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Notes From Sarah

May 21, 2007

November 16, 2006

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December 1, 2008

Greetings to family, friends, supporters and customers,

First of all, thank you so much for your continued support! Our family feels blessed to continue our love of farming and provide a wholesome and healthy food to families throughout western Washington. The switch to a raw milk niche market ensured this farm's survival and allowed my husband and I (Ryan and I were married June 29th!) an opportunity to keep this farm a productive family farm for years to come! We are humbled by your loyal support.

As involved supportes, I'd like to fill you in on what's happening on the farm these days. Due to the dry summer, the cows were able to stay on pasture into November. The longer they can stay out, the better! We have also been blessed with many calves lately, with a high bull ratio. That is good news for our jersey beef customers and we will continue to raise our bulls as grassfed natural beef.

On a different note, we've voted with our ballots now it's time to vote with our dollar. I encourage you, now more then ever, to support your local community. Support people you know, who work hard, who give, who understand what is REALLY valuable and worthwhile. I encourage you to eat and shop local this holiday season...and beyond. Consider local ham, organic vegetables, baked bread, jam from local berries you perhaps picked yourself, the list goes on. It's not only an interesting topic at the dinner table, it's healthy, fun, and keeps our local farms, workers, and communities in business.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thankgiving and that you have a lot of turkey left over! I have a wonderful recipe to share with you that will put that extra turkey to good use. Let me know how you like it! It's called Turkey Divan.

Turkey Divan
-6 Tbsp unsalted butter
-1 large local onion (or 2 small)
-1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
-4 Cups of warmed milk (Dungeness Valley Creamery)
-2 small bunches of local broccoli (trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces)
-4 egg yolks
-1 Cup grated Parmesan cheese plus 2 Tbsp
-1/2 Cup grated Swiss cheese
-salt
-pepper
-1 & 1/2 lbs cooked turkey breast, thinly sliced

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

1. Melt butter in large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and saute until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add flour; cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes; do not let flour burn. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup of the hot milk until mixture is smooth. Whisk in remaining milk; heat to boiling. Reduce heat; simmer, stirring frequently, until sauce is smooth and thickened, about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cook broccoli in large saucespan of salted boiling water until crisp-tender, about 8 minutes. Drain; rinse under cold water. Drain thoroughly.

3. While the sauce is still hot, whisk in egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in the 1 Cup of Parmesan and Swiss cheese, one-third at a time, stirring after each addition until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Use broccoli as the bottom layer in a 9 x 13 baking dish; top with slices of turkey. Spoon sauce over turkey. Top with 2 Tbls. Parmesan cheese. Bake until golden brown and slightly bubbly around edges, about 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Here is an updated list of our many stores and drop points.

Stores:
Dungeness Valley Creamery-Sequim
Sunny Farms Country Store-Sequim/Carlsborg
Country Aire-Port Angeles
Port Townsend Food Co-op
CJ's Evergreen Market-Bremerton
Marlene's Markets - Tacoma and Federal Way
Greenfresh Market-Renton
Mountain Community Co-op-Eatonville
Natures Market-Kent
Yelm Food Co-op
Olympia Food Co-op- East and West
Redmond Whole Foods
Bellevue Whole Foods
Roosevelt Whole Foods
Westlake Whole Foods
Vancouver Whole Foods
Real Foods Bainbridge
Dragon's Leir-Belfair
Oakland Bay Organic Farm-Shelton
Mana Mills-Mountlake Terrace
Petosa's-Lynwood

Drop points: A huge thanks goes out to our drop leaders. You are great!
Lofall
Hansville
Indianola
Gig Harbor
Silverdale
Purdy
Bainbridge Island
Mercer Island
Bellevue
Sammamish
Woodenville
Phinney
Lynwood
Redmond
Yelm
Olympia
Alyn
Ridgefield
Camas
Vancouver

Please let me know if you'd like the contact information on any of these stores or drop points.

The farm store is open from 10-5 Monday through Saturday. Please stop by and visit us and the animals!

Thanks again and God bless!
Sarah McCarthey

December 16, 2007

We hope you are joyful this season and full of love and thanksgiving!

The cows are cozy in the barn, now, and doing very well (lots of milk!) We had an extra good load of hay brought to us from eastern Washington and the cows love it. You may be noticing an increase of cream in the milk. You are not imagining things! Although there is more sweetness and color to the milk in the summer, there is more cream in the winter...just in time for holiday baking and whipped cream! Yes, you can use the cream from the milk for whipped cream...and butter, too! The cream will not get quite as airy and fluffy as store bought heavy cream (they put in additives) but it tastes just as good or better. If you accidentally whip the cream too much, now you have butter and buttermilk. You know what to do with the butter, but don't put the buttermilk to waste. You can use it for baking as well (scones, pancakes, smoothies are just a few ideas). This buttermilk that you get is not cultured or soured, it is sweet. If you want soured
buttermilk, you can set it out and let it sour on its own, or add a little lemon juice (for a quicker result). There is so much to do with the milk and cream! Don't forget hot cocoa with whipped cream on top, home made eggnog, and cream in your coffee.

