Nuts About Berries

Farm Stand

Nuts About Berries Online Farm Stand Online ordering for mobile and farm pickup, local delivery option available.

Farm Stand Pickup. Fridays 3 PM - 6 PM.

Blue Van Mobile Pickup @ Cedar Mills Farmers Market location Saturdays 9.30 AM, Orenco Station Farmers Market location Saturdays 10.30 AM

Local delivery for Hillsboro. Saturdays 10 AM - noon

To use your Nuts About Berries CSA Card use the "add giftcard" during checkout.

2017 CSA Announcement

Over the past decade we have often been asked if we have a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. The short answer has always been no but we do have an email list where you can order produce for pick up or sometimes delivery. The long answer was that we struggled with the traditionally rigid structure of a CSA. You get a box of stuff and you probably don't know what to do with some of those items so they get pushed to the corner of fridge and things you do like there are not enough of. Some CSAs deal with this by having a swaps box and detailed recipes (which takes lots of time besides I don't use recipes!). In the industry CSAs get a bad rap for pushing lots of crucifers (broccoli, cauliflower etc.) CSA also is said to mean Crucifers Sold Abundantly. As a farmer I want to grow variety, not a 1000' row feet of broccoli, I really like Asian greens because they are quick growing (so first fresh greens of the season), are really tasty and can be less detrimental to the soil. Crucifers are good too, when I've had my fill of Bok Choy. I also really enjoy a wide variety of tomatoes - but I digress. A CSA does support the farmer with an upfront payment that helps with the expenditures early in the season when they have little to no income from the farm. I think the community also likes a CSA because they have engaged a farmer to supply them with food in the upcoming season. The CSA customers also get a discount over farmers market prices.

With these considerations in mind and also balancing our limited manpower we have designed a new Nuts About Berries CSA program for 2017 detailed in this brochure. If there any questions you have feel free to shoot us an email or text.

Thanks Jon and Debra.

Lambs Have Started Arriving

Lambing has started early at the farm this year.
The first lamb was a girl from our black Romeldale ewe, Blackberry, who arrived January 27th.

Two weeks later the second lamb was born, a boy from Paris our favorite white Romeldale ewe.

Felted Gift Baskets

We have just completed an order for one of our regular customers for a set of 24 felted bowls for customer gift baskets. The gift baskets were made up with a couple of jars of di Orto jelly by Sue De Paulo, one of them a Carmine grape jelly. The basket also included, Oregon filberts and with other locally made treats.

Here is a sampling of the felted bowls. The bowls have a different pattern on the inside and are reversible so you can turn it inside out for a different look.

The brown basket on the left is made using wool from Blackberry, a Romeldale ewe with a naturally black fleece. Silk was used to add texture to the bowl, those are the squiggly lines. The silk is also from the farm, we raised silk worms last year for the silk cocoons.

Holiday Bizarre

Looking for holiday gift ideas? The Loins Club in King City has their annual holiday bizarre today (14th) and tomorrow (15th) from 9 am until 4 pm. There are many vendors selling unique holiday gifts, jams, Pendleton wool crocheted rugs, jewelry, concrete bird baths, musical bags, felted gloves and fingerless gloves to keep your fingers warm in this cold weather, amongst other unique finds for the holidays. Here is a sampling from our stall that we share with Di Orto. Friday we will taking orders for Lamb, Chicken and Turkey for pickup on Saturday.

Kids!

Fleur, a pure bred Dwarf Nigerian doe, gave birth to twins this morning, one of each. Doe and kids are doing very well. We all think they are incredibly cute. Paris, our best CVM ewe mostly cleans off her new lambs, but when we got to the barn this morning Fleur had not just cleaned off her kids she had groomed them!

