Summer CSA is right around the corner

Planting Kohlrabi, spring is so full of hope. The days may be cloudy and chilly, but warm days and good food are heading this way!

We are excited to have space available in our Summer CSA starting in May. We have openings for Meat, Veggie, Milk and Egg shares. We have been planting lots and it all looks great! We have lots of baby animals being born also. Make sure you look for the new calf, Daffodil, the new baby lambs and we will start having baby chicks out to see in May. Warm weather, good food and good times are coming!

Chicken tea party is great fun when it’s cold outside!

We bought a new rotary shredder for cheese and have found it is so fun and easy to shred the radishes and carrots for on top of salads! I am usually a lazy salad person and just do lettuce, but this is game changing and it’s easy to chew for little folks. Not to mention pretty and delicious! The best part is the little children can use it safely and so they are a big help with dinner prep.

Our pick up schedule for the remaining csa is this week the 14th and 16th, then we have a break before Summer CSA begins May 5th and 7th. We will have milk and eggs available on the “off” weeks and will have veggies for sale in the cabin, self serve. We will be enjoying a staycation for our family to revive after a difficult season and we will be getting new systems in place to make running our farm without our biggest farmer boy, Tommy, more manageable for us all. Prayers are appreciated as we navigate each new season and allow God to gently lead us through our grief. We are so thankful for a patient and kind, loving God to help in this and all seasons. And for our community who is being used by God to minister to us! We are thankful for you all.

Blessings,

Your farmers

The sunshine was wonderful!

Loving the herbal tea on these cold rainy days, yesterday we had it iced!

We hope you all got some free Vit. D yesterday. It was not in stock today! What a rainy, cold day. But it helps us remember to enjoy the sun when it does shine! God is gently leading us through this tender season, we are so grateful for that.

This week we have lovely greens still happy as can be in the greenhouses. Chard, Arugula and Napa cabbage. We love to have the chard sautéed with onions or garlic, the arugula is great as salad with some beets and oil and vinegar or a nice creamy dressing and the napa is my favorite winter green. We love it chopped small as salad with some shredded carrots or cooked into a stir-fry! Eating with the seasons has so many health benefits. The watermelon radish is also great shredded on salad, and oh I love the taters! We had roasted sweet potatoes tonight with a sausage stir fry with some frozen peppers from last summer and a side salad. So yum!

A few days ago I roasted two chickens and pulled the meat off the bones and put them right into a pot for broth (along with my veggie peelings) and then had chicken for several meals to create easy fast meals. The chicken goes great on the napa cabbage salad. Our favorite homemade salad dressing is just 1 part vinegar, 1 part honey or maple syrup and 2 parts olive oil.

We are busy planting all the spring cabbage and broccoli, not to mention tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and flowers and herbs! Where does the winter go? Well this year I am very ready for spring. We usually want some more time to hibernate, but not this year. The sunshine is so welcome even it means the time for slow winter evenings will end for us soon.

We brought two of Tommy’s sheep back to the farm and Grace will be in charge of them. We still have some of his lambs from last year that are keeping the girls company. They will have their lambs in March and April. We look forward to that with excitement!

Dates to remember:

Meat delivery Thursday next week and pick up Thursday and Saturday. 2-5 pm. Don’t forget to look for your add on shares as well. We still have some lamb available for your Easter dinner, please e-mail for details.

Blessings,

The Baker Team

Meat CSA today!

We are enjoying the snow even though it makes more work! Just a quick reminder that meat CSA is today from 2-5 and Saturday from 2-5. We hope you are enjoying all the winter goodies! The sweet potatoes are still plentiful and I love chopping them and roasting them with other root crops. We also have been enjoying fried cabbage and lots of meat balls! Madison makes a great meatball recipe like this one.

We still have some extra pork and lamb if you’d like to grab come today or Saturday, it’s available to anyone! Thanks!

Blessings,

The Baker Family

What do farmers do when they go on vacation? Milk other people's cows!

We had a blessed time celebrating 3 farmer birthdays while on vacation last week. We went to TN to visit our dear friend’s farm and continue healing, rejoicing and grieving Tommy being in Heaven. The children loved helping them milk their cows! Then we went on to KY and spent some time at the creation museum and ark encounter. What a blessing it was a so sweet to learn more about our heavenly Father and His creation. Our farm sitter took excellent care of the farm and all the animals in these cold days!

We are learning how to farm for God with one less team member. We started this way of life that became a passion for all of us because of Tommy’s childhood illness and we enjoy continuing it. The hardest part was figuring out how to manage the scale we have without a fulltime partner! God has been leading us along and we are finding we are still a great team and can get it done. Our heavy hearts are made light again when we see God’s hand helping us along. Sometimes through joy of new life like the puppies and sometimes through the smiles on your faces when we serve you or reminisce about Tommy!

Enjoy the veggies this week! We have some you may not recognize…..watermelon radishes and bok choi! Time for stir fry! We had a curry with Tommy’s lamb kabobs last night and it was excellent! We look forward to seeing you in a few weeks for February meat pick up. Spring will soon be here, thought it doesn’t seem like it! Please be praying that we don’t loose power as it’s hard to keep water from freezing and many other tasks become harder with power outages on the farm. We were blessed with a mild beginning to winter to allow us time to adjust to being without Tommy.

