Wild Turkey Farms Quick News- April 30, 2010

Market Season officially starts tomorrow!!!! No more sleeping past 5am for us on Saturdays.

Davidson Farmers Market's summer season begins tomorrow (8am-noon). We'll be moving from the parking lot up to our summer spots beginning tomorrow. This year we'll be moving to the Town Hall parking lot so that we can work out of our trailer. This will allow us to have a larger volume on hand & better serve everyone. We'll be beside our friends at the Correll Farm so come to "the South End" to stock up on great tasting locally raised natural meats, eggs, and veggies.

Domisty will be set up at the Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow so come find us under the big green tent 7am-noon so come on out and load up on great pork, beef, and eggs. She'll be working out of her van with limited space so you are welcome to email us your order today to make sure you'll get what you need tomorrow & help her better prepare. If you're interested email us to get an updated product list.

Looks like another market is coming to town!!! The China Grove Farmers Market at the Mill is slated to begin next Friday May 7 (4-7pm). We'll be set up at the Old Roller Mill on Main St. We're meeting with other vendors and organizers this Monday to discuss the "rules" of the market. As always we are very "pro growers only" but there are others that feel the only way to have a good market is to let vendors drive to SC to buy produce from Florida, Georgia, and who knows where else. We feel that given the rich farming history of China Grove and Rowan County there should be no reason to "haul in" produce. I would love to have your opinion of this and general feedback on the hours, location, etc.

WTF open house, tour, and BBQ
When: Saturday May 15
Time: 4pm- dark
Cost- $15 adults; $10- 12-18 y/old; kids under 12 free with adults
Come join us for an evening on the farm. We'll have a full hayride tour of the farm where you'll get to see how we produce our grass fed beef & lamb, pasture raised chickens & Berkshire pigs, free range eggs, goats, honey and produce. After the tours we'll finish up with a great dinner of BBQ Berkshire pork and fixins. We'll have our classic "WTF" stickers & t shirts for sale and of course we'll have our market trailer with lots of fresh products so you'll be able to stock up if you can't make it to the farmers market that morning.
____________________________________________________________________________

Please print & use this email as your registration for the tour.

Name(s) ___________________________________________________

Phone # ____________________________________________________

Email ______________________________________________________


___ adults ($15),
___ young adults 12-18y/o ($10)
___ Kids under 12 (free)

"WTF" T Shirts - include with registration to guarantee a t shirt is available. ( all sizes $12 ea)
____ XXL
____ XL
____ L
____ M
____ S

Mail Registration to:

Wild Turkey Farms
PO Box 491
China Grove, NC 28023

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove, NC
704-202-9348

FARM TOUR 2010 INFORMATION

Wild Turkey Farms Quick News- April 23, 2010


We'll be at the Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow so come find us under the big green tent 7am-noon so come on out and load up on great pork, beef, and eggs.

WTF open house, tour, and BBQ
When: Saturday May 15
Time: 4pm- dark
Cost- $15 adults; $10- 12-18 y/old; kids under 12 free with adults
Come join us for an evening on the farm. We'll have a full hayride tour of the farm where you'll get to see how we produce our grass fed beef & lamb, pasture raised chickens & Berkshire pigs, free range eggs, goats, honey and produce. After the tours we'll finish up with a great dinner of BBQ Berkshire pork and fixins. We'll have our classic "WTF" stickers & t shirts for sale and of course we'll have our market trailer with lots of fresh products so you'll be able to stock up if you can't make it to the farmers market that morning.
____________________________________________________________________________

Please print & use this email as your registration for the tour.

Name(s) ___________________________________________________

Phone # ____________________________________________________

Email ______________________________________________________


___ adults ($15),
___ young adults 12-18y/o ($10)
___ Kids under 12 (free)

"WTF" T Shirts - include with registration to guarantee a t shirt is available. ( all sizes $12 ea)
____ XXL
____ XL
____ L
____ M
____ S

Mail Registration to:

Wild Turkey Farms
PO Box 491
China Grove, NC 28023

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove, NC
704-202-9348

WTF Newsletter 4-16-2010

Wild Turkey Farms Quick News- April 16, 2010

Spring has sprung!!! and thank goodness. We've had a beautiful week at the farm with the grass and animals growing like wildfire. Here's a quick note for the weekend.

Salisbury Farmers Market starts up tomorrow so come find us under the big green tent 7am-noon.

Tomorrow is the last Davidson Winter Tailgate Market (9am-noon) so come on out and load up on great pork, beef, and eggs.