New lambs

Paris our favorite CVM safely delivered twins yesterday. Twins are typical for Paris and she rarely needs any help. The boy is considerably bigger than the girl and is garnering most of the attention from the ewe in fact he already looks like he is a week old he has filled out that fast. We gave the girl a bottle of colostrum right a bed time as she hasn't fully got the hang of nursing yet. The lambs were born in the common area of our barn, then as soon as they are cleaned up by the ewe (sometimes we have to help but not with Paris) we move them into a 4 foot square nursing pen (lambing jug) where they can bond with their mother and we can feed the ewe without competition from the rest of the flock. Paris' fleece is looking especially good this year with great luster and clean!

Abenaki Corn

At the farm we have trialled dry field corn over the past two years. This is corn that is grown like sweet corn but then is left to dry in the field normally for a couple of frosts before it is picked, however in our area with the typically very wet falls I prefer to pick just before the wet season starts. Last year we grew Nothstine Dent corn from Johnny's Selected Seeds, it was not high yielding with single stalk 7' high plants. A late summer last year ensured that the corn dried well on the plants and no further drying was necessary. We shucked and shelled the corn by hand and stored it in half gallon jars in the pantry. Shelling by hand is quite laborious and hard on the hands too. To grind the corn I first tried our Juniper Family Grain mill. We mostly use this mill for rolling oats but it also has a grain attachment that we use for grinding wheat berries. I found that the grain mill attachment clogged frequently so I turned to the coffee grinder which worked really well for a short while but then the hard kernels started destroying the plastic cover. A coffer grinder with a metal lid probably would have worked well. But back to the grain mill, this time I used to two passes, a coarse grind to crack the corn and a second pass with the mill set to a fine grind (this tip is actually in the instructions as I found out afterwards). Dent corn is a cross between flint corn and flour corn with a signature 'dent' in the top of the kernel. Nothstine Dent makes great yellow cornmeal, we used it in pancakes using a recipe that I found online that called for 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 corn meal. Grinding the cornmeal fresh for each batch of pancakes filled the house with a delightful smell and the pancakes were really good too. I tried the cornmeal in corn bread too using Carol Deppe's method, however the intense flavor of the cornmeal was a bit overpowering and the bread didn't hold together too well. This year we tried Abenaki flint corn from Adapative Seeds. The growing conditions were less than optimal as we had a wet May and then a very wet end of August and beginning of September. October was drier than normal though. Fortunately the corn still dried fairly well in the field with a couple of weeks in the greenhouse to finish it off. This year we also purchased a new manual corn sheller, a heavy cast iron knockoff of an ages old design. It works really well, the kids loved trying it out! I built a box to mount the sheller on and to contain the kernels (some of which still flew out of the top). For this year's pancakes we have been using all corn flour, no wheat. The pancakes have been outrageously good. The Abenaki variety is multicolored with a mix of red, orange and yellow kernels, we have found that the red kernels have the most flavor while the yellow kernels are the most sweet and creamy. Interestingly the Abenaki corn doesn't have the intense aroma of the Nothstine Dent corn. We've also tried the Abenaki corn in corn bread which was really good too, but our families favorite has been the pancakes (they are also quicker to prepare). I have also tried substituting 1/4 Abenaki corn flour for wheat in traditional bread recipes. This loaf reminded us of a traditional stone burr bread. Here is the pancake recipe. 3 cups of Abenaki flint corn flour. 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons baking powder 4 tablespoons sugar Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. 2 large eggs 2 1/4 cups whole milk Mix eggs and milk in a separate bowl. Pour into the dry ingredients, stirring gently. Start pre-heating a cast iron skillet with a little butter on medium heat. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a separate pan. Stir melted butter into batter. Drop 1/4 cup batter per pancake. Cook until golden brown both sides.

Organic or Conventional?

