Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Welcome back to Local Ag. It's November six,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Melody Divers from the Bedford County ag
Speaker 1: Advisory Board and it's time for our sixteenth episode. Our
Speaker 1: podcast dives deep into the world of farming, learning more
Speaker 1: about our local food and the incredible stories behind the
Speaker 1: people who grow our food. Joining us today we have
Speaker 1: Darthy McIntyre with the Forest Farmers Market.
Speaker 2: Welcome, good morning.
Speaker 1: And we have Doug and Lucy Overstreet joining us from
Speaker 1: Idlewild Farm.
Speaker 2: Welcome, y'all, thank you, good morning.
Speaker 1: The over Streets have a farm located in Bedford, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and their farm has become a beloved source for quality
Speaker 1: pork poultry in this region. And I'm thrilled to have
Speaker 1: you all come today because we're going to.
Speaker 2: Talk a lot about turkeys today.
Speaker 1: I love it so welcome everybody, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with the over Streets. So I'm just being nosy
Speaker 1: and I know our listeners want to hear this too.
Speaker 1: Give us a little background on the farm itself. We
Speaker 1: want to know all the details, how it was started,
Speaker 1: what you currently offer, and even how you got the
Speaker 1: name for your farm.
Speaker 2: So just we're nosy. Tell us all the things.
Speaker 3: So our farm started in two thousand and eight, which
Speaker 3: happens to be the same year our families started. We
Speaker 3: got married in two thousand and eight, and I wanted
Speaker 3: a farm. Yeah, and I got what I wanted, so
Speaker 3: good for you, which maybe in hindsight was maybe not
Speaker 3: the wisest wish.
Speaker 2: No, it was great.
Speaker 3: So Doug's family is from Bedford, the grandparents, great aunts,
Speaker 3: great grandparents.
Speaker 2: I mean with a last name over street. I know
Speaker 2: y'all from here, that's right.
Speaker 3: And they had a farm then needed some and luckily
Speaker 3: the farm already had a name. Uh huh, because that
Speaker 3: is not my expertise of naming things. So his great no,
Speaker 3: you have to tell this part.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so my great uncle purchased a property prior to
Speaker 4: World War two and yeah, so it's been in the
Speaker 4: family since before then. And so they named it out
Speaker 4: of Wild Farm. And so that's where.
Speaker 5: We do you know how they came up with the
Speaker 5: idle word.
Speaker 4: No, we have some guesses, and we think that I
Speaker 4: think LaGuardia out of New York used to be called
Speaker 4: Ottawa Airport, and when Roy came back from the war,
Speaker 4: that's the course. Maybe maybe not, but they think that's
Speaker 4: where the name came from. Was there.
Speaker 1: Well On a side note, not that I know your
Speaker 1: farm's history, but I'm treating myself this year and rereading
Speaker 1: or re listening to books from my childhood now that
Speaker 1: I'm an adult and see how they land or why
Speaker 1: did I like them when I was younger. So I'm
Speaker 1: now in the Anne of Green Gables series and they
Speaker 1: have an idle wild mentioned there. Very idyllic, you know setting,
Speaker 1: just pure space, and when I was reading, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, did this have the connection there? But no,
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about as well, but I
Speaker 1: think it just gives off that image of it's a
Speaker 1: pure space in nature that is being used not magically
Speaker 1: but as it was intended.
Speaker 2: Kind of.
Speaker 1: That's what I the beautiful aspect of it. So when
Speaker 1: I was listening to that in my little journey I'm
Speaker 1: doing with my books that I'm doing this year, I
Speaker 1: just got really excited when I heard.
Speaker 2: It in the book. But anyway, this's this a side
Speaker 2: note or the Aman Brothers album. Okay, and see we
Speaker 2: have lots lots of theories here.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so we'd started at No. Eight. You know,
Speaker 4: we started off as actually produce, and then we started
Speaker 4: having our children. You know, she was unable to do
Speaker 4: as much work in the garden and my thumbs as
Speaker 4: pail as the moonlight. So we ended up switching over
Speaker 4: to pork, pastured poultry and hens, eggs and the eventually turkeys. Yes,
Speaker 4: the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else you'd like to add, Lucy
Speaker 1: about the background? Maybe how did the community get to
Speaker 1: know you?
