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We can't believe it is already the end of September. The summer went by so fast. We've been extremely busy this year with our CSA, herb sales, and trying to keep the grass cut and weeds pulled. My parents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary and my baby Brother was married. We were lucky to have a rather mild summer here in Middle Tennessee. There were a few days a hot and humid weather, but overall, it was quite pleasant. We are very happy that fall is on its way. It is a fun time of year. Pumpkins in the field, cooler weather veggies, and perfect weather for riding the horses on the trails.
Little Bit, one of our barn kitties found a prefect place for taking a nap. Right in the middle of one of my garden baskets. I suppose she was pretty comfortable since she didn't even move when I took her picture. We have 6 new little kittens in the barn and they will be looking for new homes in a few weeks. Miss Kitty is a wonderful mother so the little ones are healthy, happy, and oh so very cute!
A few our our boer goats participated in a Military Exercise at Ft. Campbell, Ky in September. The girls spent 10 days with the 321st CAV where they guys are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. They created an Afghan village and wanted some animals to make the scene as realistic as possible. We were happy to loan the girls to the Army as our small way to support our troops. Frannie, Sarah, and #13 (sorry, I just never named her!!) had a great time with the guys!
We are getting ready to shear the angoras and will have raw mohair for sale for spinners and fiber artist. We will also be participating in the Harvest Days Festival in Murfreesboro, TN this year on October 24th. Please plan to stop by and visit. This event celebrates harvest time and is filled with fiber and fiber products. Plus it is fun for the entire family.
We added some additional chickens to keep up with demand for our pastured-eggs. Our rooster is very happy to have so many "girls" and he keeps us entertained. We did have a bit of a problem with a fox over the summer but the girls are all used to heading to the coop and being kept securely at night now so Mr. Fox will have to find another source for free chicken.
Our CSA will be wrapping up soon. We have really enjoyed our customers this year and even though the strange weather effected many of the veggies, we worked hard to supply everyone with some nice veggies. We will be offering our CSA again next year. Watch for details after the 1st of the year. We are also planning on offering some programs for Home-schoolers in 2010. We will have details coming up soon for families interested in participating.
Plan to come and visit when you get some free time. We are happy to have you.
The Staff of Hidden Springs Farms
This summer has been so different from the last few. We've actually gotten rain; really quite a bit of rain. Everything is green and the pastures are lush. It has caused some challenges in the garden. Some veggies don't like all of the rain and are missing the sun and heat. Other veggies are almost exploding from the excess water. Mother Nature likes to make us work for our success.
We are having a lot of fun with our turkeys. These entertaining characters keep us laughing. To keep the turkeys save at night, we are keeping them in the barn. Then in the morning, they run back out to the pasture. It is amazing how easy they were to train. In fact, they are the easiest animals on the farm to move from place to place. We have never raised turkeys before so we've learned a great deal. We will be adding more turkeys to the farm because we really do like them.
We've sold all of our Boer Goat kids except two that will remain on the farm. The nannies are getting their figures back and getting ready for romance in the fall. With the cooler weather, both George (boer buck) and Sampson (angora buck) are already in the mood for love. The nannies are being very friendly so the challenge is keeping them separated. We prefer to have babies in the spring instead of in the middle of winter.
We have exciting news...Bonnie, one of our Tennessee Walking Horses, will be a Mommy next Spring. This will be Bonnie's first foal. Her boyfriend, Harry Potter, is a gorgeous boy so we are expecting to see a very cute little foal sometime around the end of April 2010. We wish it didn't take so long (almost a year!) but we will just have to be patient.
We have started planting our fall crops. Pumpkins, Peas, Lettuce, Swiss Chard, and more. We've enjoyed working in the garden in the cooler weather. The lavender has been dired and now we are havesting the lavender buds. It smells so wonderful. Herbs will always be our favorite. Here is a quick and easy way to add something special to your tea or coffee:
Herb Sugar
1 Cup Sugar
2-3 TBS Fresh Herb(s) (use your favorite! Or mix and match)
Put Sugar in a jar or bowl with a tight-fitting lid. Add your herbs. Put the top on tightly and gently shake. Keep the sugar in a cool, dry place like the kitchen cabinet. Shake the sugar every few days. It will be ready to use in a week. The sugar pulls the oils from the herbs so your herb will dry out. You can remove the dried herb if you like. Some great herbs for making sugar are: Rosemary, Mint, & Lemon Balm.
