Eric didn't really want to buy a new dump truck but Keenann insisted

Farm update:

There’re only so many ways to say it’s been a challenge. We feel like the weather has been relentlessly working against us. We planted red and green bac choi in our greenhouse along with scallions. We are getting ready for our first outdoor seeding and we’ll be transplanting kale, swiss chard, broccoli, beets, onions, etc. in earnest starting this week. The two new Rimol greenhouses still need to be built, but the site work is finally done. Our second skiddable chicken tractor is ready for it’s final touches. Last week we received 1000 laying hens that are happily acclimating to their new home. The piglets are doing well, and we’ll have our first round of meat birds processed next week.

A story:

Sixteen years ago, when I started farming, I bought three Earthway seeders at a Gardner Supply Warehouse sale. They cost me $45 each, and I bolted them together to make a “gang seeder”. A lot has happened in the past 16 years. We now own a fully diversified farm, complete with tractors, all sorts of equipment, greenhouses, etc. But at the end of the day when something needs to get seeded we pull out the Earthway seeders. Assuming the gang cost me

Our friends at Does Leap had "kids"

$150 total, and we’ve done some minor repairs over the years, we’re still talking about $15 per year. Call it the end of an era, or maybe a mistake, but this week we received our new Sutton seeder. Total cost?? $6000. We purchased it with our neighbors at Full Moon Farm, so our half ended up being $3000, but still!! Funny thing is Dave at Full Moon was reluctant to part with his Earthway seeders after twelve years. Hopefully, if all goes well we’ll be telling the story fifteen years from now of how we bought our Sutton seeder for “only” $3000

Top Ten Live Albums:

Chicken tractor number #1 is finished and in production

If you’ve ever been to the farm, you might have noticed that we almost always have music playing. Whether in the packing shed or the fields, we live by the words our friend Louie Pulver who told us years ago “Always have tunes.”  Live music seems to be preferable for a work atmosphere, so this week’s list’s:

RMF Top 10 live albums (in no particular order)

- Wilco “Kicking Televsion”

- Leonard Cohen “Live in London”

- Jay Farrar “Stone, Steel and Bright Lights”

- Bob Marly “Live Forever”

- Nirvana “MTV Unplugged”

- Matisyahu “Live at Stubbs”

- Zac Brown “Pass the Jar”

- Grateful Dead “Dick’s Pick’s Vol. 29″

- Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunder’s “Well Matched”

- The Decemberist “Live at Soho”

Keenann hard at work in the greenhouse

Our neighbor Farmer Joe helped out with prepping the fields

The production greenhouse is in full swing

Summer Sign-up time:

We are very excited for this year. Our CSA has grown rapidly and is keeping us energized after sixteen years of farm ownership. If you are interested in a summer share, the time is now. Our new software

Farmer Will inspects CSA boxes

program “Farmigo” makes signing up for the 2011 season very easy. As an added bonus you can create an account with the farm and fund it for as little as $100. In addition to summer shares we will maintain an on-line store this year. So you will have the ability to add items to your shares as you see fit. It’s going to be a great season and we hope you’ll join us!

Molly the Maremma:

Molly hard at work

Our line of pastured eggs “Eric’s Eggs” is the fastest growing component of our business. Raising birds outdoors presents certain challenges that don’t exist in a barn. We skid housing around the farm and protect the birds from coyotes and other predators using electric fencing. We haul water and feed and collect eggs by hand, the old fashion way. Owls and hawk were the one challenge we didn’t have a good answer for. Aerial predation is a big problem. Maremma sheepdogs have incredible protection instincts and are bred to guard livestock.  Known in the business as “LGD’s” (livestock guard dogs), they are happiest working. A couple of weeks ago we adopted Molly from a farm in Mass. She had been working sheep her entire life, but she took to chickens with zero problems. Soon she will be joined by a puppy.

