Colorful Eggs Continue!

Colorful eggs from our hens—greens, blues, chocolate and terra-cotta browns, pink, tan, white, and freckled!!

After taking a very leisurely week laying last week—18-24 eggs or less on some days—the girls outdid themselves on Sunday with 36 beautiful, colorful eggs!

The weather here has fluctuated from overnights in the 30s and 40s to days in the 50s and 60s, but our multi-breed strategy of unique, curated flocks with more than two dozen heritage and rare breeds is paying off.

Some of our pullets thrive in the hot, humid summer, but come to a full stop when the weather turns chilly—our Minorcas and Andalusians. Others really come into their own during the shorter days of late fall and winter—our Brahmas and Faverolles. And others still seem to just chug along year round—Rocks, Dominiques, Australorps.

When the days are much colder and there’s much less light, we’ll see how we’re doing, but for now, we still have fresh , colorful eggs available weekly.

Contact us for your dozen!

~Ben

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Favorite Freckled Egg So Far!

Beautiful freckled eggs from our laying hens.

This may be one of my favorite handfuls since the girls started laying!

That salt and pepper one on the left has got me like 😍.

If you want beautiful, gorgeous eggs like these for you and your family, come see us at the Downtown South Boston Farmers Market Saturdays from 7AM ’till 12NOON.

Chicken eggs are $6 a dozen, or $5 a week for shareholders. We also have organic bread and baked goods, and weekly artisan bread shares available.

Contact us for details, or sign up for our weekly letter from the farm!

Farmers Market Saturday September 22nd

Loaves and muffins on display at our market table. Look for the orange -topped tent!

We’ll be at the Downtown South Boston Farmers Market this Saturday 9/22 from 7AM-12Noon with fresh, organic artisan bread loaves, muffins, and colorful eggs from our one-of-a-kind flocks!

Organic bread loaves range from $5-$8. Varieties may include*: Portuguese Broa, Tasty Wheat, Everything Bagel, Greek Olive, Garlicky Italian, and SuperSprout Wheat (for individuals with non-celiac gluten sensitivities, diabetes, and digestive issues.)

Muffins are $3. Varieties may include: Maple Pecan, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, Blueberry Honey Orange, Golden Zucchini Bread with Raisins and Walnut, Chocolate Zucchini Bread with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts, Ginger Carrot, and Jalapeno Cornbread.

A dozen colorful chicken eggs are $6. Our birds are heritage, rare, and even endangered breeds.

We only use organic, local NC wheat flour from Graham, NC for all our baked goods. Our birds range on grass and enjoy non-GMO, fermented grains. And our muffins are made without sugar, eggs, or dairy—we try to make baked goods you can feel good about!

Shareholders always pay less, so consider buying a weekly Bread or Egg CSA share to save with us!

Contact us with questions, sign up for our weekly email newsletter, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

* – We don’t bring every variety to every market. We do take pre-orders, though!

“Egg-cellent” Eggs Survey — Help Us Out and You May Win a Free Dozen

“Yes? We’re listening…”

Hey folks!

We currently have an egg survey online and would LOVE it if you could help us out with some vital market research.

It takes about two minutes to complete, and, if you’re local, there’s a chance to win a free dozen eggs for your time!

Access the survey here:

https://goo.gl/forms/nPPEuJKdk5hMavJF3

Our mission is to produce the cleanest, tastiest, most nutrient-dense food in Southside, and your feedback helps us make that real.

Thanks
~Ben

Come See Us at Open Farm Day at Franchesca’s Dawn Farm on October 20th

Come see us at Franchesca’s Dawn Farm!

Open Farm Day at Franchesca’s Dawn

Oct 20, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Hey, folks!

We’ll have artisan bread, muffins, and fresh, colorful eggs for sale at Franchesca’s Dawn Farm’s Open House on October 20th!

The farm is located at 2137 Clays Mill Road, Halifax, VA 24558.

Farmer Amie Herrera was kind enough to invite us to come set up and she’s planned quite an amazing time: there’ll be a food truck, petting zoo, live music, cooking demos, local beverages, tours of her new farm store, and more!

