new website

Hi folks!
Just want to let everyone know we've moved to a new website - chubbybunnyfarm.com. Go there to find out all about the farm, this years CSA shares and our new newsletter blog. see you there!

Early Bird CSA Distribution

Greetings folks!

We are happy to announce this week mark's the first CSA Pickup. It is a little earlier than usual, but we've got lots of greens ready now. We usually like to have some radishes, too, but they are on their way. This week's pick up includes lettuce mix, beautiful heads of buttercrunch, spinach, dandelion greens and oregano. Check out our recipe page for ideas on what to do with the impending bounty of greens!

Unfortunately Dan wasn't able to participate in the first harvest. We were taking him to doctor's appointments and the ER and he narrowly escaped a spinal tap! It looks like he's got another attack of the dreaded Lyme's Disease. Not great timing....not that there is ever a good time for Lyme's. Our apprentices, Chris and Josh, did their first harvest by themselves and did a great job. Chris has had some experience with harvesting for us - he was a big help right after Bea's birth last summer and when Dan got his first case of Lyme's about 3 weeks later! What would we do without him? Dan is on the meds and we are hoping for a speedy recovery and trying to do everything possible to avoid ticks. A huge feat considering the jungle we live in.

We're happy to welcome many new members to the farm this year. We do have a bunch of memberships still availale. It is not too late if you know any folks who are interested but haven't signed up yet. Thanks to those of you who have chatted up the farm to your friends!! One generous person who can't use all the veggies but wanted to support the farm has actually donated a share to help out a local family!! If you are interested in helping a family from your town have access to a bounty of healthy food let us know! We can get in touch with your town's social worker to find out who could use it.

Look for a mention about the farm in Peggy O'Brien's column inthe Lakeville Journal this week. Bookmark this blog to stay up to date on the news from the farm and the weekly harvest. We're hoping to update every week, probably by Monday evenings. Have a great week and enjoy those first greens!

Upcoming CSA Open House

Mark your calenders folks! On Saturday May 13th we'll be having a CSA Open House at the farm from 1-4pm. We'll have farm tours, music and refreshments and will also be selling Heirloom tomato plants. Bring the family and a friend!

Things have been very busy down at the farm. We've planted our new orchard, new strawberry beds, more rhubarb and a few grape vines. We won't see a harvest from these this year but it feels good to get these projects started. As for this year, we've got lots of crops in the ground already - lots of spring greens, all the onions and all of the potatoes. We increased our potato planting to 1000 pounds! We have a nice big field of about 15 beds of potatoes now. Thankfully we had a bunch of help planting them this year. Hilda and Joe Miller from Lakeville came over with their crew of kids, Joanne (Dan's mom) brought some volunteers from Hotchkiss and Corey (Tracy's dad) helped out, too.

Speaking of helpers, our new apprentice Josh, started last week. It is a big relief to have another pair of hands down at the farm. We are still in the process of hiring our second apprentice. For some reason it is taking longer than we expected. Where are all the idealistic young aspiring farmers who want to work hard for long hours for little pay and live "close" to the land in our cozy, modest trailers? Hopefully, there is at least one more out there for us this year! It certainly makes us feel like old curmudgeons when we are sitting aroung saying, back when we apprenticed..... On the bright side maybe it is just that there are many more organic farms now so potential apprentices have more options to choose from. Nevertheless, our little valley farm is one of the prettiest.

Our desire for another apprentice is also due to the fact that we are hoping to increase our farm membership by 50 percent. We are getting a lot of inqueries and there seems to be enough interest in the area - hence the Open House on the 13th. We thought it would be a great chance for newcomers to CSA to find out about how farm, how CSA works and get to talk to our current members. It should also be alot of fun with some great bluegrass music! Hope to see you there!

New Farm Friends

Hello Friends! Joining us now on the farm are 2 new piggies, Liam & Donald. They are Tamworths and are about 4 months old. They are taking the place of last year's two goats. It seems that a lot of folks are hungry for pastured pork. We figured we should convert all our old veggies into bacon. Of course, we hope they'll be our friends along the way. We hear alot about the challenges and nuances of raising pigs and we're sure you'll get to hear all about our glories and faux pas along the way. For now, they are settling well and getting to know us. They've been especially enjoying milk from our neighbors!

Dan has started to learn sheep shearing the old fashioned way, by hand. We bought electric clippers, only to lose a part. With only 3 ewes we figured why not give the old way a shot. It seems like one of those skills that is good to know, but surely a work in progress. Especially if you only get three chances a year.



The greenhouse is already bursting and overflowing. We've moved out onions, leeks and some greens for hardening off. Here you can see Bea helping out her Papa potting on celery.
This week we've recieved quite a large shipment of soil ammendments. Dan can wait to get out there and start spreading. Perhaps he'll give an update about what we put on and why, but for now things are pretty busy for him as our apprentices haven't started yet. We've signed up one apprentice, Josh from down the road at Camp Isabella Freidman. He'll be starting with us soon. We are still trying to round out our help for the season and really hope to get that done soon. By the end of the month, we'll have plenty in the ground already, most notably potatoes.