What’s going on:

A lot!! We are repairing our big production greenhouse which took a big hit during the December 1st storm. We are also building two new greenhouses and two large skidable houses for laying hens. We are seeding crops for summer production, and delivering our Spring shares. Very soon we expect to be doing tractor work out in the field. No doubt about it the 2011 season is in full swing.

Piglets!! A sure sign of spring.

Updates:

A friend recently posted on her Facebook page “I’m glad it’s dark outside so that I can’t see how miserable it is” another posted “Thanks mother nature I love you to”. It’s been a tough winter for sure. We have a lot of projects we need to get to, and we’re fighting an upstream battle. The December 1 st wind storm blew the plastic off of our main production greenhouse. We’ve been unable to repair it due to excessive snow and sub zero temps. We also are anxious to get to work on our two new state of the art Rimol greenhouses. Currently these 34×96′ greenhouses are scattered in parts throughout the farm, our excavator’s machinery sits idle waiting for the thaw. We have two large mobile poultry houses waiting to be assembled. These scissor truss structures were constructed in our squash storage barn, and will house some lucky birds this summer. We often refer to farming as “the battle”. It’s a good thing we love a challenge.

Destination Port Clyde:

Crew at Port Clyde hard at work peeling your shrimp

We are very intrigued by the Community Supported Fishery concept and are excited to incorporate seafood in to our on-line store. We had planned a trip to Port Clyde in January (the heart of the Maine shrimp season), but mother nature had different ideas. So last week we loaded in to the farm’s Tundra and headed to Maine to procure a hundred pounds of shrimp. First stop, Duckfat. Bon Appetite named Portland, Me the best small “Foodie City” in America. Duckfat is very, very good. We dined on Duckfat poutine, meatloaf panini’s and washed it all down with homemade Grapefruit/Ginger Soda. On to Rockland  for the night and another excellent meal at Cafe Miranda. Early to rise, head down the peninsula and out to Port Clyde Fresh Catch. The shrimp season closed the day before, but the crew was hard at work peeling the last catch. Nice people, doing great work.

Employee Spotlight: Sam Ehrenfeld

This year our flock of laying hens will increase from 500 to 3000. We will farrow piglets for the first time, and expect to slaughter 40 feeder pigs. We will also raise 2500 meat birds and install perimeter fencing as step one of a future beef program. Since we are a vegetable farm first, this undertaking is beyond our capacity. Enter Sam. Sam has worked for the last two years at one of the most innovative CSA’s in the country, The Essex Farm. You can read all about this full diet CSA farm in the new book The Dirty Life. He will be managing our livestock and we hope to incorporate his considerable skills as a butcher in to our future business plans. We’re very lucky to have him.

Producer Spotlight: Dragonfly Sugarworks

Paul and Theo in the Dragonfly sugarbush

Membership has it’s advantages. Our friend Paul Limberty’s maple syrup is one of the most sought after maples in all of the land, and we’ll be carrying it! The Vermont food author Rowan Jacobson profiled this special maple operation in his outstanding book American Terroir, at the end of the chapter he included details of a tasting he performed. One of the judges, a thirteen year old girl, described one of the entries as “pure shit”. Paul’s was the only syrup to score a perfect 10. Dragonfly Sugarworks keeps a taste log and when a sap run produces something special they sell “Private Reserve”. Like we said earlier, membership has it’s privileges. Keeping checking the store.

Marketing Partner: BlueBird Tavern Kiosk

The chicken salad sandwich rocks!! Must be the ingredients. We always enjoy ours with a cup of French Press coffee. We have long list of clients waiting for us to expand our egg business. Soon the egg salad sandwiches at the kiosk will feature “Eric’s Eggs”. Oh yeah the candied bacon almonds aren’t half bad either, although we can’t take credit for the bacon. Web site at Blue Bird Tavern.

