Glorious Spring

 Baby lettuce planted in the big vegetable field.

Preparing a garden bed and planting onions and herbs.

Baby vegetable transplants on the hardening-off table

 

 The sheep and horse are grazing in front of the chicken hoop-coop so that the meat chickens have a nice short grass to eat. All the meat chickens are resting in the shade of the hoop-coop during the middle of this 85 degree day.

William harvesting arugula

The soil temperature is very warm for the middle of April. The thermometer is reading 70 degrees and the air temp is 85 degrees. Summertime in the spring?

First market of the season today.

Veggie alert! Along with our amazing farm meats and eggs, we will sell our veggies this year at the Hickory Market.

• Today- Downtown Hickory Farmers' Market, Wednesday 4/3, from 10 am til 3 pm.

• Saturday- Downtown Hickory Farmers' Market. Bluebird Farm will be at the Hickory Market every Saturday this year. (Look for William) Join us this Saturday April 6th from 8 am til 1pm.

The sun should be shining bright, and it won't be too cold, so come and see me at market!

Pastured Pork- We'll have our full offering of delicious pastured pork-  our hogs are fed certified organic grains
thick bone-in pork chops, country sausage, whole tenderloin, boneless ham roast, bone-in shoulder roasts, spare ribs, country backbones, spicy chorizo sausage, bratwurst, Italian sausage, and more!


Eggs- The hens are starting to lay more eggs, so get a dozen or two. 
Raised outdoors in the sunshine! laying hens fed non-medicated, conventional grains, not organic grains (ask me at market about the switch back to conventional grains for the laying hens )

Vegetables- We'll have curly kale and collards from our winter garden.  This may be the only week that we'll have kale and collards, so get a little extra.  The kale keeps well shut up tight in a plastic bag in your refrigerator's produce drawer. Our vegetables are grown with organic methods- no synthetic chemicals (no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, fungicides)

We've been busy in the veggie fields!

William and the handy Toyota/wheelbarrow truck

William getting ready to lightly till the bed tops in the veg field

William and the tiller

Jody seeding little tiny carrot seeds. Notice the mini sprinklers on the bed.

Marie firming the planted carrot seeds with a  rake.

Marie spreading organic fertilizer on potato beds

Marie and Okra the dog in the spring veg field

Spring veggies are coming!

This weekend we'll be planting a field of tiny kale and Swiss chard transplants.  We'll also plant potatoes and sugar snap peas.  The traditional local wisdom is that you plant peas and potatoes on St. Patrick's day, but this year with the wet cold soil, we're waiting for better conditions so the seeds don't rot in the ground.  Warm soil temps are what make plants grow- not the calendar's date!

Our greenhouse is full of lettuce, bok choy, scallions, herbs, peppers, and many more little vegetable transplants. Outside, we have covered "greenhouse tables" for young veggie transplants that are being acclimated to colder weather.  Some little veggies are sprouting in the garden beds under fabric row covers that help protect the little seeds and plants.

Marie adding lime to the veggie fields

We got a dry day for tractors in the veggie fields!

All the animals are waiting for the grass to grow tall enough to graze. Right now it is too wet for their sharp little hooves- they'll punch through the soil and churn it up too much.  They have to be content with a nice crunchy hay for now.  

Sheep munching on winter hay

Sweet Pea, the bad sheep and a few of her friends.

Tazi, sweet guardian of the flock

Little Okra always has a smile for you!

Bluebird Farm March Special Order

Hello All,

If you missed the special order in February don't worry-we're coming back this Saturday!

This Saturday the 16th Bluebird Farm pastured pork and egg order!  At Conover winter farmers market at the Conover Hardware 10-noon and at Youssef 242 restaurant 1-2.

Winter Eggs for You: Guess what? The hens are laying well- so we have some eggs available for you.  Remember, our eggs are fresh and will keep for a month, so order 3-4 dozen if you need.

Pastured Pork: We have a full selection of our flavorful pork. We raise our hogs outdoors and feed certified organic grains and absolutely no sub-therapeutic antibiotics. Italian sausage, Bratwurst, shoulder roasts, fresh ham roasts, Country sausage, Chorizo sausage, thick bone-in pork chops, ribs, and lard.