Speaker 2: First?
Speaker 3: We started by what a little sign at the end
Speaker 3: of the driveway, eggs for sale? And then I guess
Speaker 3: it's twenty ten. The forest market can't.
Speaker 5: If I contacted you or you contacted me. But it
Speaker 5: was a great it is a great relationship, that's all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were right there from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: We did that for ten years and then.
Speaker 5: I think it was about ten.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was really fun being a part of
Speaker 3: the energy to get that market going.
Speaker 5: And yes, they were their core to the market.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: First the first ten years we had about maybe ten
Speaker 5: people that stayed that ten years that just continue to
Speaker 5: stay with us and grow the market. And then life
Speaker 5: goes on and kids grow up and soccer happens, and.
Speaker 1: So the market is a past chapter, not a current chapter.
Speaker 3: That's correct. We stopped in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I think it is the last pretty recent yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: but still the connections and relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Darthy was like, I.
Speaker 1: Have somebody that I really want you to interview, and
Speaker 1: of course it was y'all and she thinks very highly
Speaker 1: of you, and I was like, I know them. Our
Speaker 1: kids used to bebop around together and hang out in
Speaker 1: mot Veil. So that was this is fun, a little reunion.
Speaker 1: So since it is November, the month that houses Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: we want to hear the details of local turkeys that
Speaker 1: you sell, and so folks are on our local ag
Speaker 1: Facebook page Bedford County Local Ag. You saw a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago that there was something about your farm and
Speaker 1: a Google form that people could fill out to order
Speaker 1: fresh turkeys for this Thanksgiving. So are you all sold
Speaker 1: out for twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3: We are not actually with a ohkyin I kind of
Speaker 3: drug my feet on putting it out there. We have
Speaker 3: never had a problem selling out though.
Speaker 1: So but if listeners are interested, they have there's a spot.
Speaker 1: So at the end, maybe you can share how people
Speaker 1: can get in contact with you, but tell us about
Speaker 1: what it's like to raise local turkeys, especially around Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and what that means for folks to get a local
Speaker 1: turkey for their holiday.
Speaker 3: Well, when I say I got a lot, sorry, start,
Speaker 3: you actually have to order them like May or June. Okay,
Speaker 3: they are a five month growing period, and so they
Speaker 3: come to the farm in July and they grow pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: We get them out on pasture by August and that's
Speaker 3: where they stay until November, third week of November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how old are they you said, when you
Speaker 1: get them a day old?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Okay, so they're like really itty bitties all right.
Speaker 1: And do you have a particular breed or is there
Speaker 1: something that folks need to know about in regards to
Speaker 1: what to look for when purchasing a turkey.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, we have done a few different breeds in
Speaker 3: the past. This year, we're actually doing two different breeds.
Speaker 3: There was a funny little back and forth between the
Speaker 3: supplier and I and he did have them, and then
Speaker 3: he didn't have them, and it turned out being that
Speaker 3: we got the broad breasted bronze and the white broad breasted.
Speaker 3: So we have the white turkeys and the broad I
Speaker 3: mean bronze.
Speaker 1: Sorry, And do you personally have a favorite in raising
Speaker 1: and is there a favorite in the palette.
Speaker 3: Well, they both are more of a what would you say,
Speaker 3: not engineered but.
Speaker 2: Commercial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they're not heritage breed. Okay, we kind of
Speaker 4: we've done heritage breed in the past as well, and
Speaker 4: really the price points kind of gets us not only
Speaker 4: for the price of a chick, but they take longer
Speaker 4: to grow, so so we've kind of went back to
Speaker 4: our to the how I call them commercial turkeys kind
Speaker 4: of like them. Uh yeah, so so so yeah, so
Speaker 4: that's why we switched back to them. And the taste
Speaker 4: is great either way. I think it's the same way
Speaker 4: when we go with our chickens, like with our Freedom
Speaker 4: Rangers versus the Corners cross like you know, they are different,
Speaker 4: but they still have that same good quality. I think
Speaker 4: has a lot to do with the pasturing and and
Speaker 4: and the bug eating and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So all right, so we don't have Sorry, no, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say that was going to be my next
Speaker 1: question about your farm practices, but before I jumped my
Speaker 1: my next question too soon. But if someone does want
Speaker 1: to order a turkey and they fill out the form,
Speaker 1: they'll come to your farm and pick it up.
