Champaign, OH:  A Day In The Life

It’s that time of the week, again!!

Time for another vendor Day In The Life story!! This week, we get to read all about life on the farm with Lee and Jennifer Ruff of End Of The Road Farms!

They come to us from their amazing farm in Fletcher. If you were able to go on their farm tour, last year, you fell in love with their story, their family, and their farm.

If you were not able to attend that tour, you get to learn all about them in this story of their lives.

Thanks for all the hard work, Lee and Jennifer!! We totally appreciate your commitment!

For the past five years that we’ve been married and working on our farm at the end of the road, the only constant through the seasonal changes is daily chores, at least twice and sometimes four times a day. Our three children under the age of four adore being out and “helping”, which makes for a slower, albeit more enjoyable experience. We currently have three draft horses, a feeder steer, 2 cats, 29 laying hens, 85 replacement layers from 10-14 weeks old, and six pigs – one of whom, Maple Syrup, we’ll breed come fall, another, Ham, we’ll butcher, and the other four, Toady, Bob, Fred, and Kitty, are already sold. All our animals are heritage breeds who live on pasture 24/7. The chickens are divided up into 10 moveable pens, and they get moved onto fresh alfalfa and clover every morning when we take them their ration of feed and fill everyone’s water.

Our 8 month old daughter religiously takes her morning nap in the stroller each day, allowing me two-three hours to help weed, pick berries, hang laundry, or do whatever needs done most outside (with her in cloth diapers and no dryer, laundry is a daily priority).

Lee spends half of every day in the garden. There is always cultivation with the horses and hand weeding/hoeing to be done with over an acre of market garden to care for, in addition to the weekly and biweekly plantings of our more important and popular crops. When he is picking for our Thursday Virtual Market drop-off, our Friday CSA pickup, or our Saturday Troy market, he can spend the entire day in the garden. As he harvests something, he’ll bring it to me at the house where we have set up a washing and packaging area, and I can save him some time while the kids play or “help” doing things like trimming beet tops, washing green onions, or labeling bags.

Everyone gets checked again at lunchtime. Eggs are gathered, pigs and chickens get scraps for a snack, and everyone’s water is topped off. Before the youngest chicks gained a bit of weight, they kept scratching the hay down enough to escape practically every day, and the kids and I spent a good portion of our morning rounding them up, as Lee was always conveniently working horses when this happened. The day of the Great Escape, 37 out of 48 chicks that busted out… and they were so little you’d practically step on them before you noticed them in the thigh high alfalfa! The kids have plenty of lessons on the importance of following directions well, as sometimes if they stand exactly in the right position where Mommy tells them, they successfully catch all the little Houdini’s. I’m almost sorry they’re too big to sneak out anymore, we were getting so coordinated in our efforts!

Our draft horses are central to our 21 acre, organic homestead that we are trying so hard to make sustainable. At 30 years old, our Percheron mare, Jane, is irritated about the retirement we’ve forced upon her, but we can’t let her work herself into the ground as she’d like. That leaves the work up to Tony, a 16 year old Percheron gelding who prior to living with us was a Renaissance Festival jousting horse, and Wilson, a 6 year old Shire we’re borrowing from a friend for the summer. Lee and the horses do almost all our field work. When he’s not working in the garden or harvesting one of our field crops (sorghum, spelt, popcorn, soup beans, field corn for the pigs, naked oats for the chickens, and hay) that are divided into two acre parcels in a six year crop rotation, Lee’s daily projects right now are building new fence, clearing out our fencerows, rebuilding old horse-drawn machinery, or repurposing the equipment we have to make it fit our scale. He is also moving an old barn home piece by piece to repair our own dilapidated barn with the timbers and lumber.

The kids help me cook every day… we’re on a big noodle and pizza kick lately, as they love turning the handle of the pasta maker, and like to knead the dough before pressing their handprint into the middle of the pizza.

