Another Look at the Egg Recall

A great op-ed piece from a Weston A. Price Foundation Member on the recent egg recall. In the interest of spreading the word, she is open to letting others re-print it!

Public Interest Groups Get it Wrong on Egg  Recall

Some Good Reading

Study: Vitamin D3 Prevents Flu Better than Vaccines/Anti-virals

HERE is an interesting article worth reading about Vitamin D3.

~(nearly) Wordless Wednesay~

Layla just hanging out getting ready to calve, as Blackie (beef cow)  plays queen of the hill

Pictures of Cheese 101

What FUN we had on Saturday! New friends, Old friends, and Good-for-you, Oh-so-yummy, Hand-made CHEESE! (We even are selling the Parmesan/Romano down in the Farm Shop)

Upper right: Labna; Middle :Chevre; Bottom right: Parmesan/Romano Block

Instructor Patricia....

Everyone gathered in the Farm Kitchen  learning how to do things "Like Granny used to do"

                              

           Hope toy see more of you for our next class!

Stay tuned for our up and coming Class   List and Farm Happenings for the Fall.

~Pine Grove Farm

Can't Wait For Tomorrow!

We are really excited about tomorrow! Our Cheese Making 101 is not only the first class we've offered, but also has turned out to be the very well attended.  If there are any of you who still might want to attend, just drop us a line! We'll be sure to take photos and post them here.

This is the first of many classes that we are going to be having here at Pine Grove Farm, so stay tuned!

*Update Policies*

We hope that this letter finds everyone doing well and enjoying their summer. This letter is to inform you of some important changes to the farm's policies. We have had to change certain aspects of the policies due to the growing number of customers we have visiting the farm on a daily basis. These new policies will be implemented immediately and we ask that you observe these new policies on all future visits to the farm in order to keep the farm safe and enjoyable for everyone.

1. The farm has changed the hours of operation to 9am - 7pm Monday - Saturday and 12pm - 4pm on Sunday. The driveway is gated and the farm will only be accessible during the farm's hours of operation. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. If you need to make a pick-up after closing, we ask that you make prior arrangements at least 24 hours in advance. In addition, if you call the farm after hours, please leave a message and your call will be returned the following day. 
2.  Please observe the 10mph speed limit and keeps vehicles on the driveway. This helps Mr. Wisecarver to maintain the road & ditches for water control, and helps keep the dust down.  The farm is providing a safe place- sometimes there are children walking in the driveway. Please keep in mind that we have several animals that are not fenced in and have access to the driveway that we do not wish to be hit.
3. We ask that you keep your children with you at arms length at all times. This is to ensure their safety. We have many pieces of farm equipment out in the open that pose a possible threat to their safety and we are  finding that some of the pieces of equipment are missing important parts. We also have a variety of animals and some of these animals do not cope very well with strangers. Contact with strangers negatively affects their health.  We depend on our animals as a source of income and we don't want their health affected. While in the farm shop, we ask that you not allow your little ones to touch the times we have on consignment from other businesses. This will help to ensure that the farm will not have to pay for any damages.
4. Everyone, when signing for the Cow Share Program, was given 3 sets of milk jars per share. This is to ensure that there is a set of jars per share at the farm every week.   We  are currently having a problem with jars not being returned, and missing lids on returned jars. If lids are not on the jars, there is always a possibility of dirt and contamination prior to filling the jar with milk .In the past, Pine Grove Farm has supplied extra jars to the Cow Share Owner when the owners have not returned their weekly jars. We have done so in order that the full quantity of the share can be filled for the Cow Share Owner the following week. We will no longer be able to provide this free service of the extra, free, jars due to the increase of cost. Pine Grove Farm will only fill the jars returned for the following week, unless the share owner continues to have their 3rd set of jars here at the farm.  The third set is to ensure that, if the jars are not returned for that week, the following week your share will be filled per the contract.  Every Cow Share Owner should have an extra set of jars here at the farm per share at all times. 

We  understand that there are many exciting things to see here at the farm, but we ask that you respect our time as we are very busy here  everyday and rarely have a moment to spare. We don't want to offend anyone, or come across as being rude, so we are in the process of finalizing a calendar of events with specific days that well allow  you and your family to spend some times here at the farm and get to know us and our farm hands better. We are not trying to ignore anyone; we are just extremely busy trying to make Pine Grove Farm more productive.

Please keep your eyes open for the calendar of events and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call. We appreciate your understanding and compliance with the new policies.

Sincerely,
Jeff & Teresa
aka
The Farmer & The Farmer's Wife

                     
   

Auntie Em!!

Although we  never quite felt the need to run for the storm cellar,  (and we never did see that woman flying by on a bike.. . ) , the storm that hit our area last week was freakish to say the least, and reminded us all of the fact that God is on His throne and in control, to say the most.

Storm warnings went out on the radio and telly. But that is something we get a few times a season, so no big worry there. The Farmer was working on his  Loader  down near the creek bottom and the Farmer's Wife was in the house.

The storm hit. It was the strangest storm in our memory. First the rain would come in from the left and hit the windows, then it would swirl around and come in from the right, THEN it would change direction once again and hit us straight on. Some parts in the area look as if a tornado touched down, ripped up the trees, and went away. Once things began to look dangerous, the Farmer's Wife thought it'd be most prudent to position herself in the most structurally sound area of the house. She figured SURELY The Farmer would be coming in any minute. He didn't.

The Farmer was in the creek bottom. It has very narrow, steep walls and most of the storm was going right over his head. He was just working away on the loader.
The Wife calls the Farmer on his cell "Are you alright???"
"What do you mean, 'am I alright?' " he asks

Just at about that point the storm hit him. Hard. He immediately lifted the tracks off of the ground so that he'd stop being a conductor. (That whole lightening thing) Once that was done, he still had to wait out the storm because he was under the trees and debris was falling all over and on top of the loader. Large branches were falling from trees and some of our oldest trees snapped right off near the base.

Once the storm appeared to be letting up. The Farmer decided to make  a run for the house. He didn't get far. When he was in  the open field, the Storm came back with all of it's ferocity. He made a bee line to the barn, and there he waited out the rest of the Storm. At least there, he was in view of the house and The Wife could see he was, indeed, safe.

Whew.

This picture was taken after the storm had passed. Can you see the rainbow?)

In the quiet of the Storm's passing, we realized it was TOO quiet. You know, the kind of no-electrical-motors-running kind of quiet. Yup, you guessed it. We were without power.
                                              For NINE hours.
We lost over 35 gallons of milk along with everything else.
But.
On the good side? We have some of the best cow share holders who were all very understanding and concerned. Everyone was quite understanding to the problem.







These next ones all happened to the same tree, right where most of our animals either live, or are worked. This tree just split in areas and dropped a few large limbs







Here is where the cows line up to be milked, and to hang out in general. Although you can't get too good of a scope, it really is a large branch:





Just a small amount of the debris we had to deal with:


Thank you for all of you concern, understanding, and patience during the power outage folks!

Just a final reminder from God that He keeps His promises: