Coon Creek Family Farm

  A Certified Organic Small Family Farm
  "Growing for your family as we do for ours"
 

Handcrafted Goat Milk Soap


Certified Organic:
Chicken
Recipes

Turkey


Vegetables


Eggs


Farm

We try to send out regular e-mails to update our friends as to what is happening with our farm and family.  If you would like to be on our e-mail list, e-mail us at: cooncreekfarm@discover-net.net


Winter Market Sat. January 10 at the Unitarian Universalist Church
It's been a time of resting and enjoying Christmas vacation at Coon Creek Family Farm.   One of the highlights of our holiday was being graciously gifted tickets to the Chippewa Valley Symphony by Kaia Simon Power and her husband Gene.  Gene did a fabulous job of conducting one of the concert pieces.  Gene even posed for pictures with the boys after the performance.  Now before you become too impressed with how cultured the Maro family is, I need to relate a little story.  At one point during the evening, there was short period of time when the conductor gave the musicians a chance to tune their instruments.   It was during this interlude that Ilya in all seriousness turned to his Dad and said "I know this song!".  (Perhaps we need to get off the farm a little more :). )

Dairy Goat Update
There is a billboard on the left hand side of the road leading into Mondovi.  It begins with the saying "Helpful like when . . .".  The messages which follow change periodically.  Sometimes it says "like when Grandma takes the kids".  To date, I haven't figured out whether that is a plea or a thank you.  At other times, the saying changes to "like when your husband fills the tank".  Throughout the year, my husband is 99.45% on that one (but who's keeping score?).  I arrive at that percentage by dividing 363 by the number of days in the year.  The missing two days represent the occasions when my two main dairy goats Lisa and Lucy come into heat. 

Many people ask how I know the girls are at that point.  There are generally two very obvious signs.  One is they wag their tails a lot.  The other is that they scream loud enough so that their boyfriend who lives at the bottom of Silver Mine Ski Jump knows that they should be on their way shortly.  A phone call is placed to Ken and Virginia Smoot who own the buck (aka boyfriend), a large dog crate is placed in the back of the pick up and a ramp is put in place to get the girls to walk the plank into their temporary travel trailer.  The next thing that happens is I get in the truck and glace at the gas gauge to find it on empty.  Now usually this is not the empty that indicates you can safely make the 25 mile round trip but the one that alerts you to the fact that if you don't get to the Mega Fuels off Craig Road on the way to the ski jump, you and the goat will be walking a long ways.  We make quite a sight at the gas station.  A bellowing goat and a woman who had just cleaned her dresser drawer of enough quarters to get a few gallons of gas.  Life is never dull here on the farm.  No wonder our children don't know a tune up from a symphony.  Actually I must confess that this year for the first time in many the truck did have sufficient gas for us to make the entire trip without a stop at Mega.  Think they missed us??  Thank you honey - you are indeed helpful.  This year, that's a thank you and not a plea.

Market this Weekend
Join us this Saturday in the basement of the Unitarian Universalist Church at 421 S. Farwell Street in downtown Eau Claire.  The market runs from 9:00-1:00.

We will be bringing a nice variety of our new turkey products including:
Croquettes, Brats, Burgers, Breakfast Links and broth.
We also have a number of whole frozen turkeys still available.

We will also have our certified organic chicken including:  whole birds, cut ups, legs, wings, breasts and backs.  We will also have chicken broth available.

If you are looking to make a fantastic pot of soup, reserve one or two of our stewing hens.
Come see our selection of Valentine soaps - a great gift for your sweetheart!

Reserve for Market:  Please feel free to e-mail to reserve items for pick up at market.  We will have limited freezer space and want to ensure that you get what you need.

Hope to see you soon! 
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547



Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of December 13
It's been a time of giving thanks at Coon Creek Family Farm.   We are so thankful for our family and for all the wonderful friends of our farm.  It's been great hearing about your Thanksgiving turkeys and reading your recipes!  At some point soon, I hope to add them all to our website. 

Our Thanksgiving tradition is to save the biggest bird for our family.  This year, our turkey topped the scales at over 26#.  Ilya posed with "Tom" in the top picture while Vince and my Dad stand poised to carve the bird in the "after" picture.  Try as we might, the 10 of us could not "eat it all gone" as the kids used to say.  The good part about that though was that we had leftovers!!  Vince made a fantastic pot of soup with the bones.  He then used some of the remaining meat, and a generous dose of Castle Rock Organic Dairy cream - to make a fabulous turkey tetrazzini.  I'll include that recipe at the end of this e-mail.  That recipe can be done with  turkey or chicken.

Speaking of turkey soup, we will soon have available 2 quart size containers of turkey broth in addition to the 3/4 quart size we currently offer.  If the weather cooperates, we will have the larger containers of broth available at Winter Market this Saturday.

Farm Happenings
Just ahead of our initial snowstorms, we managed to move our layers from the field to what we call the "little barn" which has an insulated chicken coop.  We found that moving these free range hens is a bit like trying to nail jello to a tree.  Around lunchtime on the day after their initial move, I found five of the ladies had returned to their former home on the field.  I dutifully carried each of these girls back to their new home and discovered 6 eggs inside the garden shed out on the field.  Before dark I thought I'd check to make sure none of the girls had made their way back to their old roosting grounds,   Sure enough - there were five waiting by the door.  Now I don't know whether these were the same five I had carried back earlier in the day but something tells me there was a high probability of that being the case.

The next day, it snowed.  Since I once played Holmes the Dog in our 7th grade play, I know a thing or two about tracking stray characters in the snow.  Past the goat fence, I could see the a single line of three toed tracks leading back to the field.  Looking ahead, I saw the culprit herself huddled in the snow begging for another ride.  "Do I look like a chicken taxi?" I said to her.  Scooping her up, I followed her trail all the way over to the shed on the field.  There she managed to lay her egg where only a contortionist could reach it.  Following a scratch or two in the compost pile she decided to head back to her new home.  She must have seen me coming and decided to wait for a ride rather than plant those pretty little toes in any more snow.

Sometimes I wonder whether there isn't a sign out in front of our farm that reads "Free meals for all".  There have been several cats who have bought into that idea and are seen here on a regular basis.  Some have looked pretty straggly and others have appeared to have a home somewhere.  One who seems cared for comes so regularly we've taken to calling him "Bob".  During deer hunting, Bob showed up for his breakfast one morning and eliminated any question as to whether he has another home.  Free loader!  Next thing you know he'll be asking me for a ride somewhere!

Winter Market Saturday Dec. 13 at St. Raymond's Catholic Church
Join is this Saturday from 9:00-1:00 for the monthly Winter Farmer's Market. 
Directions:  From Eau Claire, take Hwy 53 south.  Just after you pass through Brackett, you will come to Mallard Road.  Turn left.  Go under Hwy 94.  The church will be on your right.

New Products!
We will be offering a number of new/seasonal items at market this weekend including:

Turkey Brats $8.99/#
Turkey Brat Patties $7.99/#
Turkey Brat Breakfast Links $9.99/#
The turkey brat mixture is made with our certified organic turkey but is not certified organic as it was made with some grass fed pork.  The pork was raised on pasture by our processor and added so the brats would not be dry.  This delicious mix is made without MSG, nitrates or nitrites.  We like to parboil them on the stove first then cook on the grill or griddle.

Turkey Croquettes - This is another wonderful creation cooked up by our processor.  It includes our turkey and turkey broth along with a variety of his vegetables and seasonings.  They taste somewhat like stuffing and come frozen by precooked about the size and shape of meatballs.  We like to heat them in a pan on the stove with a bit of broth in the bottom of the skillet to keep them from sticking.

We will be sampling some of these new products at market this weekend.  Stop by for a taste!

Stewing Hens - $8.00 each  Fabulous for making stock and/or soup!
Turkey broth - 3/4 quart $4.75 a piece or 2 for $8.00
Chicken broth - Quart containers $6.00 a piece or 2 for $10.00

Holiday Soaps - Kris Kringle, Bells, Star, Candy Canes, Gingerbread Man.  "The elves" of Coon Creek have been busy making gift boxes for these lovely soaps.

In addition, we will have our regular certified organic favorites including:
Whole Chicken, Cut-up Chicken, Chicken Leg/thighs, Chicken backs (for soup), Chicken breasts, Chicken Wings
Ground Turkey, Turkey Breasts, Turkey Wings
Eggs - "The girls" are still producing their lovely brown eggs.  Try them with our new turkey brat products!

We also have a number of whole frozen Holiday turkeys still available.

Reserve for Market:  Please feel free to e-mail to reserve items for pick up at market.  We will have limited freezer space and want to ensure that you get what you need.

Hope to see you soon! 
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of November 17
It's been a winterizing couple weeks at Coon Creek Family Farm.  For those of you not fortunately enough to be married to an Italian, you may not know that fall is garlic planting time.  After last Saturday's Winter Farmer's Market, our whole family was out planting 3 - 100 foot rows of garlic.  For Vince's birthday this past March, we bought him a garlic planting tool (what else do you give a Sicilian for his special day?).  The garlic planter is the yellow auger like instrument you see toward the bottom of the picture.  It attaches to a battery operated drill and makes a nice round 3-4" deep hole in the dirt.  We began by stretching a string between two white posts 100 feet apart.  That became our planting line.  Sasha helped me measure approximately 6 inches between holes while I operated the drill and made tons of holes in the dirt.  Ilya and Vince followed behind dropping the garlic cloves in the holes and then covering them up for their long winter nap.  If we're lucky, we'll have a nice crop of garlic to harvest next July.  As Stephen Covey writes - "You can't cram on a farm".  If I recall correctly, he also has advice on planning ahead which if we would have followed, our garlic would have been in weeks ago.  You will note that I did not take a picture of family garlic planting as we were doing it so long it got too dark to take a picture.

Going into winter, managing the farm is like one of those number puzzles where the individual numerals are positioned randomly and your task is to put them in order.  You can't move one number to it's correct location without first moving four others.  The garlic needs a nice thick blanket of straw mulch over the top to prevent the ground from heaving as it freezes and thaws.  The straw can not be placed on top of the garlic until the pastured laying hens have been moved to the little barn closer to the house.  That could not happen until the chicken coop in that barn was cleaned out.  Danny Nissley our Amish neighbor who helps with chores like that could not come to clean the coop until the corn crib at their farm was finished.  Danny finally became available to us on Friday.  After cleaning the coop he began the process of removing the bedding from our chick brooder.

The reason the straw could not be put on the garlic area is graphically illustrated in the adjacent picture where "the girls" are playing queen of the compost pile.  They LOVE to scratch through straw and any other type of bedding material.  Our fear is they would scratch through and disturb the garlic bulbs.  Our next move is to transport the pasture girls to their new, clean coop area.  With being free-range, our other fear is that they'll free range their way back over to the garlic area.  Maybe a nice thick blanket of snow will keep them in place!

Holiday Turkeys
It's not too late to still reserve a turkey for your Holiday table whether it be for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  We have a nice selection of both White turkeys and Heritage turkeys available.  In addition to the Heritage turkeys taking months longer to grow out, they have a very distinctive profile.  Their breast is much more V shaped than a white turkey.  Their taste is closer to that of a wild turkey and they have proportionately more dark meat.

Turkey Pick Up
Reserved turkeys will be available for pick-up at our farm this Saturday and Sunday from 1:00-4:00.  Please let us know you are coming so we can be sure your turkey is here rather than in cold storage in Eau Claire. 

If you would also like eggs, please let us know in advance so we can be sure to have them set aside for you.  In addition, we will also have the following certified organic chicken products available:  whole chicken, cut-up chicken, wings, legs, backs, breasts and broth.  We will also have turkey brats, broth, legs, breasts, and our new turkey breakfast sausage and turkey burgers available.  All made without nitrates, nitrites or MSG.

Hope to see you soon! 
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of November 8
It's been a busy two weeks at Coon Creek Family Farm.  Last week we had our first "free" Saturday in six months.  It felt quite odd not to have to get up at 5:00 am, do chores and get to market.  What did we do instead?  In the morning we dug potatoes and in the afternoon we put a primer coat of paint on our bobsled.  Knowing that the days we had to do those jobs is numbered we took full advantage of the nice weather.  On Sunday, we painted the wagon a burgundy color.  It still needs at least one more coat of paint but we'll see how the weather and our schedule match up.

Gobble Gobble
If you were on our e-mail list for our last newsletter you'll recall a certain incident with a turkey wing and my left eyeglass lens.  (If you were recently added to our list, you can read about our farming adventures by clicking on the Farm/Email link on our website).  Thinking along the lines of lightening doesn't strike twice, I thought that chapter was over.  I did not however replace my glasses as we still had two more groups of turkeys to catch and take to processing.  Sure enough, last week another turkey popped it's wing into my left eye and sent the lens flying.  Fortunately, this time Sasha and I were able to locate the lens.   I'm here to tell you though that the 10 second rule for things falling on the ground does not apply to anything dropped in the turkey pasture.  I won't go into detail as to what was on my lens but I'm guessing your imagination can fill in the blank.  Oh Lord it's not hard to be humble when you live on a farm.

Last night, our family took the last of our turkeys to Abbottsford for processing.  Overall, we are very impressed by the job our new processor Enos Hoover of Sunny-Side Meadows has done.  He and the people who work for him all treat our animals kindly and respectfully which we deeply appreciate.  The one area that still needs some work is the shrink wrap packaging.  Some of the birds just don't look as nicely and tightly wrapped as they did when we used our previous processor.  Enos is working with his employees to improve this and for that we are grateful. 

Enos is once again making more brats and turkey broth for us.  We will have both at Winter Market this weekend.  The brats are free of nitrates, nitrites and MSG.  The other item Enos made for us was a breakfast sausage using the brat meat.  Basically, he packaged some left over brat meat in a plastic bag rather than brat casings.  We defrosted it and made it into breakfast patties.  We ate up a bunch of those with our Coon Creek Family Farm eggs and had a delicious brunch last Sunday.  Breakfast sausage should be available at the December winter market unless we eat it all up ourselves beforehand.

Right now we have a nice assortment of whole turkeys available for your holiday enjoyment.  There is still time to reserve a turkey or two or more for your family.  Call (834-4547) or e-mail us today! 

Reserve for Market - Trinity Lutheran Church Saturday November 8th 9:00-1:00
We hope to see all of you at the first of our monthly indoor winter markets this Saturday.  Trinity Lutheran Church is also known in Eau Claire as the "Ski Slope Church" on Lexington Blvd. just off of Clairemont Avenue in Eau Claire.  Our freezer space will be limited so if there is something you know you would like from us at market, please let us know and we'll be sure to have it for you.

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of October 25
It's been a turkey week at Coon Creek Family Farm.  We scheduled a processing date for Wednesday which meant turkeys needed to be loaded onto our truck Tuesday afternoon.  My friend Robin Gerry said she would come over to help (bless her wonderful heart!!).  Robin and I have done this together before and make a good team.  In the past, she has gotten up on the trailer and guided the birds gently into their holding crates.  My job is to sneak up behind the birds and give them a big hug to hold their wings close to their bodies so they don't get hurt.  While holding the turkey, I climb through the fence and hand it to Robin. 

On Monday night, Vince drove the trailer with the turkey crates over to the field.  On Tuesday morning, I got the bright idea as I was moving the fence to encircle the trailer so I didn't have to climb over it at catching time.  Later that afternoon, Robin and I were congratulating ourselves on how smoothly things were going.  We were wondering why it had taken us so long to catch on to the idea of having the trailer inside the fencing.  A few moments later, I happened to glance down at the hitch end of the trailer.  Dangling there were four neatly stripped wires minus the connecter piece that attaches the trailer lighting system to the truck.  It seems that while I was away, the turkeys played with the wires.  One of them must have taken off with the black plastic connector piece as that was found half way across the turkey yard.  Remember "grasshopper races" only minus how funny and entertaining the antics are. 

My next step was to go back to the house to try to catch Vince before he left work to call and confess my mistake and see if he could stop for parts at Menards.  Too late, he had just pulled up.  Feeling no brighter than a turkey myself, I told him what had happened.  He said he would locate the trailer lights repair kit we had used before and come see what he could do.  I went back to the pasture to catch more turkeys.  Apparently the next turkey I caught did not appreciate my hug as it worked it's wing loose and slapped me in the left eye.  Although I did not get hurt, the lens from my glasses broke free and went flying.  Now one would think that locating a lens would be an easy feat - not at all like finding a contact lens.  However, I am here to tell you today that finding that part of my eyeglasses was like trying to locate a needle in a haystack.  Yes it remains lost to this day.  It was quite an interesting experience trying to catch the remaining turkeys with one eye.  Fortunately, I had an old pair of prescription glasses that I am wearing now.

One would hope that was the end of my story but it goes on.  Vince discovers that he does not have the proper parts to fix the trailer lights.  Fortunately, we have a neighbor who lives across the street and has garages full of "guy stuff".  Lucky for us, Jerry was home and not only had the right parts but the proper tools besides.  He came over and did a beautiful job of splicing in a new connector.  Unfortunately when Vince brought the truck over and went to connect the lights, he discovered that the new connector was exactly the same as the one on the truck and thus they would not fit together.  Enter Jerry once again with another connector that did fit.  Thank God for our neighbor Jerry.  Believe it or not, the rest of the trip was happily uneventful.  It did occur to me that if we had a Grannie in a rocking chair on the top of our truck you would have sworn you had seen the Beverly Hillbillies if you had witnessed us heading down Highway 29.


Reserve for Market  Last Saturday of "Summer" Market - Stock up Now!
If you need anything set aside for pick up at Saturday's market, please let us know.  Just a reminder that this is our last Saturday before transitioning to the monthly indoor Farmer's Markets.  Now would be a good time to pick up an extra chicken or two!  

Our newest offering is Turkey Broth.  Made with our certified organic turkey carcasses, this delicious broth is great to keep on hand for making soup, rice and any recipe that calls for broth.  We have not yet taken the time to submit our recipe to our organic certifier so this product is not certified organic.  Hopefully, next season we will have that all in place.  These 3/4 quart containers are priced at $4.75 a piece or 2 for $8.00.  We have also been working together with Dean Parent of Esca Ars to bring you chicken broth in quart containers.

Another new item we will have available soon is turkey apple brats with apples from Schaefer's Organic Apple Orchard.  Can't wait to try those!

There is still time to reserve your holiday turkeys.  E-mail or call us and we'll set aside one of these amazing turkeys for you and yours.

Vince and I and the boys would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of you for supporting our small family farm.  We greatly appreciate it!  Thank you Thank you!!

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of October 18
It's been a frosty week at Coon Creek Family Farm. This morning, all of the poultry waterers were frozen - including those inside the barn.  The horse tank and Gracie the dog's water bucket were both topped with a thin layer of ice as well.  (OK so I'll confess the picture wasn't exactly taken this week but it sure felt like it almost could have been!)

Each year people ask why we don't have fresh turkeys available at Thanksgiving.  The first heavy frost like this always reminds us of our answer to that question.  As the season slips into winter weather it gets harder to keep our water system working on the pasture.  Each evening after putting poultry to bed and filling waterers we bleed the water system by opening it up at the hydrant and letting it drain.  Even with those precautions, hoses freeze and sometimes break.  Overall, we feel it is easier on the poultry and on us to have all the holiday birds ready by early November instead of fresh at Thanksgiving.  Their beautiful shrink wrap packaging can keep them nice in your freezer for months to come.

This week, we took our first group of white turkeys for processing.  These will be our smaller turkeys.  Over the next three weeks, we will continue to take turkeys in ending the season with our biggest birds as well as the heritage turkeys.  There is still time to reserve a turkey or two for your holiday meals.  We should start to have them available for pick up at the last market of the season (Oct 25) and the first Winter Market at Trinity Lutheran Church Nov. 8th.  In addition, we will be scheduling various pick up dates/times at the farm during November.

Kitchen Addition!
This week we broke ground at the farm for our new kitchen addition off the back of our garage.  This will be where we make soap etc.  It will be so nice to no longer be using our family kitchen to produce our handcrafted goat milk soap.  The dial on the stove has been a bit slippery with soap for many months (years?). 
We are designing the area as a commercial kitchen so hopefully at some future date we can offer additional farm products such as noodles, jams etc!  Dennis Ewer has been doing a wonderful job of our digging for the basement root cellar area.  That activity of course was the highlight of the week for our boys.  Here you can see Ilya sitting on the digger while Sasha and Dennis's son play on the nearby dirt pile.  A boys paradise!!! 

The other family member who has loved this activity is Gracie our guardian dog.  She has been a digger from day 1.  If fact this past summer I thought we might have a front row seat to the Olympics if we followed one of her holes to it's far end!  She has been totally enamored with Dennis and his digger.  In fact, she left her livestock guardian post by the goats to sleep next to the digger on the dirt pile two nights this week!

Reserve for Market  Only Two Saturdays Left - Stock up Now!
If you need anything set aside for pick up at Saturday's market, please let us know.  Just a reminder that we only have two more Saturdays left before transitioning to the monthly indoor Farmer's Markets.  Now would be a good time to pick up an extra chicken or two!

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of October 11
It's been a colorful week at Coon Creek Family Farm. The changing leaves have painted a beautiful backdrop behind our moveable poultry pens.  The unfortunately part is that we don't get to see all these pretty scenes as we go out to start our morning chores as the sky is still pitch black around 6:00 am.

Our usual morning routine is for Vince to get on the Gator with 275# of turkey feed.  He first stops by the layer hoophouse and drops off about 25# of feed for those girls.  As I am in the little barn milking the goats, I can hear the engine start up again indicating that he is on his way to feed and open up the turkeys.  This morning however, the Gator sounds told me Vince was returning in my direction.  That could only mean one thing - turkey trouble. 

Sure enough, I got a summons to stop what I was doing to accompany Vince back to the field as turkeys were out and the electric fence surrounding them was down.  Right now, the turkeys are grazing down the far end of our field. As we entered the near end, we could see a huge white form laying down in the vegetable area.  I got off the Gator and slowly approached the big bird so as not to spook it.  In the dark, turkeys usually don't like to move so catching it and carrying it to the fence was not a problem.  What did pose some challenges was doing the limbo with a turkey in my arms to get under the electric rope without zapping both of us.  Talk about a morning aerobic workout!

Something had obviously gotten in one of the turkey pens presumably with evil intentions.  The door on the second pen had been pried open and there were several areas that has tufts of turkey feathers laid in little piles.  The turkeys from that pen had obviously been frightened, knocked down the electric fence and were scattered over the entire field.  Fortunately, we had daylight slowly breaking.  Turkeys are very flock bound and do not like to be far from their buddies so as soon as it got lighter, they all made their way back to the flock.  As far as we could tell, there was no blood anywhere so we are hoping they were all accounted for.  We won't know for sure until we get our final processing numbers over the next month as to whether there were any losses.

Our first group of turkeys will be taken for processing this coming week.  If you are interested in any specialty turkey items (e.g. brats), please let us know.  It's also not too late to reserve your holiday bird for this season!

Gracie the Smelly
Another significant part of our morning routine is our dog Gracie coming to greet us in the garage.  She is a guardian breed type of dog (think Great Pyrenees),  Her nightly routine is to patrol the farm keeping predators at bay.  Not sure where she was when the turkeys were invaded but she doesn't always view them as being part of her territory.  On Monday morning, we could smell her before she even came close to greeting us in the garage.  Apparently during the overnight, she had seen fit to tell a skunk where to go.  Boy was she proud of how good she smelled!  Took here several days of sleeping in the sun before we could stand to be around here again. 

Grandma's Birthday
My Mom - now known as Grandma - is here to celebrate her birthday.  We did our annual house cleaning in preparation for her arrival.  This year was Sasha's turn to do the dusting.  If I play my cards correctly, I may not need to take my turn again until 2011 :)!  I did however do a very nice job of cleaning the chicken coop.  Unfortunately, I doubt my mother will even go out to see it J.

Reserve for Market
If you need anything set aside for pick up at Saturday's market, please let us know.  Just a reminder that the Downtown Market does run through the last Saturday in October and resumes the first Saturday in May.

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of October 4
It's been a frosty week at Coon Creek Family Farm. We had temps below 32 both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  Despite our best efforts at covering and closing up plants, most of our tomatoes have now bitten the dust.  Given that it is now October, this is not surprising and frankly we are ready for a long winter's nap.

One of the things that will significantly postpone the start of our winter slumber is that we still have turkeys out on pasture.  Given that our resident owl has a taste for pastured poultry, we have been closing up all the turkeys into their portable pens each night.  Now that they are getting bigger, it takes all four of us to put them to bed at night.  On a good night, this takes "only" 30-45 minutes.  We are also having to fill their waterers at that time as well as on a frosty morning we either can not get water to them or the tops of the waterers are frozen and won't open. 

These turkeys will all be processed over the next four weeks.  Part of why we don't offer them as fresh Thanksgiving birds is the issue of getting them fresh water in these later months.  Once you taste these birds, you'll know it has been worth all the effort as they are absolutely delicious!  Turkeys in particular love being outdoors and love eating grass.  I've often said that their pasture looks like it has been clipped with a lawn mower after the turkeys have grazed through!  You still have time to reserve one of these incredible tasting birds for your holiday table.  Feel free to e-mail or call us for details.

Hahn's Market
Hahn's Market in Eau Claire has recently started carrying our chickens and soaps.  Over the next three days, they are inviting local producers to come in to the store and meet with customers.  Vince will be there Friday from 5:00-7:00 with samples of some chicken soup made from the carcass of one of our roasted chickens.  Stop in and say hi and enjoy a sample!

Pumpkin Spice Soaps

Pumpkin Spice scent in back!  It is currently being offered in plain bars as well as our seasonal pumpkin and turkey soaps.  Stop by at market and take a wiff!  While you're at it, you might want to visit our friends at Castle Rock Dairy for some of their Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream!

Winter Markets
Various churches in the Eau Claire area will once again be hosting Winter Farmer's Markets.  All markets will run from 9:00-1:00.  Typically, these will be the second Saturday of the month except in April as that Saturday is Easter Saturday.  Thus, we will have market Sat. April 4th.  The schedule will be as follows:
Nov. 8th Trinity Lutheran
Dec. 10 St. Raymond's
Jan 10 Unitarian Universalist
Feb 14 First Congregational
March 14 Hope United Methodist
April 4 1st Lutheran
I will send out e-mail reminders with addresses prior to each market.

Reserve for Market
If you need anything set aside for pick up at Saturday's market, please let us know.  Just a reminder that the Downtown Market does run through the last Saturday in October and resumes the first Saturday in May.

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547


Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of September 27
It's been a "Happy Anniversary" week at Coon Creek Family Farm.  Vince and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary with lunch at the Acoustic cafe on Wednesday.  Being the undying romantic that I am, Vince's gift was . .  (with that description, here you might be thinking nice candlelight chicken or turkey dinner with a side dish of delicata squash and fresh picked broccoli)  . . a new DVD titled:  Vegetable Farmers and their Sustainable Tillage Practices.  This flick was recently reviewed in the Sept/Oct 08 issue of the Organic Broadcaster.  In her overview of the production, Jody Padgham states:  "When I called Chris Blanchard, large scale diversified vegetable producer and MOSES Organic Farming Conference Presentations Coordinator, to ask which of Vern Grubinger's DVDs I should look at he said "You have to see the Tillage or Weed ones - they are SO COOL.  The pictures of machinery working in the field are REALLY exciting".

Jody continues - "Exciting, I thought.  Well.  Chris IS a male and a vegetable farmer, and I'm neither, so I guess I can see why he might be so thrilled by watching soil get thrown around.  I have to admit that after watching Grubinger's DVD " Vegetable Farmers and their Sustainable Tillage Practices" that I could sort of understand Chris' excitement." 

With a review like that - how could one pass.  If fact, not only did I order the Tillage video but I purchased the one titled "Vegetable Farmers and their Weed-Control Machines" highlighting 22 types of equipment from 9 farms, including flame weeders, cultivators, basket weeders and more!  (Sounds like big boy toys to me!) True confessions here are that I also ordered a DVD for myself featuring two of my favorite farmers - Anne and Eric Nordell.  The Nordells are famous for their farming with horses and are regular contributors to my favorite publication - The Small Farmer's Journal subtitled The Journal of Practical Horsefarming.  I was so excited that I ran out to wake my horse girls to let them know what was coming.  They can hardly wait!

