Chestnut Farms open barn

Yesterday Eun Jung (who was Elena's Korean tutor before Elena went to South Korea) and I went to Chestnut Farms for their open barn. It was a gorgeous day, and the excursion doubled as a leaf-peeping adventure. We trekked out to Hardwick, got totally lost, asked a lot of locals where the farm might be, with answers like "well I can tell ya how to get to Hardwick" to "I know about where it is, but that's the fire chief who just pulled up to the bait shop there, and he'll definitely know."

The amazing thing about the farm was the everything moved! In veggie farming, you rotate crops, and the same stuff applies to the animals. The barn, which has nice new siding, was completely moved around from our visit in the spring. The school buses for the chickens were in totally new places. If you have movable structures, they aren't taxed (this is what Spags in Shrewsbury did to keep taxes, and prices, low). Plus moving the animals around keeps them rotated to fresh grass and bugs.

Eun Jung used to have three chickens when she was young, which she said took an hour to chase around every evening. She tried to chase them, but said it's more difficult and a little scarier when you're older!



There weren't as many babies since the lambs give birth in the spring, but there were new piggies everywhere.



And there were St. Bernard puppies, which they are hoping to sell. These pups were only 2 weeks old, and they didn't open their eyes.







The cows were enjoying munching.



There's a new little brown goat! In the spring you could carry the white goat around, but it's too big now. It stuck its head through the fence to eat my hair.



Chestnut Farms sells turkeys in the fall for $75. You pre-order. Last year the turkeys ranged from 25 to 50 pounds, I think. This year they had a July batch and an August batch, so that there would be some that were closer to 20 pounds. Kim says that the turkeys take only 10 minutes per pound to cook, which is half the time that a turkey from a store takes. So even though they're pretty large, you'll be able to cook them in a reasonable amount of time. And they are less fatty and taste better!



The turkeys are extremely social birds. They all crowded at the fence. Kids were feeding them grass. One kid started screeching at the turkeys, and they all gobbled back at the same time. It was amazing. "Screech screech screech" and 30 turkeys "Gobble gobble gobble" in sort of a watery ripple.



It was such a nice day. On our drive home we saw a hot air balloon and some sort of machine with a parachute-like attachment, flying around the hills. Ah yes, everything great about Western Massachusetts, on a sunny October afternoon.