Like us, Amie is committed to raising clean, good food in Southside—her focus is pastured meats. Come check out her farm, and see us, too!

NOTE — This event is at Franchesca’s Dawn Farm at 2137 Clays Mill Road, Halifax, VA 24558, NOT here at BSF. We’ll do an Open House before the year is out!

VSU’s Whole Farm Planning Workshop Is ALL Good

VSU Small Farm New & Beginning Farmer and Rancher program binder

(I originally wrote this on LinkedIn.)

Saturday, I was up in Dry Fork, VA for Virginia State University’s New and Beginning Farmer and Rancher workshop on Whole Farm Planning.

The VSU SDVBFR Program

The workshop was a small group—as many Small Farms program agents as participants—but it was well worth those three hours on a chilly Saturday morning!

Participants got an outline of the SDVBFR program from VSU, who I commend for really carving out a much-needed niche serving the practical interests and positive imagination of small farm viability. VPI is great, but it’s always felt solidly “go big, or go home” to me. VSU had my mentor, Jean-Martin Fortier as their conference keynote speaker last October for Pete’s sake; how much friendlier, more practical, and hopeful to Virginia small farmers could they be!

The SDVBFR program aims to deliver low-cost or free educational workshops, one-on-one training and technical assistance, and to build strong farmer-mentor relationships, and I felt all of this at the workshop.

The Whole Farm Planning workshop is an early stage of a process that, once completed (usually over the course of 12 to 24 months) can help new and beginning farmers and ranchers qualify for USDA grant and loan programs, land ownership and rental assistance, and even hosting demonstration and research projects. We heard from a former participant who was trialing cage-raised catfish in partnership with VSU this season!

What I Got For My Time

For me, the “time spent” to “beneficial outcome” ratio was great!

  • I learned about how I can work with NRCS for EQIP grants for my greenhouses and high tunnels
  • I was walked through the steps to get my Farm Operator # and explained how that would work for me as a land renter, not owner
  • I got contact info for my county’s VSU small farm program agent
  • I got access to a participant-only workshop series that is not made public

The technical info was great, but it was the connections for my network that I came home from feeling the most excited about.

I met agent Susan Cheek who discussed permaculture with me and shared a book recommendation about growing local, nutrient-dense food, Grow a Sustainable Diet by Cindy Connor.

I met Derrick Cladd who lead the workshop, walked us through a questionnaire and challenged us to define our mission and goals for our farm. (I had these ready because I’ve been working on this for so long!)

I met a fellow apple and pear grower and we discussed grafting trees; I think I landed a gig or at least a future workshop participant out of this!

I saw a neighbor from South Boston and learned about her passion for beekeeping, and maybe I can consult with her in the years ahead when I incorporate bees into our farm plan.

I learned some business tips from program completer Mark Chandler—“Be good to your customers, and they’ll be good to you.”

And I was most excited to meet Cassidy Williams, who shared her insights with me about the demand for a Community Supported Agriculture farm in the area. Her comments further convinced me that I am on the right path with my plan for Broad Shoulders Farm.

Next Steps

My next step will be to reach out to my local VSU small farm program agent, Cliff Somerville, and just keep the momentum going, and keep working my plan. There are more workshops ahead, a business plan to wrap up, greenhouse to finish, seeds to order, a Kickstarter to launch, and about a hundred more tasks, but it’s motion toward the business and community life I want.

Ben Capozzi
Future Chicken Tender

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It’s Ground Hog Day Again

It’s appropriate that today is Ground Hog Day and I’m writing the post I’d meant to write on New Year’s Day. The house fire that day gives me—in addition to an incredible, moving, and at times overwhelming outpouring of love and support from my friends, family, and our southern Virginia community—a mulligan. I’ve had a month to prepare to redo that day, and here’s what I wanted to say that day before the fire changed things.

I start farming this year!

So many of you have watched and talked with me about the permaculture experiments going on in our yard for the last four years, the fruit trees, the berries, the composting, and the edible landscaping craziness. Everyone’s been so curious and so kind, but a frequent comment has been, “You need more land!”