Don't forget to save the date for our open house, tour, and BBQ Saturday May 15 4pm- dark- more details coming next week (I promise!!!) since we've made it through tax time & will finally have some time to work on the details.

Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove, NC
704-202-9348

Bear with us....

For the past 2 weeks we have been having some issues with our website. The person who designed the website for us has to work out some kinks in the program & they like us are very busy and have not have time to do that for us.

So for now any information will be posted here or on our facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Wild-Turkey-Farms/93717365145?ref=ts

This weeks events are as follows:

Saturday

April 17, 2010

Salisbury Farmers Market Opens

7:30 am to 12 noon

Davidson Tailgate Market

9:00 am to 12 noon

Charcuterie Class

at Chef Charles Catering

Charlotte, NC

There is room for a couple more in the Charcuterie Class but you must sign up tomorrow- class size is limited.

You can reach us by email too.

wildturkey_farms@yahoo.com

Thanks!

Wild Turkey Farms

Lee & Domisty Menius

A laugh for today!

Two chickens walk up to the circulation desk at a public library and say, Buk, Buk, BUK." The librarian determines the chickens must want three books, gives them the books and the chickens leave.

Around midday, the two chickens return and say, "Buk, Buk, BUKKOOK!" The librarian decides that the chickens desire another three books, so she gives them the books and the chickens leave.

The two chickens return in the early afternoon, looking very annoyed and say, "Buk, Buk, Buk, Buk, Bukkooook!" The librarian is now a little suspicious of these chickens. She gives them what they request and decides to follow them.

She follows them out of town to a park. She saw the two chickens throwing the books at a frog in a pond, to which the frog was saying, "Rrredit, Rrredit, Rrredit....."

article from Asheville Citizen Times

The following was sent to us from a good friend who is associated with the Black Mountain Farmer's Market.

Fellow Supporters of Local, Healthy Food,

The article below is on the front page of today's Asheville Citizen-Times!

It is also featured under the title "New laws could hurt Western North Carolina food producers" on the Citizen-Times home page.

Since being alerted less than a week ago about some of the foreseeable, negative, unintended consequences the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) will surely have--including lost jobs in Asheville's burgeoning foodtopia--the editors and reporters at the Citizen-Times have spent numerous hours working to understand what S 510 will actually do. This is the first report on what they have learned.

Please encourage the Citizen-Times to expand its coverage of this important issue by commenting on the on-line version of the article at the link below, commenting via your listserve or, best of all, writing a quick "Letter to the Editor" at http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=999970305038. Or do all 3!

It you want your local paper to follow the Citizen-Times' lead and cover this important issue, please write them a quick "Letter to the Editor." Because the local, healthy food movement blankets North Carolina, its a story appropriate for every newspaper and every public radio and TV station. Some of our larger papers can be reached as follows:
Charlotte Observer - opinion@charlotteobserver.com
Greensboro News-Record - http://www.news-record.com/help/feedback?nri_feedback_cat=letterstoed
Raleigh News & Observer - http://www.newsobserver.com/about/newsroom/editor/
Wilmington Star News - http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/submit01 (must be a register user and log in)
Winston-Salem Journal - http://www2.journalnow.com/static/contactus/submit-letter/
If they have questions about S 510, I will happily send them whatever they need. Please ask them to call me at 828/669-4003, 8 AM - 8 PM, Monday - Saturday or write me at healthyfoodcoalition@gmail.com.

As of April 9th, 97 organizations had signed onto a letter supporting Sen. Jon Tester's efforts to amend S 510. North Carolina groups signing on include CFSA, French Broad Food Co-op, NEEM, Bountiful Cities Project, Chatham Marketplace, Winter Green and Deep Roots Market. Signing on from Virginia/DC were Appalachian Sustainable Development, VICFA and the Weston A. Price Foundation, To read the letter and see the entire list of organizations which have already signed it, go to http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/files/Amend-S510-April-9.pdf. If you don't see your group, have someone contact Judith McGeary of Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance at jmcgeary@att.net about signing on.

For more info about CFSA's Campaign for Truly Safe Food, see http://carolinafarmstewards.org/alert_foodsafety_mar10.shtml. To volunteer to help expand CFSA's Farmers Market Food Safety Action Days, please email CFSA's Executive Director, Roland McReynolds, at roland@carolinafarmstewards.org.

If you want specific info on S 510, please write me at healthyfoodcoalition@gmail.com.

If you want to help organize a rally to preserve jobs in the local, healthy food movement, to be held next week in Asheville, please write me at hhamil@buncombe.main.nc.us or call me at 669-4003, 8 AM - 8 PM, Monday - Saturday.

