe and healthy; that if you consider the life of that animal, that the way it spent its days seems good to you.

Poultry Farming

This weekend, as is usual for me, I spent a fair amount of time dispensing advice and ideas on how to cook a chicken (pressure cooker! Dutch oven! Butterflied! Yogurt-marinated! I could go on ...) And, as I do most days, I spent some time considering the price of our chicken.

A big worry for Zack and I is that we are pricing out the lower-income consumers. This is not our intent, and is something we work to avoid. However, our profits are not very large, and we live on the margins, so we can't shave them too slim. With the food from Laughing Earth, you are paying closer to the full cost of your food than when you shop at the grocery store, which means the price tag is larger. 

However, paying more per pound up front does not mean you're getting a worse deal. You get the flavor, the moist meat, the heart-warming experience of buying direct from the person who raised the animal. You get the option to take a walk in a beautiful place to visit the chickens while they are growing on pasture. You get the opportunity to ask the farmer for cooking advice when you buy it. 

You also know that the people who raise the chicken are not locked into a sharecropper system of debt whereby their choices are eroded in the name of funneling more profits to a corporation.

You also know that the people who process the chickens (the same as the people who raise them, on our farm!) have safe working conditions, and only perform the job for half a day every two weeks, reducing the risk for repetitive stress injury. They are not berated and threatened to encourage them to work faster.

Our farm is not perfect. We don't pay our employees as much as we would like to, and our pastures could be more diverse and fertile. But we are trying to acknowledge the downsides of meat eating, and trying to address those issues and reduce them. 

So the next time you visit our farm or market stand and find yourself thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of money for chicken" ... think again. Your decision to purchase organic, small-scale, local chicken is helping to turn the tide away from human rights abuses in the poultry industry. It's also helping one family in your community to live their dream.

Why FarmShare?

So, it's full-on Spring, and I am deep into trying to convince community members to become FarmShare members. Why would someone do this crazy thing? Why on Earth would someone pay a farmer a huge chunk of money MONTHS before getting vegetables, and without even knowing what the vegetables will be? Why pay to have someone choose your produce for you? Why pay for produce that you don't even know if you'll like, and that you don't even get to choose to suit your menu for the week? 

I have a few good reasons. 

First off, I think for many people, the actual produce is secondary. The money that they give to me, their farmer, is their investment in a community - a human community as well as an ecological community. The money they pay me is their support for a system that I am striving to be a healthy, useful part of. The farmer and the members are making an agreement that locally, sustainably, ethically grown food is of importance to them. The members are saying, please, do this for us, and the farmer is saying, thanks for letting me do this for you. 

Secondly, the community of people at the farm is the best. All of our members come to the farm to pick up their veggies. This means, at least, they get reconnected to the place that grew their food when they come each week to get it. The farm is *their* farm - theirs to take walks on, have a picnic, swing by on the way home from (or to!) work to get the herbs they want for dinner. Even if they don't see any other people, the farm is here for them. Hopefully they do see people, though - one of their farmers, to answer questions about the weird vegetable in the share this week, or something ELSE to do with kale, or even just commiserate about the weather. And hopefully, they get to see some of their fellow members, for a chat in the picking garden while they harvest cherry tomatoes, or to exchange recipes. They are in this together - fellow members of a sisterhood of the faithful - those that have faith in the soil and in us, the hopeful farmers tending it.

Finally, the food. Same-day harvest means you're getting as much nutrition as possible from these tender, ephemeral veggies - no cross-country road trips here! Food harvested by someone you know also feeds something more than your stomach. When you eat food from your FarmShare, you know that you are contributing to 1. land that won't be turned into a housing development, but will continue to produce food for the community 2. the livelihood of a family in your community, a family that chooses to invest in other local businesses and thereby bolster the economy where you live and 3. a small farm that focuses on minimizing its negative environmental impacts in the community where you live (no effluent ponds here! no high-nitrate runoff into the Quackenkill here!).

So, that's why people choose to give up a little control over what is in their baskets of produce. The wonderful people who are members of my FarmShare community are making other choices, which have ripples far beyond their dinner plates.

Thank you to my community. Thank you for making all of this possible.

Hope and Madness

Today I potted up the first plants of the season. I seeded them back at the beginning of February, and today, their leaves were large enough that I moved them along to a larger pot. While I worked, I had time to reflect on thoughts that have been stirring around for a few days. The kernel of all these thoughts is the mind-blowing amazingness of a seed. Sure, everyone knows that an acorn, given time, can become an oak. But have you really thought about it? Have you really tried to stretch your mind to think through all that goes in to a poppy seed becoming a three-foot-tall poppy plant, laden with flowers and then with millions of seeds of its own? 

Many of the seeds I have been sowing lately are for flowers, rather than vegetables, and it seems that many of these seeds are incredibly tiny. A packet labeled "1,000 seeds" has enough in it to fit in a half teaspoon with room to spare. It's just boggling to try to think of all that potential locked up in such a small package. And that's just the strictly biological potential of the seed - think of the cultural, food, and pharmaceutical potential! I have been learning lately from Rowen White about the indigenous seeds of North America, and the people who  grew them and created the varieties that they stewarded. It is amazing to think of all the variety and meaning wrapped up in that variety. 

