Exciting news coming

We are growing and expanding!   Very exciting things are happening. 

Milk processing room is going up and applications are being filed.  Hoping to have our raw for retail milk license soon! Stay tuned for progress. Oh and the farm store should be here before long too!  Many fun changes on the farm. 

Mean while we have the fall garden producing amazing veggies and the winter garden going in.  Strawberries are being planted and cared for, hopefully this year we will be able to have fresh strawberries in our baskets next spring! 

When the store opens remembet to check out Christmas gifts, hand woven towels, scarfs, and hats! You might even find American Doll clothes, handmade of course.

Glad to share a little excitement and will be posting pictures soon.  Thanks

Living on a Farm!

One great thing about living on a farm is taking a walk and seeing what's new on the property! Country living is dynamic...nothing is ever the same from day to day. Not only that, but you never know what you might find on one of your walks!

We recently stumbled across this empty turtle shell and just had to take a picture to show everyone how cool it is!

Speaking of new things...we have several new babies here at Cox Family Farm!

We recently welcomed our first registered Jersey calf born on the farm. Everyone, please say hello to "Alice's Happy Rosa!"

But this girl's not alone, because we also now have Andrew. Andrew is his name, following mom is his game! And boy, we all know what that means...!

But calves aren't the only thing "popping up" here on the farm! Strawberries are coming soon to a basket near you...hopefully we will have enough to make jam, too. Yum!! Just thinking about those ripe, red berries makes my mouth water!

With all these babies being born and new plants growing and blooming, you know what must be just around the corner...SPRING!!! We can't wait for spring, but along with all the warmer weather comes planting time! Our greenhouse is really SPROUTING and soon we'll be moving out of the greenhouse and into freshly turned rows.

Green house is growing,

Spring is near...

If you feel like planting,

Give a cheer!!

We can always use the help!!! And there's nothing quite like getting your hands into warm, fragrant dirt as a way of welcoming the spring!

Last, but not least our hens are doing their part here at Cox Family Farm!! We are now getting about 14 dozen eggs a week!!! Who has been enjoying them? Do you eat them just for breakfast, or do you have a favorite quiche recipe you might like to share??

"Green eggs and ham, Sam I am...!!"

As you can see in the picture, most of our hens lay eggs with brown shells. But some of our hens lay green eggs, which is very cool!

As always, Cox Family Farm is a busy place!! We've always got something new and exciting going on. We'll share more with you soon!!!

Update for the New Year 2013

Wow, it is hard to believe that it has been nearly a year already since the last time I updated the blog! We've been so busy since last February with all our garden and livestock plans, that I have had precious little time to write.

Here's an update on what has been happening the past few months at the farm:

In April last year, we finally got our bull. He is a registered Jersey named Happy Painter. Happy is a good name for him as he is a good-natured animal! In a previous post, I mentioned that we were using AI for our girls. Unfortunately, two different attempts failed. So, we got Happy Painter and now all the girls are pregnant and everyone is happy! We are expecting new calves between now (January) and March. We had one calf born early, but we think the neighbor's Hereford bull helped with that one!

Remember, with our herd of Jerseys, we only use antibiotics if one of the girls (or guys) is ill! No regular rounds of antibiotics for us!

In spite of this year's drought, our garden is doing well! Yea!! Some months are lighter than others, but our overall production is up to 30 baskets a week. Which includes 3 donation baskets that we have been able to bless others with, which has be an educational experience for us and them learning to cook what is in harvest is no easy task!  We are now celebrating two years of continuous production! That big Christmas storm destroyed our greenhouse, but we were able to get it back up within a couple weeks! We are now in the process of planting our spring crop!

From last season's harvest, I canned 54 jars of spaghetti sauce and 78 jars of pear sauce. Whew! When the veggie production gets a little light, I may just throw in some of our products as a bit extra for our customers.

This is our first year for pickles. I am very excited about trying new products! We also can jam when we can get a hold of fresh naturally grown fruit!  We are trying to build up fruit available on the farm, so look for strawberries in your baskets soon!  The first one is changing colors now.

