Tangletown Farm

News!

Please Click HERE for our 2010 Winter Newsletter. Not as many photos as the email version, but nice nonetheless.

 

Feb 24:  Winter is Finally Here! All be it at the end of February.  It's nice to be reminded how much fun snow is. We have been outside all day shoveling paths for the animals,and kids too.  We made an awesome snow fort with a hay floor that our kids are enjoying. The chickens were starting to roam in all the warm weather and his storm has definitely cramped thier style.  So we are trying to soften that a bit with some good, wide paths.  Hope you are also enjoying the snow!

 

FEBRUARY 13:  Join us today at the NOFA Children's Conference!  We will be there teaching kids all about raising rabbits, and what makes them great pets and great food.  Also look in the Times Argus today, There is a photo essay about our Farm.    We have had an extremely exciting and busy winter.  We spoke at the Vermont Grazing Conference, we have had three articles in the Burlington Free Press, a profile of our farm on the UVM beginning  farmers website, and have hosted school groups and many farm tours.  It is important to us to farm AND to educate our community of the important role local agriculture plays in all of our lives.  Allowing children to see where their food comes from has been satisfying.  We will include the links to the articles soon.

On the farming front, our animals are all having a great winter too.  We experimented with having broiler chickens year round to offer fresh at market and that has gone well.  We have enjoyed having so many chickens roaming around the barnyard.  Our layers are all laying tons of eggs, and our ducks are now mature enough they have begun to lay.  Duck eggs are rich and delicious and we are excited to offer them for sale at the markets.

Ducks are fun to watch because they  work hard to find anything green to eat this time of year.  They jump up to eat pine needles, and crawl into the middle of our round bales and eat the sweet hay. And they swim every day!  We fill a wading pool for them which keeps them very happy in all kinds of weather.

 

We haven't had much down time, and we are excited to be getting ready for this next farming season.   We will be offering goat and lamb as well as our usual array of meats.  We love raising animals and caring for them well.  There is no proof, but we do believe that happy healthy meats do taste better.

We received over 40 phone calls after Thanksgiving from folks who loved their turkey.  We were amazed that people were thoughtful enough to call us.  We took a lot of pride in our turkeys, and enjoyed their company quite a bit, so those phone calls were nice to receive.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 9:  Well the summer is wrapping up and fall is here.  We are happy to say we are still going strong and as busy as ever! We are having a great big pig roast and harvest party on Saturday, October 17 from 3 pm until late.  Come one and come all!  Lots of great food and people.  

 

We wil be at the Thanksgiving Market in Montpelier on November 21 and then we will be at the Burlington winter market every month from November until April.  The dates for that are: November 21, December 19, January 16, February 20, March 20 and April 17.   We will be offering all of our products, including some delicious Christmas ducks!!  We are also so proud to offer our 100% organic pork this year. 

 

We have had so much fun this fall here at Tangletown.  Our rabbits have voraciously eaten many of our sunflowers, gobbling up every little bit, and our children have been busy pulling lots of carrots for the bunnies too.  We have many chickens and turkeys and ducks of all varieties, quacking and crowing and roaming around.  We have had a broody hen all summer, who has desperately wanted chicks but never set on her eggs long enough to hatch any.  So when we received our last order of meat chicks, we nestled six lucky babes under her wings and they are all so happy!  She is truly the proud mother hen, and it is quite a joy to watch.

 

Other than that, we have been busy with regular farm life.  Some loose animals here and there, but mostly just good, plain farming fun.   The children at the Worcestor and Rumney Elementary schools have been enjoying our organic beef in many a meal already this school year.  The kids really notice the difference, which makes our farming endeavors even more rewarding.

 

Much of our meat is being offered at the Three Penny Tap Room in Montpelier.  If you want to eat some of the most delicious and artfully preparedfood  here in vermont, go and try it.  Three Penny is committed to purchasing local ingredients from farmers who treat their land and animals well.  As farmers, seeing our animals prepared in such a careful, beautiful and delicious way is even more rewarding!  We thought we had completed the cycle by raising animals from beginning to end, well.  Seeing the meat prepared in such a tasteful mannar completes it even more, which is very exciting for us.

 

Overall, life is good here in Tangletown.  We enjoy raising animals in the natural fashion we do.  It feels great to look out and see chickens, meat birds and layers, immersed in dust baths, lounging under apple trees or munching green grass.  Our pigs sometimes we can't even find because they are snoozing in such tall grass!  We have to call them and they slowly amble over to see what goodies we might have.  

