It’s finally that time of year! The farm is quickly coming alive with new critters being born almost daily (well, not quite, but it feels that way to us farmers). This week has been especially busy with two of our sows farrowing beautiful litters of little heritage piglets…and plenty more piglets to come! We have also been blessed with the early arrival of many young calves - six so far this season. And we even received our first group of baby meat bird chicks this week - so it’s been quite busy on the farm. We welcome these days and the farm’s spring renewal. The farm is open for your enjoyment so please do come on down and wander around to see the piglets, baby calves, and the rest of the farm which is just beginning to show signs of spring.
While everyone loves to see the baby animals, including our own staff, it also is a sign that we have to start busting a move to get ready for the season. As a pasture-based livestock farm, we are passionate about growing our animals on pasture and NOT keeping them penned up in barns. So this means we have plenty of work ahead of us to prepare for this transition. Our work at Codman is particularly challenging because we manage over 150 acres of land in Lincoln and Concord and we graze our animals on over a dozen fields. It’s hard work managing all of this land but it’s also rewarding to see the positive impact we can have.
For instance, over the past several years the town has experienced an increase in the invasive Carolina Horse Nettle weed - which has been making its way into open fields around town. This nasty weed spreads by seed and root has nasty thorns, is poisonous, and is resistant to chemical treatment. There are not many ways to eradicate this type of invasive weed. But through the use of our heritage pigs’ natural super-power…rooting, we can weaken the plants and slowly destroy them in our pastures through repeated rooting and tillage. The awesomeness of this approach is we just direct the pigs where to do their thang and they are happy to root up the green cover crops we plant AND the invasive weeds that inhabit the fields. They don’t eat the horse nettle plants, they just disturb their surroundings over time, and through successive rotations of cover crops and light mechanical tillage - the horse nettle dies off and the fields become totally free of this nasty invasive. Eventually, we will turn these fields back into lush pastures for grazing and move the pigs elsewhere to spread their powers to other fields in need.
Spreading cover crops on Codman North Field
FARM STORE
We wanted to provide an update regarding an incident that occurred in the Farm Store this week. As many know, our awesome Farm Store is open 24/7 and is fully stocked with a highly curated selection of the best local foods that can be found in the region. Our dedication to remaining open at all times AND operating on the self-serve / HONOR system - has been one of our pride and joys and certainly something that makes us very unique.
Unfortunately, this aspect of our store can be taken advantage of. We are very sad to report we had quite a large theft late one evening this past week. A large amount of chicken and other high-value items were stolen from our store. This is always deeply saddening to witness and makes all our hearts sink. We work so very hard to grow the best quality products we can and to then see folks take advantage of our honor store is very depressing.
The good news is that our robust video surveillance system which records all activity 24 hours a day captured the entire theft including the license plate of the suspects. The Lincoln Police Department has been notified and they are in the process of hopefully recouping the value of our loss. We are always grateful for the support of the Lincoln Police Department whenever these situations arise. In the future, if folks are shopping in the store at odd hours and see something suspicious or just “off” - say something, call the police if it’s after hours, or let our staff know as soon as possible.
We hope in the future we won’t have to up our game and solicit the help of AI Farm-Chick-Bots to begin patrolling the grounds, as seen in the photo below. We are beginning to work on prototypes with Lincoln Labs just in case….
