We’ll have all of our Etsy best sellers in tow, and then some! As you may (or may not) know, we make everything with only organic ingredients, beeswax from our beehives, or from our neighbors’ beehives, and all flowers/fruits/herb ingredients come from our farm or a neighbor’s. We love making these products by hand, in the healthiest ways possible.
Just a quick rambling list of products we’ll have with us this weekend include; lotion bars, heel balms, cuticle creams, menthol chest rub, paw wax, lip balms…as well as, slate coasters, engraved holiday cutting boards (they’re so cute!), wood laser-cut Christmas ornaments, Galena cork coasters, cedar garden herb markers, wood tabletop holiday decorations, festive wood wine boxes….and so much more.
Also, while I have you here….we’re working on getting our store setup on this site so we can shift away from Etsy a bit. It’s been quite the process since neither of us really knows what we’re doing, but we’re working hard at it. We plan to be able to sell our products on this site in the next few weeks!
We hope you are doing well and coping with this nasty winter weather like the champs we know you are. It has certainly been a rough winter for us Midwesterners with all these snow and ice storms so Spring can go ahead and hurry. That said, it’s time for our CSA sign up!
We will not be doing any regular farmer’s markets spots this summer (except a guest appearance here and there) so our CSA model is changing. Instead of picking up from us at the markets, we’ll be delivering your share directly to your doorstep on an agreed upon day in your delivery week. How cool is that? Our delivery areas will be the West suburbs of Chicago, the Northside of Chicago, Bucktown, the Galena area, the Freeport area and the Rockford area.
Our frequency options remain the same – Once or twice monthly starting on May 18th and ending October 26th. We were able to build a high-tunnel (a soft sided greenhouse) as a season extender so we can have plants in the ground a month or so before and after the last frost which gives us a leg up on production. We’re very excited about that! And the plants will be too!
Our monthly delivery options are:
Twice Monthly Delivery/12 weeks: $340
Once Monthly Delivery/6 weeks: $170
Delivery fee for the entire season for the Western suburbs of Chicago and Chicago is $50. $25 for deliveries to the Galena area and Rockford. Free delivery to Freeport area.
If you agree to serve as a pickup point (we drop off your share and a friend’s share at the same location), your delivery fee will be waived. And the delivery fee of the member(s) picking up from you will also be waived.
If you refer a new member who joins our CSA you’ll receive $25 off your share cost. $25 per referral.
Like last year, each drop-off will include approximately $30 worth of produce/canned goods/honey, chicken eggs etc based on what’s available on the farm. All, organically grown or free range. This year, we’ll also be providing the option to “add on” to your share. We will send an email the week prior to delivery with the options and cost – they’ll range from fresh cut flowers that we will grow here on our farm, to canned goods (which were great sellers at farmers markets last year), to beeswax lip balm, lotion bars etc (and everything in between). Check out our Etsy shop for examples, and the prices will be lower for you than listed in the shop) Simply reply to the email with what add-ons you’d like and we’ll deliver them with your share. If we have surplus of a certain crop, we’ll also include it in the add-on options and, of course, if you’d like extra eggs, that will always be an option too.
We hope you’re as excited about this year’s growing season as we are! If you’re interested in being a part of our CSA, please let us know and we’ll send you the agreement. If you have a referral, please send us their name and contact info so we can get in touch with them.
Our Baker Creek seed order.
Space is limited so please get in touch with us by March 15th to guarantee your spot!
Yes yes, I realize that it’s been forever since we’ve posted an update. So I’ll do a top 10 list of things that we’ve done since I last checked in.
TOP 10 THINGS WE’VE DONE ON THE FARM…
1. Those blue egg layer Cream Crested Legbar and Whiting True Blue eggs finally hatched! We have 7 beautiful new chicken babies! I’ve been actively humanizing them by relentlessly picking them up, so they’re a friendly little crew.2. Our windbreak has been massively added to on the West and North sides of the farm by planting 25 arborvitae trees, 10 plum bushes, 10 serviceberry bushes and 10 nannyberry bushes. They’re all only about 2 feet tall, but seem to be doing well. Now we just have to wait 5 years…3. We tilled our entire 150′ by 35′ garden. Since we don’t own a tiller yet, so we borrowed our neighbors. Geez, tilling is hard work!4. We planted over 150 potatoes. Many many radishes, onions, peas, carrots and Brussels sprouts seeds went in the ground too….5. We re-potted over 150 tomato, pepper, cauliflower, flower and broccoli seedlings. Some of the rarer tomato and peppers seedlings will be sold at the Rockford Green City Farmer’s Market this summer for the first few markets anyway. We’ll be there every 2nd and 4th Friday until the end of September.Here’s the link to find out more about the market:
6. We built a deer and rabbit fence around the entire garden. The rabbit and deer population is impressive out here. When we come home in the evening, there are always at least 8 baby rabbits running across the driveway. And we learned last year that they are ferocious eaters!7. We weeded, re-roped and trimmed back our Centennial and Chinook hops plants to get them ready for Spring. Â This is the 2nd year for these hops so we should get an even better crop this summer! Last year we only got enough to do 2 batches of beer. So this year we’re hoping for at least 4 brewing sessions with our own hops.8. We just started hatching quail eggs! Last night, in fact. We have 20+ cortunix quail eggs in our incubator. So far 3 have hatched. They are so cute! And surprisingly loud. We plan to sell quail eggs this summer. Quail develop surprisingly fast, they’ll be fully grown and laying in only 2 months!
Baby quail are so cute and tiny!
9. We have moved all of our Iowa hatchery chicks out to a pen across from the chicken coop to get them acclimated to life outside. They’re all over 7 weeks now so they have all of their feathers and can survive the elements. Happy to report that all are doing well!
The teenagers are loving life outside.
10. We have finalized our farmer’s market paperwork with the Rockford Farmer’s Market. We’ve bought all of the licenses that Illinois requires for every single thing they can think of. And it’s a lot. We have an egg license, I have my ServSafe food handling certification, a food handling permit and our individual licenses to sell in each county where we plan to sell. Plus our LLC insurance, FEIN and sales tax ID requirements are all squared away. We have all the required packaging and labeling materials to sell in Illinois, it was tedious and over-the-top, but that’s finally done. Phew.Life is good here at Archie’s Acres. Spring has the trees and flowers blooming, the grass is green and the woods are coming back to life! It’s so fun to watch nature do its thing every spring.
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