[dominiquer60]

1/2 pint $7, pt $13, qt $20 and 1/2 gallon $32, we quit gallons because they don’t pay as much, we only do a little and if some one wants to complain that is fine because we will sell it regardless at our farmers’ market. We do mostly B and dark, people like the flavor, it all sells and we don’t have the time to keep cleaning for the lighter grades.
Erika

[dominiquer60]

Welcome fellow Upstater,

Feels good to have more company from Eastern New York:)
Montgomery County is beautiful, I was seriously considering some land in Ames before I got engaged. Your fillies are gorgeous, I look forward to seeing them progress with you. Stop by the Schenectady Greenmarket sometime, we’re there every Sunday. Good luck with your CSA and everything else, sounds like a nice variety of things going on at your place.

Be Well,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

In many places the Holstein has gotten larger, especially here in North America. A neighbor of mine has a grass/pasture based seasonal dairy, he uses a lot of New Zealand Holstein genetics in his herd. What I know about NZ is that they are heavy into rotational grazing and like their animals smaller and sturdier than North Americans. The result in my neighbor’s herd is a smaller hardy cow that does well on grass and lasts more than 2 lactations.

Although huge is the conventional dairy trend there are some, like my neighbor, that are taking it in the other direction as well. I am thankful for folks like him who are not afraid to buck the “big” trend.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

My south facing small (80x 120) plot that is well drained keeps asking me to harrow it with my beef team. Salad turnips and radishes do well even with the cool soil, of course row cover helps too. I think it will be on next weeks “to do” list as soon as the predicted rain dries up. The following week I can start more carrots, beet and peas as long as I cover them too. Certainly getting itchy to start gambling with seeds:)

Erika

[dominiquer60]

It is slow to reach NY too we’ll have to be patient. By the time it reaches the northeast it has probably retired to the wet coast bathrooms for more in depth reading:)

Looking forward to it, I’m sure Erik did a smashing job.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Andy,
The snack idea sounds great. I know that if you lived here, both of our markets would most likely accept you in a heartbeat, especially since you grow your own ingredients. Most processed foods are put together locally using bought in ingredients from who knows where. The muesli, pancake mixes, candied nuts are all purchased ingredients and are thrown together in a fancy package. I hope that your products are a hit in your area.

Back in the late 90’s a few farmers started doing pasture poultry around here. Then an organization formed to educate people interested in these small poultry farms. The result was the saturation of chicken available at our better local markets, which resulted in the death of the organization. Many that do chicken around here also do vegetables. The very few meat only vendors that I know do a lot of meat (relatively speaking) and have one heck of a feed bill.

In my experience there is a little more to net from selling raw plants than animal protein, they just take a lot of feed and people are only willing to pay so much for high quality meat. And even if you grow your own feed like we do and you plan to, there is still little return. However we find that because we are the main egg vendor at our Saturday market, people like to grab what vegetables they need from us while they are waiting in line. In other words selling eggs is a huge help attracting people to buy veg as well. Your two could work out also, but banking on selling animal protein only gets tough. As always best of luck.
erika

[dominiquer60]

I apologize for any discomfort as well. I can only hope for the best case scenario for all involved, unfortunately that only means that it doesn’t get worse than it is now. My sincerest thanks to those that sacrificed their health and probably lives in those power plants to try to prevent the worst from happening to the rest of us. John my best for your son and all the others that are serving our country.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

May physics friends could answer that one, but I can’t imagine anything more complicated.

Right now I feel like we are in the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns creates a shield to block Springfield from getting sunlight, and he wants money in order to remove it. That combined with the “tomacco” one, Homer becomes a farmer and grows tomatoes crossed with tobacco, an addicting episode.

I was a fan back in the day:)

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Remembering the Simpsons and Mr. burns certainly brought a smile to my face, I needed that today. thanks

Despite all of my problems I am certainly happy to have them compared to the what the people of Japan are going through. At the very least it gives us a sense, again, of what could wrong with nuclear energy, it may be cleaner when working proper, but when it fails, it fails miserably.

Hoping for the best possible out come for Japan,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Not enough snow to last the heat wave I fear, especially with this rain. No vacuums, 3 bushes, no buckets along the road, too many fast driver in mud just made for an unpleasant mess. It just kissed freezing before the rain came last night. I hope the heat wave prediction falls through.

erika

[dominiquer60]

We have ~400 taps, but only had two good days so far, today being one of them. Tonight may get to 32, but the next few nights and days are all going to be warm. The Hornbeams are already showing buds, we don’t see this year being good either. Glad we didn’t buy a bigger evaporator.
On my way out to the sugar house for pizza, the man that feeds the fire got hungry before I got home, good deal no cooking, except the sap:)

Erika

[dominiquer60]

I have heard Alice’s but i suppose i should actually listen to it:)

Yes we will line up harvest knives, pruning shears and shovels, and my friend will play Mel on a hand truck, only he will lay of the Wild Turkey before hand so he has his wits about him. He is totally proud of his heritage, but we just can’t get him to wear a kilt, no matter how manly a plaid it is.

“that you may take our paper applications and accept us, but you will never compromise our privacy!”

Oh I like this better than the first draft we have, note to self.

erika

[dominiquer60]

I guess I am too young for that one…

Another angered market vendor, one with a little scotch in his veins too, came up with a way to rally the troops and overthrow the board’s manager my market decision. It entails rigging up a hand truck with segway (those modern vehicles that you stand on and roll around in the direction that you want) capabilities and reenacting the prebattle rally scene from Bravehearst at the market, complete with kilt and all. Funny thing is I think that it would actually work I just can’t get him to do it 🙁

erika

[dominiquer60]

Good point Mitch, I try to be careful myself, now I am almost happy that I can’t figure out how to upload my website. This online market date base wants Employer and Tax ID numbers and a lot of other stuff that I barely trust our market manager with let alone all the other market managers or hackers or institutions and such. I facebook, which is increasing scary, I DAP and I even do eBay, but I only purchased items that I can pay for via money order, the internet dosen’t need my credit card info. I do not bank or pay bill online and it wigs me out that tax preparers can only efile from now on. Easy and quick is not always best, maybe today it is, but down the road it is likely to cause problems.

The no credit thing still perplexes me, I understand that in order to get credit you need to prove yourself reliable with payments, but if payments have always been with paper and not plastic they don’t count. I know a few around here that could run circles with cash around my credit card, but can’t get a loan without using collateral. What an insane “reality” we have created for ourselves.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Thanks for asking around Geoff.

It turns out in the brief privacy policy all market managers can see the detailed info about all of the farms. That is a lot of people that may certainly have good intentions but I will give a negative example of a true and current situation.

A fellow vendor does 11 markets, because he tends to question things he has a few people including a market manager at a former market that like to cause trouble. The manager from a former market keeps trying to pin him for buying in and would have access to information that they do not need nor should have access to, for trying to prove a crime that does not happen, “buying in.” Although our friend does nothing wrong and has nothing to hide, as evident of 15 farm inspections and no violations last year, only the markets that he attends should have his info, not the others out to “get him.”

The sad thing is that, so many other vendors are completely comfortable giving up their privacy to this database, we are not and are gearing toward a struggle that we don’t want to have. Perhaps keeping out of this database will only delay the inevitable, but someone has got to resist, just like those good towns in Maine demanding food sovereignty.

Erika

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