Ali is not drowning our new chicks, promise!  But he is teaching them how to drink.  They never did that before this morning!

Our batch of 60 Cornish Rock broiler chicks (meat hens) arrived this morning.  You really do get a phone call, bright and early: “Hi there!  This is the post office.  Were you expecting some chicks?”  And you drive down and — if you live in a town as tiny as Pamplin — you knock on the back door, and there they are, peeping away inside a cardboard box, making more noise than you’d think day-old chicks possibly could.

They’re now in their brooder — a nice safe box in a corner of the greenhouse, with all the food and water their little bellies could desire (and these boys can eat), and a heat lamp to keep them warm until they’re big enough to regulate their own body temperature.  After a few weeks we’ll move them outside onto pasture, where they’ll spend the rest of their days eating lots of grass and clover and bugs.

These chicks are for home use — for our bellies — and not for market or the CSA.  But for those of you who eat meat … there really is nothing that compares to the taste of meat raised gently on grass and nearby.  Please seek out a local livestock farmer!  You can find delicious meats at both of the farmers markets we sell at.  Or try searching online — Local Harvest and Buy Fresh, Buy Local Virginia are both great resources.

And we’d love to hear from current and prospective CSA members: we’ve chatted with a good neighbor of ours, a farmer who raises meat on pasture, about the possibility of offering his meats (pork, lamb, chicken, and possibly beef) as an optional add-on to the CSA shares next year.  We have no idea yet about the logistics, but what do you think?