List:

We were going to list our favorite food blogs. Then we discovered this:

The Food blog blog

Farm Updates:

Spring CSA: we’ve scheduled 33 CSA pick-ups throughout the 2011 season. Last week was our first pick-up of the year as well as our first ever in Cambridge, Mass. The first eight pick-ups of the year are “Locavore shares”, meaning that we source bread and cheese from our friends and augment the share with our own eggs and veggies. There are seven more pick-ups available and plenty of room for more members.  Our check-out wizard will automatically pro-rate your share if  you decide to join.

Last week we visited our friends at Does’ Leap Farm. We’re huge fans, to say the least. Check out their web site by clicking here. We’ve added as an option to the summer share, Does’ Leap Cheese. This is twenty weeks of cheese (5 varities) for $140. The cheese will be delivered along with your summer share.

Our on-line store is up and going. We had a slight hiccup our first week of using it. The program is suppose to shut down the store 48 hrs. before each delivery in order to allow us time to process orders. Unfortunately, it shut down on Saturday and never re-opened because we did not program the hours specific to each delivery day. Easy problem to fix which we have done. If you are not yet a member you can preview our store by clicking here.

We’re going solar!! We will be taking advantage of All Earth Renewables innovative lease to own program coupled with  incentives from the state. This will allow us to install two All Sun Trackers, and cover 2/3 of the farm’s electric needs using solar power, pretty cool.

We’ve been farming for sixteen seasons now. A lot can go wrong in farming, and we’ve suffered some wicked set backs in those years. Having our farm’s Facebook page disappear without a trace doesn’t even register in the top 100. We’re left with no choice but to start over from scratch. We’ve set-up a new farm page (Rockville Market Farm) as well as a page dedicated to eggs called “Poultry in Motion” . You can lend your moral support and “like” them.

Employee spotlight: Ralph Cota

Excellent neighbor Ralph Cota

We bought our farm from the Vermont Land Trust, but it was part of the Cota Farm. The little road we live on is called Cemetery Road, and we’re the only non-Cota household on the road. Ralph has been with us every step of this adventure. You simply couldn’t ask for a better neighbor. Retired dairy farmers can’t sit still for long, and Ralph’s always willing to help out. As an added bonus he has selective amnesia when it comes to keeping track of his hours.

Producer spotlight: It’s Arthur’s Fault

We’re really excited to bring a wide range of products to our members via our on-line store. Vermont is blessed with some special talents when it comes to food. It’s Arthur’s Fault offers a full range of condiments to spice up your meal. Our favorites are  the Peanut Sate Sauce and Ginger Carmel Sauce (we put it on apples). Every Saturday Arthur and his daughter set up across the park from us at the Burlington Farmer’s Market. Arthur’s a big guy, hard to miss in a crowd. We instantly liked him, and look forward to a long partnership.

pigs keeping cozy in Port-a-hut

Marketing partner: American Flatbread/Burlington

A lot of restaurants say they support local agriculture. A handful are taking the concept to another level. American Flatbread in Burlington is a dream account for our farm. They buy our pork belly, to make house cured pancetta. They pay a very good price to use our sausage on their pizza, and even front us some money to cover the processing fee. Lastly, they use our chicken to make Buffalo Chicken Pizza, as a special. Good people, great pizza and unbelievable beer, we’re in love!

10 Great Pork Books:

-Pork and Sons

-Pig Perfect

-Primal Cuts

-Meat (River Cottage)

-Momofuko Cookbook

-Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery

-The Whole Beast (Ferguson)

-Living with Pigs

-Beyond Nose to Tail

-Complete Book of Pork

Work these days falls into three catagories:

Redundant: Animal chores in sub zero weather is simply not that much fun. Eggs need to be collected constantly throughout the morning so they don’t freeze. Animals need to be watered, which is a challenge and snow needs to be removed from the greenhouses. Snow and snow removal are a constant factor on the farm. Much like weeds in the summer.

