Uncategorized Archives - Page 17 of 43 - Morning Song Farm

 We’re excited about our upcoming Cheesemaking Class! The morning session is sold out, so we’ve added an afternoon session which might just be perfect for all you non-farming late risers;), or for those coming from Orange County. If you drive East over the 91 or the Ortega Hwy, you’ll have to go right through Temecula before getting off the freeway to Rainbow. The Temecula farmers’ market is a lot of fun; and in the same neighborhood is Temecula Olive Oil Company’s olive tasting bar right there in Old Town. So consider leaving early enough to hit both of those, then head over to Morning Song Farm for our 1:00 cheesemaking class. Temecula Olive Oil Company is owned by a local olive farmer and they showcase their amazing just-pressed oils in their little shop on Front Street. They also have olive oil soaps, and most of the time even have a few potted olive trees for sale.

Here’s the link to our cheesemaking class: http://www.meetup.com/Morning-Song-Farm-Cheese-Making/

Here’s a copyblock of our Meetup Cheesemaking Listing:
Come on out to Morning Song Farm for the first of a series of cheese making classes. A series of three classes, you can choose all three or just one. Each class will be held the third Saturday of the month starting October 20. The morning session for October 20th is sold out, but we’ve just added an afternoon class, and no other date’s sessions have sold out.  Get a chance to meet the farm’s beautiful Nigerian dairy goats, pet the babies, and join in a 9:00 sharp milking demonstration. (Our goats don’t like to wait around for anyone;) Bring a crunchy granola bar or two and you’ll be everyone’s best friend, especially Carl The Herd Leader who eats anything but really gets excited if it’s crunchy.

We’ve teamed up with veteran cheese maker Virginia Masters who has been exploring and teaching all things cheesy for 10 years. Among her many other interests, Virginia loves animals and volunteers with a horse, dog and kitten rescue group.  She’s enthusiastic about imparting her cheese making knowledge to anyone, young and old alike. Cheese making is somewhat of a lost art and Virginia insists it’s surprisingly easy to learn considering how expensive some cheeses can be. She provides all the materials for cheese making including recipes; and every student gets to take recipes and finished cheeses home with them at the end of the class.

So come enjoy the fall weather at beautiful Morning Song Farm and experience how gratifying it is to make your own cheeses. We will also have a mini farmer’s market with cheese making kits for our guests.

October 20: Basic Cheese Making.

We will make feta and chevre  from goat milk. Participants will take home the cheese they make.

November 17th: Mozzarella.

Participants will make mozzarella from cow’s milk. We will grill pizza made with the fresh cheese.

December: 15th: The Gift Of Cheese.

We will make mozzarella and chevre and decorate for giving as a gift. Participants will make brie to take home and wrap for baking on New Year’s Eve.

Classes will repeat starting January 19th.

Tuition: $65 per class per person. Payment and reservations can made by a quick email here if you have a CSA account with Morning Song Farm, or make your reservation and payment right on Meetup!

 Directions from Orange County:

Either: A) 5 south to 76 (or 78 which is a little further but a bigger freeway) either way go EAST to the I-15. Go NORTH on I-15 and get off on Mission Road. At the end of the ramp, make a RIGHT. Go 100 feet or so, and Mission Road deadends at Old 395/Stearling Road. Make a LEFT there, and go a couple miles and make your first right at Rainbow Glen Road, which takes you under the freeway overpass. Rainbow Glen Road is very curvy, boasting one of the sharpest hair pins in the nation. Take it slow. At the crest of the hill, you’ll enjoy a view in the little Rainbow Glen Road agricultural valley. MSF is one of the first farms in the valley, on your left.

B) If you live in NORTH OC, you might want to take 91 east and I-15 south. Get off on Rainbow Valley Blvd. At the end of the ramp, take a RIGHT over the freeway, and at the stop sign make a RIGHT on Old 395. Make your first RIGHT at Rainbow Glen Road and follow directions above from the smily face.

From Riverside County: Take I-15 south and follow directions same as from North OC above from I-15 on.

From San Diego County: Take I-15 NORTH and get off on Mission Road. At the end of the ramp make a RIGHT onto Mission Road, which deadends in 100 feet. AT the deadend, make a LEFT at Old 395/Stearling Road, and another LEFT at Rainbow Glen Road, and follow the directions from the smily face above from there.