If you are looking for something fun to do with the family this summer, join everyone at Travis Park in Springfield on Thursday nights starting at 7:00 pm for Parks and Recreation's Summer Concert Series. It is free to attend. Bring your lawn chair and a picnic.
Have a wonderful day!
The Staff at Hidden Springs Farms
For our readers that are not forunate enough to live in the South, we hope you are enjoying sunshine and cooler temperatures then we are here. Actually, its not too bad. With plenty of cool water and the ability to find some shade, we are still able to work in the garden and around the farm. The ducks don't understand what all the fuss is about......they stay cool in their little pond.
We had some disappointment this past week. Something snatched one of our laying hens and in another area, something grabbed a turkey. We've put cameras out to find out what is stealing their dinner, but right now Emma on guard duty each evening with the turkeys and all of the hens and Mr. Rooster are being forced to sept the night in the coop. You'd think that they would like that, but our Amish girls (I called several of my Hens the Amish girls because I bought them at an Amish auction) would rather stay outside. With an old fishing net, I gather everyone up each evening and put them in the coop. They are very happy to get back outside in the morning and I know they are safe at night. Emma isn't quite sure about the turkeys but she treats them well and nothing is brave enough to try to get past Emma.
The garden is doing extremely well with all of the heat and humidity. We've got squash, zucchini, and loads of fresh herbs. The tomato plants are covered with green tomatoes and the green beans are starting to come in. Cucumbers, Egg Plant, Acorn squash, Purple Queen beans.....the list goes on and on! The Sunflowers seem to be growing several inches overnight and it won't be long before they start to bloom. We harvested all of our lavender and it is drying so we will have dried lavender very soon. Speaking of tomatoes, here is a recipe that sounds very refreshing:
1 cup fresh mint or basil leaves
2 TBS red wine vinegar
2 TBS olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp cracked black pepper
8 oz freta cheese
Slice tomatoes. In a bowl, combine tomatoes and mint. In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, oil, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. Pour over tomatoes and toss to coat. To serve, line salad plates with lettuce. Divide tomatoes among plants. Top with freta. Makes 6 servings.
The 4th of July is just around the corner. We hope you all have wonderful plans to spend time with family and friends. If you'd like to visit the farm, give us a call. We'd love to have you.
Happy Summer!
The Staff at Hidden Springs Farms
Greeting from Hidden Springs Farms,
We hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine and this beautiful time of year. We love Spring and Summer. Everything is growing and the colors are simply beautiful. It is also a very busy time for us. This week we had about 60 acres of hay cut and the fields look wonderful. All of our animals will be well-fed this winter.
The garden is doing very well with all of the rain and now, finally, the sunshine. We just harvested our garlic and it is drying for delivery to our CSA members. This is the first year we've tried garlic and are thrilled with the results. We don't know about you, but we use garlic in just about everything we cook. We love the flavor it adds to meats and veggies. We've included a great recipe in this newsletters that uses garlic for you to try.
We had a wonderful time at the Tennessee Fiber Festival that was held in Dickson, TN. We met a lot of wonderful people, sold a lot of our mohair, and over all had a great time. We will be attending the fall fiber festival in Cannonsburg (Murfreesboro) in October. Also, a GREAT announcement for Hidden Springs Farms: Karen has been elected as the Southeast Director of the Color Angoras Goat Breeders Association (www.cagba.org) We are thrilled and honored to be associated with such a wonderful organization. If you are interested in learning more about Colored Angoras, contact Hidden Springs Farms. We love our Angoras!
Try this recipe for a quick and easy addition to any meal:
Baked Cherry Tomatoes with Garlic:
1 pint cherry tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, silvered
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut a slit in one side of the cherry tomatoes and insert a silver of of garlic into each. Arrange tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkel with salt. Bake tomatoes about 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until slightly shriveled. Serve warm.
And, on a final note: We have several VERY Cute and VERY Sweet little kittens that are looking for new homes. If you are interested, send us an email. The kittens are eating (A LOT) of kitten chow and using the litterbox.
Have a wonderful day!
The Staff of Hidden Springs Farms
Greetings from Hidden Springs Farms!
Rain, rain, rain, and more rain.....It seems like we've had rain everyday for 3 weeks. We are up to our knees in mud and the only animals on the farm that are happy about all of the rain are the ducks! We really shouldn't complain because we do not want a drought like we had the last two years, but we'd prefer to meet somewhere in the middle.
