Farm Update: February 2016

Hello to all of our farm supporters, friends and family, near and far…

Hard to believe it is already the middle of February. Sure doesn’t feel like February here… we’ve skipped right past Spring into Summer this week – it is 90 degrees outside!

Here is our Farm Update for February 15, 2016:

LOOKING AHEAD

The bees are busy in our peach trees.
The trees are in full bloom and we are looking forward to a mid-June harvest.

blossoms

TODAY

Lots of Moro blood oranges still in our trees.
The fruit is very colorful, sweet and juicy! Available at our farm or through our online farm store.

2016bloods

NEW ADDITION

Our new 6 month old steer arrived on February 9th.
He will be with us for the next year.

2016newcow

Thank you again for all of your support. Stay tuned for more info on our approaching summer garden and peach/apricot harvest.

Happy farming,
Farmer Dave and Linda

Baby Chicks

The Farmer just recently purchased some new animals for the Farm… we introduce our newest members of the Farm – Bardrock and Jersey baby chicks, and baby turkey poults.   The turkeys have already grown so much just over the past week, and both the chicks and poults have recently become much more vocal, keeping us entertained with lots of little “cheep, cheeps” throughout the day.

Baby turkeys and chicks!

Meet Our 2012 Cow

Meet our newest cow:

Meet Stroganoff, aka "Strogy"

We recently acquired a young cow to raise on the Farm.  We are lucky to know a rancher out in Valley Center and took a trip out to his 900-acre farm to pick out our 2012 cow.  Strogy will be at the Farm for the next few months, so come on over and say hi!

Get The Freezers Ready

Monday night was a big night on the farm.  It was time for our cow to be processed.

Our longtime processor Paul came out Monday evening and did the job for us, in a quick and humane manner.  We are already talking about getting another cow from him in a few months, as well as getting fresh pork since we didn’t enjoy raising pigs long ago. He recently relocated to Valley Center so we now have another local source for good meat.

Paul's the man!

He loaded the sides of beef into his refrigerated truck, one for David and Linda, and the other for Ryan and Lindsay.  For the past few cows we’ve raised, we’ve been splitting the cost of the cow with them and splitting the meat.

The meat, now ready for the butcher

In about two weeks, the meat will be ready for us.  Just in time too, as both of our beef supplies from the prior cow were getting a little thin.  Time to get our storage freezers ready!

It’s What’s For Dinner

We’d like to introduce our newest addition to the Farm – “Socks” the cow:

Socks, the cow

He is about a year old, and he’ll be with us on the Farm for about another 6 months or so.  Make sure you stop and say hello when you are visiting the fruit stand over the summer.

Socks was delivered on Saturday by Cheryl Lange, who runs a livestock operation in De Luz.  We’ve known Cheryl for years, and used to get all of our pigs from her operation years ago.  Our last cow was also from Cheryl.  Socks is a Hereford/Mini-Hereford cross.

Here’s our first introduction with Socks – as he was coming out of the trailer:

Hi Socks!

After he was released into his cow pen, he was understandably unsettled. However, within a few minutes, he settled into the nice shady spot of the pen and sat down and looked very relaxed.  He even discovered the sycamore tree, a favorite of many of our previous cows, in the middle of his pen and ate a few leaves.

Enjoying the sycamore tree

We’ve enjoyed raising our own beef over the years, and look forward to having Socks on the farm through the end of this year.