Happy Spring!

Is it really spring? I'd love to have some warmer weather, but I have seen crocuses. We've been starting to get busy down in the greenhouse. It may be hard for some to believe, but we've already started celeriac, celery, tomatoes, some herbs, onions, leeks and greens! Celeriac won't be harvested until October! Only garlic is in the ground longer (9 months). We are so looking forward to spring! Finally the chance to get our hands dirty again! The greenhouse will soon be bursting with greenery. We love working in there in the heat with the smell of soil mix and listening to the chickens and other birds outside. Bea seems to like it too. We wear her on our backs while we're seeding and she seems pretty happy. She sure will be a force to be reckoned with once she starts crawling!

The big news here this week was the decision to go ahead and order trees for our new orchard! We've been eager to start an orchard for years and finally stopped putting it off. This year we'll be planting mostly apples and a few peaches and grapes. The orchard will start small, with about 25 trees. We've ordered several different varieties, some lesser known like Geneva, Liberty, as well as our favorites, macouns and mutsus. Don't start salivating yet, though. It takes about three to five years before you get fruit. We thought we better get going so Bea can some of our own fruit before she's a teenager.

Dan is so jazzed up to get things growing this spring. He's been busy ordering soil amendments and things like fish & seaweed emulsion for foliar feeding. We've also bought pallet forks for the tractor, soil mix, irrigation lines, black plastic and row cover. It is easier to try to get this type of ordering done in the spring instead of the day before you need it, when you have a zillion other things going on. So it might sound like we're on a spending spree, but that is how it works. We try to get all our ducks lined up in a row, so when the season is really upon us, we can stay focused on the task at hand. This is where your CSA payments come in handy! It is much nicer to write a check than rack up credit card debt. This is how it is every spring. The more members pay ahead, the less we have to rely on the credit cards. So thanks for your payments and sending new members our way!

A few reminders - we have lots of eggs for sale, at the house and at White Hollow Farm and we are still taking orders for heirloom tomato plants. And we still have CSA shares available.

Enjoy the spring and longer days and soon to come buds!

Lambs!

There are new lambs at Chubby Bunny!!!
All of our ewes lambed in one weekend. Lulu kicked things off on Friday the 17th and had a ewe and a ram. The next day Liza had a ewe and on Monday morning Lizzy had a ewe and a ram as well. They are all doing very well. In the beginning it always seems a little difficult, especially for Lulu who tends to be a little slow with her mothering instincts. The weather doesn't help much. Our neighbor Eileen Kinsella told us that her sheep always seem to lamb during a storm. While we didn't quite get the blizzard some did it seems that those mild winter days have left us and we are back to the real thing again. If the moms don't take to the young right away we are left wondering when to intervene and "tube them". Dan saw that Lizzy's lambs didn't seem to be latching on yet. So he stripped some colostrum from Lizzy and gave each of her lambs a dose with the stomach tube. It isn't a decision to be made lightly, but when it is so cold and you have doubts about the little ones... well, we're glad to have the tubes on hand. The spring back pretty quickly and perk right up. We really love this part of farming. Seeing new life in the spring is such a joy.

In other news... we just became aware of the Old-Style Lifestyle Skills courses offered by Motherhouse in Cornwall. Motherhouse, founded by Local Farmer Debra Tyler,i s a non-profit organization dedicated to providing time, place, and support for all mothers and their families. Debra says that cows are the ultimate nurturers and teach us about the essence of mothering and nursing. We've added their link to our blog so please check them out. The workshop series includes organic gardening, beekeeping, pickling and a lot more. Also check out their calendar for contra dances and mother-daughter retreats.....

Dan has been hard at work pruning apple trees. There is still time to get your trees on his schedule if you call soon!

winter at the farm

Hello CSA members, friends, family....

Welcome to our new blog! Hopefully this will be alot easier than sending out our weekly newsletter from the farm. Well, without getting into the boring details of our lack of technological skills, here's what's happening at the farm:

We've just recieved our seed orders! We are going to be growing a whole assortment of new varieties this year. Dan found a seed catalog with lots of European varieties that we've never grown before, so despite this weekend's snow we are already getting excited about starting up the greenhouse! OK, maybe not that excited yet.

Lulu and Lizzy are both expecting so we should see some lambs any day now, probably before the end of the month! The chickens are doing well, too. Now that the days are getting longer we're getting more eggs. If you can't make it out to us to get eggs you can now pick them up at the Cockerlines at White Hollow Farm on Saturdays.

We are still signing up CSA members, so if you haven't renewed yet or know someone interested in joining for the 2006 season, now is a great time to send in your membership! Thanks to everyone who has already done so.