It was super beautiful weather for picking for the market yesterday and today, and being outside washing produce with your hands in the cold water. I know the cold days are coming so I’m extra grateful for this weirdly warm weather and the beautiful fall we’re having.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with:

pecans from our trees- made my last trip to the sheller on Wednesday. Curly and red Russian kale, and smaller toscano kale; swiss chard; beet greens, some red butterhead lettuce, arugula, a few beets, some carrots, a couple cauliflowers I found in the middle row. I can’t believe there is still cauliflower coming out of the field in December! That’s a first. A couple cabbages, some parsley, you get the idea. A little bit of lots of different things. Sweet potatoes. Oh and eggs from Carlea Farm this week.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin steak, flat iron, skirt, short ribs, brisket, shoulder roast with or without a marrow bone, boneless chuck roast, rump roast, sirloin tip roast, eye of round roasts, liver, bags of soup bones.

We have beer brats in! And andouille sausage! Hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites. We are almost out of bologna.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

Shane drilling alfalfa seed. Since it gets dark at noon now…

We got a letter from the Weeping Radish where we have our hot dogs and sandwich meats made – they are not going to make processed meats anymore. I thought the letter was pretty heartbreaking.  They do all of our further processing so we won’t have any more cold cuts, brats or dogs.

THEN we found out that the place we always get our Christmas tree, Clark’s Evergreens, is closed for Choose and Cut this year because of tree and labor shortages. We’ve gone there for several years, and when Shane’s parents were alive they came too. I have to tell you about last year’s trip – way too many cocktails and hilarity ensued.

I’m not sure if I’ll be at the market next week. It takes the greens 2 weeks to grow back with these short days but I might come up with something.

See you tomorrow!

The only crop left in the fields is the last of the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Everything else is tilled and ready for cover crops.

I don’t come to the market right after Thanksgiving but I’ll be there this Saturday with:

The last of my baby turmeric and ginger, which is more like…tweener age than baby now haha. Cauliflower, broccoli, red & gold beets, red cabbage and 2 green savoys, arugula, beet greens, curly & red kale, chard, sweet potatoes, and pecans that were just shelled Wednesday. No eggs.

We are all stocked up on beef cuts so I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin steak, flat iron, flank, skirt, short ribs, brisket, should roast with or without a marrow bone, boneless chuck roast, sirloin tip roast, eye of round roasts, liver, bags of soup bones.

We have hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites. We are almost out of quarter pound hot dogs and bologna.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

Do you want to hear about my big pecan adventure? Of course not. Look away then.

I haven’t brought pecans to the market before, and so this year I thought, you know this might actually be a low maintenance crop that requires minimal work and expense, and sell really well. It only takes around 20 minutes to fill a 3 gallon bucket using the Nut Wizard 🙂 and I can get them shelled for 50 cents a pound, bag them up and take them to the market. Easy Peasy!

WROOOONG. Soooo wroooong.

Nut Wizardry in action!

20 minutes to fill up a bucket? WRONG. Once you go through and pick out the extra stuff that the Wizard picks up, plus taking off all the hulls that are still stuck on – not the shells, mind you, the hulls OUTSIDE the shells – you only have half a bucket. So it ends up taking almost an hour to get a full bucket of shell-able pecans.

50 cents a pound for shelling? WROOOONG. It’s an hour and a half drive, plus an hour and a half to shell them at which point it was 12:30 so then I have to stop for lunch or else the Carl part of Carlea Farms who was nice enough to drive would be trapped in the vehicle with a very hangry person for the next hour and a half. We left at 9 am + got home at 3 pm = 6 hour tour.

Adding to that, when you arrive with 72 lbs of pecans in the shell and then leave with only 21 lbs of edible shelled pecans, the 50 cents somehow multiplies into millions of dollars. The math is right, people. And where is the cents symbol on this keyboard?

So now all that’s left to do is bag the nuts. Gah! Wrong again! 🙂 you still need to go through them to get out the bits of shells, the nuts damaged by stink bugs (is there nothing they won’t ruin?), shriveled ones, etc. That took 2 more hours. I didn’t finish.

I’m only halfway done nut wizarding so I’ll be doing it all over again, and this time I am prepared for the realities of life.

I did still have enough life force left to make fresh Cinnamon vanilla pecan milk  for our smoothies and granola fruit bowls. Nom. Turns out I like it in my coffee too.

I also had a garlic planting FAIL; if you are a faithful garlic customer of mine you might need to see what you’re in store for next spring haha 🙂

See you guys tomorrow or if you don’t make it, have a wonderful Thanksgiving week and I’ll be giving thanks for you, my super awesome customers!! <3

I’ll be there next week. Have a good one!!

