1. It’s turkey time. We are taking reservations. You can specify size, type of bird, and can either pay the deposit in check or on the internet (yeah, we’re impressed with ourselves as well).  For information on the breed characteristics of our Bourbon Reds and Broad-Breasted Bronzes, available sizes and prices, or to reserve your bird online, visit our 2010 Thanksgiving Turkey Page.

2. We’re having a big farm event: Adventures of Huck Finn on October 16th. As some of you may remember, we threw our “Arabian Nights” party last year and all had a great time. These events are half theater and half farm dinner. All of the information is on the website on our Mark Twain Final Banquet page.

3. Lastly, our buddy and regular farm and market volunteer Brad Weiss is in the midst of conducting some research about farming, local meat buying, etc. His appeal is below. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to fill out his survey. He’s helped the farm out a ton over the past year and half and it would be great if any of you could give him a hand with his research.

Dear Cane Creekers –

This is Brad Weiss writing to you.  If you’re a regular at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, you might recognize me as the guy with the beard and the Cubs’ cap digging through coolers for pork chops, and dispensing the occasional cooking tip.  If you’re like most people you’ve probably wondered, “Who is this guy? And what is he doing here?” Or else you’ve got some very, very wrong ideas about Eliza and me.

Just to clear things up, in fact, I am a social and/or cultural anthropologist and all of this time I’ve been doing research on  – well – you!  That’s right, I’m doing a study on pasture-raised pork, how it’s produced, how it’s processed and marketed, how it’s consumed (at home and in restaurants), and what this might tell us about contemporary ideas about food, community, and the economy.  I’m writing to you now, through the grace of Ross and Eliza and the whole newsletter team, to ask if you can respond to a brief questionnaire about your use of Cane Creek products. The survey is online here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QSBFY6B

Only five minutes of your time will provide you with a lifetime of satisfaction, knowing you’ve made a vital contribution to social science.  Reporting on this survey is completely anonymous; your confidentiality is assured.

The other thing is this: if any of you would be willing to, or interested in contacting me directly to discuss these questions in a little more depth, I’d be very, very grateful.  You can email me at: blweis@wm.edu.  Or you can chat me up at the Market some Saturday, and we can arrange a time to talk in more detail.  I’m happy to share my findings with anyone who’s interested, and can promise copies of anything I publish (I bet you can’t wait! But you’ll have to wait).

Thank you for your consideration.

Brad

#########################################
SEND ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:
Brad Weiss
121 Waverly Forest Ln
Chapel Hill NC 27516
919-967-6507

ON LEAVE 2010-2011
Brad Weiss
Professor of Anthropology
College of William & Mary
Williamsburg VA 23187
757-221-1209
#########################################

We’re nearing the end of our bird hatching and acquisition. We have ducks of all ages, chickens of all ages, 8 young goslings (why? because Eliza found out she didn’t have every animal in the kingdom) (that’s baby goose for those who don’t know), and 30 baby guineas (why? because they make that wonderful sound). We’ll be getting baby turkeys next week and then we should be set. Come visit and see the bird menagerie.

Our pigs are getting to a good size, and we’ve been bringing more pork each week to markets. As for the the cows- the dry spell put us a bit behind schedule, but we’ll regularly be bringing steers to market in three weeks. We had a bit of goat the past few weeks and hopefully will have more throughout the summer and fall. Tomorrow we’re making a run to the coast with some bellies, so bacon is only a few weeks off.

In other news, some of the guys on the farm put together a pig butchery class for some folks. All participants took home cuts and brought them back for a Memorial Day party. In addition they smoked a whole hog. It was quite a feast and managed to raise $1000 for Heifer International. As it was a success, we’ll be looking to do similar events in the future, but of course make them more official and invite all of you!

The gardens are not as big as usual, but we traded size for greater variety and a easier/better record keeping.  We have squash, onions, garlic and greens now and are looking at some big tomatoes on the vine, albeit green thus far.

We are also at four markets a week right now and waiting for a huge number of egg layers to begin production.  Should be quite a summer and fall with tons of product.  Come see us at Carrboro, Saxapahaw and Greensboro, and of course the farm.  We are enjoying the heat and staying wet and cool with the animals.  Bring the kids!!

The farm’s green. The cows are doing their best to keep the pastures mowed. The big chickens are hitting their egg-laying stride, the adolescent birds are growing like weeds, and baby chicks hatched this morning (Adorable!). The sheep and goats are tagging along with the cows, eating what the cows and calves leave for them. The gardens are tilled up, pig fertilizer and all. We have duck eggs in the incubator (speaking of adorable, ducklings take the cake). We have onions, garlic, potatoes, and a few tomatoes in ground, and lettuce, peppers, eggplant, and more tomatoes in the greenhouse. I know, a greenhouse seems ridiculous at the moment.

Not only does the farm get busier in the good weather, so it seems does the larger food world. We’ve listed a few events below that Cane Creek will be involved with. Please join when you can, each one of them is a fantastic time.

