Morning Song Farm News

Come on out to Morning Song Farm for our Mostly Mozzarella Class. We'll focus July's class on mozzarella and do a couple other very easy fresh cheeses to round out the class time . Limited class size so everyone can actually get their hands into their own cheese, rather than just watch us make it. Mozzarella is remarkably easy once you learn the pitfalls, and have made a few batches. The recipe we're using is the 30 minute version. The tough part is learning how to understand your cheese, how to knead it properly, drain it and what to look for to reach a beautiful stretch. We'll also make a  garlic ricotta spread, and an herbed queso fresco to round the day out. You may find that you'll discover a passion for cheese as we have here at Morning Song Farm. It's easier than you'd ever think! Take notes, and follow along with handouts and easy to follow recipes so that your success is insured when you repeat the steps at home. We'll talk about which milk to ...

We're excited to see the blackberries come in so well this year despite reduced watering. They are being picked dead ripe, so won't stay fresh for very long. Some years we've tried picking a little unripe, however what's true is that picking dead ripe insures full flavor. The downside is they don't last long! As the heat has arrived consistently now, this is the last week that we'll be growing sprouts for our CSA boxes. Please do pick up your boxes as soon as possible after our truck delivers so that your produce remains fresh. Hydrocooling is helpful if you've arrived late to discover wilted greens: dunk in a sink full of chilled water, shake and refrigerate. This is what restaurants do to insure crisp greens and works just as well in a home kitchen. We're at the tail end of our avo season, still plenty of fruit out there, but some of the skins are now not sporting cosmetic perfection. The trade-off is that a summer Southern Cal Hass has wonderfully ...

I recently read a review slamming another CSA's egg prices being just gouging the public and winced. The poor dear had no idea at all about the nefariousness of the chicken industry or the horrifying conditions her $3.00 a dozen egg laying chickens were living in.   As many of you know, we ONLY serve our CSA membership with eggs. There can only be one reason for that, and it's because it's not profitable for us. At $8.00 a dozen, I knew we were in the neighborhood of breaking even and I viewed my little chicken hobby (let's call it what it is) as a cool add-on service to my subscribers and a source of clean food for my family. I love the sound of my roosters in the morning, and count their morning calls as one of the assets of living rurally. Which makes me shake my head when I hear that HOA's  and city counsels consider the rooster's song or tiny flock hygiene issues as the main reason to disallow backyard chickens. Expand on that logic...just saying....and I t...

We had hoped that we'd get one more week out of the mulberry grove, but the sudden hot spell  vanquished all hope there. All the berries fell off on Sunday and the local bird/rabbit/squirrel population are having a berry fest field day. Best mulberries ever, this was a good season for us, as many years we've only gotten a week or two out of the grove. Next year, it will be even better as we learned a thing or two about mulberry management. We also discovered that rattlesnakes like to hang out in that part of the farm, and so next year us harvesters will be "chapped up" with rattlesnake protection, at least in the early weeks of picking when the snakes have gotten accustomed to having the grove to themselves. Below is this week's large Garden N Grove box The Spring Mix sprouts are these sprouted seeds: Broccoli Radish Red Clover Alfalfa

Help us! I’d love to have some feedback on a few rough spots in how we run our CSA administratively. 1.        For a few years now, we’ve relied on our Change Order link for add-on requests (like eggs, honey or juice oranges) as well as Credit Card updates, vacation skips, and subscription holds/cancellations. We instituted the Change Order system a few years back so that I could spend days at a time working on the farm without having the rosters blow up in my face, as well as the ability to go on vacation. For many years I couldn’t do either, and eventually it caught up with me. Literally, I hadn’t gone on vacation for 10 years when Beth took over. I don’t handle rosters or roster changes at all now, adhering to the Change Order system is an important part of keeping communications current and rosters error-free. (And me sane.) Beth is a full time librarian and does a meticulous  job of keeping it all straight for us. She downloads the Ch...