Branch Farm CSA basket

This year we are happy to have our very first Branch Farm CSA. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. It's basically a group of people whom commit a certain amount of money and time to support a local farm and in return you get a share of what that farm produces.
This is a picture of one of our baskets before a customer came to pick up on Friday. We hand-out five baskets each week. Next year we plan to double and have five more families. The containers that we sell are filled with all the fresh vegetables that we have out of the garden that week. The baskets above is filled on the bottom with 16 squash and 10 zucchini and on top we have four cucumbers, four green bell peppers, six jalapenos, and a few cayenne peppers are to the right side. In the next few weeks we will add green beans, corn, cantalopes, watermelons, and lots of peas! If you are interested in joining our CSA group or have any questions please send an email to me!
katiebranch@att.net

Slop, coming right up!

Little Miss E getting the pig slop ready. She has gotten very good at mix lately. We had some extra bread and milk at the house and decided to treat the pigs to a nice supper yesterday evening. We now have 13 Ossabaw Island pigs. Our Sow had babies about 8 weeks ago. As you can see in the picture below they are growing up fast. We have three girls and four boys this litter. If your interested in purchasing a boy please email or call. We are selling the piglets for $250 each. We also have older males available too they are almost a year old.

Have you ever???

This is not farm related but I couldn't help share with you all.

No that is not melted Swiss cheese even though Farmer D wishes it was! That is a big large glob of mayonnaise. Can you believe that? Have you ever seen so much mayo on one sandwich before? After taking this picture the mayo was removed from the sandwich before Farmer D consumed it. Neither of us could ever stomach that. I have found that in life there are either mayo users or non-mayo users most people have a clear decision on if they use it or not and don't straddle the fence with it. If you are a users then I know that you have a "certain brand" that you must have... Which one do you prefer?

Upon marrying Farmer D I quickly learned that anything can be made into a sandwich. Including but not limited to... green bean sandwich, tomato sandwich, onion sandwich, peanut butter & mayo sandwich, and the list goes on. Although I frequently make these items for Farmer D I do not partake in them myself. I can't quite get over the oddness of them and prefer to stick to the usual.

 Do anyone of you have an interesting sandwich combo you would like to share?

On a side note neither I nor Farmer D made the sandwich above.

Pretty!

After a couples hours work last Friday morning this is what we had to show for it. Now I may be biased but these are some pretty vegetables!

What's cooking?

With the abundant harvest we are having this year I have been spending my days in the kitchen. Here is a sample of some things I have been working on.

Stuffed Bell Pepper above with home grown tomatoes, onions, and squash inside

Giant Cucumbers and Zucchini... What shall I do??

I know Zucchini bread and pickles!!

Hate to say it but the finished product didn't stick around long enough for me to get a picture. This is right before I placed it in the oven. Fresh baked bread doesn't last long around this place.

It is so nice having our very own farm fresh free range eggs to bake with.

Special Delivery!

Thanks to a great friend we received a special delivery today. We were given two miniature Rex rabbits. They are precious! I think I may actually get attached to these things. I can't say it about any of the other animals we have but we may not be able to use these for their intended purpose...food. I haven't named them yet... that's the true test!

Now this is Eggciting. :)

Little Miss E and I love collecting eggs. This is one of our most favorite times of the day. It is fun to see how many the hens decided to bless us with. As you can see on of our Cuckoo Marans a.k.a. Velvet is still nesting as we peak inside the coop today.

Farmer D's breakfast mix

This is a recipe that Farmer D just loves and is used at our house at least three morning out of the week; especially when we have fresh veggies out of the garden.






1 medium sized sweet onion
1 package of sausage (your preference)
1 cup of cut up squash
1/2 cup of tomatoes
1 cup of breakfast potatoes (cooked baked potatoes that are cubed)
4-5 eggs depending on your taste

Pour a few swirls of olive oil in the skillet. Mix all ingredients in the skillet with the exception of the eggs. Let cook at medium heat for around ten minutes till onions and sausage are completely cooked. Lastly crack a few eggs and stir together while eggs finish scrambling. You can top with your choice of salsa, cheese, or sour cream or even all three. Hope you enjoy!

Tailgating; for the first time.

Farmer D and little Miss E taking a lunch break during a hard-days work at the farm.

Open for Business!

We are now officially open for business. 

Please contact me at katiebranch@att.net to place your orders!

We currently have farm fresh pasture raised chicken eggs available. They are $4.00 a dozen. 

We have a limited supply so contact me with your request as soon as possible. 

We also have some beautiful squash, green peppers, and tomatoes coming in each day. 

The squash are $2.00 a pound. 

The green peppers and tomatoes are $1.00 each. 

Please let me know what we can bring to you to enjoy.

More vegetables will follow in the weeks to come! 

The Hen House

I am happy to introduce our laying hens. As you can see in a few pictures they have made quite an impression on little Miss E. (below picture)

Here are Harmony and Peaceful pictured in front. These are our two hens that lay tinted eggs referred to as "Easter eggs". They are pale blue and pale yellow or pink looking.

This is Speckles, she is our Speckled Sussex. Very original name I know. :) Speckles lays speckled brown eggs. She lays the largest ones that we get right now. 

On more reason...

One more reason I love being able to stay home and work. You can't beat a home cooked breakfast meal. It's such a blessing to me to be able to have breakfast at home each day. Here is a sample of what little Miss E and I had one morning. The french toast was made with our fresh farm eggs and it sure is good.

We are beyond thrilled to have our pasture raised chickens eggs coming in each day. We have an array of sizes and colors that we collect from the hens. It is always fun to go check the nest boxes and she what we might find.

Blackberries mmm mmm good

With the array of fresh blackberries around the farm this year I just couldn't help myself. 

Last night little miss E and I made blackberry cobbler and some home made ice-cream to go with it.

It tasted as good as it looks too!

Garden view

Everything sure is looking nice! Check out that HUGE bell pepper at the top. 

Kittens

The month of May has brought us many new things including kittens. I woke up to one of our dogs frantically barking a few mornings back. He doesn't do this unless there is a real problem so I quickly got dressed and headed out the door. It only took a minute to discover what he though was a problem. 

There were four kittens placed right on the other side of the fence from him. 

It was driving him crazy that he could see and hear them but not get to them.
After I rounded them up I took a few pictures of the most playful ones. 

We have a totally of six new kittens; four are yellow and two are black. 

I would love to find a good home for all of them. Please let me know if you are interested. 

And yes they are even cuter in person!