Duran’s Farm Fresh Products

We wish all of our customers, both old and new, the most Blessed Christmas and Joyful New Year.

Each new year brings hope and promise for new beginnings. It also makes us reflect on loved ones we’ve lost the past year and hardships we might have struggled through. Remember the One who became one of us, to pay the perfect price so that we would have more than the hope of 1 new year, we have the hope of salvation in eternity.

May 2010 bring you all the joy and opportunities you dream of.

Blaine & Karen

Wishing all our customers and friends a very Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!

“Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.”
Psalm 95:2

We delivered another litter of baby pigs yesterday the 12th. She had 14 total. That is a reasonable and good size litter. They look great!

If you missed out on the last 2 litters that were adopted, you have another chance. If you would like feeder pigs to raise yourself, these ones will be 6 weeks old and weaned just about Christmas Day. Call Blaine at 450 4811 after then, to purchase or tag.

These pigs will be ready for your freezer about May. We will still deliver them to your butcher FREE OF CHARGE. You have TOTAL CONTROL OVER HOW YOU WANT YOUR ANIMAL PROCESSED AND PACKAGED.

THIS WILL BE ON A FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE BASIS, AND THEY WILL PROBABLY GO QUICKLY.WE ACCEPT CASH, LOCAL CHECKS, AND YOU CAN USE YOUR DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD IF YOU USE OUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT.

You can email us (kmduran@earthlink.net), call the house (814 796 2849); or call us directly (Blaine 814 450 4811) (Karen 814 490 2179).

Due to several requests for gift certificates, we are now making them available to everyone. You may purchase them on your next visit to the farm, request by phone (814 490 2179), or request online. You may pay by cash, check, and debit or credit cards if you use our paypal account. We reserve the right to delay the receipt of the certificate until unknown checks clear our bank. If we suspect any duplicating or copying of these documents, we cannot honor them.

You may purchase a gift certificate in any amount. They can be used for ANY product here on the farm. Currently they will be credited on purchases of Milk and Eggs, but once the store opens in the Spring, you can use them for a variety of products: bulk food items, cheese, honey, maple syrup, candy, lunch meat, seasonal produce, garden plants, and cuts of our all natural cuts of beef and pork, raised right here on the farm.

They would make a GREAT stocking stuffer for this Christmas!

Due to some unforseen problems last week, we have some extra milk available for anyone who has been wanting to come out and buy some, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

This week is YOUR week! We have some larger orders we picked up today, and they are overlapping, so we are offering the extra to you for this week only.

Check out the Pot O Gold page for prices. Black Raspberry is the flavor this week. I have TONS of Raw, Chocolate, Whole, 2% and a few Skim and a couple of the Black Raspberry.

You can email me, or better yet, call me asap and I will hold your milk order and tag it with your name and you can pick it up at your convenience here.
Call Karen 814 490 2179

If you know someone who might be interested, please encourage them to call and come out and try this great milk, bottled right there at Pot O Gold Dairy and brought here to Waterford, just for you.

OH! AND IF YOU WOULD LIKE ON OUR EMAIL (ONLY) MAILING LIST, PLEASE send your name (first only is fine) and email addy to us: kmduran@earthlink.net with ADD TO MAILING LIST IN SUBJECT LINE.

CALL TODAY !

Well folks, it is time.

This past Sunday we moved the roadside stand back away from the road in preparation for the store to be built this spring.

WE WILL STILL HAVE MILK AND EGGS ALL WINTER LONG!!!

Our hours will remain the same, Mon — Sat 10am to 7pm and Sun 10am to 6pm.

Just pull in the driveway , back to the stand, which is next to the greenhouse. The door facing the driveway will be the one you will use. ALL MILK ORDERS WILL BE STORED THERE FROM NOW ON. The eggs will be in one of the smaller coolers. We have installed some lights and connected the electric so we are up and running. We may even place a Kerosene heater out there during the colder days just to be sure that nothing freezes.