Blessings,

The Baker Team

Happy New Year! Meat pick up this weekend!

Our first litter of Bernadoodles is a few weeks old! We are enjoying them so much! Freedom is a proud mama of 8 babies! She had a C section, but is back to nursing full time and loving it.

Friends we are looking forward to serving you at the meat pick up this weekend. Please mark your Calendars for January 1st and January 6th. We will be open behind the cabin from 2-5 both days. If you can’t come during those times please notify us ahead of time and we arrange to get your share a different day.

We will also have bulk boxes of Lamb. Tommy raised some really nice lambs this year and we can’t wait to see how you like them. We’ve got leg of lamb, loin chops, rib chops, loin roasts and more! This isn’t limited to CSA members, we’ve got plenty for all. We also have extra pork this month if anyone wants to get a bulk box of pork as well.

Thanks for your patience as we learn how to make changes and adjust to life. We are constantly reminded of why we love serving our wonderful community of people here at Day Spring Farm!

Blessings,

The Bakers

Merry Christmas and our love to all!

Tommy in is 4 H years.

Friends, family and community we hope you have a blessed Christmas wherever you may be. We plan to have a cozy celebration here on the farm and spend plenty of time being thankful for Tommy and remembering our favorite stories about him. With that in mind we have asked our children to write a letter about their memories of him. We plan to keep these and read them to our younger children that won’t have the privilege to remember his joy and infectious personality. If you have special memories of Tommy please send them to us at dayspringfarm.va@gmail.com and we will print them and add them to our book. Thank you for ALL your support, YOU are the body of Christ surrounding us during this painful, but blessed journey. We don’t always understand His way, but His ways are higher than ours. Merry Christmas!

Few Things:

Pick up and Delivery remain the same for Thursday. Saturday pick up can be done Friday or Monday (PLEASE let us know if you want to come Friday.) Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Our friend did an amazing video of Tommy’s celebration of life. We treasure it and watch it often.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R2hnCtahWL7Xr0uLjiQLwFnxssNAXe0d/view?ts=61b13b1e

Thank you again for ALL your generosity and love for our family and for grieving with us for our son and friend, Tommy boy. What may seem to some as a tragic, sudden end is just a piece of God’s wonderful plan for us all. Some of his plans are harder to adjust to. Working, living and breathing without him nearby is the hardest thing we have ever been through. We started organic farming as a result of his unknown source of neuropathy (neuromuscular disease, Lyme disease and vaccine injury) from his childhood as a way to keep him active and healthy. It’s our joy and privilege to carry it on for his memory and the health of our family and community.

Blessings,

The Bakers

Goodbye is not forever

Tommy Baker went to be with Jesus November 14, 2021

Friends, we are so grateful to have been blessed to be his parents. His life was full of the Joy of the Lord and now he is with Him in glory land! We rejoice at the thought of being with him in Heaven when our journey here is over. Tommy had a muscle condition that had weakened his heart and made his last fight with his recurring muscle problems too much for his heart to handle. We were honored to spend 22 years with him. We are being carried along by the body of Christ as each of you reach out to help us in your own way, thank you.

Psalm 73:25-26King James Version

25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

Business Details:

Today is this weeks CSA and Turkey pick up from 2-6 PM and delivery route. IF you don’t come today for veggies we will pack your bag and leave it in the fridge for self serve.

Click here to find out how to help us during this time. Or please send donations to No Greater Joy Ministries, Tommy’s favorite book next to the KJV Bible.

First Winter Meat Pickup!

It is really starting to look (and feel) like fall!

Hello everyone,

This week is the first meat pick up for winter! We will be set up market style from 2-5 on Thursday and Saturday. We look forward to seeing you then!

We hope you enjoyed the potatoes, Pac choi, radishes, peppers, delicata squash, and eggplant/cucumbers from last week!

TURKEY TIME! If you haven’t placed your order for a great, farm raised turkey then now is your last chance! We are almost sold out. Reserve here.

Well, we have been busy getting the sweet potatoes in, which is a big job! We are almost done:) Last night the temperature got down to 32 degrees. Yesterday we were busy getting all of the summer veggies into storage that we could. We were blessed to get a good amount in, so we will be able to share some more summer staples with y’all for a few more weeks!

It has been raining lots, so everything is a little muddy, but that’s another sing of fall/winter coming! All the animals take cover, but are out as soon as the sun is! The veggies don’t mind the rain ;) The farmers don’t mind it either, but it does make the chores seem to take longer. We are grateful for God’s provision of water!

This week we have been enjoying lots of yummy soups like this ginger one. We like to chop up whatever veggies we have handy and add them in! We also have been making great stir-fry's and stews. Here is a fun sauce to give a fancy taste to a stir fry. You should try a “Baker Stir Fry” ( Basically any vegetables, some ground beef, and brown rice.) This is also a great way to use leftovers. In our house, if it has a name it must be good. So, if we’re eating leftovers, we make a fun name for it, then it’s like something new!

There are some new things in the cabin, be sure to check them out! The freezer is stocked (no pun intended) with lots of great beef and chicken stock. Soup is so good on cold wet days!

Rejoicing in Jesus,

Madison for the Bakers