Looking for fantastic grass-fed beef? Visit the website of our sister farm, Braeburn, for all of the info.  http://www.braeburnfarms.com/

It has turned quite lush out here with all the rain and the warmth. New grass is sprouting on our resting pens. That’s always amazing considering how denuded they look when the pigs are finished with them. That’s nature’s cycle though, breakdown and rebuild.

Speaking of building, our farrowing house is getting phase two of its building and now our sows and piglets will have even more cozy digs. Thanks Galen for your skills and hard work!

Did you get one of our tasty ducks? We had 20 that went to market last week and if you missed them, we’ll have more in two months. This week we will have hams for Easter– there are only thirty so email if you want one, they are going fast. If you plan on coming to the farm on Saturday to pick up, either email your order ahead of time, or come between 1-5 (as product will have returned from market).

Remember Farm Tour is coming up on April 28th and 29th, don’t wait too long to get your tickets. You can go the the following link to buy them:   http://www.carrboro.com/htmls/farmtour.html We will have a “Burgers and Brews” cookout at our hay shed on the Saturday of farm tour. Its our treat, just saying thanks for being awesome customers. It’ll start around 5pm.

Lastly for those of you who have been missing our farm dinners, we have something very special in the planning stages for late spring and early summer, as well as plans for a Final Banquet in the fall.. We will go into more detail as things solidify.

Happy Easter and Passover from the Cane Creekers!

RAFI stands for Rural Advancement Foundation International. Through the “Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund”, the help fund  “Community Collaborative Projects”. Here is a description of the plan in Saxapahaw:

Saxapahaw Farm and Business Collaborative
Over the past year alone the Saxapahaw General Store has purchased over $250,000 in local meats and vegetables from area farmers.  As the farmers increasingly cater to the needs of the store, a collaborative has begun to form around the needs of both farmers and customers of the General Store.  The result of this collaboration is an emerging vision that creates greater production capacity in value-added products produced by farmers in the general store kitchen and increased sales from expanded freezer and cooler space. The long term vision includes items like smoked poultry sausage and frozen vacuum sealed vegetables, but the funds will support the short-term goal of improved storage and marketing infrastructure for the General Store customers to better access the local food.

Wow, the months are flying by! But all of us Cane Creekers are looking forward to the spring. The trees are making buds, the goats are having babies and our gardens are going in! Potatoes, garlic, onions, cabbage, broccoli and lettuce are in the ground and we have more beds ready for other veggies—don’t you just love spring?

Charles has been busy building new fences so that we can utilize more parts of the farm. This way we’ll able to rotate animals into the woody areas for the coming warm weather while also giving our fields a much needed rest. Our turkeys and ducks, hatched in the last month, are getting their feathers and will be able to roam around soon.

Continuing on our baby theme of the last several months, we report 16 kids (goats) so far with another 3 expected any day now. Our teenage piggies are having great fun with the kids and vice versa. There is nothing much cuter than a baby goat sleeping on top of a layer of teen pigs or a kid bouncing off the back of a small hog. See the pictures below and check out Facebook for some short video footage.

If you haven’t gotten tickets yet don’t forget about Farm Tour April 28-29. You can go to www.CarolinaFarmStewards.org to get more information. It’s a great way to see what’s happening on farms in the area and to support for our farming community. Plus, you can come visit us!

Speaking of community, we along with several other committed folks have been fortunate to receive a Saxapahaw Farm and Business Collaborative grant from RAFI–thanks RAFI. The money will be put to good use creating more storage, handling and value added processing facilities at the Sax General Store and The Eddy so that our sustainable farming community can continue to thrive. Did you know that the group at Sax Gen and the Eddy have one of the highest percentage of use of local products in the state, perhaps the nation? (This includes buying and butchering a whole Cane Creek pig each week, and buying a whole Braeburn cow every 2-3 weeks. Completely rad…)

Well, in the words of the great Porky Pig, “B’dah, b’dah, b’dah…d’ats all folks!

ps, one more rad thing- the Core Sound folks are taking shares for their spring CSF- community supported fishery. Buy a share, get fresh nc seafood delivered to Carrboro every week or every other week. http://www.coresoundseafood.org/home.html

Esther resting after giving birth to her first litter:

Sometimes the warmest, safest spot is on momma’s snout:

A welcomed snack of broccoli and brussel sprout plants pulled up from the fall garden:

Thanks to Shelly Jacobs for the photos.

I went out on the four-wheeler in the dark to simply shut the doors for the night and drove up to something I hardly recognized. An upside-down trailer sitting atop the crushed remains of the walls and roof of the chicken house. Truly a chicken-911 emergency. Long story short, we miraculously saved 80 plus chickens and lost only four to the accident (may they lay in peace).

Our friends Tom and Nick Garrett came the next day and began building a new and improved mobile, which is now finished and the chickens are loving it. As is the case with farms, these expenses crop up and then you scramble to pay for them (too many puns?). We might wind up throwing a farm event in the future to help pay for the egg mobile. Or maybe we’ll just throw a party? In either case we have a few ideas rolling around for a spring event, but if you have good thoughts, send us some ideas.

So all that said, don’t forget that Valentine’s Day is on Tuesday. And, while we’re all told that v-day is about jewelry and flowers, historically speaking, the holiday was originally focused around other things- namely love, martyrs, and medium-rare pork chops. Or something like that. Anyhow, trust us, your sweetie doesn’t want diamonds, she wants a home cooked Cane Creek dinner. So come find us at market- shoulder, pork chops, prosciutto, bacon- it’s all perfect for valentine’s day

(We accept no responsibilities for disappointed valentines)

More good news–our request has been honored at Greensboro Market, yay! Thanks to all of you who have been hanging in their with our somewhat erratic schedule there. Going forward we will be sharing a table with Summer’s Farm and our products will be there weekly, yay, yay! As always you can email and let us know of any special requests, otherwise just drop by and we will have our usual wide assortment of tasties from the farm.

Thanks for reading, your friends,
The Cane Creekers

A diamond last forever, but prosciutto lasts pretty damn long too