Hello beautiful peeps,
Look at what we found this afternoon. As many of you know, Rosie is very young and we were quite worried about her having a calf. She came through with flying colors. This little gem, a girl, weighs about 40 lbs. She is a tiny thing — and so CUTE!!
Ok, on to other news. We are selling again at the Independence Farmer’s Market. Online only at the moment, but everyone is hopeful that the 2nd Friday of May the market will be in full swing again.
Market Updates
As I said, Independence Online Farmer’s Market. You can sign up by clicking HERE. This market opens on Friday evening and closes on Wednesday evening for pickup two days later on Friday afternoon.
This Saturday 2/27/2021 is the last market for February at the Wytheville Farmer’s Market. The hours are 10:00 am to 12:00 noon.
For your convenience, you can set up your Wytheville online market account HERE. This market opens on Sunday at 7:00 pm and closes on Thursday at 7:00 pm. Place your order with whatever vendors you choose during that time window and pick everything up at the Wytheville Farmer’s Market between 9:00 am and noon. Anything ordered from the online market is not picked up at our booth. Your purchases are picked up on the covered side of the building. Feel free to come on in an chat with me even if you placed your order on line and picked it up outside.
These items are available at either market. We will have our lovely quail eggs for $3 a dozen. I have a couple of pickled quail egg recipes that are working well for me. I’ll have jars of pickled quail eggs as examples of how they look. Three different varieties to give you an idea what can be done. Again, I’ll have pickled peppers (not very hot) for $5 a jar, pepper jam (HOT, Medium and mild) for $5 a jar and apple pie jam, $8 a jar. We have the usual grass-fed meats available – ground beef $7 per package (approx 1 lb), ground goat $12 per package (approx 1 lb) and ground lamb $10 per package (approx 1 lb). Quail meat packages are available 1 lb – $18.00, and pickled peppers $5.00.
If you are a Herd Share member, this week you can pickup at the Wytheville Market between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. Email me to let me know want anything extra this time. To get to the product section, you can jump down the page here.
Quail
The quail almost got axed. I was looking at our finances and realized that these guys cost a lot compared to raising chickens. As they say, there is a reason everybody isn’t doing it. Anyway, I’m going to give them another year to pay for themselves before making any other decisions. You all know I would have a very hard time giving them up. They are so much FUN!! Friday, March 5th is when I start collecting eggs to start the next incubation cycle. Three weeks later we will have lots of cute baby quail.
Cows
As you saw, Rosie surprised us by having her beautiful calf even earlier than we thought. She is very young to have a calf. Usually a heifer will be two years old before giving birth to her first calf. Rosie is barely 18 months old. Scott had a hunch about her and once again his instincts were correct. Isn’t that calf beautiful?
Cloud is the next in line for having a calf. That date is a month away. Claire will be right after her within a few days. These births remind up that spring is right around the corner. As usual this time of year, I’m so ready for spring!!
Creamery
I hope you have been following the progress of the creamery on our Facebook page. Scott has finished the outside of the creamery. There are lots of little pieces here and there to be completed. One of them was creating a way to get the milk from the milk room where the fresh milk is stored to the cheese make room where it can be poured into the vat. There is an ingenious little cat door on one end of a PVC Pipe that runs through the wall between the two rooms. The end of the pipe in the milk room has a PVC cap on it. Take the cap off, run the hose through the pipe, pushing open the cat door, and the milk can be dumped directly into the vat. It’s ingenious and approved by the state inspectors as a safe way to transport that milk from the storage tank to the cheese vat. Yay, glad that’s done.
Scott had lots of other tasks on his list of stuff to do but it got sidelined as he was preparing for milking Rosie — this before she even had her calf. We could tell she was getting close and it was past time to get the milking machines tested, cleaned and prepped for the season. Still not ready, so hand milking in the morning. But soon all will be in place.
That’s it for farm news. Now on to the farmer’s market update.
Farmer’s Market
I will be at the Wytheville Farmer’s Market on Saturday 10 am to 12 noon.
Our items for sale include apple pie jam and hot, medium, or mild pepper jam.
We have all of our meats back in stock for you.
We have ground lamb as well as rib chops and loin chops.
We have ground beef and ground goat.
I’ll have lots of quail eggs!!.
Herd Shares
Herd Share Peeps, I’ll see you in my usual location. Add on as you desire and all cheeses and butter are at your service. Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday and/or Tuesday.
I still have new raw milk cheese herd shares available. Contact me via email (melanie@peacefulheartfarm.com) or phone (276-694-4369).
Please go HERE to learn all about Herd Shares and get on our waiting list.
News This Week
- Products Available
- Let’s Get Together
- This week’s FarmCast, “Flavored Cheese” is now available.
- FREE Cheese tasting downloads
Products Available to Herd Share Owners
| Choose 1 per week | 1/2 Share | Whole Share |
| Butter | 1/4 pound | 1/2 pound |
| Ararat Legend | 1/4 pound | 1/2 pound |
| Peaceful Heart Gold | 1/4 pound | 1/2 pound |
| Pinnacle | 1/4 pound | 1/2 pound |
| Clau d’ville Cheddar | 1/4 pound | 1/2 pound |
Products Available to the General Public
| Quail | Price / Pound | |
| Quail Eggs (1 dozen) | $3.00 | |
| Quail meat (approx 1 lb) | $18.00 | |
| Beef | Price / Pound | |
| Ground (approx 1 lb) | $7.00 | |
| Lamb | Price / Pound | |
| Lamb Loin Chops | $18 | |
| Lamb Rib Chops | $18 | |
| Lamb Kabobs | SOLD OUT | |
| Ground Lamb (approx 1 lb) | $10 | |
| Chev (Goat) | Price / Pound | |
| Ground Chev (approx 1 lb) | $12 | |
| Jams and Jellies | Price / 8 oz Jar | |
| Apple Pie Jam | $8 | |
| HOT, Medium, or Mild Pepper Jam | $5 |
As always, we love meeting you in person. You can find us at the Wytheville Farmers Market on Saturday from 10:00 am to Noon. Special procedures are in place for your health and safety. Masks are still recommended but not required as far as I know.
As always, you may visit us at our dairy farm in Claudville, Virginia Tuesdays from 10 am to 12 noon and Saturday afternoons from 3 pm to 5 pm. Find out how we raise our animals and why you will love the taste of tradition that is inherent in all of our products. Herd share holders will be able to see up close how their cows are cared for and the cheese operation and where it is stored.
Peaceful Heart FarmCast
In this week’s podcast, “Flavored Cheese” is a fun topic. If you are making your own cheese, this is a short introduction to some ideas about how you might take your cheesemaking to the next level. Or if you just love cheese, it will give you some ideas about what to look for as you are shopping your local markets.
Free Downloads
I want to follow up on my previous FarmCast, The Taste of Cheese where I talked about developing your expertise with using descriptive words. The FREE downloads of Classifying Cheese by Type and Category and Expand Your Cheese Vocabulary are still available at our website. Please stop by and get your FREE resources.
You can LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE. Or, if you have an Alexa device, just say: “Alexa, play podcast Peaceful Heart FarmCast.”
And don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to the Peaceful Heart Farm podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, TuneIn, Stitcher or Spotify
