Bleisch Family Farm: Meat, Produce, Bootleg

From Farm to Home

Eggs/Chickens

We've been raising backyard chickens for years and have shared and sold fresh eggs from a variety of breeds. We also raised blue ribbon show chickens which won Grand Champion and many other ribbons at the Benton Country Fair. Currently our flock consists of a mix of hatchery and show quality stock chickens that we've hatched on the farm. Our flock has Rode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Silver laced Wyandottes, cuckoo Marans , Easter eggers, and Black Australorp. Eggs are sold fresh, unwashed and ungraded at $4/doz.

Free range on 21 acres, getting some scratch grains

Beef

We offer quality, grass fed beef raised on open pasture. Our small herd includes a very gentle registered Hereford bull, small Hereford cow, a red Limousine cow, a black Sim-Angus cow, a black Limflex cow, and a Jersey-Angus heifer. We breed for bulls/steers to feed and sell processed beef. We also occasionally buy and sell feeder calves. Our first on farm produced calves arrived January/February 2020, which are were both angus crosses. In 2018 we raised our first angus steer which was processed in December of that year, and have another steer which was processed in April 2020. For beef we'll take minimum orders for 1/4 up to whole, with payment due at time of meat delivery. Keep checking in with us or follow the blog and you'll likely know how the cows are doing.

Our first three cows, two heifers and a steer

Honey

In the Spring of 2018 we started our first hive and then our second hive in the Spring of 2019. Bee keeping was Victoria's idea as a way of her facing her fear of flying insects, bees, and wasps. We harvested our first batch of honey in 2019 after our first hive swarmed, a hard lesson it the challenges of bee keeping. We started selling our first pints of honey (1.5 lbs net) in 2019 at $8/pint. We set aside enough to make our first batch of mead as well, so honey wine might also be available at times.

Produce

Produce will be available when in season. We'll offer any excess fruits and vegetables, after preserving for ourselves, at Farmer's Market prices or better. We'll grow our foods organically using sustainable practices. We have 4 mature apple trees already producing fruit. We've been harvesting apples and making: fresh pressed cider, hard cider, apple sauce, apple pie filling, apple butter, and dried apples. In the winter of 2018 we planted a number of other fruit and nut trees that will take a few years before they start producing, they include: 2 plum trees, 2 cherry trees, 2 peach trees, 2 apricot trees, 2 almond trees, and 1 pear tree. We also planted blueberry bushes, raspberry, and small strawberry patch. Our garden is a work in progress, but we hope to begin producing food to preserve for ourselves. We don't plan on huge crops, so our produce will be limited. Keep in touch and you'll be aware of when and what we have available.