The Angora goats, with the exception of Sampson, are all sheared. The boys, Betty, and Megan spent about a week inside the barn so they could stay dry even to shear. They were not happy about that BUT love being sheared. Here is Fuzzy's before and after photo:
It is hard to tell from the photo, but Fuzzy is beautifully WHITE right now. Of course, that won't last long. But, isn't he a cutie?
The boer goat kids are doing very well. This is our best group of kids ever. They are all doing so well. In fact, Jack, was a star on News Channel 5. Amy Rao, reporter, came to the farm with her cameraman, Mike, and spent about 2 hours with us doing a report on our "goat rental" program. Jack just loved the attention and spent a lot of time chewing on Amy's notes, pulling on her jacket, and ensuring he got a close-up. All in all, we had a great time with News Channel 5.
We will be posting pictures of our boer goats that will be for sale in June. The kids have about another 2-4 weeks with mom before weaning. We'll send out a newsletter once the photos are up, but here are a few to give you an idea of what we have:
Zebbo has the most unique markings. He looks like he fell in a paint bucket.
Our garden shed/Chicken Coop is just about complete. We've spent many hours in the rain putting up roofing, getting the fencing up, and in general, working hard. I'm sure the chickens will enjoy their new home and the horses will be happy to get their stalls back.
The garden is looking so wonderful. I suppose the rain is good for something. We continue to deliver fresh herbs to the Lowes Vanderbilt and invite you to stop by and have a meal created by Chef Elaine. The food is fabulous!
Since the cooler weather veggies are doing so well, here is an easy recipe you can try at home:
Easy Spinach (yes, Spinach is good for you!)
1 TB Olive Oil
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
Bag of fresh Spinach
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add garlic and onion and cook until onion softens. Add Spinach (you may have to add 1/2 of the bag and let it cook down a bit before adding the rest of the bag) The Spinach will wilt, but that's OK. Continue cooking until all spinach is wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve. Yummy! For a variation, add a pinch of hot red pepper flakes with the garlic. That will give your spinach a KICK!
Plan a trip to come and visit us. There is so much to see this time of year.
Best Wishes
The Staff at Hidden Springs Farms
Greetings to all from Hidden Springs Farms,
Spring is such a busy time at Hidden Springs Farms. Forgive us from not getting our newsletter out in a timely manner. Between goats being born, the garden being tilled, new kittens, lots of chickens, turkeys, and ducks, and everything else that is involved in getting the farm ready for the growing season, there is simple not enough time in each day to complete all task.
We have 11 boer goat kids on the ground now. Everyone is very healthy and cute as they can be. We are very happy with all of the kids. The smallest one was 9 lbs! Last year we took a hard look at our nannies and kept only the best for breeding. We are so pleased with our results. 
The end of April will be shearing time for the Angoras. The boys, Megan, Betty, and Sampson are looking VERY fluffy. Since we shear the goats ourself, we take our time and just do a couple each day. This gives us the opportunity to update their shots, trim their hooves, and in general, spend a little time with everyone. If you'd like to come out and watch us shear, just let us know and we will schedule a convenient time for you to visit. This year we will be selling our fiber at the Tennessee Fiber Festival held in Dickson May 22 & 23rd. (visit www.tnfiberfestival.com for directions and times) The fiber festival is a great place to visit. There will be workshops and demonstrations and LOTS of fiber, yarn, and fiber art for sale. If you come, be sure to stop by our booth to say "hi".
Our CSA is just about full. Thanks to everyone that signed up. We will be sending out a CSA newsletter for all CSA members in the next week so you will know what is happening in the garden, with the hens, and of course, happenings at Gourmet Pasture Beef, our partner.
For those of you interested in Herb Gardening, don't forget our "Beginning Herb Gardening" workshop. The workshop is offered through the Willow Oaks Center here in Springfield. There are still some spaces available. You can sign up by going to www.willowoaks.org Our greenhouse is filled to the top with herb plants and the existing plants in the garden are doing very well. So well, in fact, that we had fresh oregano and thyme in the kitchen last night. There is nothing better then the aroma of fresh herbs.
One a final note, Miss Kitten delivered 4 of the most beautiful little kittens on Monday. We will be looking for good homes for these little darlings in about 6-8 weeks. If you are interested in a cute little kitten, let us know. We will post some pictures and let you know if they are boys or girls once they are a little more settled. Tiger Kitty also gave birth sometime last night. As soon as we figure out where in the hay loft she has hidden the kittens, I'll be able to let you know about those as well. See, Spring really is a time for new starts (and lots of kittens!)
