Whole Lambs available for your freezer for the new year!
Reserve your lamb meat now and I'll send you a cut sheet for the butcher asap!
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Goodbye, summer... Hello fall!  A brilliant blue sky, spice of Osage orange in the air, crisp crackle and snap underfoot, a fresh nip on the skin. Ahhhh, autumn... a season for all senses! I love this gentle and gorgeous welcome to summer's end and fall's beginning as our trees sway in the cool breeze, blue jays head south, leaves change, and the approaching chill in the air comes with that homey smell of wood smoke. It's amazing to watch the colors of autumn boldly replace summer petals with a riot of scarlet and gold. Crisper air, warmer foliage... here at the farm our lovely ancient oaks have strewn the paths with acorns crunching and rolling under our boots and brought out the squirrels to chatter and bicker loudly at the deer as they compete from acorn to acorn. Fleeting groups of wild turkeys chuke-chuke-chortle over their shoulders as they slip through the woods into their hiding place. Abundance blesses us all around. This is also a time to focus on family and dear friends, taking time to reflect on our many blessings. Enjoying gatherings full of big belly laughs, an abundance of amazing food, and meaningful memories. It's so nice to share our company and our favorite recipes, telling favorite stories with our favorite people. This is my season!  I don't know about you but I'm really looking forward to turkey this year! We're hosting thanksgiving in our new house to a large crowd and it's very exciting for me. We're planning the traditional turkey as well as a selection of several of our other hand-raised meats. I've gathered a ton of our wild pawpaws for a delicious dessert and beautiful chestnuts from our neighbors tree to add to a special dish. If you're looking for meats this year, we are sold out of both our Broad Breasted White Turkey's and our Heritage Narragansett Turkeys. However, we certainly have recommendations! But act fast because supply is limited:
From our home to yours we wish you a fantastic Thanksgiving! Our sincere wish for you and your family is that both your heart and your belly are full! Have a blessed holiday!
 Moose Manor Farms is excited to host our 2nd Annual Fall Poultry Swap! This amazing swap was created and has been hosted for the last 10+ years by our dear Farmrgirl-friend Erin Moshier Mark at her farm in Sharpsburg, MD. It’s been a stand-out success for farmers in MD, WV, PA, and beyond! And it’s grown so much that she’s expanding… which means that Moose Manor has taken on a Southern Maryland edition in order to reach our southern-most farms and be closer to VA, NJ, DE, etc. We will be hosting this poultry swap each year on the last Saturday in September and are hoping that next year we’re able to add the third weekend in May. For more information or to register as a vendor check our webpage: http://www.moosemanorfarms.com/poultry-swap-somd.html What the cluck is a poultry swap?Here in Maryland, a poultry swap is a huge marketplace for all things farm related and homespun/handmade... and chickens!  Livestock:We have tons of vendors from all over the farming landscape: chickens, waterfowl, turkeys, gamebirds, hatching eggs, rabbits, swine, ruminants (goats, sheep, cow, etc.), livestock guardian dogs… the list goes on. 
Then we have all of the fantastic artisans who join us: knife and ax forgers, metalcraft, leathercraft, woodcraft, feathercraft, woolspinners, potters, quilters, sportsmen (fly-tying, arrow-fletching, bow makers, etc.), and so much more!  
We also enjoy our homeopathy friends: handcrafted tinctures, essential oil salves, beard balms, goat milk soap, bath bombs, chair massage, etc.    Farm, Food, Garden, Music... Oh My!And don’t forget the new and used farm/garden equipment, the amazing food, the fantastic live music by Accokeek’s own Good Gravy… oh my goodness you just never know what kind of awesomeness will join us from year to year!    Join us... we're awesome!We have a nice big space for this event to host vendors and parking. We look forward to filling it to the brim! If you have something you would like to sell, please sign up on our website (we offer free camping on-site for vendors traveling long distances). If you would like to shop for remarkable products or just check out this crazy market or simply eat and watch the band then show up between 8am and 2pm with $3 on the last Saturday of September (9/28/2019) and soak it all in!
For more information or to register as a vendor check our webpage: http://www.moosemanorfarms.com/poultry-swap-somd.html  HAPPY NEW YEAR! We hope you had an amazing holiday season. We were busy visiting family in NorCal and Buffalo, NY. It was both lovely and super busy to split Thanksgiving and Christmas with our meat harvests. But it's always so nice to take a little break to do something different. No surprise that we had a white Christmas in Buffalo :) Now it's back to work!! We've been lambing this week and it's been so very rewarding! We have a few more weeks to go... it's super long hours while I'm working in DC full time but - OMG! - look at these little faces!!  Between baby lambs we've managed to post our 2019 Hatchling and Hatching Egg order forms. I was super conservative this season because we expect to be moving into our newly finished home in March (cross your fingers) and that means that we are building fencing and setting up yards and barns while we're trying to get pots, pans, beds, and humans set up inside the house. But I certainly didn't want to close the farm for the hatching season - so please be patient while we exercise our multi-tasking skills.  We expect to expand many of the available numbers of both babies and eggs available as we approach spring but that will all be very dependent on the next couple of months when I have a good idea of how my ladies are handling the move, the season, and the insane weather that seems to be our new normal here in SoMD. (the chickens, guineas, and turkeys are seriously not loving the wet weather!)