Speaker 4: So we processed the week before usually so Thursday's Thanksgiving,
Speaker 4: so we'll process either Friday or Saturday the week before
Speaker 4: and keep them chilling. Then either that Sunday or Monday
Speaker 4: will pick up times okay, and yeah, they can come out.
Speaker 4: It's like a little semi party, you know.
Speaker 5: We get this nice to see people that get their
Speaker 5: turkeys each year and you'll see them there. You might
Speaker 5: not see them through the season, but you'll get there,
Speaker 5: get to walk the farm if you wanted to.
Speaker 2: Oh, excellent, okay.
Speaker 4: Especially now that we don't do the markets, like that's
Speaker 4: one thing we really miss is the community aspect of that.
Speaker 4: And so we have most of our customers are returning customers,
Speaker 4: Like we don't early advertise on Facebook much but so
Speaker 4: it's mostly like returning customers on the email and so
Speaker 4: we haven't seen them since last thing skipt okay, so
Speaker 4: it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Do you have a good customer base, the return repeat customers,
Speaker 1: Yes for.
Speaker 4: The most part, And yeah, that's so that's what we
Speaker 4: kind of do. It's kind of our version of a
Speaker 4: customer appreciation day.
Speaker 1: So when you were talking, both of you said about
Speaker 1: getting the turkeys out on pasture. Can we talk about
Speaker 1: your unique farming practices and for folks that don't know
Speaker 1: how this looks, what does raising a turkey raising chickens?
Speaker 1: What does that look like on your farm? And why
Speaker 1: do you utilize the method of farming that you utilize?
Speaker 1: So just really spell it out for all of us.
Speaker 4: How long we got?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a little bit to unpack.
Speaker 3: I think I'll go back to maybe just the life
Speaker 3: of the turkey and start with the day old chick
Speaker 3: and then as soon as they have enough size and
Speaker 3: feathers to be out of the heat lamp, we can
Speaker 3: put them out on the pasture where they will stay
Speaker 3: in their pen, and then we move the pen so
Speaker 3: they can be on fresh grass. Then when they get
Speaker 3: to another sizeable development, we can put them with a
Speaker 3: fence around them. And the fence is a movable, portable
Speaker 3: fence that we can then change where their pasture is
Speaker 3: so they can have access to the green grass.
Speaker 1: Do you I know, like with cows, we have to
Speaker 1: have certain forges in front of them, you know, certain
Speaker 1: types of grasses. Is that the same thing with chickens
Speaker 1: and turkey?
Speaker 4: Not?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 4: I mean I think really the microbes and the bugs
Speaker 4: and stuff that they're getting I think is more important.
Speaker 1: I'm just really interested in is there a particular model of
Speaker 1: what is that called when for folks that don't know,
Speaker 1: when you're moving your moving your crop of turkeys and chickens,
Speaker 1: what is that called rotational greezing? I knew the answer,
Speaker 1: but I wanted, Yeah, he's not You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: pull it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the answers, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He's so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we rotate him, right, And I don't know
Speaker 4: if it's not as much as for the foraging like
Speaker 4: cows and stuff, but as much as for just the
Speaker 4: biological activity, you know, so they can get their bugs
Speaker 4: and there and access to dirt because they their crops
Speaker 4: are used to digest a lot of it as well, right,
Speaker 4: So so you know, so it's it's kind of the
Speaker 4: reason why we do it, and I think that's what
Speaker 4: helps with the taste of the bird. It's not because
Speaker 4: we do supplement them too with the grain and so
Speaker 4: they get that extra added nutrition and it helps with
Speaker 4: the meat.
Speaker 1: So, how how many turkeys are we talking about that
Speaker 1: y'all are raising right now?
Speaker 4: We usually try to do about between thirty and forty Okay,
Speaker 4: but we decided to do plus fifty this year.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so you got kicked it up a little bit,
Speaker 2: she did.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, all right, y'all behave well all fifty plus
Speaker 5: survive well.
