Enjoy this Essex Farm Note from Kristin Kimball at Essex Farm, in Essex, NY!

For the non-local readers who follow news from here, we were barely brushed by the tail of Hurricane Sandy. Thanks for all the notes of concern. All animals and buildings are fine. Good thing, too, since we hadn’t thought to add our two new barns to the insurance policy until Monday – at which point, of course, with doom all over the airwaves, they wouldn’t insure a pasteboard doghouse until the storm had passed. Now that the urgency is over, we have two items on the admin to-do list: getting those buildings covered, and investing in a generator that can power the farm’s vital equipment, like milking machines, well pump and freezers.

Speaking of freezers, we have the walk-in up and running. And all my grousing about the green lozenge last week was for naught, as Mark Bimonte convinced us that foaming the inside of the trailer was a better idea after all. We’ll be able to freeze meat faster and store it more efficiently now. The worst news of the week is that just before we made the switch from our chest freezers to the walk-in, one of the small freezers got unplugged by accident, and 80 chickens thawed and had to be thrown out. Failure never rests! (Continue reading Kristin Kimball’s Essex Farm Note)

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