If you haven't had a chance to stop in at our store lately, come check out our new gift items! We are proud to say that everything in our store is local and we are in contact with and support people we know and trust! With that said, we encourage you to shop locally and support real people. In doing so, you boost our local economy, promote and support local artists,craftsmen and farmers, and reduce fuel usage (both your own and delivery trucks to big stores).

Don't forget to shop local and healthy for your holiday meal! We offer milk, cream, bread, CHEESE, and eggs (when available). Your family will appreciate a special meal with special ingredients!

May God bless you this season and always,
Sarah Brown

June 5, 2007

According to the Peninsula Daily News, Dungeness Valley Creamery should be staying a dairy for a while now. The Friends of the Fields and the North Olympic Land Trust say they've raised the money to buy the development rights!

May 21, 2007

Hello everyone,

The cows are out on pasture! Have you noticed the milk getting more and more yellow? That is because the cows are eating our rich pasture grass. It really does a heart good to see those cows out and hear the "munch, munch" of contentment.

The word is spreading! New locations for our raw milk!

Ask if you'd like to be put on a list!

Cream!

I know many of you will be excited to hear that we are pursuing certification in raw cream (and raw skim milk). We'll provide cream for our store in Sequim first and drop points second. Just so you are aware, the whole milk will stay whole milk. The cream will not be taken from the milk you already get! The cream will be taken only from surplus milk. We'll then either sell the skim milk or maybe even make a raw skim milk cheese.

Open House-June 9

Mark your calendars for June 9th! It should be a good time with music (marimbas), hayrides, cheese making demonstrations, butter making demonstrations and more. I'll send out a more detailed email in a week or so. We've been open for a year now and things are going well. Thank you for all of your support!

Love and Blessings,
Sarah Brown

November 16, 2007

Hello to all,

Things are going well on the farm and in the creamery and we thank everyone for their support!

Fall is in full swing and that means two things for us. One, the fields are muddy and cows must come in...and two, the Holidays will be here before we know it. Thanksgiving is next week! Can you believe it? Although we will be closed Thanksgiving Day, we hope that you bring your family and friends out to the farm and visit our creamery beforehand (or after). Come pet the new babies and visit the mamas who provide you with the freshest and creamiest raw milk. Along with the whole raw milk you'll find nummy cheeses made by Mount Townsend Creamery from our "girls'" milk. These cheeses are sure to delight the palette of your Thanksgiving meal guests. Special ingredients make the feast special. Be sure to pick up local foods including the raw milk (with cream on the top), eggs, and freshly baked breads and dinner rolls. Remember, Nash's organic produce store is just down the road from us for your Holiday veggie needs.

Our Creamery store also offers other locally made gift items. You'll find cards, scarves, lavender products, herbal salves, photographs, artwork(BarnArt) and more. For our first Christmas, we will be featuring handmade "KeyAngel" ornaments made by my sister, Kim Bergstrom! All proceeds from the "Key Angels" will go to benefit Children's Hospital. At birth, the Children's Hospital performed emergency surgury and saved her life! She was a patient at Children's for the first six months of her life and wants to support a cause that means so much to her!

Next Holiday season we would love to offer fresh raw jersey cream and that is one of our goals. Another goal is to start making an aged cheese. For this to be possible we must have more help! We need four night milkings covered and one or more morning milkings. Calf feeders are needed as well. We just cannot add on any more projects until this happens. If you or anyone you know is interested please contact us.

One addition to our farm that has helped a lot is our new manure separator! This may sound strange to most of you but this is a huge relief to us as my dad usually spends most of the winter making the separator work. Well, our new one actually works...by itself! That means more time for our new creamery and also more manure solids for your gardens.

On a side note, a few new stores are carrying our raw jersey milk! They are The Olympia Food Co-ops east and west, Nash's (Sequim/Dungeness) and The Gifting Place (Port Angeles). We also have new drop points in Bremerton (Evergreen Market in Bremerton went out of business), Mercer Island, Poulsbo, and Quilcene. Please feel free to contact us with questions about any of these locations or possible new drop points!

Thanks again for supporting local farms and farmers! A community that depends on and supports one another is a healthy community!

----- Sarah Brown