Mid summer update

Hello Everyone,

     I know it has been a little while since our last post, but we wanted to give everyone an update on how the year is going so far. Collectively, this year has been quite an interesting one....let's start by saying that this winter was quite rough. Between the cold weather causing us to get creative with how we kept our animals warm, and all the predatory critters coming out of the woods, (who knew there were bloodthirsty weasels in Michigan?!). On top of that, we have had 170 days of rain since the beginning of the year with May being particularly soggy. It rained 28 days out of the month! This in turn has made it difficult for the farmers of Michigan because a lot of them could not get out into the fields or their equipment would get stuck in mud. This means that nearly all crops have been delayed- which stinks for those of us going to market- but we are finally starting to see veggies come up. As of right now, vegetables are catching up with the season and when they normally come out but we are still waiting on the big items (tomatoes, corn and bell peppers) theses things are what our customers buy from us on a regular basis. We ourselves may not have a large space for planting veggies or fruit but the rain has hindered us as well. For example, chickens do not like being wet and because of all the rain in May and June they would only produce half the amount of eggs that they would normally. Chickens are also very finicky and really do not like the heat either, but our lovely ladies are starting to lay every day which means more eggs for us and our customers.

  In the meantime our focus has been on perfecting our GramJam recipes (and adding more flavors to our stock) as well as our handmade soap, and Kaitlin is experimenting with new ways to spin yarn. Last weekend we were actually able to make our first fiber sale of the year and it ended up that we were able to sell 2 skeins which makes Kaitlin really happy. Also, we were able to bring our grand total jam sales to over 140 jars on track with what Nate predicted for the year. Kaitlin is in the middle of a spinning project that she was commissioned for where she is spinning a processed cria (kree-ya) fleece. For those of you who don't know, a cria is a baby alpaca. Contrary to some articles we found online, baby alpacas are sheared just like large alpacas and any other fiber animal...not killed. We have also acquired a giant angora rabbit (you can see photos on our facebook page) and his name is Woolfred, Nate has already sheared him for the first time and Kaitlin cannot wait to play with it while spinning. Kaitlin is hopping to be able to use Woolfed in therapy soon when he is more acclimated to us, Kaitlin has also received her counseling license and is now seeing clients (she just has to wait until there is a client who needs an animal to assist with their therapy).

That is all for now!!

Cheers!!

Farver Creek Food & Fiber Farm

Here we go...!

Hello everyone!

       We know that it has been a little while since our last post, but we have not forgotten....life is just incredibly busy. Last weekend was our first market day of the season! Now that we are past our first weekend, and the initial chaos of preparing product and digging out all of our materials, our routine is starting to take shape. Over the past month, Nate built our rabbits new homes, and created a plan for our fabulous homemade GramJam. Unlike previous years, we have developed a monthly flavor roll out. We will keep four jam flavors consistently throughout the season, but we want to feature 2-3 specialty flavors each month. We are interested to see how it impacts sales! Kaitlin created several more customs skeins and made wonderful smelling soaps for the stand. On top of all of that Kaitlin also graduated with her Master of Arts in Counseling, something that she and her family is extremely proud of.

        The biggest project we undertook this past month was designing and building rabbit hutches. We needed seven in total; four for our current rabbits, and three for the Angoras we are hoping to adopt. Rabbits are generally kept separately; without the development of a careful bond, rabbits of the same gender can be aggressive towards one another, spayed or not. Spaying is an incredibly costly procedure (estimates near us were around $600!) with a high chance of complications. And placing males and females in the same space would, of course, create more rabbits to contend with! Therefore we decided that keeping them separate while still being able to see each other would work best. First, we determined the location of where we would like the hutches to go. The biggest issue we have with typical hutches, besides a general lack of space, is that traditionally rabbits are stuck on metal mesh. While mesh assists in the removal of fecal matter, it can also give rabbits a painful condition known as sore hocks. Who would want to sit on wire all day, anyway? Instead, Nate designed each rabbit a tri-level home. Two levels are inside a sheltered hutch space featuring a large window; the first level is covered in mesh, but we lay down fresh straw weekly for them to sit on. Then there is a ramp up to a lookout spot, allowing each rabbit to climb. Then, each rabbit has access to their own outdoor run via a little ramp. There are multiple doors and lids for each run, allowing us to have an easier time cleaning each week. We are also excited to share that we recently adopted one of our rabbits out to a wonderful family. They are providing a wonderful life for Cinnabon!