 

We are excited to be gearing up rather than gearing down for the winter.  So come on out to the burlington winter market and say hello!  

 

We are still taking orders for Thanksgiving turkeys.  We have about 20 left!  Call or check the how to order page if you are interested.

 

AND COME ON OUT TO OUR PIG ROAST ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 17!!!

 

 

July 20:

What a busy month!  The highlights have been:  

Our entire family was interviewed on the Goddard Colledge radio 91.1  radio show Tonio and Friends.  It is a call in radio show.  We had callers that asked a wide variety of questions, from wondering how the children feel about processing animals, to callers discussing the importance of small local and ORGANINC farms.  Our children were able to be a part of the discussion and put their own thoughts about farming out to the world, which was fun for them and exciting for us.  They liked the headphones a whole lot, too.

 We have had a lot of joys, like seeing all of our animals enjoing the green freshness of summer, and a few challenges, too.  We, and other farmers we have commisserated with in the area, have seen a great decline in the egg production of our laying hens, in a very sudden fashion.  We are exploring the causes, from parasite to depression to nutrition, and hopefully and help remedy this problem soon! This is an interesting challenge we hope to understand and come through successfully.

 

Our veggies are growing and our rabbits are now enjoying some of this years carrots!  Governor, our middle child, is a notorious carrot picker and eater, and there is nothing better than seeing the little child with a carrot in one hand for himself and one in the other hand for his pet bunny, Tobber.  

 

We have had many visitors come to our farm and visit the animlas and play with our children.  It is a brilliant feeling to educate children about where food comes from and how important it is to raise things well.  Kids love animals and they know when they are happy. Seeing them begin to understand the cycle of things is very exciting for us here.

We use other peoples land for our animals as well.  The outpouring of support from our community is something special.  Our children love farming because of the people they are able to come into contact through it.  We had trouble loading our cows to take them to slaughter and the landowners were right there to help out and keep all the children, theirs and ours, happy and entertained while we went about our cow whispering, begging, bribing, pleading, etc to get the cows on the trailer.  And eventually it worked!  The cows got on the trailer and realized it wasn't so bad on there after all. They even took time to have some scratches and eat some yummy grain and hay before they went on their way.   Many thanks to David Sparrow, our Cattle coach, as we like to call him, for helping us load them in a safe and careful way.

 

June 11:

Lila was just interviewed on WMRW Radio 95.1. Robin McDermott, director of the localvore movement in Waitsfield, hosts an hour long radio program called the Dinner Hour.  Lila was on for the entire hour! You can listen to the interview by going to www.dinnerhour.org

 Just scroll down and look for the list of guests and click on Download When you see the June 9, Lila Bennett from Tangletown Farm. We were able to discuss why we raise both organic and conventional animals, and how we raise our animals.  We spoke about many other things as well. Check it out, it was lots of fun.

 

 

May 24, Memorial Day:

It is safe to say we had the best dinner of our lives last night: Pan-roasted rabbit and  and oven roasted chicken, with sauteed potatoes, shitake mushrooms and corn on the cob for sides. Red Hen bread too. Not only was the food delicious, but we had our good friends over to help prepare and enjoy it.  It is very rewarding to be surrounded by wonderful people, to have big dinners where everyone cooks together, including the kids, when they weren't busy catching bugs to feed all the chicks we have.  Farming is a community experience for us, which makes it all the more enjoyable and worthwhile.   Our french friend Emmanuel is helping us with a recipe book and we will post the recipes on the website in the next few weeks.  We are looking forward to sharing our great rabbit and chicken recipes so others may have amazing dinners too!  

 

We have been having such a good time connecting with people in the community through farming.  We dropped off a couple of piglets to our neighbors who wanted to raise pigs this year.  They had prepared the most wonderful home and great high quality fencing, which took the pigs about two seconds to escpae from.  And it turned into a great adventure, with seven children and four adults trying to round up the quick little pigs.  The kids were all working together, no one was moving quickly or scaring the pigs, everyone was laughing and up for the challenge.  Eventually, we got them in and settled.  Having adventures like that makes farming fun and worhwhile for our whole family.