Please note a slight change of inventory control for us. When you pick up your milk / eggs orders, please fill out the sheet on the clipboard provided with your NAME, WHAT YOU BOUGHT, BOTTLES RETURNED, AND AMOUNT PAID so that I can keep my books straight and the inventory current. The money for your purchases will still be placed in the cash box and the security camera will be rolling, just because we are still having people stop and not pay or not pay the correct amount. If anyone needs change or assistance, we leave a dry erase board up letting you know we’re home and not working. Just come to the house or barn (depending on where we are) and we are happy to help you.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
IF YOU ARE PICKING UP YOUR MILK ORDERS, PLEASE PICK UP ONLY WHAT YOU ORDER, SO THAT EVERYONE GETS THE CORRECT AMOUNT. If you do need extra or a change in your order, call us first to be sure we can accomodate this. Call Karen 490 2179.

We will still be purchasing extra bottles every week for the new customers that happen by, and for changes in orders at the last minute, but definitely not the amount we have been in the past. Due to the upcoming weather, we don’t anticipate as many ‘new’ customers dropping by. And since we pay the dairy up front, we don’t want to have milk leftover that we cannot sell.

We have sold/adopted out all the pigs we had available and the new litters will be born sometime after the first of the year–February or March perhaps. We have 3 calves, to be adopted for freezer beef and another 9 coming after they are born.

The cattle out in the pasture will be brought into the barn for winter in the near future so it will be nice to have a fuller barn again! The new chicks I purchased in September are growing FAST! Boy do they eat ALOT! They should begin laying eggs about March so that will help us keep up with your egg purchases. Right now, I am filling orders so the stand will NOT have eggs available for about a week for anyone that stops by. EGGS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE ABOUT NOVEMBER 1ST OR SOONER. Just call, email or leave us a note with your eggs order and phone number and we’ll call you as soon as we have them ready for you.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND PRAYERS AS WE MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS NEW VENTURE OF HAVING A STORE FOR YOU!!

Blaine & Karen

WELCOME!
Well, the garden is done producing for the year so I guess it’s time to post a little update here for you all.

We will have cabbage, pumpkins, winter squash, carrots, peppers available until they are all gone or sold. And corn stalks for those of you who have asked for them. A bundle is only $1 for about 12 or so stalks.

Our 60 new hens arrived on the 24th of September, as day old chicks, so that we can keep up with your demand for the brown eggs. They will be ready to lay in 6 months–March 2010. That should bring our total flock up to about 140 or so. Blaine has picked up 3 calves so far from Pot O Gold dairy of the 12 we are getting to feed out for you and your freezers. We will offer them the same as our pigs. You can pay by the month while we raise them for you, or pay in full at any time. Delivery to 1 of the local butchers is always FREE. Our 2 litters of pigs born the end of August are ready to tag/choose or to purchase and feed out yourselves.
We’ve already had 1 customer wanting to buy all of them, but since I know that several of you have asked for one, we had to turn him down. He wanted all or none. These pigs should be ready for your freezers about Feb/Mar 2010. You will need to contact us asap if you want one. We will be tagging and setting up accounts on a first come, first serve basis. When they are all tagged, we will not have anymore due to farrow until spring and those, most likely, will be sold to local 4H youth for next fall’s fairs. Pigs take about 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days to farrow once they are bred. So more will always be available.

REMEMBER, when we close up the stand for the winter months, we will STILL HAVE BROWN EGGS AND POT O GOLD MILK AVAILABLE ALL YEAR ROUND. It will be available here at the house, and we try out best to accomodate your’s and our busy work schedules. ( we both have full time outside jobs). Contact us anytime to purchase, order or if you just have questions. I usually order several extra bottles of milk from week to week for first time customers or if someone is just running a bit short and needs an extra bottle or two. A simple phone call and I can let you know if we have what you need. CALL ANYTIME–490-2179 and I’ll be happy to help you!

We have contacted a builder and are working with Gannon’s small business development center to open our full time store hopefully in the spring. We will have the same quality items you buy now: eggs, milk, seasonal produce and garden plants but we will be adding bulk food items, lunchmeats and cheeses, and freezer cuts of beef and pork rather than having to purchase an entire animal. It will be processed through Walter’s meats who is USDA inspected.

We expect to be busy enough to repay the loans needed to build the building and cover the increased insurance costs as well as try to do some adverstising. We have seen our customers grow in numbers by just word of mouth, so if we add the formal advertising, we should be able to keep busy enough to be successful. Please keep this venture for us in your prayers, so we can continue to supply your needs for Farm Fresh items.

We always like to hear from you, so feel free to contact us anytime!

