Cedar Meadow Farm Newsletter

July, 2006

  

Greetings from Cedar Meadow Farm!

 

We had a great June here in New England – school is out and summer weather has finally arrived.  All our friends here at the farm are growing like crazy.  The lambs have become much friendlier and do a great job mowing their paddocks.  The piglets are growing fast – the two little gals give the bigger ones a run for their money at feeding time!  We have just added yet another 100 broilers to the flock, and look forward to our first harvest in mid-July.  Velvet the rabbit has been a wonderful mother and we now have 6 adorable bunnies ready for adoption.  Best of all, we are pleased to announce the birth of our baby donkey.  This little guy was born on July 1st and will be staying with his mom for the next 4 months.  We can’t wait until November when we can bring him to our place.  In the meantime, we invite you to join our “donkey-naming” contest.  Submit your entry via e-mail to info@cedarmeadowfarm.net and we will announce the winner next month.

 

The week of July 17th, we will be taking our first round of broilers for processing.  The broilers for this week have nearly all been sold, there are only a few left for sale!  Broilers will be processed weekly on Fridays and available for you to pick up at the farm on Friday evening between 5 and 6 pm.  We will have a limited number of extra birds that will be available for sale during our Farm Stand Hours on Sunday from 10-2.  To ensure you get the bird you deserve, please contact us by 8 pm on Thursday evenings to place a hold.

  

We are excited to offer broilers from a new hatchery, Freedom Rangers (www.freedomrangers.net).  These birds have an excellent genetic profile that is well suited to the pastured techniques we use.  You’ll notice that they have a slightly different body type – less breast meat and more leg meat – and their flavor is much richer due to the longer grow-out period.  These birds will be available in early to mid-August.  Best of all, they have a direct lineage to the heritage breeds we admire and promote.

 

 

We have only a few turkeys left for Thanksgiving.  If you are interested, please e-mail us soon so we can be sure to hold one for you.  Additionally, we only have 2 pigs left – if you’d like to put a hold on a ¼, ½, or whole pig, let us know as soon as possible.  We’re sorry, but all our Labor Day pig roasters have been sold.  Cedar Meadow Farm also has live animals available for sale:  Turkey Poults, Chicken Pullets (due to start laying mid-September), and baby bunnies!  As if that weren’t enough, we will be selling cords of seasoned and split firewood this fall.  We can custom cut your cord if you order in advance.  We have a small amount of mushroom compost left.  Though we can not deliver any material to you, we invite you to stop by and we’d be happy to load a yard or two onto your pickup or trailer.

 

We want you to know we are working towards gaining all necessary permits so that we can sell not only to you the consumer but to restaurants and small grocery stores as well.  You can be assured that this has been a time-consuming process complete with mounds of paperwork!  It has amazed us how much beaurocracy is involved with few resources available to the small farmer.  We anticipate this will be a somewhat long and drawn out process but we won’t be discouraged and will see this endeavor through.

 

Wishing you all health and happiness,

 

Brian and Julia Cronin