WTF newsletter- April 10, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms Update April 10

Good Morning everyone. As you can imagine we've been running wide open with the arrival of spring, or is that summer??? Either way we are loving the warmer weather and watching the grass grow. We've had a great winter market season and thanks to everyone that has visited us at Davidson Farmers Market and at the farm this winter.



Announcing our last Charcuterie class of the season. If you missed the earlier class check out the article from the Salisbury Post that our friend Sara Pitzer wrote- click here. Come join us for the only charcuterie class in the area being led by a certified professional charcuterie chef.

Hands On Charcuterie Demonstration Class
Featuring Chef Charles of Chef Charles Catering and Lee Menius of Wild Turkey Farms
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Location: 605 Phillip Davis Drive Suite #2 Charlotte, NC 28217
Time : 10:00am – 3:30pm Price: $120.00 per person
Price includes a Gourmet Lunch prepared by Chef Charles Semail
Come experience a French art that has been practiced since the early 15th century. Wild Turkey Farms has teamed up with Chef Charles Catering to offer a class on the art of Charcuterie. You will be working side by side with Chef Charles and Lee Menius to learn how to make your own pork products and gain knowledge into the world of French Charcuterie. During this class you will get hands on experience with butchering a hog and guided in the art of fine sausage making by a world renowned charcuterie chef. You will also be taking home lbs of different cuts of meats. There still have a few openings left for our class . The class will be held a! t Chef Charles Semail's Kitchen, (just off I77 at Clanton Rd) in Charlotte. Class size is limited so that everyone will get lots of hands on participation.
All of the cuts and sausages will be divided up between participants so make sure and bring a cooler.

BBQ Time Again- As many of you that follow us on Facebook know, we've been offering some BBQ for sale and we're cooking again today. We use only our prime Berkshire pork and slow smoke it for a taste you just can't get from any BBQ joint. You can call & come pick up some this afternoon or tomorrow or we'll be glad to freeze you a pack for pick up next Saturday at the markets. $9.99/lb for chopped BBQ which includes bbq slaw and sauce.


Open House, Farm tour, and BBQ Fund Raiser May 15 4pm-dark
We hope that you'll all be able bring out the family and join us on May 15 to visit the farm. We'll begin with a hay ride tour of Wild Turkey Farms and follow it with time to socialize over some great Berkshire BBQ.


Beef Boxes Available for early May
We're taking orders for beef boxes that will be ready for pick up the first week of May. Please email & let us know if you are interested and we'll put you on the list.

Big beef box $130
4 top steaks- Ribeye, Fillet, NY Strip
1 either chuck roast, pot roast, sirloin tip, shank roast or rump roast
2 - either sirloin, flank, skirt, hanger, or flat iron steaks
1- either eye of rd or London broil
5 stew beef/ short ribs/ back ribs/ cube steak
8 ground beef

Small Beef Box $80
2 top steaks- Ribeye, Fillet, NY Strip
2 chuck stks or 1 small roast
1 sirloin, flank, skirt, hanger or flat iron
1- either eye of rd or London broil
3 stew beef/ short ribs/ back ribs/ cube steak
5 ground beef



Farmers Markets-
Davidson Farmers Market-
Last winter market April 17 9-noon
Summer Market starts up May 1 and will run every Saturday through October 8am-Noon

Salisbury Farmers Market opens Saturday April 17 7am-noon

United States of Food

Another interesting read with a lot of graphics concerning the way we eat as a country.

http://www.ediblegeography.com/united-states-of-food/

I forgot to post last weeks newsletter........

Wild Turkey Farms

Spring has finally arrived and farmer's market season is just around the corner.

Thanks to everyone who bought BBQ last weekend. We'll do it again in a couple weeks so stay tuned for details.

Make plans to attend our Open House, Farm Tour, & Pig Pickin' Saturday May 15. More details coming soon.


Announcing our last Charcuterie class of the season. If you missed the earlier class check out the article from the Salisbury Post that our friend Sara Pitzer wrote- click here. Come join us for the only charcuterie class in the area being led by a certified professional charcuterie chef.

