This year has been quite a year for us. I moved away from managing things at Fertile Valley Farm, so I could concentrate on the expansion here. We started going to the Wayne County Farmer's Market and have seamlessly moved into The Cooperage Market for the fall/winter months. Next year, I'm hoping to set up at the Hawley market on Fridays, in addition to the Saturday Honesdale market.
Summer was a whirlwind trying to adjust to a larger-sized garden and manning a booth at market. I was also helping Emma start he own portion of the farm business: cut flowers. She did really great with 10 CSA memberships for 8 weeks, and selling additional bouquets and stems at the farmer's market.
Summer is usually spent just trying to keep my head above water while harvesting, weeding, and planting. We managed to find time to raise some meat chickens and ducks, in addition to our rabbits. We are now inspected by PDA to do on-site butchering of our own animals and bring them to market. We're hoping to help introduce rabbit to folks as a nutritious, and sustainable protein source. Emma even took several rabbits to the Wayne County Fair and did very well. We kept our prize-winning buck and doe for breeding.
Fall brought about even more changes. While trying to winterize the garden, help Emma plant her spring bulbs, prepare beds and plant garlic, I started making homemade soups and breads to bring to market so we could have a little more income stream going into the winter. It's been working out well as I've been experimenting with some different recipes. Emma has been making bird seed suet ornaments for her fall/winter sales and we may play around with some wreath making, basket weaving, or doing some salves from the herbs we grew. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is, the possibilities are endless!
Here's a video Emma made of her making the bird seed ornaments: https://www.facebook.com/wolfesprings/videos/915132626095884
Make sure you go to the "join CSA" tab: https://www.honesdalefarms.com/join-csa to get your early bird sign ups started for next year's CSA and the "shop" tab https://www.honesdalefarms.com/shop to order your soups and breads for pick up at market.
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