Come visit our farm stand and say hello to the pigs, chickens, rabbits, and Baxley the pup on Wednesdays afternoons 4-6 or Saturday mornings 9-11. Vegetables, Chilmark Coffee (brewed and beans) and hot apple cider for sale. Enjoy it all while catching up with neighbors and friends around a cozy fire. See you there!

Animals

So much has happened at Slip Away Farm the past few weeks.

In addition to settling ourselves into our new home, we have moved in some of our first farm animals: pigs, chickens, and rabbits, oh my.

We have two pigs on loan to us from the Farm Institute. It is the ideal situation, because the Farm Institue pays for the grain, and we put in the labor of feeding and caring for them and get to have the benefit of pigs on our land. They act like little rototillers, pulling up poison ivy and briars with their sturdy noses. I love pigs. They have huge personalities and are constantly amusing, particularly when they are feeling enthusiastic and psyched on life. They leap and twist in the air, kick their heals up, and bound and skip across their pen. It is endlessly entertaining, and I am always left smiling and wondering how such heavy animals can find the energy to bound so effortlessly.

We also bought ten two-year-old hens, a mix of Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons, with the hope that they would keep our household well supplied in eggs. Despite a luxurious and cushy chicken home, however, these hens seem to have decided against laying. Usually every two or three days we find an egg or two. I always praise the ladies heavily, but no amount of kind words has yet encouraged them to lay more.

In order to boost up the flock, we ordered fifty chicks that will arrive in the mail in two weeks. We will brood them in the basement and then move them in with the other chickens in a few months. If all goes as planned and the old hens don't teach the new hens their bad laying habits, they should be laying come April. Once that happens, we will hopefully have plenty of eggs for ourselves and to sell at our farm stand.

Old Evil Eye

Our friend Meg gave us a rooster and he struts around proudly and tries to look menacing to all who enter his chicken castle. Despite his small size, I have to admit that I am sometimes a little bit intimidated by him, and he knows it and plays me for the wimp I am. I swear he gives me the evil eye, so I am always careful to keep a good distance between us. I just hope the hawks feel intimidated too.

And finally, we have three sliver-fox rabbits given to us by our friend Taz. As some of you may remember from a post early in the summer, I have already tried and failed at rabbit raising for Slip Away Farm. After much encouragement from Taz (who also gave me that first rabbit, Harvey aka Cottontail), we decided to try again. These three ladies are pretty adorable. Almost too cute to eat. But the plan is to raise them for a few months, breed them with another silver fox, and then have their babies for meat next fall.

The other news this week is: Jason caught a fish! When we moved to Chappy, Jason-- who used to fish as a kid on the Vineyard-- started fishing frequently. After many trips without a bite, I learned that the point of fishing is not necessarily to catch a fish. Apparently, it is sometimes more about being out in a beautiful spot at a beautiful time of the day and enjoying the act of fishing rather than being about bringing home the big one. Actually hooking a fish is an added bonus. I stopped hopefully asking each time Jason returned: "Did you catch one??" And just when I was forgetting altogether that sometimes the result of fishing is an actual fish, Jason returned home on Monday night with a beautiful, foot and a half long bluefish. We grilled him whole and had him for supper. So good!

Many thanks to Alan Muney for the chicken and rooster photos.

Farm Stand

On Wednesdays from 4-6:30, starting this week, we will have a stand set up at the farm on Chappy. We'll have plenty of fresh vegetables as well as locally roasted Chilmark Coffee for sale both as beans and brewed. The farm is located just across the street from Brine's Pond and the Chappy Community Center. Hope to see you there!

The Chicken Coop

I have a great family friend, John Pratt, who has been a remarkable resource over the last year. My family has know the Pratt family since I was in the first grade with their daughter, Caroline in Georgia. Remarkably, the Pratt family is a mirror image of my family: an older boy, a middle girl, and a younger boy, all of us the same ages. We all grew up together and even now manage to see each other every so-often, mainly on Martha's Vineyard where the Pratt's come to vacation every summer.

John is a  lawyer in Atlanta who offered me pro bono lawyer work when I first started Slip Away. He helped me establish the farm as a LLC, saved a website address for us, organized business matters with my investors, and tightened up my business plan and budgets. His help navigating the confusing business/legal world while also providing general enthusiasm and advice was a tremendous gift in itself.

And then he offered an even bigger gift. In addition to being a lawyer, John is also a skilled carpenter. He builds beautiful things, and decided he wanted to build Slip Away Farm a chicken coop. He decided to use his one-week vacation in August on Martha's Vineyard as the time to build it. Collins was able to help him, and together they planned and began the building. They put it together it in pieces on the Vineyard, which we then loaded on to a dump truck and brought over to assemble on Chappy.