We are frequently asked if we are an Organic farm, well, Nuts About Berries is not a certified Organic farm since the term Organic is legally restricted! The US and increasingly the rest of world requires farmers to obtain special certification from a government designated regulatory authority (e.g. Oregon Tilth, Oregon Dept. of Ag, USDA) to claim that they are an Organic farm. Organic certification requires a substantial fee (annual and percent of sales), time and record keeping to prove that you are following the set of regulations laid down to meet the certification requirements. Organic requires avoidance of synthetic chemical inputs (e.g. for fertilizer, pesticides) according to a list of National List of Prohibited and Allowed Substances. Frequently there is a misconception that sprays are not applied to Organic produce, that is not necessarily true, there are Organic sprays that can be used in place of conventional sprays, though from what I have heard they are frequently less effective than synthetic sprays and therefore have to applied more often and sometimes the withdrawal (spray application to harvest) time is less than the time for which they are effective. Nuts About Berries uses methods to avoid using conventional or organic sprays, however we can't say that we are a No Spray farm because many farmers market organizations (such as Hillsboro Farmers Markets) prohibit using terms such as "No Spray". Some other terms are problematic too because they have been purchased (trademarked) by an association or corporation. It seems to be all about protecting your turf!

At Nuts About Berries we grow almost all of our own plant starts in soil blocks (no plastic) using our own soil block mix made from our own compost, soil, peat moss and perlite/vermiculite. For soil fertility we primarily use green manures which are winter and summer cover crops grown and turned into the earth to directly feed the soil. For some plantings (such as lettuce beds) we further amend the soil with a commercial bagged compost. While we direct seed some crops, whenever possible, we use plant starts to get a jump on weeds and to allow more time for the cover crops to grow. We purchase our seeds from Johnnys Selected Seeds, Territorial Seed, Seed Savers Exchange, Victory Seed and Adaptive Seed. We avoid treated seed except for sometimes using naturally treated seed for sweet corn. Absolutely no GMO seed. We use row covers on many crops both for season extension and also to provide a physical barrier to certain pests such as flea beetles and aphids. Some pests such as slugs are picked off and disposed of and other pests we just live with. If we lose a crop, because of pest damage, it is not a big deal, the sheep and goats do not fuss over such damage and absolutely love any and all brassicas especially kale. We are not certified anything, however our farm is always open to farm visits and that is the best way to determine farm practices, visit the farm, talk to the farmer.

Kids

Last year our daughter bought a dwarf nigerian diary goat, Fleur, with money she earned pulling weeds. Fleur joined Tiki and Daisy, 3 year old dwarf nigerian crosses and Voila, a 1 year old 3/4 dwarf nigerian and 1/4 la mancha cross with the characteristic small ears and excellent temperament. We also have a buck Checkers and a wether Otis. Otis is a darling and loves going for walks on leash. Voila had twins in January, two bucklings Homer and Plato, photo top left and Homer top right. In March Fleur had triplets, bottom left and Tiki had twins, bottom right.

Lambs

We had six lambs this year, all born in January and February. Three girls and three boys. Mini was first with a black lamb called Blackberry. Paris had twins, Peaches and Cream, photo top left. Cooper's female lamb, Austin, photo top right; Bouquet's male lamb Puff bottom left and Colossus' lamb Topping is also a boy. Hestia and Hyacinth didn't give us lambs this time around.

New Ram

We had two breeds of sheep in our flock, Romneys and CVM (California Variegated Mutant) a rare sub-type of Romeldales. The CVMs are somewhat smaller than the Romneys, the CVM ewes are excellent mothers and produce a very fine fleece. The Romneys produce an outerware fleece. Our ram is a CVM (his name is Zeus) breed and this past summer we decided to purchase a second Ram, a Border Leicester breed, named Yeti. We purchased him from a local farm to diversify genetics and produce larger lambs. He was originally born on Sudan farm, he is a bit of gentle giant probably weighing 100 lbs more than Zeus. Initially we were a bit concerned over how they would get on but Yeti and Zeus have been inseparable since he was introduced to the flock even nuzzling each other occasionally and has integrated very well.

Lamb Photos

The first two photos are of Paris and Hestia with their lambs. This is Hestia's second go around, last year Hestia gave birth in the field in bitterly cold weather and the lamb didn't survive. Paris is an old hand now, this is her third year lambing, the first two years she gave us twins (ewes Hestia and Cooper).

