Kids, Turkeys, Veggies Galore

Hello, all! Thanks for checking in. It's the busiest time of the year on the farm between all the planting, harvesting and weeding, so although we're trying to keep this thing up to date, posts may be a little thin for a while. Just bear with us and keep checking back!

At the markets this week (Krankie's on Tuesday, 10 AM to 1 PM, Dixie Classic Fairgrounds this Saturday, 6 AM) we'll have more delicious rainbow chard, white chard, green and red leaf buttercrunch lettuce and sugar snaps. Get there early or you won't get the goods, folks.

We got our turkey poults! We ordered 40, and they came in the mail as 2-day old little fuzzballs. We've lost a few sickly ones, which is to be expected but always sad anyway. Unfortunately the hatchery only refunds for those that don't make it in the first few days, so our profit loss has begun already! But when they chirp and get visibly bigger every day, it's still worth it.


In other news, we had 20+ 4-5 year olds come to the farm last Friday for a field trip! It was great. We taught them about how things grow, how we use good bugs to control the bad ones, and how to hold a turkey without squeezing the life out of it. A good time was had by all, I think. Except for maybe the turkeys...

TTD, This Week at Market

Hello, faithful friends! We had a good week last week, as we attended our first markets of the season and had great success. As I said in my last post, the Krankie's Market was all we hoped it would be, and we look forward to more and more customers there. The Dixie Classic Fairgrounds Market (Saturday, 6 AM to 12 PM) was wonderful - Jeff sold out of everything he brought, which was a lot. We welcomed familiar faces and met some new customers who we hope to make into regulars through delicious food and great service. It's the only way to do it!

Saturday was also Tomato Transplant Day (long day for poor Jeff)! The work started at noon, and the menfolk quit at 8 PM even though everything wasn't planted. We still have 6 rows to go, but the hardest parts are done. Those parts would be laying black plastic, pounding 100 t-bars into hard ground and then attaching wire fencing to them for trellising. 10 rows, each 100 feet - it's a lot of manual labor and we REALLY appreciate the help we got from Scott Jackson, who has been working with us since last season and is indispensable, and from Xavier (don't know his last name), an organist from France. Yep, France. Sugar Creek Farm's reputation is transatlantic! He is a friend of Jeff's co-worker, and told Jeff that he wanted to do some farm work before he heads back to France at the end of May. He insists that he was warned it would be a long day, and he stayed for dinner so he must not have been too mad! He was a hard worker and a lovely person to have around, so we thank him sincerely. Jeff and Scott would not have been able to get all those posts in the ground without his help, although I am sure they would have collapsed before they quit trying. A strong work ethic, those two. Below is a picture at the end of the day. Scott on the left, Jeff in the middle, Xavier on the right (at least we gave him some lettuce and eggs?). And a little pixie in the middle!


Special thanks also to Bill and BG, who helped by providing childcare, planting assistance and pizza dough!! We'll have more delicious rainbow and white swiss chard and red and green buttercrunch lettuce this week. Snap beans coming soon! See you at the market!