Evening chores we do as a family, and we appreciate how Blessed we are to eat every meal together, produce about 90% of our own food, and spend so much time working with each other. For two years now, Lee and I have been saying that the best thing to ever happen to us was me losing my teaching job, since we hadn’t thought we were ready to make farming our full-time profession, and yet God knew exactly what He was doing, as we couldn’t be healthier or happier!

Hope you enjoyed a bit of our story!

Lee and Jennifer Ruff, and our three little Ruffians

New Field Farm's Online Market:  Lettuce begin !

Greetings,

We’re ready to start the harvest this week.

I include shell peas on the list, but that may be optimistic. They’re close to being ready, but I can’t be sure we’ll be able to pick by Friday. We’ll hope for the best!

With the cooler weather we’ve had the lettuce is also slightly behind schedule. I’ll lower the price a bit if the heads are smaller than usual.

It looks like it’ll be a lovely day today so we’ll be focusing on getting a good jump on the weeds which have been enjoying all the recent rains.

Overall, the crops look good and when warmer weather arrives we should be off and running.

Blueberries may begin next week. Certainly by the week after.

Enjoy,
Tim

CLG:  Tuesday Reminder - Market Closes Tonight at 10pm.

Hello Friends,
There’s still time to place your order for pickup this Friday, July 3rd. The market closes TONIGHT around 10pm.

How to contact us:

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. Instead…

Phone or text: Steve – 501-339-1039

Email: Steve – kirp1968@sbcglobal.net

Our Website:

www.conway.locallygrown.net

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Conway-Locally-Grown/146991555352846

Yalaha, FL:  New Market Trial Opening

New Online Market for those wanting to order local produce in Central Lake County Florida. We are just getting the market set up. Leading the charge is Aleece Landis of Aquaponic Lynx LLC.
Aquaponic Lynx LLC grows vegetables and fish Aquaponically.

We are currently seeking additional growers and customers, please feel free to sign up for an account. Fees for growers is 10% of total sales to cover costs of operating the market. Fees for customers is only $25 for the year per household and you can make your first two purchases as a trial before paying the fee.

Right now the drop off and pick up location will be
8748 Guava St
Yalaha, FL 34797
But this may change if other farms in the area want to host the drop off/pick up day/s.

At the moment I’m planning to set up the Ordering window from Tuesday through Thursday and pick up will be on Saturday afternoon and Sunday Morning. Farms would bring their orders to the drop off on Friday afternoon and/or Saturday Morning. I am open to changing this schedule to meet the needs of the majority of people who participate. Please feel free to share your suggestions with me.
tclynx@aquaponiclynx.com

I will update this description with changes as I see how the market grows.
Last update 06/27/2015

Martin's Farmstand:  Sugar Snap Peas

The online market is open for orders. the sugar snap peas are in season now. The hull peas are still not ready but will be soon.
When you come to our farm you are getting some of the finest “No spray” food around. You will also find that some of the headlands, pond banks and edges have not been mowed recently. I do this limited mowing on purpose as part of insect managment. You will also find assorted cover crops. Some of the effect is to provide food and cover for benificials and some of it is working as trap crops for bad bugs. I hope you enjoy some of our fine food this summer. Daniel

Tullahoma Locally Grown:  Summer Ordering

Hello.

This week’s ordering at the Tullahoma’s Locally Grown Marketplace is in full swing. If you have not ordered yet, please do so by Wednesday at noon.

Your freshly grown items will be available for pickup on Thursday from 4:30 to 5:30 at the Fuel So Good Coffee Roasters location (1407 N. Jackson St., Tullahoma).

Thank you for supporting our local farmers and growers.

Thanks,
Fuel So Good Coffee Roasters.

ALFN Local Food Club:  Market Update

Bluebird Hill Berry Farm just updated their listing for the week with a new supply of grass fed beef. Check it out!

Sincerely

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

GFM :  Market is Open

Good Morning,

I am opening the market a few hours early today, as I will not be near a computer later this afternoon.

Please check out all that our vendors have to offer, and place your orders anytime between now and Thursday afternoon.

