Cedar Meadow Farm Newsletter
June, 2006
Greetings from Cedar Meadow Farm!
May was rainy here in New England and we are looking forward to the official start of summer this month. As usual, we have been very busy here on the farm. During the month of May, we added several new friends to the farm – 50 broiler chicks, 3 lambs, and 12 pheasant. June has been equally busy with the birth of 8 bunnies, the arrival of 50 more broiler chicks, and 2 new piglets. The gardens have been planted and we are happily watching the greens sprout up. Though we will not have any produce available for sale this spring, look forward to tomatoes, squashes, and eggplant this summer as well as fresh potatoes as the fall months roll around. On the weekend of June 10th, we will be at the Ledyard Sampler, held at the Historic Nathan Lester House in Ledyard, CT. This is an old-fashioned festival featuring local crafters, historic demonstrations, tours of the Nathan Lester 1793 house and barns. We’ve been asked to come and showcase some of our heritage breed animals as part of the tour.
We are looking forward to the beginning of July, when we will be harvesting our first run of broilers. We will be accepting orders weekly, up until Thursday night. Broilers will be processed on Friday and available for you to pick up at the farm on Friday evening. We will have a limited number of extra birds that will be available for sale during our Farm Stand Hours on Sunday. We are excited to be offering a test run of birds 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.
We are pleased to offer mushroom compost at our farm. We get our compost directly from Franklin Mushroom Farm. As many of you know, the mushroom farm will be relocating to Pennsylvania in the coming months so we will only be able to provide this material for a limited amount of time. Mushroom compost is the perfect additive to new or spent garden beds – it will add vigor and life to nearly any plant!
Now is the time to place an order for broilers, Thanksgiving turkeys, or put a hold on a ¼, ½, or whole pig. Are you thinking about a pig roast on Labor Day weekend? Let us know and we can have a pig ready for you. Cedar Meadow Farm also has animals available for sale: Turkey Poults, Layer Hens, Chicken Pullets, 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.
Wishing you all health and happiness,
Brian and Julia Cronin