Flat Branch Farm Newsletter - October 23, 2025 - Vol. 10
Hey there Reader!
I’m not one for patting myself on the back, but even I am impressed that I’ve managed to get a newsletter out every Thursday for 10 weeks in a row. I’m really interested to know which parts of the newsletter you like, don’t like, etc… Or are there any other farm-related topics or tips/tricks you’d like me to include? So if you have a minute or two to think on that, I’d love to get a quick response with your thoughts. I’m trying to find the perfect balance between plenty of pictures and too many. I’ve noticed that the broadcasts I send with lots of photos, the open rate is lower. I’ve read that photo-heavy emails are more likely to be seen as spam, so they get diverted to junk or promo folders.
Quick tip: If that ever happens to you, just drag the email over to your inbox tab, and that should prevent it from happening again.
Dairy Cows
We opened up the barn for the cows for the first time last weekend when it finally rained. Since it’s really cooled off here, I’ve just been leaving the barn open for them in case they want to come in at night. But much to my surprise when we go out every morning there are no cows in the barn. What seems cold to us feels delightful for the cows and they sleep outside.
Right now we are still milking only two cows - Blondie and Rona. They both calved June 1 - unplanned but they just happened to both go on the same day. So they have been in milk for almost 5 months which is their halfway point for this lactation. Both cows are bred back for summer calves again, so we will begin drying them up in early spring. Here is a photo I took of both of them one hazy morning as I was leaving for work.
Re-Quoting
Have you noticed that the best sunrises and sunsets require clouds? I believe the same is true of life. We need to experience some cloudy days to fully appreciate the sunny days.
- Kit Pharo
Other Farm Happenings
Our laying hens have officially started their vacation and the egg basket is pretty disappointing most evenings. More than once over the past few weeks I have thought about ordering chicks before the hatcheries shut off orders for the year. And I’ve even had them in my cart a few times, but haven’t ordered. Do you have laying hens? And if yes, do they lay through the winter with or without a lamp in the coop? I REALLY don’t want to go back to eggs from the store. But I also don’t want to worry about a light or fire because our coop is kind-of far from the house.
Product Spotlight
Beef and pork cuts are steadily decreasing in inventory since we have decided to reduce/remove availability of those types of items from our “store” but we have plenty of whole chickens! I used an older pre-cut chicken on Tuesday - it must have fallen down below/behind newer packages because it just looked like it had been in there for a while. But it sure made a pretty good pot of chicken & noodles! And if you need a little motivation to cook a whole chicken, check out this blog post I wrote a little while back. Why You Should Buy (and Cook) Whole Chickens
Things I'm Loving
The Cozy Cook (thecozycook.com). I have no affiliation whatsoever to this website. I found it from a recipe someone shared. I’ve saved several recipes that I want to try, but what’s great about this website, blog, whatever… is that there is a “recipes by ingredient” feature. So as I’m trying to use up meat or canned/frozen vegetables we have at home, this is great to either find a specific recipe or just get ideas. There are general categories like chicken, beef, potatoes or you can get super-specific and search for recipes that use brown rice, feta cheese, or green cabbage.
Recipe Share
Homemade Chicken & Noodles
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (or individual cuts), water, spices, celery, carrots, olive oil, garlic, onion, egg noodles, milk. You also need a crockpot.
Directions:
Put thawed chicken (mine was still a little icy but thawed enough I could separate the pieces) into a crockpot with 2 cups of water, 2 rough-cut carrots, and 3 ribs of celery (chopped into 1 inch pieces) along with 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, and 1 tbsp oregano. I didn’t measure the spices so these amounts are estimates. Measure with your heart. Cook on low all day (8 hours). Turn off crockpot and move chicken to a plate or pan to cool.
When the chicken is cool, separate the meat from the skin/bones and place in a dish. You can cut up any big chunks like the breast or tenderloins. Strain everything from the broth and reserve the broth. Also separate out carrots and celery pieces to save. You will need 7 cups of broth/liquid. I ended up with 4, so I added 3 cups of water and a couple bouillon cubes.
In a stock pot or dutch oven, add about 3 tbsp of olive oil and saute 1 tbsp of finely minced garlic and 1 medium onion (cut). Cook until the onion loses color and is soft.
Add in your water and remaining spices: 1 tsp paprika, rosemary, turmeric, seasoning salt, pepper, plus 2 bay leaves and 2 tbsp parsley. Stir to combine. Add in 1 package of egg noodles and cook until tender but not mushy.
Add in cooked chicken and carrots/celery from the crockpot along with 1 cup of milk.
Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture, but this recipe is loved by all and it is even better as leftovers the next day!
Just For Fun
Good Advice
Be careful who you trust… salt and sugar look the same.
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If you know of someone else that would like to join our little-but-growing community, feel free to forward the newsletter to them. Anyone can join here. Just remind them NOT to click unsubscribe in your forwarded email...because that will actually unsubscribe YOU instead of them.
Talk soon,
Lori
P.S. You can go back and see all of our weekly newsletters here. I also have a handful of “freebies” available - a Raw Milk Cheat Sheet, Benefits of Yogurt download, and several collections of recipes. You can find those here!
