NEW!!!! The Total Farm CSA
Night Sky Farm Barn and Cheese Room
A CSA is a symbiotic relationship between the farmer and the group’s members. The farmer pledges to produce the best products he or she can for the members and the members pledge to support the farmer through their shares. There is no corporation, no middle man, no one coming between the farmer and the members. Because of this, the members receive the finest, freshest products without the markup.
What better relationship is there? To know where your food comes from, how it is produced, the care and thought that goes into the production and that your dollars are making an intimate circle between what you and your family eats and the farmer who makes it happen. Your local farmer spends his dollars in the community at the local feed mill, at the hardware store, lumber mill and even the Main Street barber. In other words, your dollars stay in your community and continue to support the people around you for far longer than the time it takes to write that check. When you purchase from the large retailer, your dollars leave the community for corporate headquarters and trickle down very slowly back to where they came from. The effects are not immediately visible as in the farmer to member scenario.
Sugar Hill Havarti with Garden Herbs ~ 100% Jersey Cow Milk
Night Sky Farm is now offering a limited number of Spring, Summer and Fall CSA subscriptions. I call it the Total Farm CSA. Each session is for a duration of 13 weeks (3 months). Your weekly CSA Share for a family of 4 can consist of 1 gallon of Raw Milk (goat or cow; on a contract Herd Share. You are not obligated to purchase a Herd Share with the CSA Share), Fresh Eggs from our Happy Hens, Cow Cheese and/or Goat Cheese, Cow or Goat Butter, cut flowers or fresh herbs, Pastured Chicken, Naturally Raised Rabbit, Goat Milk Fudge and even our PATTI CAKES! Bath & Body products and WASH TIME Eco-Laundry Soap. You can create your own CSA share! Not all products will be available in March, some need time to grow. Already, I am working on adding chevon or goat meat to our offering. As we grow, so will our product list.
Our products speak for themselves. They are superior to any found in the grocery store. All are hand-crafted with the finest ingredients and we produce them from the beginning; we feed and manage the dairy herd, milk the animals and then offer you our Grade A milk and pasteurized butter and cheese. Our chickens are fed all-natural feed and allowed to roam within their enclosure. Enclosures are moved to different parts of the pastures on a rotational basis. The chickens are able to peck for bugs and worms, dine on fresh green grass and be out in the sunshine. Same is true with the rabbits, though they do live in smaller cages, they are raised humanely and are fed alfalfa hay and all-natural rabbit pellets. Both are sold whole.
THE COST AND HOW IT WORKS
The cost of a 3 month CSA Share without the Herd Share is $325. In other words, a Total Farm CSA Share entitles the member to a $25 personalized order each week. You may order as often as weekly or as infrequently as monthly. Milk Shares must be picked up or delivered each week. The 3 month CSA Share with a cow Herd Share (value $84) costs $409 and with a goat Herd Share (value $108) the cost is $433. Again, you are not obligated to purchase a Herd Share. Subscriptions are pre-paid by the session or by the month and due the first day of the session or the first day of the month. Herd Share contracts are renewed every 3 months. We accept cash, check, M.O., Mastercard or Visa.
Members must choose one item per Group of Night Sky Farm products as they are available and as the member desires. Need PATTI CAKES! Body Butter, Goat Butter and 2 of our chevre one week and a WASH TIME Eco-Friendly Laundry Soap, 2 dozen Fresh Eggs and Feta the next? You can do that! Sound intriguing?
NIGHT SKY FARM CSA OFFERINGS
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Choose 1 Choose 1 Choose 1
| 2 Night Sky Farm Chevre – 3.2 oz tubes Flavors: Naturally Plain, Chive & Garlic, Herbes de Provence, Pomegranate Orange, Lavender Lemon, Cracked Pepper, Kalamata Olive. | 1 SUGAR HILL HAVARTI Cheese – 5 oz. package | 1 Whole Chicken – ave. 3 lbs avail. mid-April 2011 |
| 1/2 lb. Goat Milk Fudge – avail. in June 2011 | 1 HAT CREEK CHEDDAR Cheese – 5 oz package | 1 Whole Rabbit – ave. 3 lbs avail. mid-April 2011 |
| 2 PATTI CAKES! Goat Milk Soaps – 4 ozs. each Scents: Honey, Rosemary Mint, Lavender, Lemongrass & Bamboo, Unscented, Dragon’s Blood, Patchouli Breeze, Night Sky | 1 FRESH Cream Cheese – 8oz package | 1 WASH TIME Eco-Friendly Laundry Soap Concentrate Scents: Lavender & Eucalyptus, Burmese Wood, Lemongrass & Bamboo, Unscented, Sage & Citrus |
| 2 PATTI CAKES! Lip Balm Flavors: Iced Pineapple & Tangerine, Mango Peach Fusion, Lavender Mint, Chai Tea, White Chocolate, Natural | 1 Feta in Marinade – 5 oz package | 1 PATTI CAKES! Body Butter – 4 oz. jar Scents: Honey, Lavender Harvest, Unscented, Citrus & Cilantro, Night Sky, Cucumber Melon |
| 1 Feta in Sea Salt Brine – 5 ozj package | 1 Goat Butter – 4 oz piece | 1/2 pound of Night Sky Farm Chevre – any flavor in Group 1 |
| 2 100% Jersey Cow Butter – 8 ozs. total | 1 Bundle of Fresh-Cut Herbs in season | 1/2 pound of Fresh Pressed Goat Cheddar or Havarti |
| 2 dozen Fresh Eggs | 1 Bundle of Fresh-Cut Flowers in season | 4 pack of Night Sky Farm Chevre (4) 3.2 oz tubes – Flavors in Group 1 |
Group 1 items are valued at $8.00, Group 2 at $7.00 and Group 3 at $10.00. If you wish to order more than the offering you may, the overage would be paid when you pick up or receive your week’s order.
As a member, you would email your order into Night Sky Farm the Sunday before your pick-up day and and arrive on your assigned day at the farm on either a Tuesday or a Friday (half of the members will be scheduled to pickup on Tuesdays and the other half scheduled for Fridays) to get your complete order of milk and farm products. Delivery of your order for a fee may be possible on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to Richmond and also to the Tidewater area, South Boston and of course, Lynchburg. It is preferable if the member picks up at the farm.
This is a 3 month commitment for either; Spring (March, April, May) Summer (June, July, August) or Fall (September, October, November). Sign-up can be for one, 3 month period or for all three. I have chosen not to do a Winter subscription because that is when we have the least amount of milk available and I do need to meet my wholesale customer’s needs. There are limited subscriptions available for each period during this first year.
A Note On the Herd Share portion of the CSA
Please read the section on our Herd Share Program. The Herd Share part of this CSA subscription is identical to our regular Herd Share Program, except that the duration is for 3 months instead of 6. You will need to buy a share at $50 which is a one time non-refundable charge per year and is renewed for each subsequent 3 month subscription offered during the year. The Herd Share is non-transferable. So, if you purchase a 3 month subscription with the Herd Share and you decide that 3 months was long enough; you do not get a refund on your Herd Share. Though, if you love the session you experienced and want to continue through the Summer and Fall, you do not pay for another Herd Share until you sign-up for the next year’s CSA. I do this because I am bound by the raw milk regulations followed by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The rest of our products conform to all standard FDA milk regulations; butters and cheeses are made from pasteurized milk. Soap products at this time are unregulated by any agency.