      This past Sunday (5/5/19) was our first market of the season in New Baltimore. In contrast to our previous summer of constant rain, it was 72 and sunny which made out for a wonderful experience for everyone who came out and supported us and all of the other lovely vendors. This was a great time to experiment with bringing fresh flowers, compliments of our newest partnership with a local nursery. This coming Sunday is Mothers Day. Our flower order is in for Saturday pickup, we have a plan in place for completing restock, and we finally have our own trailer (no more U-Haul!!!) Nate and his brother-in law Adam will be running the market on Sunday from 9 am-2 pm. Starting the 18th our other market in Shelby Twp. at the Packard Proving Grounds will start and we are excited to see where that market goes especially with how it was last year.


Cheers,

Farver Creek Food & Fiber Farm

All About the GramJam

      Hello everyone,

             We can't believe its almost the middle of March! We've missed the last couple installments of our blog due to our other jobs pulling our attention away. We figured that it is time to begin talking about and answering questions you may have about our products. At Farver Creek, we take pride in everything we produce. Each item we offer is directly the result of our own knowledge, and developing craft expertise, work with our animals, or otherwise offered due to collaborations we have within our community. This pride is, perhaps, most evident with GramJam, which was the centerpiece of our very first market season.
      Nate first learned how to make the core elements of our recipe from his Grandmother when he was young (hence the name!). As an adult, he re-engaged with the craft, and we began to think of ways to make the recipes unique to Farver Creek, and align it with our mission to offer locally sourced, all-natural products. The first item to change, therefore, was the pectin. Pectin is the ingredient in most jams and jellies to make it jell/firm up, and occurs naturally in many types of fruits to varying degrees. Typically, homemade jam is made with store bought, processed pectin. Instead, some intensive Google research led us to develop an all-natural pectin. Our pectin is made completely from apples (specifically Granny Smith apples), which we break down and boil into a substance not unlike apple sauce. Since different apples contain different levels of pectin, we had to experiment for some time to get a rough estimate on how much to put in each recipe. The next component we focused on modifying was the sweetness. While jam is a sweet spread, certainly, many recipes call for so much sugar the flavor profile is dulled to a cavity-inducing sugar overload. So, we experimented a bit more by lowering the sugar content such that the flavor of the fruit is predominant but the chemical processes of jelling remain intact. Additionally, we switched to a local brand of sugar derived from sugar beets, which means our recipe (technically) only contains fruit and vegetables. The fruits we use in our recipe is sourced from local farms and orchards, in order to support local farmers. This brought us to our current recipe, where we use twice the amount of fruit to sugar ratio. Every single batch of GramJam is made by Nate in small batches to optimize consistency and flavor. Recently, we have been experimenting with different flavors and unique combinations, such as Mango Pineapple. This particular jam sold really well, so we will definitely be doing this again! On the other hand, one of Nate's friends pestered him to try making Watermelon jam...Let's just say that it was an exercise to prove that not every fruit can be made into jam!

      Starting either this week or next week, the jam production will once again go into full swing. Up until this point, production has been slow/nonexistent but not forgotten- our main jobs and commitments have simply demanded too much time!

      In the next blog we will talk about building housing for different animals. Over Spring Break, our next project will be building custom housing ("Bunny Condos") for our rabbits so they can be outside and safe...and Kaitlin can put her car in the garage again!

Cheers,

Farver Creek Food & Fiber Farm

An Introduction to Our Chickens

Hello Everyone!


      We hope you've been keeping warm! In our area, we've seen a couple snow/ice storms that have been packing quite a punch! The miserable weather doesn't permit putting off farm chores, however; it just makes them more challenging. In particular, we are constantly working to make sure the outside animals have plenty of fresh (thawed) water, and are keeping warm via a series of heat lamps and plenty of bedding. Alas, some of them (here's looking at you, ducks) insist on waddling about in the elements regardless!

      In our last post, we mentioned some of the things we were going to be doing in preparation  for this market season. Even though it's January, the planning begins now. We have been discussing new ways to track inventory, some workshops we might want to offer during market, and ways to get our hands on a trailer so that we can avoid renting a UHaul every single weekend. We are also planning the management of our flock of chickens, which will be today's primary topic.

      I am sure we all know basic information about chickens and eggs [insert bad chicken jokes here]. We aren't going to get into "what came first" debate because let's be real, dinosaurs came first, and chickens are just distant relatives of the raptor. Trust us, they run around like them in the yard and it's hilarious!

