News and updates
Our first year raising chickens has passed a milestone: we aren’t anticipating more chickens on the farm until next year. It’s time for a transition at North Foster Farm. We’re getting ready for winter, but we’re also reflecting on the year we’ve had. Here’s how each season felt, and where it left us.
Spring
Spring felt like jumping onto a treadmill that was already moving. We started in April, at the beginning of our first year raising chickens, without much idea of what to expect. It wasn’t long before we had our hands full raising the birds, while trying to find the time and energy for a project list that kept growing. We had a plan for the year, and we thought the plan ended in the fall. We knew from previous years that the last market was a finish line, and after it we’d have time to take a breath.
Summer
We learned a couple of important lessons in the spring, for better or worse, and went into summer a little more confident. After a few months, the whirlwind of spring started to feel like managed chaos. Pasture, processing, and markets. Feed, water, move the birds. Pack the coolers. Tent goes up, tent comes down. Unpack the coolers. Eggs, eggs, eggs. While we ran around from sunrise to sunset, the birds watched from the comfort of their pens, enjoying fresh pasture and the occasional visit from the sheep. But to us, it felt like a blur. Amid all of it, one thing stayed constant. We hardly had a chance to feel discouraged, because so many of our customers kept coming back to the tent to tell us how dinner turned out. Every one of those conversations reminded us that what we were doing was worth it.
Fall
Fall felt very different. The last week of August was the last week of the Tilted Barn market, and with it, fall was suddenly close. Back in the spring, we’d pictured fall as our chance to ease off the gas. Now that it had arrived, it felt nothing like that. Somewhere between fall and next spring was a gap we hadn’t figured out how to cross.
Whatever the answer was, it had to start with our customers. For most of them, the tent on Saturday morning was the only place they knew to find us. With four Saturdays left at Scituate, we had to give them another way.
By the time our weekly markets wrapped up in Foster on October 25, the answer was already under way.
Three quarters of the way
Selling online was an idea from before the business really started, and it came back the moment we realized our customers would need another way to reach us. That’s when it clicked. We’re only three quarters of the way through our first year.
The farm slows down in winter, but the business doesn’t. The last quarter is the one we know the least about.
Winter
So here’s our answer. We launched online ordering, so you can buy from us any week of the year without a market to meet at. The order page keeps up with our stock as it changes, so what you see is what we have. And since Foster is a long drive in the middle of winter, we now deliver to your door, priced to be as affordable as we can make it. If you’re not sure whether we deliver to you, or where to pick up, check our map.
We raise our birds the way we think every animal deserves to be raised, and we hold ourselves to that every day. It’s work that matters to us, and we think it matters to you too. So don’t let it stop when the markets do. We’ll be here all winter, and we hope you will be too.
— James and Jim
This is our first winter doing this, and we’d love to hear how it goes.
