Potluck, Pigs and Pumpkins

This weekend we had the most marvelous time at our farm! My favorite part about our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is the "Community" part. I love the agriculture part of growing and tending to living things, and producing healthy crops, but community is what it is all about. This weekend on our farm we got to play, visit, laugh, and eat incredible food together with many members of our "community". We all have a common interest of appreciating fresh, local, organic, sustainable, nutritious, wholesome, "slow food." This is where it gets really fun for us (your personal farmers.) We get to know and love the people that share in this community. We are not just growing food for a market, we are growing food for Jason and Kelly and McKinley and Megan, and on and on. We are literally growing families! How great is that!!!


For this years potluck we had tables set up to accommodate different food preferences. We had a raw, vegetarian, carnivore and everyone's favorite table, dessert. All of the different dishes were excellent this year! We all found ourselves throughout the night going back for more. (It doesn't hurt to have some professional chefs among our shareholders!)





In addition to the great food we enjoyed, we were also treated to some excellent entertainment from Blue Grass and modern music to classical guitar. One of the highlights of the evening was an impromptu dance performance by some of the children dancing to Bach's Chaconne and the ever popular Blue Grass "Stone Soup" song.






During the evening, every child or family got to pick a pumpkin to take home.






We were pleased to have the chapter President of Las Vegas Slow Food, Bill Wypyski and his wife with us for the evening as well as several "Slow Food" families. Bill is also one of our QHF shareholders and a great advocate of local, sustainable food in Las Vegas.









We are so grateful for everyone who made this evening so wonderful!!!

Sweet Honey

This summer Monte and I jumped head first into beekeeping. For the last several years we have always had a hive or two, but this summer a dear friend and local beekeeper asked us to take over his bee business as he is no longer able to care for it. We now have 25 active hives and all of the equipment necessary to produce a lot of honey! In July we moved the bees to Panguitch, Utah where they have been working the alfalfa fields and wild flowers for the last few months. We have tended to them from time to time adding new supers (the boxes that hold the honey frames,) as they have needed them. We have been very pleased with their progress over the last several weeks. They have literally been busy little bees. This week we loaded them up and brought them home for the winter. It is honey harvest time now!!



I love the smell of warm beeswax! Monte is uncapping the honey frame to extract the honey by centrifugal force in the honey extractor. This allows us to keep the honey in its raw state. The cappings will eventually be melted down into pure beeswax which we will make into tapered candles for the table. Nothing better than candlelight dinners. We are quite fond of them! After the honey is spun from the cells we simply filter and bottle it, or in the case of our cut comb honey we simply cut it from the frame and place into the containers, literally untouched. The cut comb honey is Montes favorite. He loves the chewiness of the soft wax, especially as it melts over hot biscuits. It is a great treat! (Much to Monte's dismay, I do not have a picture of melting honey over warm biscuits - maybe tomorrow "honey.")

We now have fresh, pure, raw honey available for purchase. We have packaged the honey into 1 pint glass jars with a sliver of cut comb, 1.5 & 3 pound squeeze bottles, or 1 pound cut comb squares. Let us know which you would prefer. Look in your email for prices and availability.






While I have been writing this blog, I have noticed Monte quietly fixing up my candle mold for me. I know he has "better things" he would rather do.
I guess I had better go make some biscuits!