If you haven’t tried this recipe yet- please do! Winter is the best time for cooking a pork roast in the oven. Fresh Ham with Sage and Thyme 

This Saturday March 16th We will be taking orders for drop off at our usual locations:

Conover

Conover Hardware Store: 101 2nd St SW, Conover, NC 10-noon.  This drop off location will be with other Conover Market vendors including fresh wood fired pizza!

Hickory

Youssef 242 restaurant in Hickory: 242 11th Ave NE, Hickory 1-2pm.  We are coming to Hickory 1 hour later than usual.  Please note time change!

Follow this link to our online store for ordering information:

Online Store  http://bluebirdfarmnc.csasignup.com/store/

Farmers markets are just around the corner look for emails soon with market details!

Cheers,

  William and Marie

2012 national drought and rising grain costs

During this early planning part of the year, we have been taking a hard look at all the pieces of the farm.  We’ve been crunching numbers and planning to ensure that we can grow the best possible product while keeping prices as affordable as possible and ensure that we can earn a living from the hard work of farming.

Bluebird Farm hogs and broilers will continue to be raised with certified organic grains, outside rotating through pastures, forests, and garden.  The layer hens will also live free range and on pasture; however, the layer hens will no longer receive organic grain.  We will use a non-medicated, all-grain feed that we’ve used in previous years to feed our pastured laying hens.

The 2012 drought in most of the United States caused a poor national crop of grains that are important to raise chickens and pigs. All grains prices, organic and non- organic, went up in price by 30%, and left farmers across the nation without a way to afford to feed their animals.  While many farmers and farms across the nation are still reeling from the devastating effects from the 2012 drought, we at Bluebird Farm are optimistically finding creative ways to make 2013 successful.

As we make our plans for the 2013 growing season, we’ve found that the high grain prices affected our various livestock in different ways.   Some areas of the farm have fared better than others.  The pigs look good (and taste good too!) and we are excited for another great year of vegetables.  But chickens proved to be a sticky issue.

Broilers- Tasty Pastured Chicken

Broilers are fast growing meat chickens that need very specific conditions to grow well.  We have made a variety of changes to our system to help them grow more efficiently.  However, no matter how efficiently the birds grow there is no escaping the fact that they eat lots of food!  We continue to strive to use organic feed for the broilers to ensure a pure product.  Certified organic feed is 100% chemical free and GMO-free.  We use this feed for both the hogs and broilers.  Unfortunately, upon close examination of all the costs to produce organic broilers we have had to raise our price.  The new price of $6/lb will ensure that we can continue to produce organic broilers while earning a modest income for ourselves (we discovered that in the past we were volunteering our time to raise the broilers).

We are confident that you will love our organic fed, pasture raised, free range broilers!

Layers- Fresh Pastured Eggs

We have decided to come to a compromise on the layer hens.  After looking at the numbers for the layer hens we found that in order to cover all of our costs, including organic grains, our organic eggs would cost $6.90/dozen.  While we want to use organic grains for all of our livestock we felt that almost $7/dozen is not affordable for eggs.

In order to keep our eggs at their current price we have made the difficult choice of switching to non-organic feed for our hens only.  The other option was to not raise any hens on our farm.  We will continue to use top quality, non-medicated, vegetarian feed for the pastured hens.  And of course all Bluebird Farm hens live on fresh green pasture rotated with sheep and pigs.  These hens live outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air with plenty to scratch and peck.  Our chicken wagon coop provides the hens with a mobile house around the pastures and fields of the farm. 

Bluebird Farm hogs and broilers will continue to be raised with certified organic grains, outside rotating through pastures, forests, and garden.  The layer hens will also live free range and on pasture; however, the layer hens will no longer receive organic grain. 

Each season we work hard to continue to raise the highest quality animals and vegetables at affordable prices that will ensure that Bluebird Farm continues into the future.  Above all we want to work with you, our customers, to build an open and honest food system that produces healthy food for us all.

We’re growing for you,

William and Marie

Happy new year and Special Order Saturday Feb. 2nd

Hello All,

January has flown past.  We have just returned from our honeymoon trip down to Georgia and Florida.  We had a wonderful time exploring the unusual (at least to us) plants and animals of coastal Georgia and south Florida. 