Frustrating: We are very excited about the confluence of technology and food. Even though it seems a little counterintuitive we feel that the internet has the power to vastly influence the local food situation. So we made a decision to go “all in”. As part of this new effort we decided to embrace social media marketing. Eric’s daughter Louissa took over the reigns as Facebook guru and things were going very well. For some reason we’ve lost the ability to log-on to our Facebook page in order to administrate it. We’ve tried many, many different tactics and have worked with some very capable internet people, but so far we’ve had no luck and the page remains inaccessible. If anybody has ever heard of this and/or has any ideas we’re all ears.

Fun: We’ve got some big projects in the works. These will probably be moved in to the frustrating and redundant categories soon but for now we’re pumped. First, Silas Clark and Ralph (our neighbor) have been helping us build large movable poultry housing. These skidable houses will be 20′ x 40′  and will contain roosting and nesting options for the birds. Second, we’ll be building two 34′ x 96′ top vented Rimol greenhouses, which we’ll use for tomatoes and over wintering 2500 laying hens. Third, our spring CSA is forcing us to expand our crop repertoire. This week we’ll be sowing our first micro-greens. The over-wintered spinach appears to be doing fine and our accidental experiment “over wintered beets” seems like a potential success.

Spring CSA: We’re close to starting the 2011 CSA season. The first Spring CSA pick-up is scheduled for 2/22 at Healthy Living, 2/24 here at the farm as well as Harvest Coop in Cambridge, Mass. There’s still time to sign-up for the first pick-up and if you miss that we have the ability to pro-rate share as well. All shares with the exception of the first box will contain greens.If you’ve joined the spring CSA we will be sending you details shortly regarding the first pick-up.

Best guess for week  1:

3 seed bread from Bread and Butter Farm

1 tub of chevre cheese from Does Leap Farm

1 quart of saurkraut from Arethusa Farm

1 dozen eggs from Poultry in Motion (Eric’s Eggs)

Carrots

Onions

Potatoes

Watermelon radish

What’s in the store?

We are very excited to offer an on-line store for our members. This has been a fun project and we are excited to bring you a wide variety of products from our friends and neighbors. If  you are not going to join the Spring CSA you can still set up an account (called “store access”) and fund it with as little as $100. When you make purchases they will be delivered to the normal CSA drop site and the amount of the purchase will be deducted from your account. Bay of Maine Shrimp, Thick cut pork chops from the farm, Dragonfly Sugarworks Maple Syrup, a full line of “It’s Arthur’s Fault” condiments and the bomb “Master Sauce” from Folk Foods. Hungry yet?? We need your order 48 hrs. before the drop.

Eric’s Corner:

For a kid who grew up in the burbs it’s funny to think that I’ve been farming my entire adult life. The really fun thing about farming is that there’s alway a new challenge. The mountain can never be climbed. We like to think big on the farm, the future is unwritten. Here’s some of the vision.

-Poultry in Motion is a business that we feel needs to happen. This will be a spin off from our farm and will concentrate on pasture based poultry systems. We are very curious about the systems being designed in England. Movable poultry housing with solar powered egg collecting and feeding. Second effort, keeping food scraps out of the waste stream and feeding them to chickens will reduce feed cost, the excess will be composted for additional value. Processing spent hens and turning them in to value added dog food would be the ultimate. The traditional poultry industry is needs a shake up, it is fundamentally flawed.

-Fermentation- lacto fermented vegetables such as kimchi seems like a perfect storage crop.Dry sausage produced on farm would be pretty cool as well.

-We have been peeling butternut squash for seven seasons now and raising pigs for four. The seed we generate from our butternut peeling can be used to finish pigs, much in the same way that Spain uses acorns to finish their pigs. The fatty acids are effected by the oil of the seed crop which departs a distinct flavoring. It’s a great cycle. We are trying to perfect the system and develop a product, such as dry sausage, that will do justice to the pig.

