A note from CSA Pasture….
CSA Pasture is the name of our meat/ dairy “co-op” upstate. It’s a group of about 12 farms that live around Washington County and make different delicious products.
Nancy and Alan of Lewis Waite Farm banded these farms together to sell all the product in an easy trip to the City. Before deliveries, Nancy sends updates of what is happening on the farm. See after jump for her update.
I had an opportunity to visit Lewis Waite for the day this past Wednesday. Some very exciting news is that Lewis Waite has just received NOFA certification! (More on that below.) I helped pack up the Thursday delivery for you all down here! I also got to eat berries from the berry patch, play with some piglets, go crazy in the garden, play with Pedro the Donkey and taste Nancy’s fabulous homemade pickles! The above picture are Nancy’s homemade wines: rhubarb, strawberry and dandelion!It’s August Already!
The summer is flying by faster than we can plan a vacation! With the vegetable and fruit gardens bursting and our home freezer and root cellar empty between deliveries we are working to stock up for winter. Alan, Colin and Joe are still haying in this wacky ‘rain every other day’ weather and we still have lots of hay to pick up in the fields and get under cover. The animals are happy as the pastures are the most lush than I can remember in any of the past Augusts. The skies are either bright blue or cloudy with lots of white, grey and ‘black’ clouds scattering showers in very local areas.
Saturday Aug 2 was the day of the wedding of Alan’s brother Bill’s daughter and all day we watched the clouds move across the sky and dreaded any rain but very luckily it did not rain until late into the night! Hillary was a very lovely bride and Andre very debonair. The garden wedding with family and friends was warm and personal. The local food dinner was delicious, as summers meals can be. And the dancing late into the night was a great release for everyone.
The week before was the annual Salem, NY Al Fresco dinner on the lawn of the historic courthouse, now a community center. The event is a fundraiser for the courthouse and there were a whole weekend of activities planned. Frances even came all the way from Chelsea to volunteer and have dinner with us. At the dinner there were five long tents (with no sides) where over 400 people were seated at long tables. Appetizers included cheeses from 3 Corner Field Farm and Consider Bardwell Farm. The volunteer servers all come flowing from the kitchen in a parade with large bowls and platters filled with goodies to serve each set of tables in turn. That night the rain held off politely until just before dessert and then came down in buckets. Some folks ran to the auditorium to eat Courthouse Cobbler and watch the Mettowee Players parade in their costumes and some ran to their cars to head home. The storm and the lightning and thunder lasted for hours and hours. We all talked about it for days as the most lightning we had all seen in a long time. The big cracks of thunder had our dog Shadow practically under the bed. I was awake for quite a while too, also wide-eyed. It was sooo bright but Alan slept right through it all!
My sister Judy is visiting this week from Maryland. My sister Beverly and niece Laura are coming for the Washington County Fair, August 18-24. In between Tess is coming from Clinton Hill to visit and help us prepare for a delivery. Stacey from Astoria Arrow was here last week and helped us with the Thursday delivery prep. I think it’s great for us to talk with them about the distribution and for them to see the compiling and packing of all the products.
The big news of the summer is that our farm is now certified organic! We applied in March to have all of our pastures and hayfields and woodlands be certified with NOFANY, LLC, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. The paperwork took a few hours to say the least. We had to write all our neighbors and notify them. We had to write the power company and the town and county road crews so no spraying would happen on our boundaries. The inspector came to visit in July and reviewed our farm plan and helped us clarify a few of our answers. We have a raft of new paperwork to keep up with whenever we do something in a field, whenever the cows pass through and whenever we buy seed for the pastures or hayfields. We even got organic certifications on the hayfields we lease in our neighborhood, since we had managed them all for over 3 years. So our hay could be sold as certified organic but we prefer to feed it to our own animals. Our animals are not certified organic as those procedures take much more tracking for each animal and we would like to learn what we need to do and incorporate it into our daily routines before we tackle more than this! So now when people ask us if we are organic we can say yes our farmland is!!! We received our formal certificate on July 25th.
Due to the humidity we are forced to remove 3 Corner Field Farm Sheep’s milk ricotta and Gills Acres Farm Goat’s Milk Ricotta. Jane at West River Creamery has removed her Smoked English Cambridge until she receives a batch from the smoker.