These next two are of Buckets lamb and Cooper with her lamb. This was the first time for both of them.

The next four photos are of Butterball and her triplets. They came out about 10 minutes apart, all three started suckling when we left them for the night, however the next morning the white lamb (the biggest) had died for no apparent reason. In the past Butterball has had twins and typically rejects one of them.

I feel silly!

I had a laugh when I fed the chickens and checked on the sheep today; one of the lambs investigated the chicken feed bucket a bit too closely. That is the way with animals, there is always something either going awry or a source of amusement.

A few weeks ago our son was taking a bath and he heard footsteps on the stairs. Knowing that the rest of the family was at the Sunday market, he was a little alarmed, but it was ok, he peeked around the corner to see both goats climbing the stairs to check out what he was doing! The goats are quite intelligent and had quickly learned that the front door latch is just a lever that you push down to open the door.

That reminds me of another episode with the sheep. In the summer I had the rams and a wether in a separate paddock from the ewes. One day the the gate separating the rams and ewes was wide open! I coaxed them back into their separate paddocks but pondered how the gate had mysteriously opened, since it was not a gate we typically use. This gate has a latch that opens by pulling a pin upwards while pulling the gate towards you - not an easy feat. Well, a week or so later it happened again only this time we witnessed the wether stand on his hind legs and with his mouth pull the pin upwards to open the gate! His name from then on was 'Gate Opener'. According to our son, after todays escapade this lambs new name is 'Bucket Head'.

Lamb, Fresh Thanksgiving Turkeys, Pumpkins and Squash

We butchered several batches of lambs this year. The first batch in May sold out quickly at the farmers market. We have a variety of cuts available from the fall batch and will also soon have lamb Italian sausage meat (not in links) that we are eager to try. We are also raising turkeys again this year with a planned butcher day of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and free delivery of your fresh turkey. This year we are raising a heritage breed (Bronze) and still have a couple available.

Lamb loin, rib and sirloin chops (4 / pack) - $12 / #
Lamb Leg roast (boneless) - $7.40 / #
Lamb Leg roast (bone in) - $6.60 / #
Lamb Shoulder roast (boneless) - $7.40 / #
Lamb Shanks - $6 / #
Lamb Bones (soup/stock) - $2.75 / #
Bronze Heritage Turkey - $4.65 / #
Whole Chicken - $3.95 / #

We also have several varieties of winter squash at 65c / # and pie pumpkins 55c / # for sale.

Squash: Acorn, Buttercup, Butternut, Red Kuri Hubbard, Green Kabocha and Spaghetti.
Pumpkins: New England Pie, Baby Pam and Rouge Vif D'Etampes.

Our onions were a big hit this year at the market. While we have sold out of the mini and red onions, we do still have Sweet Onions for sale at $1 / #.

And lastly we do have a limited quantity of greens; Winter Red Kale, Parsley and Sorrel at $1.50 / bag. I have more greens (kale, bok choi, arugula and mustard) started in a low tunnel but with the low light intensity at this time of year it will be a while before they are ready.

Please email (nutsaboutberriesfarm@gmail.com) if you like to visit the farm to make a purchase or even just for a tour.

Market Stall

It has been a while since my last post - just so much to do. We nearly doubled the area cultivated for vegetables and with the wet spring the weed pressure was intense. This season I purchased a wheel hoe which really helped weeding the beans, melons, squash and corn which are planted on a wide spacing. However the early spring plantings were a bit too close together for the wheel hoe so those weeds had to be hand pulled, very time consuming, consequently it was a struggle to keep the weeds in check.

Debra took this photo last Sunday at the farmers market (Orenco Station). Up front we have six different varieties of bush beans - yellow fillet, purple, green (2 types), yellow wax and Italian flat pod. We also have a pole bean growing up the corn and scarlet runner beans that we haven't picked yet. On the left the orange Sungold cherry tomatoes are a big hit - such intense flavor. We planted seven varieties of basil in our moveable greenhouse, two sweet Italian and five flavored varieties.