Spring CSA Sign-Up: we are forging ahead with our Spring CSA plans. We are trying to generate 100 memberships by the first pick-up which is scheduled for Feb.22 at Healthy  Living or Feb. 24 here at the farm. It’s an ambitious goal since nobody really knows that we do a Spring CSA and we’ve done virtually no marketing. We believe that real food sells, once the Spring Locavore Share begins and people get their shares which will contain cheese, bread, Eric’s Eggs, micro-greens, spinach, onions, garlic, etc. it will all come together. The share cost $30/ box for 8 weeks which totals $240. Our new software check-out is in place and you can sign-up, create an account and fund it with as little as $100. As shares get delivered and/or you make purchases from the on-line store the amount will get deducted from your account. Once your balance reaches $25, you will need to re-charge the account in order to keep receiving the share. Speaking of the on-line store, we’ve stocked it with wild caught shrimp from the Bay of Maine, Master Sauce from Folk Foods and a full selection from It’s Arthur’s Fault, plus numerous odds and ends. If you know of a product we should be carrying let us know and we’ll add it. Quality trumps here, we only offer items that we believe in.

CSA Box Packing Inspriration

Last winter we visited what has to be the fastest growing CSA in the country “Johnson’s Backyard Garden” in Austin, Texas. On numerous levels we left hugely inspired and have been following Brenton Johnson ever since via the internet and RSS feeds. In December he blogged about how they pack their CSA boxes complete with great pictures taken by a local photographer. You can read the entire post by clicking here. We have long felt that if our CSA is to grow we need to get more stream lined in how we pack boxes. Assembly line seems to be the way to go. The picture to the left is one of the stations that our friend Silas Clark helped design and built. We look forward to testing the new process soon.

Pigs in Snow:

One of our favorite sites on the farm is big pigs in fresh white snow. The girl to the right is breed to our new boar, and assuming everything went well, will be farrowing her first litter in early April. This is the first year of our breeding program. We’ve got a lot to learn, but it should be an adventure.

Recipe Blog:

We were constantly surprised last year by how many of you enjoyed the recipe section of our newsletter. When we were working with Union Street Media to design the new web site, they came up with the idea of a recipe blog. You can add your own recipes, comment on other recipes and try some of the farm’s favorite recipes. Hope you enjoy this new feature!

This week we added Shelburne to our expanding list of neighborhood drops. We have set a goal of 20 sites to be delivered on Weds., Thurs., Friday with a Saturday pick-up at the Burlington Farmer’s Market. If  anybody has a potential neighborhood drop location we’d love to hear about it.

We spent a lot of time this winter researching different CSA models. The outcome is something based on the system used by farms that deliver year round. Here’s how it works:

1. Create an account
2. Fund it with either $100, $250, $400 or $600.
3. As shares get delivered and/or you purchase additional items from the store your account will be credited. In order to keep receiving shares you will need to authorize us to charge up your account.

This has numerous advantages for everybody involved. First you can create an account and reserve a spot in the CSA for as little as $100. Second you can purchase items from the store without having to pull out your credit card every time. Third the farm has the flexibility to offer a by week for vacationing members. Lastly administrative duties are considerably less on our end. We feel that this is an innovative break through in CSA farming, it should improve the overall experience considerably.

We are thrilled to be working with our friends at Union Street Media to customize our web presence. Take some time and explore the new site, follow us on twitter (we can’t believe it either) and Facebook. If you are joining the farm we hope you will find our new checkout procedure much improved. We have worked with the folks at Farmigo to ensure that it is as user friendly as possible.

Sign up today for our spring CSA. This will be a localvore style CSA meaning that we will source local Vermont products such as cheese and bread and also include fresh crops from our greenhouses. We grow spinach, radishes, hakurei turnips and mesclun in our early greenhouses. Our growing flock of happy hens will provide the eggs. This is a great way to fight off cabin fever and gear up for the summer CSA. The share is every other week for a total of eight drops, all to take place at the Healthy Living parking lot. It’s going to be awesome.