Now that we’re back it is time for another pastured pork and egg order!

Tazzy the guard dog stands watch over her sheep

  

Winter Eggs for You: Guess what? The hens are laying well- so we have lots of eggs available for you. Take advantage of this unusual winter bounty and order several dozen. Remember, our eggs are fresh and will keep for a month, so order 3-4 dozen.  We don’t know if the hens will lay this well next month.

Pastured Pork: We have a full selection of our flavorful pork. We raise our hogs outdoors and feed certified organic grains and absolutely no sub-therapeutic antibiotics. Italian sausage, Bratwurst, shoulder roasts, fresh ham roasts, Country sausage, Chorizo sausage, thick bone-in pork chops, ribs, and lard.

Pastured Pork and Hens helping out the garden with fertilizer

If you haven’t tried this recipe yet- please do! Winter is the best time for cooking a pork roast in the oven. Fresh Ham with Sage and Thyme 

This Saturday February 2^nd We will be taking orders for drop off at our usual locations:

Conover

Conover Hardware Store: 101 2nd St SW, Conover, NC 10-11 am

Hickory

Youssef 242 restaurant in Hickory: 242 11th Ave NE, Hickory Noon-1pm

Morganton

Nature’s Bounty health food store: 306 S Sterling St, Morganton 11-Noon

Follow this link to our online store for ordering information:

Online Store  http://bluebirdfarmnc.csasignup.com/store/

Tomatoes in January?

One of the first things we did after we got back to the farm, besides checking on the animals, was prepare some wonderful home cooked farm meals.  Chorizo and eggs is a breakfast favorite.  Sautéed onions, kale, and canned tomatoes with sliced Italian sausage was our first fabulous dinner. We are also in the process of rendering pork fat for snow white lard. Lard makes the best biscuits in the world- what a treat!  Oh- the flavor of our pastured meats! Those first few meals were a reconfirmation of the quality of our meats and our sustainable production methods.

Even on vacation we couldn’t stop thinking about agriculture totally.  On our way to our friend’s house in Key West we passed through many vegetable fields in south Florida.  It was incredible to see such large fields of vegetables.  We are used to seeing tens or hundreds of acres of corn, hay, or soy beans-but tomatoes, green beans, and squash! 

It was incredible to see that agriculture.  But it also was a real life reminder of our food system.  Those tomatoes were destined to be picked green, shipped, and then gassed to turn them red before appearing in our grocery stores up here.  The fields were the vegetable equivalent of animal factory farms or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation or CAFO were food is mass produced to stay cheap with no concern for health, environment, or flavor.

Then in the Florida Keys we learned about the coral reefs that are suffering from multiple problems from warming, acidifying oceans to excess fertilizer runoff from those fields we saw: all problems exacerbated by industrial agriculture.

It all served to emphasize to us the importance of what we are doing.  With your help we are taking small steps to create a local, organic food system; one that makes creeks healthier instead of less, one that builds soil instead of destroying it, and one that produces flavorful food instead of tasteless color.

Thank you for your continued support of Bluebird Farm organic and pastured meats.  Remember, you can get pastured meats right here from your local farmer.

Saturday February 2^nd

Conover

Conover Hardware Store: 101 2nd St SW, Conover, NC 10-11 am

Hickory

Youssef 242 restaurant in Hickory: 242 11th Ave NE, Hickory Noon-1pm

Morganton

Nature’s Bounty health food store: 306 S Sterling St, Morganton 11-Noon

Follow this link to our online store for ordering information:

Online Store: http://bluebirdfarmnc.csasignup.com/store/

Cheers,

  William and Marie

William Lyons and Marie Williamson 

Bluebird Farm
4178 Bluebird Drive
Morganton, NC 

www.BluebirdFarmNC.com

www.BluebirdFarmNC.blogspot.com

BluebirdFarmNC@gmail.com

828.584.7359

December Winter Orders and Family Pork Pack sale!

Order your Family Pork Pack or pork by the cut now on our Online Farm store and pickup this Saturday in Morganton, Hickory, or Conover. This is your only opportunity to order Bluebird Farm Pastured Pork in December! Last chance before the holidays.  You can order Family Pork Packs or even just a few pounds of our wonderful pork on our Online Farm Store. We won’t have another winter order until February, so stock up now.  We also have a limited amount of our lean pastured beef.