Where we is: Saturdays 7-12 in Carrboro. Wednesday markets start April 14. Every other Saturday we are at the Greensboro Curb market 8-12. You can also find our goodies at Chatham Market Place and at Saxapahaw General Store. As for our regular restaurants- Panciuto (Hillsborough), Piedmont and Six Plates (Durham), Lantern, Il Palio, Acme, Glasshalffull (all in Chapel Hill), Cafe 150 (UNC campus), and Saxapahaw General Store. Help support these places, you’ll enjoy it, promise.

We’ve been happy to see so many of you come out to the farm. Even more than normal, we don’t seem to find time to take pictures of the farm. So if you’ve been out lately and would like to contribute some photos to our website, please email them to us! Besides that, we hope everyone is well and hope to see you at market and at the farm.

Happy Opening Day
Cane Creekers

List of events:

The 15th Piedmont farm tour is April 24 and 25. For those that have never attended- it’s 25 bucks for a carload and you can tour around 40 farms (and a few vineyards) over two days. What a great way to spend an afternoon with the fam. Check out http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/ for details on tickets

Farm to Fork: Get your tickets to Farm to Fork early, since it normally sells out quickly. It’s Sunday May 23 this year at Breeze Family Farm (Cedar Grove area). For newbies- chefs in the area team with different farms and make glorious food (imagine a bunch of chefs trying to out-do one another, and using great ingredients…. we all win). This year we’ll probably be teamed with  Sax General. All money goes to Breeze farm, which is an incubator farm for young farmers.

http://www.farmtoforknc.com/ for details

Saxapahaw Saturday Markets start May 1. yeah!!

In the mean time, we got more chicks and are working to reestablish our laying flock so we can provide those beautiful and tasty eggs to all of you. Our previous bunch of girls are now finally laying so look for our eggs at market.

Our pigs had slowed down a bit through the winter, and it seems we’ve been low on pork cuts for a while. Fortunately they too are kicking it into gear and we’ll be back on our normal schedule (6-8 hogs/week) here very soon.

As for the cows, we did pregnancy checks recently and this was easily our best year for fertility rates. We will also begin rotating the cows in our pastures tomorrow! They’ve been on hay recently, and they’ll be happy to start mowing fresh grass. As for our pasture management- thanks to Aaron’s work, we now have every pasture gps-ed and onto a map in the store. This year we will attempt “mob-grazing” as opposed to our “intensive-grazing” in the past. Both are great systems, but we hope this new technique will help fertilize our pastures even better.
Here’s the short of it: we will move each group of cows every day into a new strip of grass. They will eat what they can and then we’ll move them the next day. They won’t get to eat all of the grass (in the past we let them eat it down), and the goal is to have them mash their patties and the higher grass back into the soil- making healthier pastures and allowing us to use no fertilizer. That’s the short of it. Ask Doc if you want to know more (and have time

We’ve started lettuce in the greenhouse. The onions are planted, and more will go in the ground this week, along with some taters. The strawberries have held up well in through the winter.

Our friend Sam is off this afternoon to a curing house with some of our Ossabaw hams. Check back in 9 months for some awesome prosciutto and in two months for some lardo (which means you have two months to learn what that is).

As for our staff- Aaron Edwards has left us to do farming work/education in Liberia (just the usual). He will be missed, but we have two great guys on the farm now to help fill the gap- Derek Werner and Leland Reilich, as well as Hailey Moses come summer.

Events – We will be part of the farm tour April 24-25. We are also helping plan some events for the Company Shops Market (Burlington Coop) for the warmer months. We have a lot of exciting ideas planned and we’ll keep you all in loop for those. We’re still doing Carrboro’s Saturday market each week, and Wednesdays start next month. We still go to the Greensboro Curb market every other Saturday (not tomorrow). And the store is still open Saturdays 10-4 and Thursdays 2-6, so come pay us a visit.

Hope everyone is well and managing the cold. We’ll see some of you tomorrow at market

Cane Creekers

The cool mornings, clear days, and fresh breezes have to make this the best time of the year on our farm. Remember to visit the farm store sometime this fall.

Thanks, first off, to all that joined us for our Arabian Nights party. We’ve received a great response and hope to do it again (different theme) sometime in the future. Pictures are on the here on our website if anyone is interested.

A few important updates:

1. We are having an October Beef bulk beef sale. This is definitely the best price we have ever sold beef at. We packed the boxes a few days ago so they have all been frozen immediately (after hanging). They also fit into two boxes, roughly 24″x16″x5″. So don’t worry, it won’t take up as much space as you’re worried about. We’re doing this 1. because it’s the most efficient and sustainable way to sell meat 2. because we would like to move many cows off of our land before the grasses stop growing this winter. This is why communities have long slaughtered animals in the fall and used that meat to provide for the family through the winter. Please see our website for pricing and other details.

2. It is turkey season. We have bourbon reds and broad-breasted bronze turkeys this year. This is a great opportunity to have an ethically-raised, flavorful, and locally-grown bird for your family and friends this holiday. Details about reserving them can be found here

3. About that website- Our new one is up! It’s gorgeous, user-friendly, has tons of info (updated too!), and has some new features like recipes and cooking advice from chefs.

That’s about all. We’ll be in Greensboro this week (and every other week afterward). They’ve been putting us outside, so look for us there. Remember to send any market requests to us during the week. Besides that, just let us know if you’re interested in bulk beef, turkeys, or if you just like our new website (thanks Sarah Cook!)