We do have several new vendors that have not got their items up yet. So check back often, as they may be able to get them online sometime this week for pickup on Saturday Morning.

Thank You and Have a Great Day,

J. Shelton

Heirloom Living Market Hamilton Mill:  Got Blackberries? We do!

Blackberries and Blueberries

My Daily Bread has listed 4 pints of Blackberries on the Market for this Thursday. Dabrielle and Bruce do not spray nor use any chemicals on their plants or berries. This is the beginning of the season for these little bits of deliciousness and Dabrielle says the Blueberries are quite prolific this year. They should be available next week! The Blackberries may have been affected by the heat the last 2 weeks, so there may not be as many this year as in years past; however, there are some this week, so grab them quickly! If Dabrielle and Bruce are able to harvest enough on Thursday morning, we will have some of both Blackberries and Blueberries on the Farmer Sales Table!

Northeast Georgia Locally Grown:  Locally Grown - Availability for July 1st , 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Happy Happy Summer! We had an absolutely stunning weekend for the Farm Tour! Huge thanks to all of you who attended or helped spread the word, or volunteered. It takes a huge number of supporters to pull off an event like this and clearly the Farmers themselves deserve most of the credit for being willing to host visitors to their farms, planning good parking, setting up a place to sell food, and giving the tours.

In my lifetime of interactions with people I’ve yet to find more generous, friendly, and gracious people than farmers. You know what I mean? It makes sense I guess. Sustainable local food farmers truly want to feed and nourish people with good food. But it goes beyond that. They generally want to nourish people all around. There is a sort of innate spiritual depth to many of them. That combination of a true love for the earth, and a wonder with what the earth can provide to humanity when it is well cared for by hard working, dedicated and disciplined folk. You just can’t help but absorb some of the good cosmic vibe they give off when you are around them.

I’d like to think that Locally Grown, the Clarkesville Farmers Market, Simply Homegrown, the Gainesville Historic Downtown Market….these are all places where we are fortunate to experience the commerce of local foods. It’s where farmers make themselves and their foods available. But to go out to a farm and be a guest, is where the cultural depth of the local food movement comes into focus. Farmers are often too busy to be full time educators, but they have a knowledge of sustainability in practice that few of us get to experience. Figuring out how to access and use water, but to use it efficiently, to make the soil the best it possibly can be to grow the best possible crops, learning how the rising and the setting of the sun makes different parts of the farm best suited for particular crops.

One thing that really struck me this year is how much some of the farms have changed in the years since we started doing the FARM TOUR. Each year, new practices come into focus, little improvements made that add up to create a complex beauty resulting from the lessons of trial and error.

Before signing off and encouraging you all to order BIG this week, I just want to say that these things, this special knowledge does not belong to farmers and farmers alone. We all have yards, we all eat, we all generate excess organic matter. Experimentation is good. A small pile of compost in the corner of your yard can slowly change the fertility and environmental benefit of your entire property allowing more rainfall to penetrate the soils, more photosynthetic productivity, more shrubs and herbs scattered about that produce berries and spices. A rain barrel to recycle the rainfall will give you a deeper relationship to the water than that coming out of the tap and its better for your plants and your soil too. Each year see if you can’t turn your red soils a little blacker, create an oasis for animals, flying insects, and nature! And in the process you’ll be creating a little oasis of sustainability for yourself. One that you’ll be proud of and will nourish you.

Huge thanks to our area farmers for giving us a snapshot of their own “oasis of sustainability” they have created. And in the process inspiring us to glean a little bit from them.

Now go out and buy everything they have left to sell this week. I’ll share just a few quick things I’ve been enjoying. Last night we had angel hair pasta with squash that had been sliced in a madolin (you could use a chesse grater too) and cooked with butter and lots of pepper, a little salt. Then all mixed together with parmesan. Simple. Delicious. Fried pardon peppers on the side. We’ve also been eating lots of diced cucumbers and tomatoes tossed with balsamic and basil. My favorite summer salad. I’ll share my wife’s eggplant dish in garlic sauce next week.

Thanks and EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew