Week 16: Fall Bonanza!

This week's share: Flap Meat aka Steak Tips or Sirloin Bavette

 Wow, this time of year is busy--and its the time of year when we turn the corner, inventory-wise. Rather than slowly emptying, our freezers have begun to rapidly fill! In the past week we picked up our lamb from Adams Farm Slaughterhouse and sent the pigs and the first trailer load of steers off harvest! Raised by Trustees staff at Katama Farm (aka The Farm Institute) on Martha's Vineyard, the lamb looks delicious: beautiful loin and rib chops, sweet and hot italian sausage, and kabobs to boot. Look for these in the winter meat CSA this year!


Speaking of which, the signup for winter meat CSA is almost live! Our web team is testing and double-checking the signup page and I hope to be sending current members the link in the next day or two with full public access next week! I expect a lot of interest--we've had really strong interest at Powisset Harvest Fest and at the Boston Local Food Festival, and I expect the same at Chestnut Hill Farm's upcoming Harvest Festival on October 8th. (Pssst, you should come! More info here!) What's more, we had a nice article in the MetroWest Daily News on Saturday, online via wickedlocal.com, here. What I'm trying to say is: don't delay when you get the signup email!

In other news: chicks! Our last batch of broilers for this season is just starting and boy-howdy they sure are cute when they're all tiny and fluffy.

Ok, enough about winter meat CSA. In this week's share we're offering "Flap Meat"--or sirloin bavette, if you're a francophone. here. The sirloin tips are a little heavy for our 2-lb summer shares (2- to 2-1/2 lbs), so take one each and enjoy! This is the classic cut for steak tips; delicious, with great beefy flavor, but needs to be cooked a little more done than some other steaks. Seriouseats did a great article (w/ recipes!) on it a few years ago, here.

And just because I'm so worn out with all the climate-disruption-induced havoc of the past few weeks, a reminder of what grass-fed cattle look and sound like when they are helping displace feedlot emissions and sequester carbon:

Take care, everybody!
Jesse

Week 14: Welcome to Southborough!

This week's share: ribeye steaks (2)

We are we going?

Well, it's a fair bit later in the season than I expected, but I hauled the first steers from Moose Hill Farm to Chestnut Hill Farm yesterday evening. The rainfall this season has meant that grazing pressure on the grass wasn't too bad at MHF. It was an easy ride over and they settled right in for the night after a quick walk around to explore the new pasture.  I like to walk with them, make sure they get a sense of where the fence is before dark and bring them to the water, but it's probably more for my benefit than theirs. They just want to find the best grass.

Dawn found them getting to know the new neighbors, my family's resident goats at Chestnut Hill Farm. The goats have been cleaning brush from around some old stumps up behind the "Hangar" barn, and everyone was very interested to meet each other.

Cheers,
Jesse

Week 13: Mid-season review and winter CSA preview

This week's share: ground beef

I thought it would be fun to do a little mid-season review this week. We're two-thirds of the way through the share, and here's what the summer beef CSA has included: ribeye steaks; T-bone steak, london broil steak, sirloin steak, skirt steak, chuck roast, porterhouse steak, ground beef (5 weeks including this week), and one members' choice selection. Prices vary of course, but I calculate that our running average is $13.69/lb based on our retail prices. That's a conservative figure using 1.8 lbs for the weeks when steaks were distributed, which can be difficult to combine into precise 2-lb pairs, and 2.2 lbs for the chuck roasts, which were a little larger. Figuring exactly 2-lbs per week works out to about $14.25/lb. Either way, we're running somewhere around a 20% discount off our retail prices. Not a bad return for your $11/lb investment!

While the money is always a factor, there is so much more going on that you are supporting. At Moose Hill, we're seeing really good regrowth of clover in the pastures. This is important because clover is a legume, which fixes nitrogen from the air, and is a key driver of soil fertility. At Chestnut Hill, the new fences will allow us to dramatically improve management of the former hayfields and improve the grassland both for livestock and ground nesting birds. At Powisset, some of our neighbors in the equine community requested changes to the fence system for the safety of riders, and the delayed start and good growing season produced more grass than we could keep up with. After nesting season we had the fields cut for hay to buy some more time to complete the fence updates.

As we look ahead to the winter season, we have most of the details worked out for the Winter Meat CSA. As last year, the winter shares will include beef, pork and chicken, and this year we are adding lamb from The Trustees FARM Institute at Katama Farm on Martha's Vineyard. Based on your feedback, we are simplifying the share offerings to a single 7-lb size and instead offering two distribution schedules, biweekly or monthly. If you want more meat, go biweekly. Less meat? Monthly is for you! Full paleo family? Get one of each! We are also extending the winter shares, going November through May this year, and adding a distribution at Appleton Farms in Ipswich. This aligns the Meat CSA offerings with Trustees vegetable CSAs, and will allow us to offer our members more-or-less-continuous year-round service. We haven't confirmed pricing yet, but we don't expect significant increases.

The sign-up page on the website is being updated, and current shareholders will have the first chance to subscribe. Watch your inboxes for the link and don't delay because we're expecting increased demand this year!

Take care,
Jesse