Speaking of farming with horses, I recently took Hannah's harness in to our local Amish harness shop to have it adapted so she can drive single or double.  Hannah is my youngest mare (pictured energetically laying down on the right).  Her harness was handmade by Loni Stutzman and set up for driving double with her Mom Queen (standing on left).  While at the harness shop, we ran into a couple of Loni's sons who were trying out a new single horse riding cultivator they had just purchased.  Now I'm sure there must be some sort of commandment that says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors cultivator" but I must admit walking away with cultivator envy!  I also walked away with the address of the cultivator maker.  No e-mail or fancy website but he does do fine work on machinery (guess Vince isn't the only one who appreciates watching dirt fly around!).  By the way, Vince did get me a beautiful pot of Mums which I missed seeing right in front of me because I was so intent on bringing eggs in from the coop.  Thank God one of us has the sense to be truly romantic - Thank you honey!

Winter Markets
Once again, several area churches will be working together to host monthly Winter Farmer's Markets.  These will likely be the second Saturday of each month from November through April.  As soon as our schedule is finalized, I will let you all know.  Just a reminder that the Downtown Farmer's Market runs through the last Saturday in October (i.e October 25th) and starts up again the first Saturday in May.

Reserve for Market
If you need anything set aside for pick up at Saturday's market, please let us know.  We still have a few whole turkeys left along with turkey breast and ground turkey.  With Fall in the air and the kids active in after school events, I'll pass along one of my favorite ground turkey crock pot chili recipes.

See you Saturday!
Blessings & Thanks for Reading!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Coon Creek Crock Pot Chili with Ground Turkey
Adapted from the Vegetarian Chili recipe in Miserly Moms by Jonni McCoy
Ingredients:  Oil, garlic, onion, 1 pound Coon Creek ground turkey, 2 cups dried beans, 1 pint jar canned stewed tomatoes (or fresh if available), green pepper, 3-6 Tablespoons Chili powder, 1 T cumin seeds or 1 tsp ground, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp garlic salt
Night before:  Rise dried beans and put in a container.  Add water so beans are covered by more than 2-3".  Let beans soak overnight. 
Morning:  Rinse beans and place in crock pot.  Add about a half cup water.  You can adjust this more or less depending on how much water is in with your tomatoes.  Saute garlic and onion in oil.  Add ground turkey and peppers and brown.  Add that mixture to crock pot along with chili powder, cumin and seasonings to taste.  You could also add some molasses and/or brown sugar if you like.  Leave on low setting all day.  Serve over brown rice or pasta.

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of September 20
It's been a "life is precious" week at Coon Creek Family Farm.  Late last week, we received a call from Dawn High of Down Home Bakery to let us know her husband Curvin had died.  He had been diagnosed with cancer just over a year ago.  At only 50 years old, he leaves behind 5 children.  Please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers.  Their stand at Farmer's Market is now in the same wing as ours but on the opposite side. I'm sure they would appreciate your business especially at this difficult time.  When the market was still in the old Railroad Street parking lot, we had the privilege of sharing stall space next to Dawn and her family. 

The other baker in our life is Mary Stutzman.  Her Amish bakery is located approximately 10 miles outside of Rock Falls (Hwy 85) on Hwy. O.  Mary lost her Mom to cancer this week as well.  Mary's bakery is only open on Fridays.  If you're looking for a short road trip out of Eau Claire the drive is definitely worth it!  Mary's frosting covered sweet rolls are fantastic! 

Our next door neighbor Carol Comerford also lost her mother after a lengthy illness.  Please hug all your loved ones and keep these precious grieving families in your thoughts and prayers.

Girls in the Garage
On a lighter note, having "free range chickens" sometimes has it's drawbacks.  Typically, "the girls" are the first to receive their food in the morning otherwise they follow us all over the farm until their rations are delivered (who has whom trained?).  Their second feeding comes mid-afternoon usually around 2:00.  On Wednesday, I was in the kitchen making soap around 1:45 when I heard quite a ruckus coming from the garage.  When I opened the back door, I found four of the ladies impatiently summoning me for their afternoon feeding!  Talk about being "hen pecked" - shows you where I fit in the hierarchy around here!

Fall in the Air
Earlier this week, the flock of heritage turkeys set up quite a call.  They too could be heard from inside the house.  When I stepped out on the back deck to investigate the source of their singing, I noticed a pair of Canada Geese flying overhead calling back and forth to the turkeys.  Not sure exactly how the conversation went but wouldn't be surprised if the turkeys were warning the geese away from the crazy lady with the flight feather scissors!

Duck
Some of our Welsh Harlequin ducks went in for processing this week.  We should be going back for them sometime in the next few weeks.  If you are interested in whole frozen duck, please let us know and we'll reserve them for you.  I should have pricing information figured out on them soon.  Ducks are the most costly item we have processed generally running in the neighborhood of $8.00 each.  The tedious and time-consuming removal of pinfeathers is what makes ducks so costly to process.

Pantry
Perhaps you noticed a theme this week that everything happened when I was in the kitchen.  Over the past few weeks both Vince and I have been busy canning and freezing everything from eggplant parmesan to pears and peaches.  Today's project is tomato sauce.  It's a great feeling to open a freezer full of broccoli and corn and to gaze at a pantry shelf with jars containing the bounty of summer.  It reminds me of the tall turquoise colored pantry located in my grandparents basement filled with the sweet corn my grandma had canned. Although I've tried, I've never been able to get canned corn to taste as good as grandma's.  Perhaps it was the love she put in every jar that made it so unique. 
 
Reserve for Market
If you would like us to set any aside any of our delicious pastured poultry products and/or eggs for pick up at market, please let us know.

See you Saturday!
Blessings!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of September 13
It's been a frosty week at Coon Creek Family Farm.  Knowing that the temps were predicted to drop into the 30's during the overnight hours on Sunday, we covered and covered and covered as many plants as we could both in our home garden and our field garden.  We use a special fabric called "floating row cover" which slips delicately over the plants without crushing them and provides several degrees of frost protection.  The early spring picture taken inside one of our hoophouses better illustrates the fabric and how we use it.

In the morning, our gardens looked like a deflated ghost gathering place.  Having a frost the first week in September is not unusual for us.  We did lose some of our tomato plants that were not too thrifty to begin with.  We harvested all of our eggplant, a few peppers and lots of our Juliet paste tomatoes as well as more pumpkins and squash.  Our house was wall to wall vegetables from the back door to the living room.  Good thing my mother is not planning a visit too soon!  By the time she does arrive, the vegetables should all be stored away in the freezer or root cellar and I'll likely have done my annual dusting of the house whether it needs it or not :). 

Another big event for our family this week was the Boy Scout awards picnic held in Mondovi on Sunday.  One of Sasha's troopmates - Alex Bursaw - was presented with his Eagle Scout award!  Sasha earned several badges ranging from cooking (yeah I quit!) to small boat sailing.  I often miss my grandma Agnes.  She was a wonderful cook and could sew also expertly sew on scouting badges.  So far, in my feeble attempts tonight I've stuck my finger about eight times. Luckily as of yet I've not drawn blood.

Owl Troubles
Unfortunately, our owl troubles have not been eradicated by the new solar lights.  One of the things we have typically done with our turkeys this time of year is to put in our roost bar adapted hay wagons for them to sleep on at night.  Unfortunately, a couple nights after we started doing this, we had another turkey come up on the short end of the owl encounter stick.  Now we are back to closing all of them up in pens at night.  This makes for quite a challenge depending on whether they have started to roost on the tops of the pens for the night.  Sasha has become quite expert at getting the turkeys down using an empty feeder as encouragement.  The list of skills acquired in this family just doesn’t quit.  Can you imagine his resume someday? J

Market This Saturday
Vince will be back this weekend after watching an enjoyable Badger victory last Saturday.  As always, If you would like anything set any aside for pick up at market, please let us know.  It is getting to be soup time so you might want to consider some Coon Creek Family Farm chicken backs or turkey soup bones.  I even canned some broth this week to have on the shelf for making rice.  Watch for Coon Creek Family Farm frozen broth coming soon!

