Pitchfork Farms

02/11/2021

Huge shout out to Northern Electric who completed running all the electrical in the market building yesterday. One step closer.

02/09/2021

Looking for a different way to use our grass fed ground beef? Homemade pasties. One of our favorites and easy to make. A good way to sneak in some veggies too.

02/08/2021

🏈 Bo had a good Sunday, he made the brownies, his team won the big game, and he lost a tooth. 🏈

02/06/2021

❄️ When most people hear "snow day" they are excited to sleep in, relax, snuggle in, and enjoy some down time.

When a farmer hears "snow day" it means extra work. It means plowing not just our driveway, but also the neighbors and clearing paths into the barns. It means frozen water for all the animals, frozen hoses, extra feed for them to keep warm, and collecting eggs all day so they don't freeze. It is making sure all the animals are okay and taken care of. It is spending the entire day out in the snow and wind to take care of everything when all you want to do is go in the warm house and snuggle up.

Here is hoping today is a little less exhausting for all the farmers out there. 👨‍🌾

02/05/2021

Same dress...Annie 2021, Mama, a long time ago 😂

02/03/2021

Because both the market building and the kitchen are "commercial" we have to hire out the electrical, plumbing, and mechanical. So with two big projects going on, we will have to bounce back and forth between the two. The electrician is scheduled to start on the market this week.

02/02/2021

🥚 Egg scaling...it is a thing and a thing we do. We are licensed through MDARD to sell our eggs at grocery stores. But that license says that we can only sell Large eggs at stores. That means an egg that weighs between 24-27oz. So when you open that carton of eggs, there may be an egg that is smaller in size or bigger in size, but it's weight is within the large range. It is amazing how much a big yolk weighs even in a small egg.

We scale our eggs more often when the chickens first start laying because they may smaller eggs, pullet eggs. We scale them consistently for a few weeks until they reach the large stage. 🥚

02/01/2021

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01/29/2021

💗 Yesterday in the mail I received this card. This is the cover but what you don't see is the entire inside and back covered in writing. It is a card from a friend I met doing the Farmers Market our first year, someone I admire. She owns a local bakery. Her letter not only contained her excitement for our farm market but also a list of things she wish she knew when she started and a list of the best places to purchase items. Words can't describe how much this means to me. This is something I will forever treasure.

I have said it before, but this community of people that we are a part of (farmers, vendors at markets, small business owners) is like none other. We work together to lift each other up, to help our businesses grow, and to help each other learn. I cannot tell you how it feels to have the support of those that have done it longer, are doing it different, or are doing it better. The knowledge that has been offered to us since we first started farming is invaluable.

THANK YOU!!! 💗

01/28/2021

Quiche. One of our favorites and a great way to sneak veggies into meals. I really started making quiche as a way to use eggs when we were swimming in them one year. Now I like coming up with new versions of a classic.

This is "Loaded Baked Potato" and it might be my favorite. Our market will offer a "Take and Bake" section, quiche included.

01/27/2021

🍗 Prior to becoming a chicken farmer, I rarely cooked a whole chicken. I would use it for soup or a Sunday dinner once in a while but it seemed like a lot of chicken for just the two of us. Now, I not only roast a whole on a regular basis, but often roast one just to pull all the meat off for another dish.

We have had people purchase whole birds, then pull me aside and say they have never cooked a whole chicken. I love that they want to support us and are willing to try something new.

To roast a whole chicken. Throw the whole bird in a pan, add 1 cup of water to the bottom of the pan. Add any veggies you want, I often chunk up potatoes, onions, and carrots. Sprinkle with any seasonings of your choice, cover and roast at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes per pound. Enjoy!

01/26/2021

🧰 Watch out in front! Steering this wide load was hard enough yesterday, then add in trying not to run Annie over who you can't see. She is a great assistant though. Getting materials for the farm market building.

When Matt and I first started dating, he was remodeling his house in Charlevoix and I lived Petoskey. I was teasing him because back then, every date we went on involved a stop at Home Depot. But back then he would at least take me out to dinner or we would do something fun before he drug me though the hardware store. Those days are over. 😂 Now it is Home Depot then home to work. I wouldn't change it though.