John's vacation ended two weeks ago and he headed home, leaving Collins in charge. He and Jason have been working diligently on it, and it is now recognizable as a chicken house. They have some of the shingles up, the four big windows will be going in shortly, along with the nest boxes and the most beautiful door a chicken house has ever seen.

The whole thing is on skids, so we will be able to move it around the farm, relocating the chickens to peck at and fertilize new sections of ground. The house has enough room for roughly 60 chickens, which will provide us with a steady supply of fresh eggs to sell. Can't wait.

A Little Bit Distracted

I admit I have been neglecting the blog for the past few weeks. I do have what I consider to be two good excuses, however: 1) The end of August was insanely busy and 2) I now live in a house with no internet (or consistent cell phone service).

The end of August is a tough time on the Island: the summer crowds are at their max, and there is a desperate feeling in the air as tourists try to cram in the last of their summer vacation, and many Island business owners try to make their money, knowing that the demand for their product or service is about to drop dramatically. These last few weeks of summer, we increased the produce we brought to Farmer's Market significantly, finishing plantings of vegetables at a remarkable rate.

While trying to meet the summertime Market demand, we also worked to prepare our field for fall crops, planting the broccoli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach, radishes, arugula, etc. that will see us through to the first heavy frost. Our successful summer CSA encouraged us to try a five-week fall CSA, so we scrambled to get the cool weather crops in on-time.

In addition to working full-force in our Katama field, we prepared to move ourselves and the farm (bit by bit) over to our new property on Chappaquiddick. We spent one Sunday brush mowing until it was so dark that we could no longer see where we were running our mowers, excited to clear out some of the poison ivy and brambles in areas that will eventually become our vegetable fields.

We borrowed a dump truck from Beetlebung Tree Care and moved furniture, boats, and a chicken coop (more on that later) over to Chappy, three roundtrip rides on the Chappy ferry. We unpacked all of our boxes and settled in to our new farm and our new farmhouse, which I still have a hard time believing is ours. I keep reminding myself that this is our land, our house (at least for the next five years, anyway), finding it difficult to grasp the enormity of it all. We are just so lucky.

Last night, a double rainbow filled the sky over the farmhouse, and Jason and I walked our fields in awe of the beauty of the place. It almost felt as if the sky was welcoming in fall, saying goodbye to summertime in a spectacular array of colors.

Mid August

A quick update from Slip Away Farm: 

This is the week of the Agricultural Fair in West Tisbury and we got a little carried away and entered 14 different vegetables into the commercial grower's categories. We won some ribbons, and Christian and I are already planning for next years competition: anyone have any good ideas for the "Vegetable Sculpture" category? Never to early to plan ahead...

Some of my favorite entries at the fair were a coffin brimming with vegetables submitted by Ghost Island Farm and the best in show prize winner by our friend Ellie who made a chicken entirely out of flowers. I love the fair. 

Market has been busy, busy, busy. August is really a bustling month on the Island and we have been attempting to fill some of the demand for local veggies. We are so fortunate to be starting the farm at a time when local produce is such a hot commodity; it seems like most of the vegetable farmers are doing good business at the West Tis Market and pretty much selling out of produce every week. 

The really big news this week is that we are officially moving the farm to Chappaquiddick in two weeks, a plan that has been in the works for awhile and is now finally happening. We have been granted an affordable lease for a three bedroom farmhouse from the 1700's and seven acres of land. It is a five year lease, and an incredible opportunity for a farmer on Martha's Vineyard where land is expensive and limited and year-round housing difficult to find. Christian, Collins, Jason, and myself will all be living in the house and working the land together. Very, very exciting. 

And for my friend Annie, lots of photos in this week's post: 

Green Apple Eggplant

Blue ribbon carrots, waiting to go to the Fair

Okra

Newly planted baby lettuce

Sunrise on Market Morning

Purple Kolrabi

Tomatoes

Heirlooms

Our tomatoes are in! Nothing beats the flavor of a summertime field tomato, and I have been eating tomato sandwiches non-stop, picking up a loaf of bread and some cheese or mayonnaise for lunchtime.

Unfortunately the birds like them too: just as the fruits begin to turn red, the birds, thirsty from all the dry weather this season, peck at them to get to the juices inside, ruining the tomato. In order to prevent this at Slip Away, we strung colorful, reflective string throughout the field to spook them away from the plants. We also pick the tomatoes a day or two early and allow them to fully ripen off the vine, safely away from the thirsty birds. 

We will have plenty of 'maters at the West Tisbury Market tomorrow, so come stop by and pick up a few for lunch.