See you Saturday!
Blessings!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya



Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of September 6
It's been a back to school week at Coon Creek Family Farm.  "Jack" - one of our three barn cats - has taken up his regular routine of walking the boys to the bus in the morning.  Although he and his brother "Mike" were added to our farm about 3 years ago to assist with the mouse population, they tend to prefer Purina Cat Chow to working for their meals.  Instead, they leave the dirty work up to a little gray female cat we've taken to calling "Laci".  Laci appeared in our big barn about two years ago.  Her regular routine is to lay the bodies of dead rodents by the people door of our barn to ensure that her human family does not miss the result of her self imposed mouse patrol.    

Squash Harvest
As we noted last week, some of our squash and pumpkin plants were hit by the cold weather while we were away.  Given that many of their vines contained a bounty, Vince called up our friend Andy and declared Sunday afternoon the start of the great squash harvest.  Pictured to the right are Andy and his wife JJ with Ilya and a renegade free range laying hen displaying some of the pumpkins and squash they picked.

Better Than TV!
What do the Maro's do for entertainment you might ask?  Why turkey watching of course!  This time of year is especially good for watching turkey-grasshopper races.  In this event - sure to be an Olympic favorite in 2012 - we spectators watch as the little turkeys chase grasshoppers.  It is hilarious to see them spin and chase the grasshoppers in all directions hoping to partake in a tasty morsel of protein.  Sometimes the turkeys win - sometimes it is the grasshopper who is declared victor!

The other significant source of turkey entertainment is throwing spent watermelon rind and/or overgrown cucumbers out to the turkeys and watch to see who gets to it first.  Usually the winner takes the spoils in his or her beak and runs around with it until it finds a spot where it can eat undisturbed.  This event begins by carving the vegetable in question into smaller bite sized pieces as you see Andy doing.  Next, the pieces are pitched into the pen where the turkeys descend upon it and vie for who gets to run around with the spoils.

So maybe this is a lame form of entertainment but we won't need to get a converter box come February and there are no monthly fees! :)


Market This Saturday
The other fall form of entertainment enjoyed by our family includes Badger Football. This weekend Vince and Sasha will be going to Madison for the game so I will be flying solo at market.  Please be patient as I try to do my best without my better half :).

If you would like anything set any aside for pick up at market, please let us know.

See you Saturday!
Blessings!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of August 30

It has been a wonderful week for our family!  We actually took a . . .let's see if I even remember how to spell this word . . . v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n!  After market on Saturday, we packed up our things and headed north to Black's Cliff Resort near Hazelhurst, WI (just south of Minoqua).  We rented a housekeeping cabin for three nights from the Gibson family.  They were fantastic hosts and we had a marvelous time at their resort.  We would all highly recommend a stay there!  Best of all - they accepted chickens as payment for our stay!  It was our reward to our family for all the hard work that went into the farm this summer.

While up north we used the Black's Cliff paddleboats, canoes and kayaks and even went hiking.  It was a fun and relaxing time and we are looking forward to doing it again next year!  Words can not express enough appreciation to Robin Gerry our friend and neighbor who came to do our chores while we were gone!  Thank you Robin!!

Frost
Frost warning were issued for the northern counties while we were there.  Offhandedly, I mentioned to Vince that I hoped we didn't get frost at home.  Well unfortunately we did have some significant cold damage to some of our squash leaves and the cucumbers we had growing in our home garden.  Fortunately, the cucumbers in our field garden did not get hit quite as bad but it definitely looks like time to make pickles!

The frost and cool mornings makes us keenly aware that fall is in the air.  Another sure sign that the seasons are changing is the frequent displays of plumage by our male heritage turkeys.  These boys have been puffing and strutting their stuff quite regularly.  Although they are beautiful, the girls in their pen do not look the least bit impressed!

Heritage Turkeys
The black and white turkeys pictured are Narragansetts.  The reddish one is a Bourbon Red.  Both heritage breeds are listed on the Conservation Priority List of the American Livestock Breeds Conservance.    If you are interested in one of these stately birds for your thanksgiving table, please let us know.  We only have a limited number available.  One of the distinct features of the heirloom turkeys is that they can fly.  Although we have a 6 foot fence surrounding their grazing area we always say that the fence is merely a suggestion. as they regularly fly over and out.  A few days before we left on vacation, I reached my fill of seeing them eating on certified organic heirloom tomatoes in our home garden.  There were at least ten in with the vegetables all enjoying an evening snack.  That did it for me.  Although I did not exactly "cut off their tails with a carving knife", I did clip their flight feathers with the kitchen shears.  After rounding them up into their evening quarters, I caught each one by the feet and clipped the feathers of one wing.  Trust me it hurt me far more than it did them as clipping feathers is just like cutting toenails.  For my part, I ended up with open sores on my thumb and middle finger from the scissors.  Although I didn't get any sympathy from the turkeys, I usure did get satasfaction that at least for the time being, they will not be flying into the garden.  I'm sure the last laugh will be on me as those feathers do eventually grow back. 

Reserve for Market
As always, if you need anything set aside for market this Saturday, please let us know.  We will not have tomatoes this week but will have a few cucumbers and kale available on a reserve basis.

Blessings to you and yours!
Julie & Vince

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of August 16
Finally, I am honestly able to say - It's been a quiet week . .  here at Coon Creek!  How could that be you might ask???  Well on Monday "Grandpa" (formerly known as my father although when with the grandkids there is no remnant of "father" to be found!) came to take the boys to see Mt. Rushmore.  They headed out without much hesitation and expect to return sometime after market on Saturday.  Thus - it's been VERY quiet around here.

Never confuse quiet with calm!  We had another poultry attack this past week.  Now we're not sure whether we have an owl or a coon or both trying to have an early Thanksgiving dinner.  We have mounted our new Nite Guard lights on the back of a haywagon.  They are solar powered and gather strength during the day and flash to simulate a predator eye at night.  In all honesty, when we go to close up the poultry in the evening it looks like a full fledged red light district here!  In the picture of Vince and Andy, you can see two of the four lights mounted on top of a two by four.  It looks quite funky as they alternate coming on and off.  This photo was shot after Andy helped add more closer knit chicken wire to our pens to prevent another turkey beheading.

Speaking of Andy - he and his wife JJ came out Sunday afternoon to help in the garden and ended up assisting us with putting almost 200 bales of straw up in our barn.  Luckily straw is lighter than hay but quite a job nonetheless.  Thank you once again Andy & JJ!  JJ also brought her solar cooker and she and the boys made chocolate zucchini cake and a myriad of fresh vegetables.  I think I'm adding a solar cooker to my birthday/Christmas list!

Today we have the crock pot on and a couple of turkey legs and wings cooking in 3-4 cups of turkey broth.  Our plan is to make a meal of the meat and save the bones and anything else remaining for turkey broth and soup.

Recipes
We've updated our chicken recipe sheet to include instructions on roasting a Coon Creek Chicken.  You can find it in the recipe section of our website www.cooncreekfamilyfarm.com.  We'll also have them available at our market stand. The recipe sheet also includes directions for beer can chicken.  Now is a great time to grill a Coon Creek beer can chicken! 

