Our Spring Chicken Sale ends at 9am on Monday morning. As we mentioned on Friday, we will also be adjusting our chicken prices to keep up with rising costs on our end. Now is a great time to fill your freezer at a great price.
The sprint of spring continues, and we processed our first batch of chickens this week. It was a great success and if I’m honest with myself the first processing day can often be a long and stressful day as we discover all the details we’ve forgotten over the winter months. We took a different approach this year and split our first batch of chickens into two groups. Each batch is approximately 450 birds and so from the first batch we had two groups of 225. This week we processed the first group of 225, selecting the larger birds of the batch.
We did this for a number of reasons. One was to intentionally create some space and time for learning, note taking and practice. For example, when the scalder temperature was not quite perfect, we took the time to stop, correct and test. Since there were only 225 birds we also were able to finish early and take some notes on what we needed, things we had forgotten and adjustments for next time.
A second reason was that I am going to be away until Wednesday evening of next week. Before our “two group” idea, this would mean I would be away for our first processing day. Now we have a week of practice, and when I am away we will also be doing a half size group.
I am excited and honored to be traveling to Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health down in western MA. My mentors and teachers Brian and Ani are teaching their Core Centering Practitioners course at Kripalu and I will be assisting with their class. I will also be doing a little experiential research:) As I’ve mentioned in the footer of this email Racey and I are thrilled to be planning an on-farm retreat we’re calling Rewilding Your Spirit – Rewiring Your Mind – Renewing Your Body. We have never run a retreat on our farm and I will be paying close attention to how things work at Kripalu to learn from one of the best.
I look forward to sharing more about our upcoming retreat and what I’ve learned.
Farm Update
Yesterday at 5 am when Racey and I got out of bed and used the bathroom, I noticed that the toilet did not fill properly. I checked that the power in the house was still working, which it was, and so the next logical conclusion was there was trouble with the well.
We drilled the well by our house in 2015 after a few years of having a very low capacity well on the farm. I still remember the days crouched in a well house, priming a dry pump and scrambling to find water for thirsty animal groups. Since then we have taken for granted the luxury and convenience of having pressurized water available around the farm and out in our pastures. We did not have a backup plan.
Thinking quickly, I was able to run a long water line from the house of our dear friends, neighbors and business partners, Chad and Gwen. Their well pump is not as big as ours, but it was able to handle filling our water lines and keeping the farm critters well hydrated while I pulled the old well pump, determined the pump was bad and drove to Glens Falls to pick up a new pump.
In the fading but persistent daylight of late spring, Lewis donned a headlamp and helped me install the new well pump. We struggled to get all the pieces to fit without leaking and Lewis eventually went to bed. I tried a few more times with eventual success and was able to tuck him into bed. “Did you get it to work without leaking Papa?” He asked. I smiled and nodded. “Good work Papa, and goodnight.”
Reber Rock Farm Blog 