#knowyourfarmer

-posted by Jayne

This week the kids and I took a trip up to my hometown of Berlin, Ohio. We got stuck behind a slow moving semi truck, slowly winding along the country roads. It left us plenty of time to discuss our food supply and modern farming techniques, one animal in particular…

The sight of this truck was nothing new to me. In Holmes County, there are plenty of large chicken farms. I grew up with one just down the road, within sight from my front yard. They never seemed too outlandish to me when I was a kid. I figured this was just “how it was done.” Yes, it smelled on the day the chickens were picked up and the barn was emptied. And yes, it was gross to see the feathers flying all over the road after the trucks passed by. But I was a kid, and as a kid in the country, you tend to take things in stride.

My kids had not seen a sight like this before, and they were pretty shocked. They had no idea how large scale poultry farms raised and transported the chickens. Poultry is one of the local meats that can be a bit more difficult to source, as there aren’t many small scale processors that are USDA certified within the state of Ohio. If you’d like to support more small scale poultry farmers, here are a few I would recommend:

Preston Family Farms in Canal Winchester - offer on farm pickup of eggs and whole chicken.

Covey Rise Farm in Radnor, Ohio - shipping direct to your door, as well as at the Westerville Farmers Market.

Doughty Farm Meats in Millersburg, Ohio- a butcher shop offering pastured poultry from their farm. They don’t have a website but you can google them and find their hours. Prices are very competitive for grass-fed and pastured meat. I take a cooler and stock up when I visit my parents. 5362 OH-557, Millersburg, OH 44654.

Red Moon Ranch, LLC- Shelby is a first generation farmer offering her meat at the Worthington Farmer’s Market each Saturday. I’m a big fan of her eggs- arguably the prettiest and tastiest ones at market.

In other news- our barn project is almost complete! We just need to figure out what kind of door to put on, and get that trash cleaned up out front.

We have new shirts available for sale, too. This is a similar design idea we from a Honeyfest shirt from years ago. Whenever we would wear them to market our customers would ask where they could purchase one, and unfortunately the Honeyfest quit making the “3 bee design” several years ago. What do you think? (Oh, you think I should invest in an iron, do you?!?)

If you’re wondering where Isaac is and what he is up to… he’s in his busiest season of work here on the farm. As I sit here on a Sunday evening at 9:22 p.m. and type up a blog, he is on his way to Circle S farms to deliver hives for pumpkin pollination. We’ve also been extracting summer honey, and are happy to report the bees have been producing an excellent crop. We’ll try to get some photos and update the blog with the honey harvest next week. I’ll leave you with this photo Isaac snapped from the loader this week, as he was trying to haul manure. Everyone wanted a piece of the action.