Reserve for Market
In addition to our delicious pastured poultry and eggs, we have a very limited amount of kale, zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers.  If you would like us to set any aside for pick up at market, please let us know.

See you Saturday!
Blessings!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya
Coon Creek Family Farm
834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek!

Well it’s been another wild week here at Coon Creek.  Some of you may notice my new gray hairs when you see me at market this Saturday.  My theory is that those strands are lighter and thus float to the top for all to see.  This weeks’ ancient looking locks are courtesy of our 9 year old Ilya.  That’s him at the front of the line at the football camp he attended Monday and Tuesday night in Mondovi.  As any smart Mom would do, I insisted his Dad take him.  I stayed home with car keys in hand waiting to dash to the nearest emergency room.  Fortunately, I did not have to start my engine.

Our 175 bales of straw were set to arrive last night but due to .3” inches of rain in the afternoon, had to be postponed until this evening.  This is where having a football player wannabe in the family begins to pay off!  What better way to develop muscle than to throw around bales of hay and straw! 

Our future Thanksgiving turkeys have been thoroughly enjoying their daily access to the outdoors.  We have been moving pens and setting up fences in preparation for their permanent move to pasture.  That will occur tomorrow.  Looks like we’ll have to rename our “chick mover” to “turkey transport trailer”. 

Newest Additions – Chipmunk Chickens J

For those of you who were worried we did not have enough chickens here at Coon Creek – take heart.  We recently received 25 day old Auracona babies.  These are the infamous “Easter Egg Chickens”.  When they are little, they remind me of chipmunks with their striped wings and eyes.  As we mentioned last week, their adult counterparts have been slacking off in their production of their beautiful blue eggs.  These little ladies won’t produce their first eggs for at least five months so you won’t be seeing their colorful creations in your cartons anytime soon.  In the meantime, I’ll keep you updated on their growth and development.  We will be keeping about 15 and sharing the rest with a neighbor.

Tomatoes – Finally!!

Our first tomatoes have been slowing transforming from green to red over the last couple weeks.  Our cold wet spring has put tomato production at least two to three weeks behind last year.

Even the tomatoes inside our hoophouse have yet to fully ripen.  We have had a few fresh tomatos for supper this week and delighted in every bite.  We should have some for sale as more ripen.  Will keep you posted.  

Other Vegetables Now Available

Currently, we do have kale, zucchini and a few cucumbers available.  If you would like any of these, please let us know prior to market.  With all the items we have to pack on the truck we typically only bring vegetables for folks who have reserved them in advance.

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey!

Just a reminder that we will be bringing all of our new certified organic turkey products to market.  These include: whole turkey, turkey breasts, turkey brats, ground turkey, turkey wings, turkey drums, turkey thighs and turkey soupbones.  Please let us know what we can set aside for you!

As always, our freezers will be full of our delicious certified organic Coon Creek Chickens – whole, cut-up, legs, wings, breasts and backs.  If there is anything we can set aside for you to pick up at market – please let us know.  This week, I also made some more plain bars of orange spice soap as well as a new batch of lemongrass.  Farm fresh brown (and some blue!) eggs will be on board and ready for your dining pleasure!

We look forward to seeing you all on Saturday!

Blessings!
Julie & Vince, Sasha & Ilya

Coon Creek Family Farm

834-4547

 

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek!

As usual, it’s been a wild week here at Coon Creek.  The 352 bales of hay we put up in the loft of our barn are now filling those spaces the most fragrant and comforting smell imaginable.  The edges of our property are peppered with brown eyed susans and bee balm blossoms.

Broccoli harvest started in earnest this week.  Our son Sasha has a firm grip on every head that comes into our kitchen as it is his very favorite vegetable.

Layers –

Some of our older girls have decided it’s a little too hot to lay eggs these days.  In particular, our Auracona ladies that serve up the beautiful blue Easter eggs have slacked off in their production.  Thus, there will be fewer cartons containing blue eggs this week.  Our new girls are laying quite well and may of them have “graduated” to producing regular sized eggs.  You should see them strut around with Coon Creek pride J!

Goat Milk

Last week, we sold three of our boy goats to a pet home.  Thus, we now have an abundant supply of goat milk.  The extra milk is pasteurized and frozen for use in crafting our beautiful soaps.  At this point, I am short on containers for freezing the milk.  If you have any extra cottage cheese and/or yogurt containers with tops, I would gladly “reuse” them for you.  Feel free to bring them to our booth at market this Saturday.  Thank you!!

Terrific Turkey

Look for our terrific turkey products at market starting this Saturday.  We are very excited and pleased to bring you a variety of certified organic turkey choices.  Our delicious whole birds are $3.99/#.  Their weights range from 9-13#.  They are going fast so if you would like us to set one aside for you, please let us know.  Their size makes them perfect for the grill and/or turkey fryer.  Roast one up and be sure to save the carcass for soup!.  Speaking of soup, we have a limited number of turkey soup bone packages available for $8.00. 

This past Thanksgiving, we had ground turkey made from our birds for the first time.  It was so wonderful we had more done this time.  Some of our favorite ways to prepare this fantastic taste treat include turkey burgers and turkey meatloaf.  The recipes for those great meals are at the end of this e-mail.  The ground turkey comes in packages containing approximately 1-1.5# for $8.99/#.

Coon Creek turkey brats were a big hit at our dinner table tonight.  Sasha says “They’re great!”.  Ilya says “More!”.  Vince and Julie say “They’re just right – delicious - not too spicy and not greasy”.  Brats come in packages of 3 or 4.  Most weigh around 1 pound.  They are priced at $8.99 per pound and contain no nitrates, nitrites or MSG!  We prepared a pack of 3 by first parboiling them for 30 minutes then putting them on the grill.  Then we cut them into pieces so they would fit on the homemade Amish hamburger buns we bought last Friday.  The boys shared one and parents had one a piece.  We felt that was just right and dressed the side of our plates with fresh picked green beans and peaches we canned last season. 

Boneless, skinless turkey breast is sure to be a hit with your family this summer.  We have a limited number of these luscious items available for $11.99/#. 

Act out your favorite Renaissance Faire character by cooking up and carrying around a certified organic turkey leg!  Those delicious drums are available for $2.99/# (2 per package).  We also have a small number of thigh packages available for $6.00.  Certified organic turkey wings come in packages of 4 for $8.00.    

The picture at the start of this section shows your Thanksgiving turkeys getting their first taste of the great outdoors.  Let me tell you they loved it!  Many of them went right to eating grass while others let their curiousity guide them all over their new outdoor area.  Once they get used to the great outdoors their next big step will be to move out to pasture.  In preparation for that, we are looking into a product called Nite Guard which is a small solar powered light said to emulate the eye of a predator.  Hopefully, they will keep the owls away.

 Feel free to reserve your Thanksgiving Turkey(s) now.

Special thanks to Ilya for modeling “Ilya’s Eats!” and my Mom (Mary Bayorgeon aka Grandma) for helping cook the Thanksgiving bird (no Vince didn’t use too much garlic – 22 cloves is hardly anything!).

Reserve for Market

As always, please let us know what we can set aside for you to pick up at market on Saturday. 