Blaine & Karen

Just a quick update–we had the first of 3 litters of baby pigs born today. Some have already been requested by previous customers, so not all that were born today are available.

If you are interested in purchasing one, we sell them when they are 6 weeks old, when they are weaned or if you’d like us to raise one for you, you may purchase one anytime (you are welcome to come out to the farm and choose one or we can tag one for you).
These pigs should be at market weight and ready to butcher about March/April 2010.

They will go quickly, so if you have questions or need more information contact us anytime!

Finally! We are in the process of acquiring 12 head of Jersey cattle that we will be feeding out for you and your freezers.

Pigs only take about 6 months to raise to market weight, where cattle will take 18 months to 2 years to feed them out to market weight-aprx 1000-1200 pounds.

You will receive the same great all natural quality of meat and the knowledge that these animals are never given any growth hormones to speed up the process. We would still deliver the animal to your butcher of choice when it’s time and you decide how you want the animal processed, the same as with the pork. Your cost of processing is the same per pound, but realize you will be receiving alot more pounds than with a pig! A ball park estimate of processing costs could be anywhere from $300 and up for an animal that would be the correct weight. You could contact your butcher and ask them directly at any time for a more exact cost.

You may wait until the animals are at market weight and pay in full, but you also can set up an account with us and make payments at your convenience. We are compiling a list of interested buyers at the moment and you can add your name at any time. It would be best if you were sharing the animal, to make those arrangements so that we can sell a whole animal and not have to find customers for a 1/2 or 1/4 beef.

We are still gathering information on opening a full time store, and if that comes to be, then we should be able to offer cuts of beef and pork rather than the whole animal. Keep us in your prayers for this business venture, and we will see where we are led.

Thanks!
Blaine & Karen

Just a quick note to let you all know the garden is doing rather well this year, considering the cooler weather and all the rain we received.

Some people are finding us at local harvest.org and stopping by and we are meeting new customers. We should repeat the fact, that we are a small farm. We have plenty of produce for you, but we are not set up for a ‘pick your own’ type operation. We’ve even had people stop and want to buy out EVERYTHING we had at the moment, to take to auctions or for them to re-sell. We would like to keep our customers satisfied and are not looking to become BIG like Mason farms or someone like them. This way we can control the quality of what you buy from us.

Anyhow, lots of things are ready in the garden: zucchini, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, pickles, green peppers, green and yellow snap beans, lettuce, cabbage. The brocoli was ready and was DELICIOUS. Hope you were able to get some, as it is pretty much done by now. There may be a few late ones, but that is all. I picked some green tomatoes for someone yesterday who stopped and saw that there are several yellow and red ones coming along nicely. Once they start ripening, they will be ALL ripening and ready. I think we will offer them by the pound this year as well. There should be some out at the stand this week, I’d say. The sweet corn is looking quite nice. It should be ready in a week or maybe 2. Be aware, that this year we couldn’t use the same space of ground here at the farm as we did last year so we will not have as much to offer to you. There are only 16 rows and once I get some froze for the freezer, that’s what will be available. Hopefully next year we can bargain with the neighboring farmer (who farms pototoes on the ground surrounding us) and plant more.

If you haven’t stopped lately, you missed the opportunity to order ANY of the flavored milk from the dairy. This week they are preparing for the Waren fair and are making ALL the flavors available. I might be able to call today–MONDAY– and add to the order if you contact me asap. 490-2179. These orders will be picked up 8/8 and available anytime after that. We do have EXTRA milk available for new customers this week. CHOCOLATE, SKIM, WHOLE, 2%. And the latest news, is the dairy has stopped making the heavy cream available due to increased costs and lack of demand for it. So, the cream we have this week, is it. There are several small pot bellie containers (12 ounce) and the 1/2 gallons we have were ordered and not available.

We’ll be adding to the chicken flock in a couple months. I will be ordering at least 50 more hens in October, which will begin laying about April 2010. This will help keep the refrigerator stocked for you and not give us TONS of extra eggs over the winter when your demand for them decreases.

We’re always trying our best to provide you with the best quality of all natural and fresh from the farm products. We love to hear from you so leave us a comment or even go to www.localharvest.org and give us a review!

Thanks for visiting and hope to see you along the way.
Blaine and Karen