Best Wishes,
The Staff of Hidden Springs Farms
Greetings!
Wow! It has been a busy couple of weeks. It looks like Spring has finally arrived and we have been busy with kidding season. So far we have 11 little boer kids on the group. The smallest one was 9 pounds! Everyone had twins except Powder Puff, our first time mother. But since her little buck was 11 pounds, we aren't going to give her a hard time for only having one. Big Momma, our oldest (and largest) nanny was the first to deliver. She had twins, Jack and Jill. After a few days, Big Momma decided that she really didn't want to take care of two kids so she is letting me take care of Jill. 
Jill is the little one that is trying to nurse in the picture. She is a sweet little girl and can finish her bottle in less then 5 minutes! Even though Momma isn't interested in her anymore, she is doing very well. Our number 13 doe gave birth to twin bucks and we thought Zebbo was a rather colorful character. His markings are so unique. It looks almost like he has eye shadow on his eyes.
We are still awaiting the arrival of our Angora kids. Both Betty and Megan are looking good, but not quite ready to deliver.
Our CSA sign-ups are still underway and we only have 4 more spots available. If you are interested, let us know ASAP. We are taking only a limited number of memberships this year.
If you have an overgrown pasture or fence line and don't want heavy equipment to clean up your property, consider our Rent-A-Goat program. We do the set up, put up temporary fence if needed, and deliver the goats. The goats work cheaper then having human labor, supply free fertilizer, and do an awesome job cleaning up unwanted weeds, raspberry bushes, poison ivy, and more. Contact us to discuss your needs.
We've been busy in the garden and a lot of our herbs are already starting to grow well. The chives, mint, garlic, and Thyme are looking very good. We have many veggies started in the greenhouse and have been tilling the garden and preparing for planting.
The hens have starting laying their eggs. The girls love being outside in the grass and they are prefect assistants for tilling the garden. We are getting set up to receive our additional meat birds and turkeys that will be arriving next week. We will have turkey's for sale later this year.
We hope you are enjoying the wonderful weather and spending some time outside.
Until next time, best wishes!
The Staff of Hidden Springs Farms
Greetings to All from Hidden Springs Farms,
We don't know about you, but the staff at Hidden Springs Farms is VERY ready for Spring to arrive. It seems like Mother Nature is set on keeping the weather wet and cold here in Middle Tennessee. And, on top of that, we've also had some very high winds. A few weeks ago the wind was so powerful that our neighbors actually had a barn go down.
We are grateful that our winters are not as harsh as some areas of the country, but we'd really, really, really like to see some warmer weather.
We are on baby watch right now as most of our nannies are due to kid over the next few weeks. We love when the little ones start arriving. You can't help but fall in love with their cute little faces and watching them play in the pastures is very entertaining. We are also getting prepared to start shearing our angora goats. The boys (pictured below) are looking very much like little mops with their long hair.
Pictured from left to right are: Toughie, Luis, Fuzzy, Curly, and Baby. Moe didn't quite make it over in time for the photo. He was busy cleaning out the feed trough. We will start shearing in April so we will have fleece available for sale for hand spinners and fiber artist towards the end of April. If you are interested in reserving a fleece, send us an email and we will be happy to let you choose.
Our hens are just about ready to start laying and we are working with the USDA so we can offer both eggs and fresh chicken for sale. Eggs will be available through our CSA and once we have worked through the USDA approval, we will have fresh chicken available for purchase. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see Tiger Kitty. Tiger, for whatever reason, loves the chickens. She wants to be around them, doesn't bother them, and seems to enjoy the attention the chickens give her. I do not leave her unattended with them, but have to laugh everytime I see Tiger hanging around with her chickens.
We are very excited about our NEW CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. And very HAPPY to announce that our very good friends and neighbors at Gourmet Pastured Beef will be a partner in our new adventure. We are finishing up our brochure and advertising material but will be announcing full details before the end of March. We will have a Vegetable Share, Egg Share, Beef Share, and Pet Share! Each share can be purchased individually OR buy a share of each category and SAVE! If you'd like to receive our brochure when it is completed, please send us an email and we will be happy to get that information to you as soon as possible.
Don't forget our Beginning Herb Gardening Class through Willow Oaks Learning Center to be held in April. Details and registration available at www.willowoaks.org
Have a wonderful day!
