Farm Gathering

I got to have a mom's day today! In the middle of the week! Can you believe it? When I heard about a local food expo going on in our area, I was interested. Since it fell on a Wednesday, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it. But, as you may or may not know, my hubs is pretty sweet. He took the day off to hang with the kids :-)

I knew it was going to be a good day when I found out Fish Hawk Acres was going to be catering the event. The $10 fee was more than worth it for the lovely breakfast and lunch we had! The idea for the expo was to bring farmers and buyers (as in restaurants and stores) together to learn more about the opportunities to mesh local foods.

I met up with my friend Laura from Sweet Wind Farm and Cheri from Bonds Creek Farm. We attended a morning breakout session on alternative certifications for farms. It is a costly process for a small farm to become certified organic. A farm can follow organic practices and instead of shelling out the moolah for that organic label, they can become certified naturally grown (CNG). It seemed like a viable option for small farms in the area!

Then it was time for lunch. Yum! I may have had seconds of dessert. No judgements, please....

The first afternoon session I attended was for fruit production. There were so many good points raised in this talk! What's the first thing that sells out at a Farmers Market? Fruit! This talk focused on berries, mainly strawberries, blueberries,  and raspberries. It really got the wheels turning for Dan and I to work with our wild black raspberries to increase productivity. The canes are already there, so there's no cost involved other than our time. And we absolutely adore the berries. In case you don't remember the loveliness that is wild black raspberries...

The last talk of the day that I listened in on was by a poultry professor with WVU on raising backyard birds. He was a great presenter, even though Laura and I didn't agree totally with what he was saying. It opened some good dialog, though!

There was a "pop up" market outside after the event. I picked up some more honey and grabbed some honey chapstick. I'm hoping to start making my own soon, but this is pretty fantabulous for now. And I came home to two happy kiddos!

First Autumn CSA

The leaves are starting to change here in West Virginia. We have some of the most beautiful fall foliage in the country during October. We get some pretty spectacular views at the house, so I hope to have some neat pictures to share with you over the course of the next few weeks!

It's always somewhat depressing to know that the summer Farmers Market season is coming to an end. We only have two more weeks of a summer market left until the winter market starts. To help ease my sadness about the ending of the market, I stocked up on some summer produce for my CSA box this week.

I picked up a dozen ears of corn, bell peppers, apples, tomatoes, and a huge watermelon. We had some corn last night that was delicious. And we enjoyed some watermelon for dessert. We ate outside and the chickens loved us because we shared our rinds with them.

I roasted a pumpkin from the garden this weekend and I am looking forward to going to the Springs Folk Festival later this week. Dan is ordering some things to make hard cider from the unpasteurized apple cider I pick up for him by the gallon. I also snag a gallon jug of maple syrup. We love that! On the road to the festival, there is an Amish family that generally has a few wagon loads of goods. This is where we got hooked on delicata squash. You can pick up pie pumpkins for $0.50 or $1 and other squashes for just as affordable. I'm looking forward to stocking up on some to throw in our root cellar.

What plans do you have for fall? I'll share some progress on painting the chicken coop and our fall garden this week! Happy Monday!

CSA, CSA, CSA

C. S. A! Come on, cheer with me now! We really are so thankful for Fish Hawk Acres. Chef Dale is making such huge strides in the local food movement in the state, as well as Appalachia. During the summer, we sometimes pick our own produce from the Farmers Market stand for the week. Yesterday, I was at the Mother Earth News Fair so Dan and the kids got to pick our box. They did pretty well! Sweet corn, red peppers, hot peppers (habanero and cayenne - he plans to dehyrdate it), onions, apples, poblano peppers, and cucumbers. You can tell the summer season is starting to wind down and for me at least, my tummy is getting ready for the fall and winter foods!

Speaking of Mother Earth News, I have so much to share with you. I hope to do a blog each day this week talking about something different I saw while there. It was a day out by myself and I enjoyed it. It got me excited for the future! Stay tuned :-)

CSA Wednesday

We tried something a little different this week. Instead of me picking out our box, I let Dale from Fish Hawk Acres do it for me. I tend to gravitate toward the same produce over and over again, but that's not the point of the CSA. The point is to get a wide variety of in season goodies. Since Dale is a chef, he picked out some really awesome looking veggies and things we wouldn't normally pick!

Dale picked for us some heirloom tomatoes, poblano peppers, a sweet jalapeno (the flavor of jalapeno without the heat!), shiitake mushrooms, red candy apple onion, white candy onion, eggplant, a chocolate bell pepper, tomatillos, and some new potatoes. Everything looks fantastic!

An idea of what we'll do with the produce this week - I made some potato soup with bacon. I'm planning some mashed potatoes to go along with a grassfed beef roast and green beans from our garden, and this weekend, I have my eye on a recipe for butternut squash and mushroom enchiladas with a tomatillo sauce. I have some butternut frozen from last fall and I want to use it up before we get our harvest this year. We're already sitting at about 2 dozen as long as the chickens leave them alone!

What local things are you cooking up this week?

CSA Sunday

Another beautiful day at our local farmers market! And more delicious goodies from Fish Hawk Acres! Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, peppers, cookies, orzo salad, and a pepperoni roll!

Has anyone tried zucchini fries? I'm going to give them a go this week!

CSA Wednesday

Greens! And spring onions! And baby beets! By golly, spring is here. We love our friends at Fish Hawk Acres!

PS - don't forget, chick day is TOMORROW!

CSA Wednesday

Greens, spring onions, bread, brussel sprouts, potatoes, and eggs! There is just something special about fresh food.

CSA Wednesday

The sun was back out today after waking up to 24° temps this morning. We are itching to start planting in our garden and should be able to start this weekend!

To help ease the "we don't have anything in the ground yet" blues, our CSA box delivered some seriously cool goodies this week.

Carrots, potatoes, brussel sprouts, basil, granola, ramps, and salt. Salt?! From WV?

This is some pretty awesome stuff you guys. And you know it's spring in Appalachia when there's ramps! An odiferous vegetable that is part onion, part garlic. Hello spring! 

And granola! While I love making our own granola, this is delicious. What a fun box this week!

CSA Wednesday

I'm digging the warmer weather! And of course, the slight changes we are seeing in our CSA boxes. This week brings us bread, kale, lettuce, green onions, carrots, and potatoes - yum!

CSA Wednesday

The weather is certainly brightening up around here! And I was super psyched to see radishes in our box this week! We also got salad greens, spinach, potatoes, brussel sprouts, and eggs.

Tomorrow I am going to an afternoon of fun for a Women In Agriculture event. Fish Hawk Acres is catering it and Dale will be giving a cooking demo. There will also be bee keeping and canning demos. I can't wait! I'll try to snap lots of pictures to share!

CSA Wednesday

Back to our normally scheduled CSA box from our friends at Fish Hawk Acres! This week brings greens, carrots, scallions, and potatoes. The scallions smell heavenly!

CSA Wednesday

I really love greens in the winter. I am more of a winter salad type of girl. And parsnips. Oh, parsnips!

This week's CSA box definitely didn't disappoint. Fresh greens, Swiss chard, bok choy, turnips, parsnips, a butternut squash, and giant beet!

I feel so much better while eating seasonally. Nature has a way of providing us with what we need during each season.

What would you make with these veggies?

Check out www.wvfishhawkacres.com to sign up for a box or get some last minute Christmas goodies!