Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We're wishing you all the best as days lengthen, and this annual cycle begins anew. Today's sun is shining bright, but winds are howling, and the temperature is a chilly 7 degrees. The pace of our work has become weather dependent. Our preparations for the day revolve around warm clothing… as much as you can comfortably move in! We Layer socks, boots, long johns, balaclava, and stocking caps before even considering braving the elements. Once outside, the first chore of the day is opening the remote cattle winter waterer, to which there is a quarter mile “hike” to access (we don’t even want to try to start an engine in this extreme cold). Despite our initial worries, the water has remained largely thawed, only accumulating a thin layer of ice overnight, to be broken by cow snout or rubber mallet in the morning. Despite this especially wintry weather the cattle herd has been getting on well and appreciating the windbreak we set out ahead of the latest arctic blast!
From there, we check in on the sheep flock, their grumpy guard donkey (she does not like winter at all) and her faithful companion, Moonshine (and ancient horse that assists her). The donkey likes to complain about the weather, but all are in good shape. Our last stop is the hen house, where we have been continually impressed to find their hoop house heated to well above freezing, by their own respiration and the composting of their straw bedding. Happy hens lay better eggs and based on the vibrant golden yolks we’re still seeing in the depths of winter; these girls are in good spirits. Barely past the winter solstice and anticipating longer days, we are already searching the seed catalogs and dreaming of planted garden beds.
In recent news, we're excited to announce the launch of our new revamped website, which we hope will make it that much easier for folks to place orders, keep up to date with farm goings on, and generally do business with us. We are perhaps even more excited to let you know that we will be beginning construction of a brand new on-farm store! Our goal is not only to build a place where customers can purchase the best food this farm has to offer, but also provide a level of transparency that allows anyone to see exactly how that food was produced and why it's well worth the money. Besides all this we're looking forward to some additional exciting farm improvements. Stay tuned for updates as things get underway!
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