The Staff at Hidden Springs Farms
Greeting again from Hidden Springs Farms,
First, Congratulations to Lisa in Texas for winning our "Name our Angoras" contest. The winning names are Curley and Moe. We think the names are prefect as these guys are real characters. Lisa received a gift basket of our wonder herb products. CONGRATULATIONS Lisa! We did receive some wonderful name suggestions and we've decided that as our angora kids are born, if we use one of the names submitted for a newborn, we will send the person that submitted the name a little gift. We will keep you posted as the kids start arriving which will be starting in March.
Old Man Winter has a hard grasp on Tennessee. One more when we went to take care of the animals, it was only 5 degrees. Burrrr! Now I am sure that some of you are in colder places with more snow and ice, and we hope that you are doing well and keeping warm. We had our first snow fall this week. It wasn't much, but doesn't it look peaceful? Trooper certainly was enjoying it.
And, the Angora wethers (Curley and Moe included) thought the snow was great. Here they are waiting for me to bring them a treat. I've found that they absolutely LOVE the apple horse treats. I won't have any trouble catching any of my goats this year when it is time to shear. Even little Toughie has decided that I am not that bad since I bring treats.
While the snow is pretty and the cold weather not too bad if you bundle up, we are certainly ready for spring to get here. The seed orders have been placed and we are planning our planting schedule! This year we will be offering a CSA program to a limited number of customers. For those of you not familiar with a CSA it stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Customers purchase a "share" of the farmers produce which helps to support the farmer. The true benefit is that customers receive weekly FRESH, Naturally-Grown Produce. Many of the items we grow are not available in the local grocery stores and are heirloom varities including Lemon Cucumbers, Black Prince Tomatoes , and Eight Ball Squash. If you live locally and are interested in getting more information about our CSA program, just send an email requesting the information and we wil send it to you quickly. This year we are limiting our CSA partners to only 10 families.
Our Introduction To Herb Gardening workshop will be help on Saturday, April 25th from 10:00 - Noon. The program is being offered through the Willow Oaks Center for Arts and Learning. (get more information about Willow Oaks at www.willowoakarts.org) If you are interested in attending, you can sign up through the Willow Oaks website. We will remind you again as we get closer to the date. It will be a fun workshop with hands-on learning. And, each participant will received a wonderful herb plant to get your garden started.
Warm wishes to everyone! Spring will be heading our way soon (hopefully!!!)
The Staff of Hidden Springs Farms
Greetings and Happy New Year from Hidden Springs Farms,
The holidays were wonderful at Hidden Springs. Family, Friends, good food, laughter....it was just what we wanted. The entire family was over and we all had a great time. We hope you and your family enjoyed the holidays as much as we did.
The cold and wet weather has settled in and winter is here. That doesn't stop the farm chores, but we sure do bundle-up before heading out. Everyone has their furry winter coats on. The horses are wooly, the boer goats fluffy, and the Angoras; well the Angoras are the lucky ones with each one wearing his or her Angora sweater. Emma, our Anatolian shepherd got a special gift earlier this fall. Her orange vest! We were worried about the possibility of her being mistaken for a deer during hunting season since she loves to walk through the woods. So, we decided to invest in a reflective vest for her. She looked great until she lost the vest! I suppose dogs don't really like wearing clothes!
We are announcing today a special contest. All of our Angoras have names except two wethers. We have Megan & Black Betty, Sampson, our buck, and Toughie, Fuzzy, Louis, and Baby, the wethers. The two pictured below NEED NAMES! So, submit your names to us at info@hiddenspringsfarms.com by January 15th, 2009. We will pick a winner from all submissions and announce it in our next news letter. The winner will received a special gift basket of our wonderful herb products. We will contact the winner and arrive to ship it directly to you. So, here are the two boys that still need names. (The first picture has Toughie in the background)
We look forward to hearing your suggestions!
The herb garden is on its winter rest. We've had a few really nice days and that gets me ready to start planting but I know it is far too early. So, I spend me free time going through seed catalogs, planning my garden's layout for 2009, and dreaming of green plants and fabulous veggies. We will be conducting a workshop on "Beginning Herb Gardens" in April through the Willow Oaks Learning Center in Springfield, TN. We will give more details as we get closer to the date. It is sure to be a great time for everyone attending!
Again, Happy New Year! We hope it is a great one for you!
The Staff at Hidden Springs Farms