Welcome to the Against the Grain Farm Stand where you can pre-order for pick up at either Watauga Country Farmer's Market or at the farm for Saturday, September 26th. If you're reading this in an email, you'll see the items that we have to offer this week below. You can simply click on the yellow button "purchase from the farmstand" to reserve a box, make swaps and add extras to the base box that Harvie will put together for you. If you're reading this in the Harvie platform, navigate over to the "farm stand" to reserve your box.
The ordering period for Saturday pick-up closes at 8pm on Thursday, September 24th.
If you have any questions about your box or the farm stand process, please reach out to Holly directly by email at atgfarm@gmail.com or by phone at 828-406-4439. If you are having any difficulties placing your order or would like to confirm the contents of your box, please do not hesitate to reach out to Holly.
We have also started accepting reservations for Thanksgiving Turkeys. Our birds are raised to high welfare standards, with GMO-free verified feed, as well as continuous access to fresh pasture, water and sunshine. Reserve one with a $25 deposit on our website: atgfarm.com.
You wouldn’t know it, but it's already Thanksgiving on ATG Farm. Though the calendar date of our national holiday is still two months in future, it’s already arrived at the farm.
The day started in January, when the farm looked back at its financial records on turkey production for 2019 and thought about the labor involved in raising a deep, complex roast fowl taste for their friends’ and customers’ Thanksgiving table; they thought about receiving the baby birds, or poults, via the US Postal Service in Zionville; about keeping them warm in their hutches with daily feeding, watering, opening and closing; about transferring them onto full pasture deep in summer grass; about protecting them with a fence and guarding over them at night; how they are moved every day or two onto clean pasture, week after week… thinking through their processing and marketing, delivery and cleanup... That would make it late November in our imagining minds.
Farming is a process whereby a farmer can take ideas like these, and then set out to realize them in the material world, as we have.
But today the farm is turning near the Fall Equinox. The fall asters are dreaming purple rays from the center of their golden hearts. Goldenrod grows rampant and the wingstem’s yellow hats fade and brown toward the ground. Our honeybees are happy and hurrying through whatever sunlight peaks through the clouds. It’s time we think of sorting their stores for winter and insulating their hives. Thinking of what a cold Candlemas (February 2) might bring…
But as you read this, the pale young turkeys are gaining strength and size in the full light of early Autumn breezes. From now until Thanksgiving, they'll scratch up tiny quartz crystals from the soil for their strong gizzards and they'll contribute to the fertility of our pastures with their rich manure. They’ll start to fatten when the leaves change color and they'll bless our tables come Holiday time.
When you order and receive your turkey, that is what we hope you will enjoy: tasting with friends at the table the embodied flavors of the now!
Much love and happy eating!
Holly, Andy and the ATG Crew