We struggled a bit with our egg production this last year...mostly because of the raccoons. But we finally got a "chicken tractor" that we can move around the farm and the hens are now laying up to a dozen eggs a day! Our turkeys are beginning to hatch chicks. We currently have two chicks and we hope to have enough new ones we can grow and process them for later sale around Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

We've also been working very hard with our bee hives for the past two years. This spring we got our second batch of bees and soon we hope to "split" the hives and start more growing! We also harvested our first batch of honey this fall!  It is an exciting process for us to see our hives coming along and producing honey!

I plan to write more this year and keep our customers updated on the progress and all the new projects here at Cox Family Farm! With all the "Firsts" last year will hope to have more this year and for the farm to keep growing.  I hope you'll check back often to see how our garden is growing and what new products we have to offer!

Garden Soup!

Looking for recipes to use with veggies that are in season?  Then you will be glad to see the "NEW" Recipe page on our blog!  It gives us a place to put recipes and allow members to comment on them so everyone can know if they used it or liked it!

I am trying to find new ways we can all share new Ideas!

Enjoy, and comment.  We look forward to hearing from you!

CSA for the Spring 2012

We are so excited to be adding more CSA memberships to the farm this spring!  We are in the process of accepting new members, so if you want a spot, shoot me an e-mail at cathy@coxfamilyfarm.com so that we can add you on!  We have less the 10 spots left so send an e-mail quickly!

Here is a comment from current customer....

" ...

We have LOVED being a part of your CSA!  It's been fun to use "new" veggies to us, and to incorporate such a variety of foods into our diets.  We LOVE getting the fresh eggs and knowing that what we are eating is all organic, all non-GMO, and all grown and raised with love.  What a difference that makes to us!

..."

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Moving through January

January is moving right along and we are having lots of success and lots of fun!

We have been planting in the greenhouse and seedlings are sprouting already!  YEA!  We have planted lettuce, spinach, korabi, tomatoes, radishes, turnips, and more to come!  The garden plan has been designed and it is being implemented.  We are expanding the garden this year and very excited about the growth here on the farm!

The cows have been bred and we are excited about the due dates for new calves to hit the ground!

We have also added some FRUIT TREES to the farm this winter!  3 new Peach Trees which brings the count to 5 and 2 Orange Trees along with 1 Lemon!  We were so excited to have fruit that will be available at the farm, just hope it produces more than Alice can eat or no one will get some!  LOL   AND  a Special thanks goes out to Mrs. Susan, who has donated 2 plum trees to the farm, we are looking forward to picking them out and getting them planted!
Not much too report today, but have been busy, busy, busy!  If you want to plant or dig in the dirt, give us a call and come out to help!  We always enjoy the visits and the help!

New Year, New Plans, New ......

The past year was a long and stressful year, between droughts, animals, garden, and LIFE we made it to 2012!  As with all new beginnings, we get to start over, improve on somethings, and enhance others!  So here is the list of what is changing and what is happening on the FARM!

GARDEN

The garden is growing, we are expanding the garden so that we can offer more CSA shares and a lot more varieties!  If you can name a veggie we are probably growing it this year!  We have a very extensive list of items that should be coming in your baskets soon.  We adding on 12 more CSA members, so if you or someone you know is interested please contact me cathy@coxfamilyfarm.com.  The CSA this year will be $50 a month for a peck of vegetables, we call them a basket, but fresh, organically grown, local veggies once a week that will feed a family of 4-6 each week!

We are working hard on adding recipe's into the baskets so that you can learn different techniques for cooking all the wonderful things you will be receiving!  We are hoping to get feedback from our customers so that we can build a large list of  recipes to share with each other.  Some of the comments we are hearing about our CSA is "My Husband was skeptical when I brought home the last basket because of the winter veggies, but after the week he said WOW you had the kids eating Kale, Swiss Chard, and turnips and everyone enjoyed it!"  We are glad to help supply healthy foods to our customers and friends.

COWS

We are breeding cows right now!  We bred 4 today and currently have 1 bred, so if you are looking for grass fed beef contact us and put a hold on your calf for next year!  The FARM is currently working on obtaining our Raw for Retail Grade A Licence so that we can sell Raw Milk from the farm.  We will keep you updated on the progress as this procedure takes time.

Have a GREAT Week and come see the farm,
from our family to yours, enjoy!