Hands On Charcuterie Demonstration Class
Featuring Chef Charles of Chef Charles Catering and Lee Menius of Wild Turkey Farms
Saturday, April 17, 2010

Location: 605 Phillip Davis Drive Suite #2 Charlotte, NC 28217
Time : 10:00am – 3:30pm Price: $120.00 per person
Price includes a Gourmet Lunch prepared by Chef Charles Semail

Come experience a French art that has been practiced since the early 15th century. Wild Turkey Farms has teamed up with Chef Charles Catering to offer a class on the art of Charcuterie. You will be working side by side with Chef Charles and Lee Menius to learn how to make your own pork products and gain knowledge into the world of French Charcuterie. During this class you will get hands on experience with butchering a hog and guided in the art of fine sausage making by a world renowned charcuterie chef. You will also be taking home lbs of different cuts of meats. There still have a few openings left for our class . The class will be held at Chef Charles Semail's Kitchen, (just off I77 at Clanton Rd) in Charlotte. Class size is limited so that everyone will get lots of hands on participation.

All of the cuts and sausages will be divided up between participants so make sure and bring a cooler.

Eat Food Locally Grown- If You Can Find Any

I know it seems that I post a lot of articles on this blog but one of things that we strive to do is educate. We try to post articles that are pertinent to our farm & farming practices and articles which discuss supporting local agriculture.

I hope you take the time to read them.

Eat Food Locally Grown- If You Can Find Any

Posted by JERRY REMMERS, Columnist in At TMV, Breaking News, Economy, Society.Mar 27th, 2010
As the son of a farmer, I am all too familiar with the laws of supply and demand involving perishable food products. Even the most urbane of city dwellers know the freshest foods are purchased at their neighborhood farmers market or food co-op or, with luck, one of the remaining mom and pop butcher shops.
In a half century of growing vegetables, my dad was lucky enough to corner the produce markets only four times where, in his words, he made a “killing.” He, again in his own words, “lost his shirt” hundreds of times when the market was glutted and the rest of the time felt “fortunate” he broke even.
With that as a backdrop, I read with vested interest a yawner some people mistakenly may consider in the New York Times today. It was the plight of livestock farmers unable to sell their herds and flocks because of a lack of slaughter houses.
What struck me as a high fastball directed at my head was a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the number of slaughterhouses nationwide declined from 1,211 to 809 between 1992 and 2008 while the number of small farmers of livestock increased by 108,000 in the last five years.
At first blush, I considered this uptick in farmers naive and committing economic suicide if they can’t get their product processed in a timely fashion to sell at their markets starving for locally produced meats. It is akin to crates of lettuce rotting on my dad’s packing platform because the truck transporting the goods to the produce market broke down.
That is precisely the scene described by the Times for many livestock farmers in Vermont and upstate New York. By the time they travel long distances or wait for an opening at a slaughterhouse, the animals are stressed and unfit for butchering. Some farmers make reservations for the slaughterhouses before their cows, pigs or sheep are even born.
The decline of slaughterhouses is both economical and environmental. Animal rights activists such as People For The Preservation of Animals (PETA) play a small role. Even in farming communities, no one wants them in their back yards.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a Times interview “It’s pretty clear there needs to be attention paid to this. Particularly in the Northeast, where there is indeed a backlog and lengthy wait for slaughter facilities.”
The increase of small, independent livestock farmers is part of a movement for America’s local-food movement, championed by so-called locavores. But, it is what my dad would say was “putting the cart before the horse” if the supply chain is interrupted.
“There are a lot of people out there who raise great animals for us to use, and they don’t have the opportunity to get them to us because the slaughterhouses are going away,” said Bill Telepan, chef and owner of Telepan, a high-end restaurant in New York.
The newspaper quotes Randy Quenneville, program chief for the Vermont meat inspection service,. that small, family-owned slaughterhouses started closing when strict federal rules regarding health control went into effect in 1999.
The result was large corporations such as Cargill began to take over much of the nation’s meat market.
“We recognize that the buy-local food movement is a significant economic driver in rural communities,”Ag Secretary Vilsack said.
As for slaughterhouse economics, the Times quotes one operator:
“You need skilled management and work force, a cooperative town, a good supply of water, a good way of getting rid of waste,” said Ed Maltby, a spokesman for Adams Farm, a slaughterhouse in Athol, Mass., that reopened in 2008 after a fire. “It’s not a problem that can be easily solved.”
As I suspected, one solution offered by a livestock farmer suggested softening health and food safety regulations of slaughterhouses. The Times quotes Erica Zimmerman of East Montpelier, Vermont, whose nearest slaughter facility is 1 1/2 hours away:
“We have a product that people really wanted; we should have a system that would allow us to produce it as efficiently as possible,” Zimmerman said. “There’s not enough room for all the people like me.”

Taken from:

http://themoderatevoice.com/67503/eat-food-grown-locally-if-you-can-find-any/