Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Holiday Bean

I was having great difficulty posting photos and info regarding our holiday decor. I was however, able to post pictures to our website. So, please visit our website www.beanhouses.com to see some of our wreaths and trees.

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Bean - Volume 4

I am going to start this newsletter by introducing ourselves. It probably would have been a better idea to do this in the first issue, but I think back then the people that were receiving this knew us well, it was more like an extended family update. As time goes by, and with the use of the internet our extended family has grown and some of us may not know each other as well as we would like. So, I'll go first. We are a small family owned farm. We have four children between the ages of 7 and 12. They all work on the farm. They have certain chores that they are responsible for individually and some we do as a family. I am a fourth generation Little Comptonite, my great grandparents farmed the land across the road from where we farm now. My Grandfather and Great Aunts and Uncles farmed on local farms. My husband started farming at 14 on his aunt's farm in Westport, Allen Farms. We met on a local farm as teenagers. We ARE farmers. We started our business over 13 years ago as a gardening business and greenhouse grower, over the years we did less wholesale growing and more gardening. We have dabbled in retail but love the freedom of our honor system stand. We have been selling in season chem-free fruits and vegetables, the BEST free range eggs around and fresh flower bunches all in front of our house with a hanging scale and a coffee can. While we take our word and responsibilities seriously we try to make everything we do fun and enjoyable. We are the silliest farmers we know! We have been trying to get this newsletter out seasonally to keep everyone up to speed with our busy farm.
We skipped a frost this year and went right into a freeze, at least in our Dahlia field. All of the Dahlia tubers were dug this week, and packed away in our basement until the Spring. Last year we over wintered some Cannas as well as Dahlias and had a great success with them this Summer. They are dug and in our basement as well. We estimate about 2000 Dahlias and about 1000 Cannas. Its always interesting to see what happens in the Spring. The Winter is like its own growing season below our living room. Some varieties seem to thrive in one environment when others won't survive at all. Jeremy moves them around in late Winter, early Spring to see how they are all doing and make sure we have a good variety of colors. We were able to sell all our Dahlias at the stand this Summer, in previous years we have done some wholesaling, but word must have gotten out about our large, fresh $5.00 bunches!!
We had three batches of meat birds this year. We chose a Freedom Ranger variety, this is a non- GMO variety that is an excellent forager. Other varieties we tried in the past seemed to do nothing else but eat grain despite the fact we were moving them twice a day so that they could forage. We hope to have the meat birds be free range next year as well as pasture raised. We met some new customers this year that were thoughtful eaters. They have done research and put in the effort to finding local meat,eggs and vegetables. They understand the cost and effort involved on our end, they more than talk the talk. It was very refreshing and encouraging because its hard to sell chicken for $5.00/lb when you can go to the supermarket and get it for .99/lb., sometimes even with labels like 'cage free', 'pasture-raised' or 'organic'. Most of these chickens have never stepped foot on a blade a grass. They are raised by factory farms, fed antibiotics and shipped all over the country before they end up in your fridge. Our chicks are shipped to us at one day old with no antibiotics, they are fed and cared for by us and our local employees, they then travel about 5 miles to be processed by Jeremy, Cleo and two other local men and then back to the farm. That's it. If you haven't tried one of our chickens, you really should. We still have some available in our freezers and will be taking pre-orders in the spring for fresh chicken in the summer. We really had a lot of fun having 'Fresh Chicken Friday's'. We set up our canopy, scales and coolers. We met some of our loyal customers and exchanged recipes.
We had the eggs, we added the meat poultry and to complete the pasture management cycle we added beef. Our Scottish Highland cattle have been grass fed and rotate around the field with the egg laying chickens following closely behind, We plan on having beef available for Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas....don't forget we are still making wreaths, boxwood trees and centerpieces. We will have a variety of centerpieces available at our honor system stand starting the week of Thanksgiving and then add wreaths and boxwood trees. We have been making moss wrapped frame wreaths for over 20 years. We use a lot of local greens in our centerpieces and mixed greens wreaths. Feel free to contact us to customize your order or arrange for us to hang your wreath for you. The more unusual the better, we have been know to make wreaths in all shapes and sizes, including squares and letters.