 

 

 

May 8:

Things have been very busy here in Tangletown.  Our first crew of pheasants are here and they are so beautiful!   They are happily testing out their fine feathered wings.  They are picky eaters and prefer if all of their food is in the form of a mash.  They let us know when the mash is getting low by chirping extremely loudly!  As soon as they have the food to their liking they become their quiet graceful selves again.  Its is an amazing process to watch.

 

 

 

The ducks are also here and growing madly and getting big enough they are almost ready to start swimming.  Duck chicks are especially cool because they are so curious, and interested in people.  sometimes when they are napping, they will just look up at us, with one eye.  The expression is a combination of curiosity and kindness.  Its beautiful.  We'll try to catch it on camera.

 

 

Our rabbits have done what rabbits do best- we have 30 new beautiful babies.  The moms are doing a great job!  Everyone is happy and healthy and boistrously strong.  

 

 

 

Our first two pigs are humongous, and funny!  They always have things to say when we go to feed or to visit.  They thoroughly enjoy the scratches we give them, except they are getting so big its hard to scratch when they lean in! 

 

 Photos really will be added soon.  W encountered a glitch when our childrens house bunny got a hold of our camera usb cord and, well, thought it was a carrot.  WE had heard that house bunnies can trend toward cord chewing and had masterfully put them all away except the one that had slipped down behind our office desk.  So the photos need a new cord and then all can enjoy the wonderful animals we are spending our time with.

 

 

 

 

April 10, Lila wrote: 

Hey Guess what?  The Valley Reporter just did a fabulous story about our farm in the April 1.  Issue of the paper.  Its not on their website yet, but as soon as it is, I'll add a link!

And Guess what else?  The Montpelier Bridge did a great article about us in this weeks (4/9)  edition!  As soon as that's up on their site, we'll link it too.  We are so excited to be moving along.  We are almost all sold out!  Thank you everyone!

 

Below is a copy of our newsletter, check it out!

 

TANGLETOWN FARM SPRING NEWSLETTER

                                             

What a busy winter!  We attended the NOFA Winter Conference, The Vermont Grazing Conference, the NOFA Farmers Conference and the Foodworks Winter Retreat.  Some of your children may have enjoyed our chicken at the NOFA Children's conference in February!   The common theme across all these conferences was: local.  People (at least these groups of people) seem to be committed to rethinking our food system, and our economy as a whole, to local self-sufficiency. Local is where we have to start but we can't let go of the commitment to organic. Organic, after all, is what will eventually make the shift to sustainable, local economy possible.  It is very exciting to be working toward this goal.

 We have a commitment as farmers to hold ourselves to the highest standards of farming practices and change the food landscape by doing so. Local is a great first step. Organic, as crazily expensive as it is today, is what we need to be focusing our energy on.  If we can eek out more and more organic food locally, more of the time, the prices can come down.  Our long-term goal here at Tangletown Farm is to make it possible to offer local AND organic food to everyone, and make that option be affordable to all. We are energized and ready to go for this farm season. 

Lila also testified at the Future of Farming evening with the legislature. She pleaded to decrease large subsidies for the large farms far away that supply the feed for feedlots and for all the packaged junk foods, and to instead increase spending on our school lunch, state cafeteria and hospital food programs. The more that local food can become the norm, the more prices of high quality, local (and in time, organic) products can be affordable to everyone. Click here for the complete testimony.  

 

As spring sets in, we are busy here on the farm. We have a very small sugaring operation.  We have just finished our first quart of syrup for the season, and it is delicious!  There is nothing like tasting warm syrup right off the ladle.   We have three rabbit does just ready to Kindle (give birth) and one who just has.  Our first bunch of chicks will be arriving next week and we are really excited! Everybody else is growing and living and soaking up this warm spring sun. We can't wait to get planting and growing all the great vegetables, seeds and grains for ourselves and our animals. We are making progress toward self-sufficency, which is satisfying for us personally and also because we can offer our knowledge and the fruits (or meats, in our case) of our labor to others.

 

Our farmers market dates are set:  We will be at the Montpelier Farmers Market on 5/30, 6/6, 7/25, 8/29, 9/26, 10/24.

 

 

Its not settled yet but we will most likely be at the Red Hen Bakery with a farm stand and meat for sale (and for CSA pickups) on the first and third Saturdays of each month.  Pick up at the farm will be Tuesdays and Fridays, by appointment. 

Don't forget, CSA packages ordered and paid in full before April 1 receive $15 off !

 

 

Thanks everyone, and enjoy!