Here’s the link to make reservations for our cheese making class(es): http://www.meetup.com/Morning-Song-Farm-Cheese-Making/events/83796332/

If you have a CSA account with us, you don’t need to go to meetup. Just send us an email that you’d like to have your class fee charged to your account, and let us know if you’re attending one, two or all three that are currently scheduled. (Third Saturdays of each month.)

OK, son Frankie–always interested in all thinks related to economics;  is excited to see that his allowance source (the egg “division” here at Morning Song ) has demonstrated an equilibrium between supply and demand. We’ve taken on 5 new orders; and until our juvenile chickens are laying consistently in a few more months; he says we can’t fill any more.

Thanks so much to all of you who are allowing us to raise chickens as they should be raised. A side note; I was inspected yesterday for our CCOF Organic Certification, and I asked Shannon Murphy, our inspector, about what it would take to have our chickens certified organic. I was pretty sure what her answer would be, but I wanted to hear it from her. She couldn’t quote the pricetag; but since Morning Song Farm offers sactuary to an occassional homeless chicken we can never become certified organic. She said we’d have to get rid of all our chickens, start over with just hatched, day old chicks and then document from Day One that there never again was any chicken from the “outside.”  That’s not consistent with our mission here, so we’ll just carry on uncertified.

As I mentioned in my last blog, Couscou the llama who guards our chickens, discovered how tasty Modesto Milling’s Organic Soy-Free chicken feed is; (unlike conventional chicken feed; Modesto Mill’s smells delicious) and ate quite the stomach full, easily doubling our chicken feed costs this month before we figured it out. For the last couple days I was baffled why he wouldn’t accept any of the weed treats I offered him. Not interested!(?) Not after 50 pounds of chicken feed for breakfast, Farmer Donna! Words were exchanged between Frankie and the crew here, as everyone was saying they fed the chickens, but darn it if there never was any feed in that barn. Bad llama! Frankie, who is assigned the duty of lugging 50 pound sacks of Modesto feed; came up with an inspired solution: the feed tray now goes INSIDE the old baby chick enclosure with the lid wide open. Chickens can hop inside, but Couscous is way too big.

The excitement here at MSF never ceases!

I’ve posted a second harvest ticket this week because we had to switch things around a bit between Tuesday and Wednesday. Only Tuesday large share subscribers received the giant zuchs. I’m going to allow our zuch garden to provide another batch of giants, and hand out to Wednesday large shares either this coming week or next.

Eggs! We now have increased our egg productin to the point where we can accept 5 or 6 more orders a week! If you’d like to have a weekly dozen or half dozen added to your CSA box, email us!

Our eggs are remarkably special. First, we feed them with a top-notch, certified orgtanic, soy-free feed (from Modesto Mills) along with garden and orchard scraps. Chickens love melons and oranges, by the way! They’re free to roam inside a coyote-proof enclosure and have a large red barn to escape the elements and roost in at night. We have a pet llama, Couscou, who shares their space and protects them as well. Since Couscou moved in, we haven’t had a single bird lost to owls, or other predators. Couscou has discovered he likes chicken feed, unfortunately; and our feed costs have soared, however. We’re working on outsmarting him today!

The eggs themselves are rainbow colored, and come from heirloom chickens that aren’t “culled” when they stop laying. In factory egg production facilities, chickens’ egg yields are documented and when the feed to yield ratio drops to al certain points, the chickenis removed from the facility and killed. Part of the cost of our eggs includes the cost of feeding our chickens as pets for life. We don’t have any way of knowing which chicken is “high” yielding vs. “low” yielding, anyway; as they are truly free-ranged. (Even Certified Organic, factory free range eggs will leave you incredulous at the low bar definition of “free range.”) Each chicken has a favorite nest, and nests are shared. Because our chickens have plenty of space to live; they aren’t stressed and don’t peck at each other or require antibiotics. In commercial facilities, they do; and part of their beaks are removed, which is just inhumane.

Although as tiny producers, we don’t intend to invest in the cost of getting our chicken facility certified orgtanic, their feed and living conditions meet and exceed the requirements to be certified. At most, we provide eggs for 15 or so families each week, and at some point hope to double that.

If you’d like to be included as an egg add-on subscriber; the cost is $4 for half dozen and $8 for a full dozen, which we add to your CSA invoice. We don’t provide our eggs to non-subscribers.