Hi Friends!
It's like the Ida came through and cleared out the end of an insanely hot summer and now we can enjoy fall!
Notes about freshness and the eggs:
Always let me know if your greens or other produce items didn't make it to you as fresh as they should have. Summer, especially this one, is the hardest time of year to pick and pack the produce and make sure it's fresh when it arrives to you, even though you're getting it a day or two from picking. Some arugula last and the basil are great examples of things going sideways. Now that it's cooling down we can pick in cooler temps and then the boxes go into our walk-in cooler (38F) before Saturday delivery in DC. It's always best to pick up and unpack your box as soon as your drop point opens, typically mid-day.
Eggs: Our chickens have had a tough go of it this year. Our old feed mill delivered the wrong feed in March and we saw the birds go from laying at about 95% to 25% in 2 weeks time. We changed feed mills and saw a jump to about 60% but never back to normal. Additionally we saw a lot of misshapen and weak shelled eggs with watery whites. We've been working with a local chicken expert who breeds specialty chickens and ships around the world. She had us giving our flock electrolytes, kelp, humate, oyster shells, vitamins and lots of house cleanings and tightening up our operation! I felt pretty clueless but happier with how they are doing now. Regardless I've decided to sell this flock and restart with fresh birds for the fall.
King the Pyrenees has approved this and will guard any and all livestock with his usual braveness of heart.
Long live the King.
Please tell your friends and family that we have lots of space in the CSA for the fall season!
Thank you,
Farmer Mike
