#ETFarmTour Archives - Ninja Cow Farm LLC

September 21, 2016September 23, 2016

Overall results from the CFSA farm tour

It’s now Wednesday and we are finally getting over the farm tour from last weekend. Not because it was any problem, but because I still don’t have everything put away (Sorry Lucy! I’ll get your chairs and tables back as soon as it stops raining!)

At the end of the weekend, we’d hosted over 200 people through our farm. Nearly everyone received a personal tour from SWMBO or Spork.

Overall it seems that the reaction to our farm was positive and people seemed to enjoy themselves. We didn’t have any kind of formal feedback mechanism so all I can judge by is the comments from people I talked to personally, which I tried to do as much as possible.

We had a bit of a crisis Sunday afternoon as Jennifer from Buck Naked got hung up at her farm and was running late. And our guys we hired to park cars also showed late. Of course all the customers were right on time quickly filling up the parking spaces. Couple that with the fact we were all moving a bit slow that day due to the previous nights festivities and there were a few minutes of excitement. Luckily everyone was so good at what they did that I was pretty much free to step in and handle it till everyone was in place.

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On Saturday Miguel had brought one of the baby pigs out for everyone to hold and pet.

On Sunday Gran-SWMBO came out to fill in for him and hold the piglet. Grandma is the master at holding baby piglets so she was the perfect person for the job. Unfortunately our baby piglet was not too pleased and peed all over her. I felt bad for her but she shrugged it off and made sure everyone was happy. There is nothing better than having a grandma around. 20160917_125848

Abe Froman was on hand again cooking all day. I don’t know how many packs of sausage he went through, but everyone got all the samples they wanted, the help was able to scarf everything they wanted at the end, and we still had sausage left over so he did an awesome job.

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I think our best seller of the weekend was ice cream, but we did sell a bit of meat. The real question is how many people will come back and shop now that they know we are here. We’ll see over the next few weeks but overall we had a bit time on the tour and we are looking forward to next year.

September 18, 2016September 19, 2016

Results from day one and getting ready for day two

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Our first day, of our first CFSA Eastern Triangle farm tour went off pretty much perfectly. We are prepping for day 2 today, which starts at 1pm. More info on today’s plans at the bottom of this post.

We had a steady flow of people from about 12:30 when staff started showing till 5:30 when random people were driving up asking what was going on. In total, we had 124 people come through the gate, not counting our regular customers who came just to shop. We also had Roland and Marianna, both celebrities from CFSA who came to check us out and see how the newbies were doing. It was good to see the brass out checking on the tour.

I actually sold some passes to the tour Saturday morning, not knowing exactly how to do it. “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission” being my mantra. My other one is, “Get the money, then figure it out.” We ended up $5 short at the end of the day in the money count so I guess it was close enough for the girls we date. Better than telling two people no and not getting anything!

We had a full force showing of folks on the farm. Lucy (the chef) and Jason (Abe Froman, nobody has guessed where that comes from yet) were here, along with Erin (our milk maid), SWMBO, Gran SWMBO, Spork, The Princess, Wildflower, and Rutabega (Lucy’s daughter).

Jennifer from Buck Naked farm explaining about bees

Jennifer from Buck Naked Farm was here and she was swamped all day with people talking about bees, honey, etc. I don’t think she ever sat down.

We also had Steven parking cars and even Miguel and Vicente came over and spent some time. Miguel was the surprise hit of the day as he went and grabbed one of the new piglets away from the 650 pound angry momma and brought him over to hang out. 2016-09-17_202553426_3dd3c_ios

Little girl holding a piglet — Holding the piglet was a highlight of the day

Erin's milking display stand — Erin’s milking display stand

We had good weather and good shade, for everyone except Erin. That poor girl had to go chase down the milk cows multiple times and work in the sun. Whenever she could she hid in the shade.

Abe working on his sausages, while Erin cools it in the shade for a few minutes

I found out that the tour is $35 dollars for all the farms, but only $10 for the farm you are standing at. Our normal tour cost is $20 so if you haven’t been in a while, or maybe not at all, today is the day for you. You can take a tour for 1/2 price and see the extras we have out for this special event. The weather is gorgeous today, sunny and warm. We still have ice cream left, as well as chocolate milk. And of course plenty of meat. Stop by and see us between 1 and 5 today. You can pay your $10 when you get here so no planning needed.

September 17, 2016

Today is the day!

While we are open for regular customers today from 8am – 5pm, however starting at 1pm we will also be part of the 10th annual CFSA farm tour.

CFSA farm tour flyer — The official flyer for the farm tour this year

This is our first year being on the farm tour so we have little idea of what to expect but we have all hands on deck should we be so fortunate as to have a large crowd.

Ninja Cow Farm listing in CFSA farm tour brochure — We’re legit!

Today SWMBO and Spork will be giving tours on the quarter hour showing new visitors the farm, seeing the baby pigs and chickens. The usual stuff.

Erin, our resident milk maid, will be out by our girls Betsy and Hedi to explain to people how we go about milking our cows, what we do with the milk, etc.

Jennifer Howard from Buck Naked Farm will be here with not only her encyclopedic knowledge of bees, but an observation hive as well so you can see the bees hard at work up close and personal.

Jason “Abe Froman” (extra points if you know what that name is from) will be manning the grill, cooking up samples of our bratwurst and chorizo sausages, whetting your appetite before you head into the store where you’ll find Lucy, Dagny, and Myla helping everyone with their shopping.

Of course the bakery is already hot this morning, making up batches of fresh chocolate chip cookies for today. Make sure to grab yours when you come in.

You can purchase your ticket for the farm tour at the first farm you visit (which should be us, of course!) The tickets are $30 per car so it’s one price for all farms, and all your friends who can ride along. You can see as many of the 25 farms over the weekend as you can get to. I could usually get about 3-4 per day if I tried hard but I usually ended up staying at a favorite farm too long and only hit 2-3. You can buy your tickets from CFSA as well, right here.