You can place your reservations at the following links: Hatchlings: http://www.moosemanorfarms.com/order-form-babies.html Hatching Eggs: http://www.moosemanorfarms.com/hatching-eggs.html Thank you again for being friends of the farm and I can't wait to see you this spring!  Reservations are now available for your holiday birds!
Preparing a goose for a special holiday dinner is a time-honored custom across many cultures but has become a rare pleasure in America. With turkey in abundance here,it's certainly narrowed the availability of dressed geese for our holiday tables. Revisit this venerable tradition with a lovely goose for your celebration feast, you'll certainly decide that it's far too wonderful to serve only once a year! Also available this year are broadbreasted turkeys, French muscovy, heritage duck, and heritage lamb. All of our meat is pasture raised on our farm and augmented with GMO & Soy-free grain we have mixed locally. Please check the meat products page for availability via the order form at the top of the page. Once reserved, you may come by to pick up your birds on Sunday, December 16th from 11am - 5:30pm or you can schedule an appointment to pick up the following Monday or Tuesday, December 17-18 between 5pm -8pm. Please do not order birds that you don't intend to pick up... it means another family will miss out. Additionally, to reduce the amount of work the two of us have on harvest day, we only harvest what you order and we don't keep an inventory of frozen birds available for sale.  More than any other year in recent memory, the holiday season really snuck up on me. I know, I know... how can it "sneak" up on you when there are Christmas decorations for sale at Halloween? So maybe not "snuck up" and more like "sped up" on me. I swear it was Halloween just yesterday!
It's no wonder.... in September we moved the farm to the Moayaone Reserve in Accokeek, MD. It's so nice to be done with the years-long search for our new farmstead and I can't be happier to be back in the Moyaone with my adopted family again. Between the move and the set-up (still on-going) it's been a very busy time but we're so blessed to be here and to have such abundance in our lives. We're having a smaller Holiday Harvest this year than past years - since we downsized the flock prior to the move - but we do have Goose, Turkey, Muscovy, and Duck available for your holiday table. You can reserve your farm fresh holiday bird at our meat page on the website: www.MooseManorFarms.com/meat.html and pick up your reserved birds on Sunday, December 17th between 10:30 am - 4:30 pm. I look forward to seeing you then! 
Tune your television in this Tuesday, December 6th at 7pm EST! Moose Manor Farms is featured in "The Local Buy: Heritage Waterfowl" on Maryland Farm & Harvest Season 4 Episode #404.
MF&H airs on the MPT channel (812, 522, or 1022 depending on your service provider) Tuesday's at 7pm, Thursday's 11:30pm, and Sunday's at 6pm. Or you can watch full episodes online at http://video.mpt.tv/show/maryland-farm-harvest/. I recommend watching the entire episode to learn more about Maryland farming operations but if you're in a hurry you can view our spot on "The Local Buy" segment located at minute 19:47 of the video. Our past media includes:
In November 2016 NPR 's Allison Aubrey came out to the farm to interview our Narragansett turkeys for a Foodways piece posted on 'The Salt'. Give it a listen but ignore me trying to talk to the tukeys...
Heritage Turkeys Make A Comeback, But To Save Them We Must Eat Them: They're descended from birds brought by British settlers that mated with turkeys native to the U.S. These birds taste much more like the turkeys that were on the table in the 17th century. 
In April 2013 the Washington Examiner came out to the farm to interview me about my philosophy regarding using antibiotics in farming animals for food and to find out why I think it's important not to. Here's his 5 minute video discussing Antibiotic Resistance in farm animals, how that transfers to the humans who consume them, and the looming health risk we face due to rampant overuse and misuse:
 You had a lot on your mind this November so you may not have put a lot of thought into your Thanksgiving dinner this year and we totally understand. Have no fear! Moose Manor Farms still has a good selection of free-range, organic, GMO & Soy-free meat available for your family table. We’re sold-out of heritage Narragansett turkeys but we have juicy broadbreasted turkeys, French Muscovy, heritage goose, heritage duck, and even select heritage pork cuts available (call or email about the pork). All birds are scheduled for harvest the weekend prior to Thanksgiving with pick-up available Sunday, November 20, 2016. Be sure to place you your order for a delicious Thanksgiving bird today! http://www.moosemanorfarms.com/meat.html   Reservations are now available for your holiday birds!
Preparing a goose for a special holiday dinner is a time-honored custom across many cultures but has become a rare pleasure in America. With turkey in abundance here,it's certainly narrowed the availability of dressed geese for our holiday tables. Revisit this venerable tradition with a lovely goose for your celebration feast, you'll certainly decide that it's far too wonderful to serve only once a year! Please check the meat products page for availability via the order form at the top of the page. Once reserved, you may come by to pick up your birds on Sunday, December 20th from 11am - 4:30pm or Monday, December 21st between 6pm -8pm. Monday at 8pm all uncollected birds will be placed in the freezer. Please do not order birds that you don't intend to pick up. To reduce work, I only harvest what you order and I don't keep an inventory of frozen birds available for sale - I do NOT have a staff, it's usually just me out there on harvest day. |
 About FarmrgirlSmall town Calif. farm-girl leaves the ranch behind for many years of adventure at sea, travels the world, then moves to Washington DC in 2007 where she finds the perfect homestead to settle down: acres of secluded Southern Maryland woods where she goes granola by raising her quality of life, Mastiffs, ducks, chickens, and tomatoes {& one Bengal kitty}... sustainably.
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