Blessings to you & yours!
Thank you for your support of our small family farm!
Julie, Vince, Sasha & Ilya

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek - Week of July 26

Once again it’s been anything but a quiet week.  On Sunday, we gathered out on our far field to load up chickens for processing.  One sure way to measure your true friends is to invite them over for a chicken catching event.  Those who number among that elite group include:  Andy Becker, his wife JJ Henricksen (joining us for her first time!), Shawn Seuferer and her daughter Anna, Robin Gerry and of course our sons Sasha and Ilya.  We celebrated our achievement with some ice cream.  What our friends won’t do for a sweet treat J! 

Please know I did keep my promise and the little hen who thinks it’s a mother duck, did not get put on the processing truck.

Back when we were just beginning to develop our small family farm, one of the reasons we listed for doing this was to live more in tune with the season.  This is hay season.  Last night, we put two loads or almost 200 bales of hay up in our barn.  For the first load, we had help from two of our Amish neighbor boys.  The hay was purchased from their father.  The second load was taken care of solely by Vince, Ilya and I.  The hay will carry our 3 Haflinger horses and our small dairy goat herd through the winter and into next summer.  We’ll have more coming tonight and next week.  Next week looks to be straw season. 

Organic Inspection

As noted in our last e-news, our on farm organic inspection occurred last week.  All went very well and we now have our new organic certificate in hand.  The closing comment on our certification determination letter was “Everything looks great, Vince and Julie.  Continue the great work!”  In addition, our certifiers had no concerns regarding their inspection of our new turkey processor so the turkeys we took in for processing this week will be “certified organic”.

Turkeys

By next weeks market (Aug. 2), we should have frozen whole turkeys, turkey drumsticks (packaged 2/pack), turkey wings (4 per pack), turkey bones for soup, turkey breast, ground turkey and turkey brats.  After we learn their final dressed weights, we’ll let you know our pricing on each of these items.  If you’d like to reserve any for next week’s market, please let us know.  Now would also be a good time to let us know if you’ll be needing a Coon Creek Thanksgiving turkey.  Those birds are currently growing, thriving and flying around in our brooder.

“World Poultry”

Recently I have begun receiving an e-news brief from an organization called “World Poultry”.  I’m not sure how they got my e-mail but the articles have been interesting to say the least.  This week, their lead news was “California Coalition Fights for Caged Hens”.  In the article it states:  The campaign fights the proposition that would require that gestation sows, egg-laying hens and veal calves have enough room to lie down, stand, turn around and fully extend their limbs.

Here is the link and at the sides are pictures from the layer barns used by the conventional poultry industry.

http://www.worldpoultry.net/home/id2205-52607/california_coalition_fights_for_caged_hens.html

     I’m certain “the girls” at Coon Creek Family Farm would revolt if treated like this.  Once again, we would like to express our deepest appreciation to you our customers for supporting the efforts of our free-range certified organic hens, meat chickens and turkeys. 

Where would you rather have your eggs and poultry come from?

As always, thank you for reading and for your continued support of our small family farm.  If you need anything reserved for pick up at market this weekend, please let us know.

Blessings!
Julie, Vince, Sasha & Ilya

Coon Creek Family Farm

834-4547

Greetings Friends of Coon Creek! - Week of July 19

This was the week I had really hoped to be able to echo Garrison Keillor’s “It’s been a quiet week”.  However, those hopes were severely dashed beginning Monday morning.  Again, I’ll promise no pictures so I’m sure if you’re a regular reader you’ll know what’s coming ;(.

Sunday night as usual, we closed up the turkeys and chickens in their respective pasture pens.  On Monday morning as we proceeded to the pasture, we could see that there were turkeys out both within the portable fencing and on the other side of it.  The closer we got, the more carnage we could see.  What we ended up discovering was a headless almost full grown turkey laying a distance away in the horse pasture.  When we weighted what was left, that bird tipped the scales at over 13 pounds!  We are not talking about a tiny predator here.  In the chicken pasture, we found yet another headless chicken whose life had been taken through the chicken wire of the pen.  Vince made yet another trip to Menards for more chicken wire with a closer gauge.  We used that to further fortify the pens the chickens are closed into at night.  Fortunately, we have not had any more losses since.  Our neighbor did report his daughter seeing a large owl on top of their power pole around 9:30 one evening.  I’m guessing it could be heard saying “I feel like chicken tonight!”

This coming Tuesday, our turkeys will be taken for processing.  We have not yet set our prices on these birds.  We have been keeping very close track of our expenses and wish to raise our prices only to a level which will cover our increases costs.  Turkey feed has gone sky high since last year so we are anticipating a price increase.  We are hoping they will be in the 12-14# range for your grilling/turkey fryer pleasure.  We will also be offering ground turkey in 1# packages.  If you would like us to reserve a whole bird, please let us know as soon as possible.  Thanks!

Organic Certification

This past Tuesday, we had our annual on farm organic inspection.  We are certified organic through MOSA – Midwest Organic Services Organization.  This is part of our promise to you our customers that we raise our animals and vegetables in as healthy and humane a manner as possible.  Our inspector spent half a day at our farm touring our barns, greenhouse, hoophouses and visiting our poultry out on pasture. She also conducted an audit of our records and paperwork.  When I worked as a speech pathologist through Sacred Heart Hospital, we always had outside agencies who verified our commitment to excellence by auditing and verifying that we were doing what we said we were.  We view our organic certification in the same way and are very proud of it.

After visiting our farm, our inspector went to the poultry processing plant we will be using for turkeys.  They should be certified for our birds by the time our first turkeys are taken there.  By law, our organic certification requires all steps of raising our animals must be certified organic up to and including processing.  We are very grateful to MOSA to their assistance in getting our processor certified.

Sacred Heart

Speaking of Sacred Heart – it was our privilege to be present yesterday at their “Supporting Local Family Farms and Our Local Economy” event attended by Governor Jim Doyle.  Perhaps you caught it on the news last night.  Channel 13 even came out to interview me and to take some pictures of our girls.  The ladies were putting on quite a show chasing bugs out in the barnyard.  We only caught the segment at 10:00 as the boys were in a soccer tournament during the 6:00 show.  Hopefully the girls were on then J!

New Soaps

Fostering my addiction to new soap shapes, I recently purchased a new cow mold, new critters molds and a mold to make larger bath size bars.  Be sure to catch them at market this weekend!  They are very cute and will make great gifts!

Zucchini

We picked our first 5 zucchini and 2 Sun Sugar tomatoes this week.  More will surely follow!  If you are interested in reserving any of these vegetables from us, please let me know.  We plant a great variety of zucchini called “Raven” which was developed at UW-Madison and “contains higher levels of lutein, a highly effective antioxidant”.

Reserve for Market

As always, if you would like us to set anything aside for you to pick up at market, please let us know.

See you soon!
Julie

Coon Creek Family Farm

834-4547

Products Available:
¯ On-farm year round
¯ Downtown Eau Claire Farmer's Market - Saturdays June-October
¯ Just Local Food - Eau Claire
¯ Castle Rock Organic Dairy - Osseo
¯ Onyx Salon Spa - Appleton - Handcrafted Soaps
¯ Winter Farmer's Markets
          9:00-1:00 - Second Saturday of the Month November - April

Coon Creek Family Farm
Vince & Julie Maro
Mondovi, WI
(715) 834-4547
cooncreekfarm@discover-net.net
Updated June 20, 2008

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