The spinach is spun 🙂

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with:

white cauliflower, red & green cabbage, baby turmeric and ginger, horseradish root, swiss chard, beet greens, arugula, spinach, Red Russian kale, potatoes, and sweet potatoes – and Carlea Farms’ organic fed soy-free pastured eggs.

A delicious soup recipe to try, if you’re in the mood – Cheesy Vegan Cauliflower Potato Soup.  The only reason it’s vegan is because they use nutritional yeast instead of cheese so it’s super easy to make it non-vegan by using real cheese (duh). I just happen to have a jumbo size nutritional yeast to use up because my sister’s boyfriend went drunk shopping on Amazon bahaha.   I made a double batch. Shane loved it too. We topped it with chopped avocado and Dean’s microgreens and of course I added hot sauce and crushed red pepper.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, brisket, eye of round roasts, liver, osso bucco, bags of soup bones.

We have hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites. We are almost out of quarter pound hot dogs and bologna.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

I’m not sure if I’ll be at the market next week. I think I would only have the greens and the last turmeric. I might skip because I’ll have beets and carrots coming in soon, and curly kale and maybe pecans  – anyone know where I can have them shelled? I know of a place in Shelby but I’d like to find somewhere closer. I think I’m about to the end of white potatoes, and we are almost out of hot dogs and bologna too.

We have beef coming back from the processor next week so we’ll be all stocked up on roasts and stuff the next time I come and we’re making an order for hot dogs and beer brats from Weeping Radish but that won’t be back very soon I don’t think.

Blowing out the combine to put it up for the season. The mask is for the dust. It’s a giant blower that you pull with a truck, pretty sure it could blow your skin off. He used to just wear those cheap paper masks like you get at Lowe’s, then he’d be blowing his nose and  coughing up stuff for days so I’m glad he’s wearing one that actually does something now.

so pretty!

See you tomorrow!!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with:

white cauliflower, cabbage, baby turmeric and ginger, swiss chard, beet greens, arugula, spinach, kale, potatoes, and sweet potatoes – and Carlea Farms’ organic fed soy-free pastured eggs.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, sirloin, brisket, eye of round roasts, liver, osso bucco, bags of soup bones.

We have hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

I also have a few horseradish roots, just a few because as I was digging, a black snake slithered across and disappeared into the side of the raised bed to let me know I was disturbing her. How rude of me 🙂 I was ready to quit anyway.

See  you tomorrow!

Hi! I didn’t take any pictures this week so here’s one of my sister’s cat bahahahaaaaaaaa 🙂

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with:

baby turmeric and ginger – check out these recipes for Golden Milk (turmeric tea) and my personal fave, turmeric brothwiss chard, beet greens, arugula, spinach, potatoes, and sweet potatoes – and Carlea Farms’ organic fed soy-free pastured eggs.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, sirloin, brisket, eye of round roasts, short ribs, liver, osso bucco, bags of soup bones.

We have hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

See you tomorrow!

Hot shoeing -Jasper is not bothered, but Carats got hot shoes for the first time (normally just cold shoes) and it was hilarious! He was just standing there half asleep while Ryan took his old shoes off and trimmed his feet, then Ryan put the hot shoe on and the smoke started to waft up and Carats kind of opened one eye and was like, sniff.

Sniff Sniff. Both eyes.

What is that? Sniff Sniff.

Do you smell that? Sniiiiiiiif.

I think something’s burning.

Wait. Is that–is that my foot??

OMG!!THAT’S MY FOOT!!   <FREAK OUT>

I won’t be at the market next Saturday but I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow until 11 am  with:

baby turmeric (whole plant), the last of the chestnuts, the last of the squash, the last of the okra, carola and huckleberry gold potatoes potatoes, eggplant + mini eggplant.

I will also miss Saturday, October 7 market.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, sirloin, flat iron,  brisket, eye of round roasts, boneless  chuck roasts, sirloin tip roasts, rump roast, short ribs, liver,  osso bucco, bags of soup bones.

We have hot dogs (skinny and quarter pounder), sliced corned beef, sliced pastrami and sliced bologna.  Made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.

It’s time to dig sweet potatoes and that’s what I’ll be starting on Sunday. Dug 2 crates last Sunday and they’re curing, so they’ll be ready in one more week.

When I come back to the market on September 30, I’ll have arugula, spinach, lettuce, napa cabbage, turmeric, sweet potatoes…

this is arugula (in the hoop house), 7 days after planting:

spinach seedlings, also 7 days old:

the first time I ever grew spinach, when it came up I thought it was grass and I hoed it dead.

Oh victory, the tomato hoop is done. I pushed all the vines out with the tractor and I’ll till it and put down drip next week.

I made chestnut-maple dressing for my salad with roasted chestnuts 🙂  🙂  🙂

See you tomorrow!