01/25/2021

👩‍🍳 Another weekend spent in the kitchen mastering some recipes. Depending what it is season, we are planning to offer different items daily in the market.

01/24/2021

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01/22/2021

👩‍🍳 This commercial kitchen that we are putting in, is going in the walk out basement of my childhood home. Right across the driveway from the market.

The basement is an "apartment" really. Kitchen, living room, bathroom, and two bedrooms. This is where my parents, myself, and my two siblings lived when I was a kid until the upstairs was finished. There are still the phone messages my brother wrote on the wall, the paintings my sister did on a wall, and the magnet I made of Clint Black is still on the door 😂. When the upstairs was finished the basement became my hideout in high school. My friends and I spent a lot of time down there.

This basement has a ton of old memories but I am excited for all the new ones that we will make. What is even better is the excitement my family has for its transformation. They are all so supportive and can't wait to see what it looks like.

The basement has been gutted, we are taking some walls down, and putting new ones up. We are making it bigger and as functional of a space as we can. The County Inspector was out this week for a tour and to review our plans and all things are a go. Let the transformation begin!

Huge THANK YOU to my in-laws. They just keep asking how they can help. Make us a list they say. They have been over several days a week to help us and we truly could not do it without you guys. Love you 💗

* Picture is of Matt and his Dad on the first day of demo.

01/21/2021

🍓 All this recipe experimenting and using berries from our freezer, has got me dreaming of this year's U-pick season. If the weather cooperates, it will be our best season yet. 🍓

01/20/2021

🐔 Let's talk feed. We raise all of our pigs and chickens out on pasture but both of those animals need more than just pasture to grow and thrive. We get a non-gmo feed delivered to us out of Mio.

Right now, when we don't have meat birds and have less than half of our laying hens, we get about 3.5 ton delivered every four weeks. In the summer, when we have more pigs, twice as many layers, and over 1000 meat birds, we get about 5.5 ton delivered every three weeks. 🐷

01/19/2021

Technology is not my thing and I know we are way behind but you can now find us on instagram too 😂

pitchforkfarmspetoskey

01/18/2021

01/17/2021

🐓 We only have one chicken brave enough to come out and play in the snow.

01/15/2021

👩‍🌾 To write my own Friday introduction seems weird but you will never catch Matt on facebook, so here it goes.

Ellie...I was born and raised in a dairy farm right next door to where we currently live. I swore I was leaving town and NEVER farming. I went to college, played some softball, and got a degree in Social Work. (This is where my passion for feeding our community comes from) Then I met Matt and things changed. We had a family and became farmers.

I am the jump in head first and figure it out person at the farm and I am stubborn. I am terrified of heights and will still scream every time I see a mouse. I believe in working hard (probably too hard) and setting your goals high. I often feel like I was born a century too late. I like a slower paced life and prefer paper and pencil to all technology. I love music and have been to a countless number of concerts. I prefer old country and old school rap. 😉 In the few free minutes I have a day, I love being in the kitchen coming up with new recipes or reading a good book.

More than any of that, I am Mama Bear and a wife. I always wanted a house full of kids. I put three meals a day on the table and we eat together almost every meal. I am a t-ball and little league coach and girl scout leader. I am my family's biggest cheerleader. I will close the farm every time if I have to, to make sure I am at every soccer, baseball, and football game and every important thing at school. The farm is important but they will always be more important.

I am humbled by the support of every one of you as you have helped make our dreams come true.

Thank you from "The Chicken Lady." The name given to me by our customers back when we did the farmers markets 🐓

01/14/2021

🐣 Did you know that just like a catalog for clothes or seeds, that we get catalogs for chickens? You would be surprised how many different breeds of chickens you can get for meat, eggs, or both. We have already gotten two magazines in the mail, Spring must be getting closer. 🐥

01/13/2021

🥧 One of the best parts of this farm adventure and expansion is the excitement I see in my kids. They all talk about the jobs that they want to have and the ideas they have of what we can do.

I love spending time in the kitchen making new recipes and perfecting old ones. I also love it because my kids are often in the kitchen helping me.

