Well, we have ordered our seed for the upcoming planting season (I know it is 3 months or more away, but availability becomes an issue if you wait until everyone is ordering).  If all goes well, we will have a nice selection of fresh vegetables to choose from starting late June.  We will have our most popular sweet corn in mid-July.  We have been blessed with great ground and fantastic customers that make our sales possible.  We will continue to market our old time favorites of Silver King in the late season, and we will have a steady run of Harris 1001 (the sweet bicolor) mid July and August.  We have ordered plenty of beans (green and yellow), peas, beets, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes.  This is all, of course, assuming everything goes as planned and the weather/animals cooperate.  We have high hopes for improving our service to our community and offering more fresh options to your buying experience.  We are also looking forward to our new laying flock.  We have kept our 200 layers from last year, but added another 200 Black Austrolorp layers to our production.  We expect this to be a big egg year as we cannot keep up as it is now. 

If there's one thing you should know about Dave is...he hates tomatoes.  Well, we both don't like eating tomatoes, but Dave really HATES growing tomatoes.  It's always something he complains about when I order a small seed pack of tomatoes.  Always the crop that he says we'll never grow next year.  If there's a plant he loathes...it's the tomato.  So needless to say when I saw in the "New Year" post him mentioning that of course we'll have the "stand-bys" to sell and he listed tomatoes, I IMMEDIATELY started writing this post.  I can't believe those words were written by my dear husband to whom I've been married to for over 7 years.  Hmm...guess you don't really know a person do you?  I better check Dave's temperature when he gets home from work.  Perhaps he's under the weather...

     We would like to wish everyone reading our journals a happy new year.  We appreciate all of the support we receive from our friends, family, and customers (friends) throughout the year.  We hope to expand the operation a little more this year to serve more customers in a couple different growing areas.  Without the constant support of our customers returning, our operation would fail.  We strive to raise/produce the best product we can for you to enjoy.  So, here is to a new year and new expansion.......
            A BRIEF RUN-DOWN OF OUR PLANS FOR 2013 (THE NEWSLETTER COMING OUT IN MARCH WILL BE MORE DETAILED--IF YOU WOULD LIKE ONE AND HAVE NOT YET TOLD US, SEND AN EMAIL OR USE THE CONTACT PAGE, WE WILL GET YOU ONE!)
     Cattle- While we still have a waiting list, 2013 should be a year in the right direction.  We had 14 great looking calves in 2012.  They should finish off very well and we should be able to serve more of our list customers.  We also added the lowline angus genetics into our herd  through the purchase of some percentage heifers and our AI program (we are breeding artifidially, no bull needed).  While the lowlines are a slightly smaller animal, they have been designed to grow and finish on minimal inputs.  Meaning they will finish(marble) on grass alone.  We graze our cattle all spring, summer, and fall.  Then feed on silage in the winter.  These cattle will work well in our operation.  
     Hogs- We will be taking a slightly different approach with our hogs for the next couple years.  We will not be finishing any hogs on our farm.  We are not set up to be a finishing operation as of yet.  We will simply be farrowing (breeding through AI) and weaning.  Then selling our piglets as feeders.  Our sows will still be grazed outside and the piglets raised in the pastures and woodlots of our farm.  We may begin finishing hogs in a couple years, but not this year.
   Broilers- We had a fantastic year of raising our broiler chickens. We will continue our broiler operation in 2013.  As usual, they will be available by preorder in March through our newsletter.  Our broilers are pastured from week 3 until finished at 8 weeks.  They forage on succulant grasses and delicious bugs while getting a grain supplement to make a fantastic bird. 
   Eggs- Our laying flock worked very hard for us last year.  We have expanded our flock to produce more high qualitly free range pastured eggs.  These eggs are far superior to any store egg.  You will see the difference in the dark orange yolks.  
    Vegetables- We will continue our sweet corn sales as always.  But we hope to be able to provide more vegetables for sale this year as we expand.  The vegetable market is our project for the summer.  We would like to grow more variety to provide our customers with more choices throughout the summer.  Let us know what you are interested in us growing.  I am sure we will be growing the stand-bys of peppers, tomoatoes, and vining plants (cucumbers, squash, and melons).  We should also have some potted plants started if you would like to grow your own veggies at home.