Besides adding beef to our farm this year, we also produced some value added products. With our excess produce we created jams, jellies, pickles and relishes. The fruits and vegetables used were raised by us, so that we could insure that they were completely chem-free. We rented a local certified kitchen and canned our products. Relishes and pickles are: Sweet Pickle Relish, Sweet Sandwich Pepper Relish, Bread and Butter pickles. Our jam and jelly list includes: Concord Grape, Rose Hip, Horseradish, Chocolate Mint, Hot Pepper, Super Hot Pepper, Raspberry, Pear and Apple. The canning didn't start until the end of the Summer, so we will have to wait until next year to add Strawberry and Blueberry to the list. It has been very exciting preserving our harvest. It feels like a mix of culinary arts and mad science- and we love it!! While doing local shopping I have noticed a lot of products that have been-'made for' some local farms. Our stuff is grown, made and canned locally, by us. You can check out our preserves at our stand on nice days – our labels don't like the rain, or contact us and we can get them to you.
The biggest challenge this year was keeping up with the egg demand. Our chickens are offered a variety of all natural food and are truly free-range- as our neighbors will agree. This seasons egg layers were original Rhode Island Reds, Dominiques, and Brown Leghorns for heritage breads, along with Americana mixes, which are a South American breed that lay a greenish- blue egg and are excellent foragers. We started with about 200 laying birds this spring and rarely had eggs in our cooler and never had them in our fridge. Most of the time the eggs would sell as they were crossing the road to get washed, weighed and packaged. We are starting to hatch our own layers to cut the cost of buying peeps and to keep up our effort of becoming more sustainable. While discussing adding more egg layers for 2011 we decided to do a break down of what it cost us to provide you with a dozen eggs. Our current price is $3.00 per dozen. Each chicken costs us $10.00 before it lays its first egg, which takes about 6 months. This amount includes feed, electricity and shavings. This amount does not include labor. At this moment we have 100 layers (the population is down due to coyotes) , they are laying around 3 dozen eggs a day. All natural grain for a week costs about $50.00. Egg cartons are .35 a piece. 3 dozen a day times 7 days a week = 21 dozen a week. 21 dozen x 3.00 = $63.00. Minus the $57.35 for food and cartons and we are bringing in a whopping $5.65. If you didn't notice there wasn't any labor in those figures. We have decided to raise our price. Local eggs at a nearby market in Westport start at $5.50 a dozen. We think $5.00 would be fair. Our loyal egg customers are very important to us and we do not want to lose any of you, so we will be offering Bean Bucks again this year, which will allow you to reduce the price to $4.00 dozen.
So, once again we will have Bean Bucks. Bean Bucks is a CSA ( community supported agriculture) with our own spin. You pick the amount you want to spend. Any amount there is no minimum. When we receive your completed sign up sheet and payment we will send you your Bean Bucks worth 135% of your share between now and the end of 2010 or 125% between January and the end of April 2011. Your Bean Bucks can be used however you want, whenever you want at our honor system stand. You can use them within a couple of weeks or spread them out over the season. This money helps us cover Winter cost and get going in early Spring. In return for helping us out, you get a better deal- on an already great deal, help the local economy, support local agriculture, reduce fossil fuel use, eat in season and basically be a super human being! Sounds like a deal for both of us.
Now you know what we've been doing. Stop by for some eggs or jelly and say hi, check out our ever improving website or follow us on Facebook for a more immediate update on what we are doing.
Know your farmer, know your food.
The Allens -Jeremy, Polly, Cleo, Cyrus, Olive and Xan
www.beanhouses.com
104 South of Commons Road
Little Compton, RI 02837
401.635.4091


Bean Bucks application



□ Yes, sign me up for some Bean Bucks
Name_____________________________________________________

Address___________________________________________________

City________________State____________________zip____________

phone:______________________ email:_________________________

share amount_______________ x 135% Bean Bucks________________
before Jan. 31, 2010

(example: $100.00 share = $135.00 worth of Bean Bucks, $200.00 share= $270 worth of Bean Bucks)

share amount_____________________x 125% Bean Bucks___________
between 1/1/11 and 4.30/11
(example $100.00 share = $125.00 worth of Bean Bucks, $200.00 share = $250.00 worth of Bean Bucks)