I've already started planting fall crops, lettuce and chinese cabbage under shade cloth and several rows of beets, kohlrabi and spinach.

Lambing and shearing

The lambing season was a challenging one this year. Out of twelve lambs we lost six! Butterball lost one of her lambs, but that seems to be a mothering issue, she had twins again this year but was only interested in the first one. This happened last year too but last year we got to the second lamb quick enough to force the ewe to bond with the lamb but it wasn't to be this year. Two single lambs were born during the bitterly cold spell late in February. The newbie ewes, Stripes and Athena, chose to lamb in the field rather than in the relative shelter of the sheep barn. No matter what we were unable to revive them. Another newbie ewe, Hestia, gave birth in the barn, however the lamb was still born possibly with a broken neck. All of the newbie ewes did their best to clean off the lambs and were very upset when we had to bury the lambs. Next came Marina's twins, they seemed to do well for a week but then became bloated. We removed the lambs from the ewe to intensive care (our family room) and treated for scours. We also had the vet do a stool sample which didn't show up anything. Their appetite was very good but they seemed to be unable to absorb any nutrients from the ewe or from two different brands of milk replacer and succumbed after 1-2 weeks.

For us the end of lambing means the beginning of shearing. This year we've decided to shear all of the lambs ourselves including the meat lambs. We are very slow using scissors, but doing it ourselves is allowing us to better gauge the characteristics of the fleeces and the temperament of the sheep. We will use these factors in deciding which ewes to keep and which ones to cull from our flock. Using our electric shears with colored sheep causes too many nicks to the sheep and second cuts on the fleece. The skin of the colored sheep is dark along with the fleece and so it is very difficult to differentiate between the two.

This year we will be looking for a new ram to broaden the genetics of the flock and increase the quality of the fleeces. We have found that Mel, our CVM Ram has too much crimp when mated with the colored ewes which makes fiber processing especially difficult on a drum carder. We are extremely pleased with Paris' line, Hestia, Zeus (Ram) and this years twins. Paris is a Romeldale with long lustrous locks. Butterball and Colossus are white Romneys with regular length fine locks.

One more lamb

Butterball (Romney) gave birth to twins this morning, both were female however only one made it. The second was fully formed and was either still born or died soon after, Butterball had made no attempt to clean off the goup from birthing. We think that Zeus, Paris' male lamb from 2010 is the father. Butterball, the ewe, only seems to bond with the first lamb. Last year she had twins and bonded with the female and then rejected the male even pushing him away when he tried to feed. We helped him along by supplementing with a bottle and eventually she accepted him. We had thought that Butterball was mentally challenged, but we now think that Butterball may be blind, although she copes remarkably well if she is.

Black Lambs


Mini (Romeldale) gave birth to a black lamb on Wednesday afternoon in the walnut orchard, the father is Mel (CVM). Mini is quite a nervous ewe and took a lot of coaxing to get lamb and ewe in the barn. They both are very content now warm and safe in the barn stall.

The following day, Ruby (Romeldale) gave birth to twins, the father is Mel (CVM). This is the third year that she has produced twins, Mini and Morris were her first. She is also quite nervous but a very good mother.

They grow up fast though, Paris' twins after a week are very lively, constantly investigating and curious. Even trying some of mom's food.

Magazine photo shoot

A Flair For Fiber
Debra's fiber appeared in the Hobby Farm Home magazine article - A Flair For Fiber (March 2011 issue). The article by Cherie Langlois profiles three fiber artists from across the US. The lead photo is a close up of one of Debra's shawls and custom blended ball of fleece. Photographer, Rhoda Peacher, visited our stall at Orenco Station farmers market in October to capture the wonderful images of Debra's yarn and felted fish. Later on, Rhoda visited the farm, camera in hand, and our sheep always oblige to have their photo taken when offered some grain (we call it their candy).
Place mouse over small photos to see expanded image.
Photos used with kind permission of Rhoda Peacher.