This coopcast is a bit of Thanksgiving fun with the theme of "plate" (from pasture to plate) running through the segments.  So pull up a chair, have a seat on the farm and join us for a Thanksgiving discussion!

Farm updates:

• Customer looking for pastured turkeys the week before Thanksgiving,
• Pig fencing takes a hit from deer, 
• General farm updates

CoopCast Community:

• We just talk more about food... and answer a question from Josh about our breakfasts.

Farmers Choice:

• We discuss food... In particular how we have noticed that eating good food from the store never seems to taste very good.  Can healthy food taste good?

Updates this week on the farm include:

• Winter prep continues - fencing for winter paddock and the trouble with fencing in the fall,
• Tomatoes out of greenhouse after a really hard freeze,
• Moved pig feeder out of the mud

In the CoopCast Community

• Prop 37 - didn't pass - is it all about business!
• Mackaenzie shares a tip to make your Facebook faned pages visible
• Question on our recipes,
• Robert asked about our recommendations on poultry netting.

Farm U

Was inspired by a question from Stuart:

• What are the differences in processing chickens and turkeys?

Farming Updates in what seems like a farming soap opera:

• We were away from our farm when hurricane Sandy came through
• Being prepared for disasters
• Lessons from this event
• Here's the headlamp we talked about

In the CoopCast Community 

• Response to a blog post about the cost of raising pigs 
• GMO discussion feedback 
• Ernest shared a link to a documentary on GMOs
• Melanie shared her dream product - Andy's Boar in a Bottle

In this weeks Farmers Choice : People always talk about wanting to "eat healthy" but what does that really mean?  How do you really measure healthy?

• Eating healthy and the definition
• Nutrient dense food and the difference

Just a few Farmining Updates this week:

• Garlic planting and our technique,
• A root cellar full of goodies,
• Our youngest gilt is in heat - Ollie traits!

In the news we discuss Proposition 37 and GMO's:

• Opinions on Prop 37 and GMOs in general
• Labeling requirement?
• What is a GMO?
• For or against GMOs?
• Natural selection and pesticide use

Updates from around the farmstead:

• #farmerandy shares his Big Buck story of dispair,
• We put the veggie patch to bed with compost and the rototiller,
• Pigs moved to a new section of pasture,
• Pig pasture maintenance and seeding on the old pasture,
• From the pasture to the plate we talk about canning chicken in the pressure cooker,
• Final sales of year and the risk to cash flow

In the CoopCast community:

• We talk about cooking a heritage turkey (http://www.localharvest.org/features/heritage-turkey-recipes.jsp),
• A listener who didn't know he could raise his chickens on pasture,
• Some general listener feedback items from Facebook, iTunes and Stitcher.

In the news:

• We talk about a non-functioning pair of oxen in Vermont and what should happen with them:
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/21/163257176/despite-protest-college-plans-to-slaughter-serve-farms-beloved-oxen

Updates around the farm include:

• We were featured on Libsyn's Rockin New Podcasts! - http://imake.libsyn.com/rockin-new-libsyn-podcasts-chicken-thistle-farm-coopcast
• The growing season is officially over with a hard freeze last week,
• We finished turkeys by processing the last of the Midget White Turkeys,
• We got our municipal water bill from over the drought months (WOW),
• Winter preparations are ongoing including cleaning out the chicken coop and starting to put the vegetable garden to bed,
• Farm stand review for the year.

This week we are having 2 related farmers choice segments about commitment:

• From the farmers side, what levels of commitment are required to your livestock, land and customers?  We talk about this in relation to a listener email about his journey into becoming a farmer.
• From the consumer side, what and why are you committed to a farm or farmer? And how do your actions speak louder than your words when it comes to demonstrating that commitment?

(This episode was recorded on the eve of our 13th wedding anniversary, hence the commitment theme!)

This weeks farm updates:

• Special announcement is we are going to be a featured podcast on Libsyn's http://imake.libsyn.com/ blog of up-and-comers on October 15th!
• Pork pickup - happy customers and farmers - yummy pork too!
• Hermione and Katniss are getting along just smashingly
• Turkey vs Fox story (a win for the good guys)
• We eat good - soup - add greens - yum!

In the CoopCast Community:

• Business info posting on Facebook - http://www.uvm.edu/newfarmer/?Page=webinars%2Fwebinar_recordings.php&SM=webinars%2Fsub-menu.html#management
• Gift from listener - http://www.potterybymehg.com/
• A "postivie" review, maybe, says she can't go to sleep without our voices - hmmmmm!? 
• And National Lard Rendering Month, maybe?

In the News:

• Pig farmer eaten by his pigs
• Farm out of business http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Fond-memories-of-Soul-Food-Farm-3923428.php

Even though it's early Autumn we have still been busy farming this week!

Updates from around the farm this week include:

• Taking the last of the pastured pigs to processor and deciding who was going to stay with us!
• We touch again on the difficulty of sending respected animals to the processor,
• Getting ready for pork pickup with customers as the meat comes back from the processor,
• Dealing with turkeys - everywhere.

We take a muddy stroll through the veggie patch:

• CSA is done but still harvesting,
• Late planting reviews and opinions: zucchini, beans, lettuce, bok choy,
• Dried bean update,
• Greenhouse plantings update.

In the CoopCast community:

• Jennifer asked about feeding candy to cows,
• Constance wanted an update on the poison ivy drops (Oral Ivy),
• Chad was wondering what we do to winterize farm (waterer, shelter bedding) right now: coop, winter paddock for pigs

Updates from around the farm:

• We got some of our pigs to processor and share our feelings on that.
• Turkey processing of the first batch
• Frost Warning!

In the Coopcast Community

• Vivianne shares her experiences raising cornish cross and shares that on her blog.
• Adalyn Farms shared with us as well and has Kelli wanting a dwarf goat.
• Paul asked some specific business questions about  a farm corporation, LLC, insurance etc and we discuss why we don't answer those questions very well.
• John was afraid we were deleting his Facebook post and had some questions about a sleepy rooster and some bad advice he was given.

This weeks Farm U (part 2 of Chicken Processing)

• Poultry Processing
• Our set up: what we have and our line set up
• Some general comments about our HACCP procedures

• A discussion about pork cut sheets and pig preparations
• Turkey processing starting next weekend
• Egg layers- who's laying? Dealing with  older chickens and refreshing our flock
• Last week of CSA
• Greenhouse - looking good

In the Veggie Patch:

• Our potato results!
• Do it yourself- note pesticide levels in store bought potatoes

Farm U: Chicken Processing