And it’s true! More than farming, I feel like what I’ve been doing in town is “orcharding in miniature.” That has been deeply satisfying, and will continue. While I’ve learned a lot, and will keep developing the yard and landscaping, I need room to go larger for the next stage.

Which is: Broad Shoulders Farm, a CSA and pastured egg family business.

I want to grow and sell the cleanest, tastiest, most nutrient-dense food in Southern Virginia. I want to grow and tell the stories of good food, revive forgotten flavors, and share the joys of farming in partnership with the land. And I want to support and grow my family while doing it. That’s my mission.

I’ve been building up to this for a while, and it was last year when the farm name—Broad Shoulders—came to me. One thing I noticed working at so many farmers markets is that there aren’t a lot of local vendors growing in quantity on the “shoulders” of the season, that is, with lots of produce in early spring or late fall, especially things like tomatoes.

But I want to grow a year round selection for families in southside!

Another thing. Last year, I read a line in Joel Salatin’s book, “Folks This Ain’t Normal,” where he talked about—okay, he complained like an old timer!—that some of our best young men today have no interest in farming and they’ve got shoulders “withered” from sitting indoors and playing video games. I’m not anti-video games, so I’m not going to get on that bandwagon, but the shoulders comment struck and resonated with me personally as sitting and computing all too often has shrunken and rounded my own shoulders and posture.

I’m also pretty passionate about young people getting into ecological farming. In my teaching days at Virginia Tech and here in Halifax I met and worked with so many talented, brilliant young minds—young men and women—many of whom I still watch living brilliant, inspiring careers in design, marketing, video and film, healthcare, entertainment, real estate, and more. But I don’t know any of them who’re farming, and many have come from rural, farming communities.

I won’t go into the whys of that, but I know that the world needs brilliant, creative, optimistic young people farming. The integrity food movement—and all Americans—needs them. Maybe I can inspire some of them to get out in the dirt!

Lastly, I think about my dad, Rocco, and how even in his 80s his shoulders are still like bowling balls! I remember struggling to wrap my arms around him as a kid, and I remember so many times when he’s borne an incredible load, both physically and mentally, to make a good life for Mom, me, and all my siblings. I want to be a dad like that some day!

So, all that stuff came together to inspire the name. But, what’s the ground game look like? I mean, “what kind of farm are you going to do, Ben,” you might ask? And how are you going to make any money doing it? Haven’t you heard all the reasons you shouldn’t farm?!

I’ve never shied away from training and education, and late last year I found a mentor with a farm business model that’s ecologically sound and that works with my life goals. I’m spending most of the winter in a masterclass with Jean-Martin Fortier. He and his wife, Maude-Helene, earn six figures off of two acres in Canada selling fresh veggies. Training with them has been invaluable, and theirs is 70% of my business model.

But the Fortiers don’t work with animals, and I NEED chickens and ducks in my life. So I’m applying everything I’ve learned from Justin Rhodes of “Permaculture Chickens” and “The Great American Farm Tour” fame in order to partner with these incredible animals as my main on-farm partners, my teams of layers and tillers and compost-makers. That’s the other 30% of my plan.

As to where will I farm, I’ve got a solid lead on a 1/4 acre plot with good soil and “room to grow.”

My production goal is to have produce and eggs ready for market and for CSA members by fall. It’s a demanding schedule: finding all the birds will take most of the spring (many of the heritage breeds I want are not available “off the shelf”); establishing the permanent garden beds will be the work of summer; but by fall, we should have our first eggs and veggies.

This first year, I’m aiming to serve just 20 families, but as many as 60 next year. The amazing folks at Longwood Small Business Development Center are helping me build the business plan, do the research, make sure the cash flow looks good, and that the plan is sound.

You can follow my farm doings right now on Instagram at @broadshouldersfarm, and there’s a Facebook page, too Broad Shoulders Farm. In the weeks ahead, I plan to use Barnraiser to crowdfund some of the start up costs and I’m lining up what I think are some pretty cool rewards for backers.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you for your time! Questions are welcome, and when I start the Barnraiser later this month, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help spread the word, and consider helping fund my farm launch.

Thanks for reading!