We are excited to announce our winter Family Pork Pack sale! 

Family Pork Packs are a great way to try all our delicious pork cuts-delicious thick pork chops, finger lickin’ ribs, amazing pork roasts, fresh bacon, and of course all of our lean flavor-full sausages.  We offer two sizes of packs to suit your family’s needs-large and small Pork Packs.  Receive a 5% discount on your pork pack when you order one for pick up this weekend!

·        Small Family Pork Pack

·        Large Family Pork Pack

·        Sausage Sampler

See Family Pork Pack descriptions below. Pickup Details below.

Why does our pastured pork taste so good?

                                     

     Bluebird Farm pigs are raised outside rooting freely in the woods or in the pasture.  Happy and healthy pigs produce the best meat you can find.  They also eat a diverse, certified organic grain diet that is 100% GMO-free.  Instead of just corn and soy, Bluebird Farm pigs eat a ground mixture that contains barley, peas, alfalfa, oats, and many other grains.  We buy certified organic grain from Reedy Fork Farm in Elon, NC.

     When we purchase organic feed we are support other organic farmers.  These organic grain farmers grow large fields of amber waves of grain in diverse, soil building crop rotations that leave the land better than it started.  Organic practices prevent the use of dangerous chemicals, protect water quality, encourage biodiversity, and develop soil health.

     Most grain in this country is genetically modified, engineered to produce their own pesticides and resist powerful herbicides.  Broad spectrum us of herbicides and pesticides are used on thousands of acres of monoculture fields (think Iowa) polluting ground water, killing all insects (most of which are beneficial), and degrading soil health.   Crops produced on degraded soil are frequently less nutritious than those grown on healthy soil.

Remember we are what we eat-and our animals are too!

In addition, we raise our pigs so that they benefit our farm ecosystem instead of creating problems, like most industrial pigs.  At Bluebird Farm they help provide fertilizer for vegetables, protect our layer hens, clear underbrush in our woods.  Industrial production overcrowds pigs, creating problems instead of solutions.

When you buy Bluebird Farm pastured pork, you are buying local, sustainable agriculture!

Visit our Online Store to order!

Small Family Pack  (Approx. 20 lbs)

6  Chops (3 pack of 2 each)

1  Roast: Shoulder or Fresh Ham  (approx 3.5 lb each)

4  Country Sausage (ground,1 lb each)

4  Italian Sausage or Bratwurst 1 lb each

4  Packs of Spare Ribs 1 lb each

1  Pack fresh bacon 1 lb each

Contains a variety of cuts totaling approximately 20 pounds* of pork.    Stock up and “shop” from your freezer-you’ll have all the great cuts of pork to make delicious meals.  Try the pork chops for grilling, roasts for hearty dinners, ground country sausage for quick savory meals.  The Small Family Pack will fit in your refrigerator’s freezer with plenty of room to spare!  Approx. $175

Large Family Pack  (Approx. 40 lbs)

12  Chops (3 pack of 2 each)

2  Roast: Shoulder or Fresh Ham  (approx 3.5 lb each)

8  Country Sausage (ground,1 lb each)

8  Italian Sausage or Bratwurst 1 lb each

2  Packs of Spare Ribs 1 lb each

1  Pack fresh bacon 1 lb each

Stock up on a variety of cuts totaling about 40 pounds* of meat.  A great variety pack with all the common cuts including more sausage and pork chops! If you have a little more space in your freezer this is a great way to stock up and “shop” from your freezer.  Approx. $340

Sausage Sampler

3  Country Sausage (ground,1 lb each)

3  Italian Sausage

3  Bratwurst 1 lb each

Contains a sampling of all our delicious pork sausages!   Includes our popular Country Sausage, Bratwurst, plus your choice of links or ground Sweet Italian.

Pickup Locations

Saturday December 15^th

Morganton

noon-3pm

111 N. Green St. (Uptown Wed Mini Market location, across from CVS)

Conover

            10am-11am

            Conover Hardware, 101 2^nd St SW

Hickory

                noon- 1pm

            Youssef 242 Restaurant, 242 11^nd Ave NE