Nate's humor at work, everyone.

      In all seriousness, we often get asked why we bother keeping chickens for eggs (or growing anything ourselves) when we can simply go to the grocery store. Most people do not have the luxury of walking out into their backyard and getting eggs for morning breakfast, nor are farm fresh eggs always accessible over the winter months when farmer's markets are much more limited around our area. And yes, farm eggs DO taste and look different than store-bought eggs! Store-bought eggs usually come from 1 or 2 types of chickens specifically bred to lay a high volume of white eggs. Since egg production is highest within a chicken's first year of life, these chickens will typically be slaughtered after that first year to make room for 'better' layers. The current regulations around high production egg facilities are such that chickens are only required to have 1 square foot of floor space in their cage, and enough height for the chicken to stand up and turn around, typically sixteen inches or so. All of their food is brought to them, denying their natural instincts to scratch, peck and forage. These standards fall woefully short of providing for any decent quality of life for these birds. Commercial eggs that are labeled 'Cage-Free' may provide similarly poor welfare standards for their laying hens. Companies can cram thousands of birds together in a large, windowless space and pass it off as 'cage free'. This creates enormous amounts of stress for the birds, who may resort to neurotic behaviors, self-mutilation and cannibalism. When you stuff a lot of chickens together in a small area without adequate ventilation, the smell of ammonia becomes overwhelming, the space impossibly filthy, and can become dangerous for the health of the flock. This is why, in these situations, you see a lot of antibiotics being administered to negate the effects of close quarters which in turn affects the overall quality of the product too. Most store-bought eggs are already several weeks old when the customer purchases them, with a pale yellow color, flat yolk and minimal flavor due to both their age and the nutrition provided to the hens. Our chickens, on the other hand, live in a completely custom designed 5'x'4'x5' coop with multiple nesting boxes and an attached 16'x16'x7' run featuring multiple perching areas and a couple other sheltered spaces to hide in and run around. More days than not, though, they are let out in the morning (sometimes to the dismay of our neighbors) to run through our yard and the woods. They return by themselves at dusk (no, we did not teach them to do that! It's their natural roosting instinct at play).  Because they are free to roam, they can forage for bugs, seeds and tasties. This cuts down on our feed and grit costs, and results in flavorful eggs that are golden to dark orange in color. Plus, free-ranging both our chickens and ducks allows is a great way to control our local mosquito and pest population!

      As you might imagine, we think our chickens are pretty great, and their eggs delicious. We began bringing eggs along with us to market last year, and found that many other people thought them pretty great, too! Our flock of fifteen, with several occasional layers or few-to-none layers couldn't keep up with the summer demand. This has caused us to rethink our flock composition, which is currently a mix of Barred Rocks, Brahmas, Leghorns, Delawares, Amber Links, Araucanas, and one useless Gold-Laced Wyandotte rooster. All of these chickens apart from the Leghorns are considered dual-purpose breeds; that is, they lay some eggs and are also good to eat. However, in order to attempt to keep up with our egg supply for market in the summer, we will need to switch our flock up and increase our number of layers as well as have these new layers ready to lay by June, likely then sending away the non-layers for processing in late August or September. Pullets (young female chickens) usually begin egg production around the age of 20-22 weeks, meaning we have to order them in January/early February- and even, then, these first eggs (known as pullet eggs), can be tiny. That means breaking out the chicken catalog now! 