Seeds are, for me, the most obvious summary of the wonder that is the natural world. When I think about this farm that we steward, and the name that we have given it, Laughing Earth, the song that plays in the background of my mind is Sonoran Hope and Madness, by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. The relevant lyric goes like this:

"And while the rest of us were sleeping
She sent flowers gently creeping
And the waters slowly seeping through
The cracks in the pavement and the cracks in the dam
So now everything we steal away
We know someday she´ll take it back again"

Some people may find it a bit dark to take such joy in our ending, in our impermanence, but that's not really how I think about it. I am taking joy in the cycle, in the ongoing flow of life, with or without us, and especially without us. It somehow takes the pressure off of me to try to fix everything, knowing that all I accomplish will be erased anyway. Life finds a way to continue. Seeds lay dormant, in the soil, in a jar, packed away, waiting for an opportunity. Water finds a way, through the air, through the soil, through eons of time. Down with empire, up with Spring, as Ed Abbey would say! We are all stardust, as Carl Sagan would say.

So why do anything, if everything we do is wiped away with time? Well, for the joy of it. I love the thought of helping Mother Nature along, helping her scouts of flowers creep over more of the world, making pathways for water to flow. There is joy in forging a mutualistic relationship with a plant. Without the indigenous people of Central America, there would be no corn, and many of them would argue that without corn, they would not be who they are. Corn needs us, and we need corn. Cows need us; they would not do very well as wild animals. I think it is the most human thing we can do, to create a relationship with the living world. To dive deep and let slip the mask we wear in society - maybe even try to reshape our society into a place where we don't need that mask.

My mother, an historian, tells me that in the 1870 census, many men who owned businesses - mills and the like - and also owned farms, listed themselves as farmers on the census. It was desirable to be a farmer in those days. Land was the source of power. I am not saying that we should go back to 1870s society - I have other issues with things that were going on, and I *really* appreciate running water - but I am saying that we need to get back to acknowledging the power held in land. We need to elevate those that work with the land to feed us all, and give back the control of that land to the people who need that land to survive. Maybe I'm biased, but I think that farming is the most important profession - not that there aren't other important ones! - and that we humans, our relationship with the land is the most important one that we can steward. 

I'm sure I have much, much more to say about the value of our relationship with land, but probably this crazy person has rambled on enough. In closing, some more of my favorite poetry, relevant to my thoughts in this post. An excerpt from Wendell Berry's Mad Farmer Liberation Front:

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Community and the path forward

Today I am feeling very grateful to my elders. I don't mean old people, I mean those who walked this path before me. Those who walked this path before I discovered it, who improved the trail, built the bridges, and made a map. Those who did all that so that they could use the trail, but then stayed to help guide me as well. 

Farming is not an easy business. There is no kind of farming that is easy. Small-scale, sustainable, diversified farming is an especially difficult business. Not only are we growing food, but we are also trying to change people's minds, repair damaged ecosystems, alleviate climate change, build communities where they have been hollowed by the ravages of a capitalist economy that cares not for human lives, repair people's severed connections with the natural world ... In other words, there's a big load to carry. Maybe not all of my farming peers feel that this is their job description, but I do, and I often feel like I'm in the middle of the ocean riding on an inflatable pool toy. In this line of work, the community of fellow farmers is everything.

Today I had the pleasure of receiving knowledge and guidance from one of my elders, someone not so old in years but deep in his well of understanding. Sitting at his table, talking through what he has seen and what we are struggling with felt like climbing aboard a ship after being adrift in that ocean. There's hope. There are others feeling this way, others working through these problems, and workable solutions are attainable. We can succeed, and are not doomed to poverty and losing the farm and whatever other horrible fates visit my mind in the darkness of night. 

I left his house feeling so flooded by gratitude, that he had spent so much of his valuable time - not just on us, mind you, he is a mentor, a guide on the trail, to an entire generation of farmers - to reassure us and to show us where to go and how to build something successful. Here is someone who understands what a community is. When one of us is raised up, it raises us all. A rising tide lifts all ships, if you have a ship. So help the others get a ship, too, or pull them on board yours. 

Our mentor and his partner are exemplary in the community in their commitment to raising us all as they are raised, in distributing their earned knowledge as widely and as thoroughly as they possibly can. They are not the exception, though. I am so glad to be a member of a peer group that by and large views each other as co-conspirators rather than competitors. Our "competitors" are the industrial food system, human lethargy and ignorance about what we're doing to the world, and environmental degradation. Our fellow farmers are equally as important to our success as we ourselves are. I am glad to have been brought into farming by mentors such as these, who have gifted me with an abundance mindset, rather than a view of scarcity. See all that we have to work with - Sun, soil, water,  flora, fauna, people with such towering gifts. Such a huge net of interactions to learn from, to draw on, to benefit from. 

Spending time with mentors such as these helps me to re-center myself into a positive focus on the things that matter. We are here to grow life, to grow love, to leave things better than we found them. I only hope that, when given the opportunity, I offer similar help to those following me down the path.