Over the weeks since we last posted, the farm has been buzzing along, even as Lincoln has settled into summer vacation. On my way in to the farm in the mornings, I pass crowds of people heading down to Walden Pond, towels and folding chairs in hand, looking to cool off in the summer heat. While we’d love to join them, especially on hot days like this past weekend, there is still plenty of work to be done at the farm!
Organic red currants from the Codman orchard
All our animals are on the farm, and Kari, Brian, Pete and Jared have settled into the routines of daily animal chores. We have our laying hens, turkeys, and some of our piglets growing on the fields at the end of Codman Road, and just had our fourth calf of the season born! We expect to get a few more, but we’ll have less than usual this year, as we’ve kept some of our mother cows from breeding so that next year they’ll all be calving at the same time - ideally in the spring or summer, rather than the depths of winter, which is a hard time for calves to be born. We just harvested our old laying flock of hens, and our pigs that were born around Christmas, so we have stewing birds available for purchase in the store. We’ll be getting more of our pork products soon from our friends at Adams Farm in Athol, MA, who process all of our animals except for our chickens.
Vegetable harvest continues, and some of our favorite summer crops have started showing up in the farm store! Most recently, we’ve been picking beans, red potatoes, and our very first cherry tomatoes of the season. I’m particularly fond of the red potatoes, both for their creamy taste, and for the story that goes along with them. These potatoes came in as seed potatoes all the way back in April, and were cut up and prepared for planting by students from the MassBay Waldorf High School. Our Farmer’s Helpers class of 1st to 3rd graders planted them out in early May. Several volunteers weeded and hilled the potatoes throughout the summer, and now, finally, they’re being dug by hand by our own staff, youth employees, and some hardy and dedicated volunteers. The journey of these potatoes captures the spirit of Codman as a Community Farm, with many different hands coming together to work, learn, connect with the soil and with one another, and to produce high-quality, healthy food for the community.
Last weekend we had another fresh chicken sale! We continue to be one of the only farms near Boston where you can come and pick up fresh, never-frozen, pasture-raised chicken directly from the farm it was raised on (shameless plug to check out the Farm Store!).
We take pride in how we raise our animals, and in the many volunteers and partners who help us bring them from chick to market, and are happy to offer such a unique product to the community. We also had a Codman first this past weekend: our first ever Open House! Folks came and enjoyed cold drinks in the barn, meeting and mingling with some of our staff and our Board of Directors, and tours led by farm manager Pete Lowy. We plan to do another one in the fall, so stay tuned and subscribe to our email list for more info.
As always, please reach out with any feedback, comments, thoughts, musings, love notes, appreciations, wild ideas or other concerns. Swing by and pick up some pasture-raised proteins for your next cookout, and we hope to see you on the farm some time soon.
Until then,
Jon
jon@codmanfarm.org