      If you're wondering why we are ordering chicks instead of hatching them ourselves, well...Plain and simple, our chickens do not have a maternal bone in their body. We have let them keep eggs to sit on before. They have lost them or crushed them or, the one time they actually got a chick to hatch (they cheated and let one of our ducks sit on it, then snatched it back when it hatched) promptly lost the baby. We do mean lost- we never found it or its body. So, we choose to go the safer route. We go online to order our chicks from Meyer Hatchery in Ohio. They, like many other hatcheries, offer free catalogs with lots of detailed information and pictures regarding their stock offerings and policies. Ordering is great fun- in addition to function, we love picking out funky/unusual looking chickens! From customer interactions we had last year, we have found that people either want strictly white eggs, or insist that colored eggs are somehow healthier, or that white have been bleached somehow (they haven't) and so are therefore bad for you...with all these opinions, it is best for us to have a good mix of egg colors. Did you know that egg color is determined by the chicken's skin?
Ordering from a hatchery also allows for us to select the gender of the chicks. If you went to a farm store, you would find what are known as 'straight-run' chicks in those giant metal troughs- chicks that have not been assessed for their sex by professionals (yes, this is a real job someone has!). The option to select gender is wonderful, because we have had enough of roosters to last us a good while. In general, roosters don't produce anything independently for market and too many can cause serious fights over hens. Kylo, our current rooster, is utterly unhelpful in protecting the flock and spends most of his days strutting about, eating everything in sight and bullying our ducks. The several times a weasel has gotten into our coop, instead of protecting his ladies with his giant spurs, he simply ran and hid. He also likes to crow at 2am...repeatedly. But I digress. Once ordered, the hatchery chicks arrive up to three days after they hatch at the post office in a box and we simply go and pick them up. Chicks have the ability to survive 3 days with out food or water because of the remnants of the yolk still in their system, which gives us time to get them home and set them up in a brooder under a heat lamp where they can be warm and start growing. We will talk about brooders once we get ours up and going again!

Cheers!

Nate & Kaitlin at Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm

An Introduction to Farver Creek!

     Hello Everyone,

             Welcome to the very first blog entry of Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm!  We are a small but ever growing hobby farm located in S.E. Michigan. At this point, you may be wondering to yourself, "what on earth is a hobby farm?" While the term itself can apply to a number of situations, it essentially means that we have typical daytime careers and that our farm, at present, is a side project (hence the term hobby). Both of us have degrees in education- Nate in History/Social Studies and Physical Education, and Kaitlin in Spanish, Communications and Theater.  After a long and coffee-saturated journey, in April 2019 Kaitlin will also have earned a MA in both school and community mental health counseling, and wants to make the eventual transition into the world of private therapy practice. So by day, we are educators and helping professionals, but by night (and weekend), we are farmers!  
            The term farm typically invokes images of rolling hill and soaring red barns. Not for us...at least not yet. We presently sit on about 1.5 acres of land which backs up to a body of water that is graciously referred to as a lake. However, this is a perfect place to begin our adventure! We have a small raised garden for the fresh herbs. We have a log pile and flower beds for cultivating mushrooms. We have space enough for a green house and compost pile. And we have room for our chickens, ducks and rabbits, along with our 2 rescued cats and 2 rescued dogs.  We know we are not a very large operation, but we have large aspirations in where we would like to go. Ultimately we envision a working farm that strives to incorporate evidence-based natural, sustaining practices that operate in harmony with the existing ecosystem (more to com in future posts.)  Further more, we want to create this space to foster educational opportunities as well as serve as a holistic nature-based therapy practice for the surrounding communities.

          While we are still a ways away from full scale farming, we are anything but idle. This past year we were at  a couple of different markets; the Shelby Twp. Farmer's Market and the New Baltimore Farmer's Market. Both in our eyes were pretty successful. In particular, we sold eggs, fiber products such as homespun yarn, and all-natural jam featuring fruit sourced from local orchards, as well as fruits and vegetables purchased from rural growers and hauled into town. Upon reflection, we learned quite a bit about selling and marketing, and have gained a steady customer base.  So, our plan is to continue those markets this coming year.  Now that we have established our presence at both of these weekly markets, our primary goal this summer will be to maintain product levels while reducing our waste (last year we were rather overwhelmed with the demand for certain items yet underwhelmed with others). We are also looking to forge and solidify business relationships from additional local vegetable and flower growers to provide a wide variety for our customers. These relationships will also help us as we offer several onsite educational workshops this season, too. 
          Now that it is the New Year, and market season fast approaching, it is time to nail down our "plan of attack". While January may not seem like a busy month for a farming operation, we are selecting and ordering chickens and herbs we would like to grow, reviewing last year's figures, shopping for a new trailer, beginning stock production on fiber and jams, and reviewing/modifying our record keeping practices. There isn't much free time for editing during the growing season!

    Thank you for taking the time to read this- it's taken several days to get it just right! We look forward to cultivating this biweekly blog for those both who wish to keep up with our particular enterprise, as well as those simply interested in learning more about sustainable gardening, animal care, the business of small-scale markets, and the educational/therapeutic elements of the natural world.  Follow us on Blogger, Facebook and Twitter for future posts about our farm and other educational information! 

Cheers to a great 2019!

Farver Creek Food and Fiber Farm