Our farms are still offering their products:
Delicious Bread baked at Rock Hill Bakehouse shown under Bread, European style.
Hand made artisan cheeses from 3 Corner Field Farm - Cheese, Sheep’s Milk and Yogurt and from Consider Bardwell Farm – Cheese, Goat and Cow’s Milk and West River Creamery – Cheese, Cow’s Milk and Goat’s Milk. Gillis Acres Farm raises Alpine goats and offers their farm made dairy items under the Cheese, Goat’s Milk category. They make chevre in 4 flavors, tomme, feta, blue cheese, aged cheese, cottage cheese, kefir, yogurt in 3 flavors and bottle pasteurized goat milk.
All Natural Chicken, Duck and Turkey - whole or parts of chicken, whole duck, and small whole or ground turkey from KNK Poultry under the categories, Chicken All Natural KNK, Duck All Natural, Turkey All Natural KNK. This farm and processor is NY State certified.
Large whole turkeys are also offered by Stonewood Farm, certified by the State of Vermont and are found under the Turkey All Natural Stonewood category.
We are now offering many more Stonewood Farm turkey products!! Both Dark meat Ground Turkey and ½ White meat/ ½ Dark meat ground turkey, Boneless Turkey breast in 2 sizes with only 1.7 grams of fat per 4 oz serving and Smoked Turkey Breast with no preservatives or nitrates/nitrites. Also, a marvelous variety of turkey sausages – Cajun, Hot Italian, Mild Breakfast and Sweet Italian. All with only 3.5 grams of fat per 4 oz serving. Stonewood Farm can be found under the Turkey All Natural Stonewood category.
Our natural Eggs collected by Cornell Farms. The chickens and their feed are raised at the farm are shown under the Eggs, fresh and free-range category.
All Natural Goat and Kid is offered by 2 farms Manx Station Farm and Consider Bardwell Farm. These items are offered under the category for Kid, Goat and Goat, Kid respectively.
USDA processed Lamb is offered by two farms. 3 Corner Field Farm lamb eats a small amount of grain as a supplement to the grasses and hay and can be found under the Lamb, Grass-Fed category. Argyllshire Farm lamb eats only grasses and hay and is found under the Lamb, Grass fed & finished category. We are sorry the selection of lamb is dwindling this time of year, but it seems that everyone is beginning to “buy local”.
Our home made Jams and Sauces are home grown or hand picked by Rudi’s Lakeside Garden and can be found under the Jams ands Sauces category.
USDA processed Beef and Pork are raised by Lewis Waite Farm. The beef is 100% grass and hay fed with trace minerals from kelp and salt. The pigs have a pasture too but are fed with corn, soybeans, hay and kelp (especially in winter). These items can be found under the Beef, Grass Fed Grass Finished and the Pork, All Natural, Pastured.
We have all Grass-Fed Beef farm from Mack Brook Farm to supplement our offerings and to help this farm get started retailing their own beef. Their small herd is growing and until early summer we can only offer their ground beef patties. Their goal is to provide our customers with 100% grass fed and finished; pasture-based Angus beef (a breed chosen for suitability to our climate) that is a tastier and healthier alternative to commercially raised beef, while practicing farming techniques that benefit the environment.
Their cattle DO NOT get antibiotics, growth hormones, or genetically modified feed. Our cattle DO GET grass and hay from only their fields, acres of pasture to wander, and lots of TLC. They are not certified organic but operate using what they consider ’best practices’ for the animals and the environment.
We are proud of the 12 farm network we have created to provide you some of our regions fresh and family grown products. We hope you enjoy then all and we also hope to expand our offering as time goes by and we get better at our coordination with everyone.
Don’t forget, the next order deadline is Saturday, August 9th at midnight, and delivery is on Thursday, August 14th..
Please remember to place your orders on time as late orders can be a disruption to all of the farms involved
Alan & Nancy Brown
135 Lewis Hill Lane
Town of Jackson
Greenwich, NY 12834
Lewis Waite Farm
Grass-Fed Grass-Finished Beef
Natural Pork
www.csapasturedmeatandpoultry.com
www.lewiswaitefarm.com
518-692-3120 or 518-692-9208