For once, we were mostly prepared for winter to come, but we sure weren’t expecting it to come so early, and stay! We are still waiting for our winter hay to be delivered and had a lovely stockpile of grass in the south pasture that no one got to eat down, but what can you do? Mother Nature is a beast!
As you know, we’ve been downsizing certain areas of our farm to make things more affordable and manageable – the goats sold, as did the remaining piglets. We have 4 goats left that will go to the processor in the new year, and a lamb that is headed that way next week. We only raised 5 turkeys this year and they are tucked away in the freezer already. We are slowly downsizing the poultry as well. Can you believe they cost us almost as much to feed last year as all the pigs? Crazy considering their size comparison. So we intend to get down to 1 flock of 20 hens, maybe a couple roosters, and a pen of bantams just for fun. At least for now. Sadly, that means I will likely not have my breeding stock anymore, but that is still under discussion. We also have 3 ewes for sale – 2 had been spoken for, but I haven’t been able to reach the buyer so I guess they are still available. $400 each, bred if you are interested. These are not cull ewes either – these are good producers, but we just need fewer animals to tend so my loss could be your gain!
We have a couple of exciting announcements! Firstly, we have begun production on our Twisted River Salts, Seasonings, and Sauces (the latter will be sold under the mister’s product name Devils Darlin). So what does that mean to you? Well, it means we will soon have a handful of our flavourful finishing salts available to purchase and we will continue to add products on as we perfect them. This will include packaged peppers grown from our garden, BBQ sauces made from fruits foraged right here on our property coupled with our homegrown tomatoes, maybe some braising mixes and rubs. Anything is possible!
We also welcomed 2 new gilts to the herd – a pair of wooly coated Hungarian Mangalitsa that will join team sausage. They won’t be bred until next spring/summer, but that brings me to the next announcement that our delicious sausages will be back in stock for you to purchase in Spring 2023! After a 3yr hiatus we are gearing up to offer you some good old standbys as well as some brand new flavours in pork, beef, lamb, and even duck and turkey! Stay tuned for more details.
In order to accommodate sales we will be setting up an online store which we hope will help streamline your buying experience and keep things orderly and efficient on our end! Since we still both work off farm jobs, we aren’t able to get out to farmer’s markets regularly, but hopefully, if ya’ll buy our delicious goods, we’ll be making enough that we can further reduce our hours and be able to spend more time working on our passions here on the farm!
I suppose that is about all I have to tell you for now. Thanks to those who read to the end 🙂 Keep on shopping local, supporting your communities and your small farms! It means the world to all of us little farmers and producers!
Ravenwood Acres 