This winter we have been spending a lot of time picking and making recipes to use for our farm market. Remy has really enjoyed that and has been making her own cookbook. She amazes me. She patiently copies each recipe we approve and draws a picture to go with it. She has big plans for this kitchen and I can't wait to see them. 🍪

01/12/2021

🍪 Cookies...our farm market will definitely have those too!

01/11/2021

🐄 Big, crazy holstein-1 Matt and Ellie-0🐄

Trying to do some more cattle shuffling this weekend and we got every single one where we needed it smoothly, except this one steer. This one is crazy. He just wasn't having anything to do with it. He tried to run both of us down separately and tried jumping gates and the fence.

We both learned that we are still fast when we have to be but that we aren't as fast as we used to be. There was a time that neither one of us would have let that steer get past us or even thought of jumping out of the way. Well those days are clearly over. I say we are getting older, Matt says no, just wiser 🤷‍♀️.

So crazy steer you may have won this round but we will be back. Look at him look at me over his shoulder, he may be smiling 😂

01/09/2021

👨‍🌾 This little farmer...the first thing he does when he gets home from school is change into barn clothes and finds Daddy. It doesn't matter what the task, he wants to help.

01/08/2021

A little humor for your Friday 😂

01/07/2021

💗 Even the chickens feel how much they are loved. Heart shaped eggs. 🥚

01/06/2021

🥚 Let's talk laying hens and eggs. 5 years ago we bought 36 laying hens. I remember panicking wondering how we would sell 21 dozen eggs a week. One post on our page changed the course of our farm. We really thought eggs would be something people picked up on occasion in addition to our meats. We were shocked at the demand for our pastured non-gmo eggs. It seems like you can get eggs on most roads you drive down. Demand sky rocketed and we went from 36 chickens to 136 in two weeks. We then got 100 more two weeks later. Five years later, we have eggs in 3 grocery stores, sell them at two farm markets, are in a few restaurants, and sell from the farm. We run about 800 (more this year) in the summer and keep about half that through the winter. Eggs are our bread and butter, which is CRAZY!! It is our steady, year round income. To think I panicked about selling 21 dozen eggs a week.

THANK YOU to all of our loyal egg customers 💗

01/05/2021

☀️ The cows have been enjoying the sunshine lately as much as us. We finally got all the cows moved to one barn. So all our girls are together again. Here are a couple enjoying their hay. 🐂

01/04/2021

🍓 We have some big plans for this commercial kitchen we are putting in. In this year's plan is to make seasonal baked goods using our fruit of course. So during strawberry season, these strawberry cinnamon rolls will be available. They are my children's request for Christmas breakfast every year. 🍓

01/03/2021

❄️ We don't usually make "resolutions" at the beginning of each year, but this year Matt and I knew we had to consciously take more time off to do things with the kids that are not farm related. Our kids are with us all the time but a lot of that time is doing farm tasks. Sunday seemed like a good day so we took the afternoon off to go sledding with my sister and niece. 💗❄️

01/02/2021

We get a lot of messages asking about how to cook different cuts of our meat and meals that we make at our house. I am going to try to be better about sharing some of our favorite recipes and ideas for some of our meat cuts.

This sheet pan dinner is something we eat often at our house. It is a great way to use up veggies that are going soft or frozen ones you have from your garden. I slice up one pack of our brats then dice up potatoes, sweet potatoes, red peppers, broccoli, and cauliflower. Throw it all on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 until the meat is cooked through. If you have leftovers, heat it up for breakfast and throw an egg over it.

01/01/2021

🎉 Happy New Year! Like everyone else, 2020 was a very different year for us. For us it was a learning year.

We learned how to teach our children at home while farming. We learned how to get our customers all of our products in the safest way possible. We learned how to move products through different channels when restaurants shut down and we still had their orders. We learned how to operate two separate farms. We learned what our limits were in terms of farming. We learned to ask for help from other farmers. We learned to appreciate our health, our blessings, and our time with our family.

As we enter 2021, we are so excited to keep learning and to keep growing. Your continued support has helped our farm thrive in the last year of uncertainty. Our farm will see some of the biggest changes in 2021 as we combine two farms into one, get more berries in the ground, and open our farm market and kitchen.

Thank YOU for your support. Wishing you a Happy New Year!🎉

12/31/2020

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