Speaker 4: So, in the past we've always had trouble with and
Speaker 4: it's been in the breweder turkeys are very fragile first
Speaker 4: few weeks of life. So in the past we've actually
Speaker 4: had a lot of mortality, uh you know, trouble with
Speaker 4: them surviving in the first few weeks of their life.
Speaker 4: But we kind of figured out how to well, we
Speaker 4: got lucky on lately for the last three or four
Speaker 4: years where we haven't lost many, that's all. And so
Speaker 4: I think we ordered sixty and so with the expectation
Speaker 4: that that we'd probably lose well five six years ago
Speaker 4: we ordered sixty and hopefully we had thirty.
Speaker 2: So we'd had it. Had Oh, I didn't realize the
Speaker 2: ratio is that well.
Speaker 4: No, it's it was Oh it was.
Speaker 2: The operator, yes, not like corners.
Speaker 4: Yes, we found that out.
Speaker 2: Have a corner in your brooder.
Speaker 3: They oh, this is interesting, and so you have to
Speaker 3: fashion around.
Speaker 2: Corner. How did you figure this out? Just you saw it?
Speaker 2: Or yeah? They learning books and I'll just see it.
Speaker 3: So they will pile in the corners and literally suffocate
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 2: So get out. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you wake up and you've got to pile
Speaker 3: a ten dead turkeys that and.
Speaker 2: They literally did it to themselves. That was nothing. Well,
Speaker 2: it could be the colder temps.
Speaker 3: You know, they want to have heat, and so they
Speaker 3: just naturally pile up and then you know it's just
Speaker 3: drop them in the bucket like ten, twenty, thirty, forty fifty.
Speaker 3: You know, there goes one hundred bucks.
Speaker 4: So predators, right, okay, we are bruders outside. I mean
Speaker 4: it's it's undercover, but we don't have it in a
Speaker 4: in a lock barn or anything like that. So you
Speaker 4: can have your night night predators come by and they
Speaker 4: could scare them all into a corner. Two, how you
Speaker 4: could do it as well?
Speaker 1: So how do this is not something I was thinking
Speaker 1: of asking, But what do you do about that? Does
Speaker 1: it just happen or do you have different things? I
Speaker 1: know some people put like fake things out to just
Speaker 1: to scare or have sound machines, like how now involved.
Speaker 4: You get outside? Dogs work pretty well? Okay, because I
Speaker 4: mean they're close to the house, right, yeah, and so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so and and we've done many a night with a
Speaker 4: with a you know, shotgun and waiting on them too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what warriors or three years ago we lifted
Speaker 3: it up off the ground the brewer and that helped
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: That helped a lot. Awesome.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you guys, you know, I'm always thinking
Speaker 1: of Ross going up the steps with the couch pivot.
Speaker 1: Pivot pivot, you know, I'm thinking farming is the Quinn
Speaker 1: central pivot. It seems like you're always having to refigure,
Speaker 1: step back, recalculate.
Speaker 3: And the trouble with turkeys, we only do them one
Speaker 3: time a year, so we always forget, oh no, from.
Speaker 2: July to the next Oh, we wanted to remember this
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there goes to notekeeping.
Speaker 1: That's how we are with cider because we don't do
Speaker 1: cider all year and inevitably will go didn't we say
Speaker 1: last year we were gonna? But then when we do
Speaker 1: remember something like I five everybody here, we remember that
Speaker 1: it was a year and we remember that. Soho, who
Speaker 1: do you all get your inspiration from?
Speaker 2: Like, is there a.
Speaker 1: Particular person book ideology who really like drives your enthusiasm?
Speaker 1: For farming or your farm practices, like where did the
Speaker 1: inspiration come from?
Speaker 3: Initially I bought pretty hard into Joel Salatin and bought
Speaker 3: the Yukan Farm Book, and I heard him speak about it,
Speaker 3: you know, all the things followed him pretty closely. Never
Speaker 3: went to his farm though, and then that was kind
Speaker 3: of where we got our style of pasture poultry and
Speaker 3: wanting to do a system where the animals and their
Speaker 3: animal ness is actually determining what you do instead of
Speaker 3: it being based on like the human preference, it's based
Speaker 3: on the animal characteristics.
Speaker 2: So just playing into what they're already providing.
Speaker 3: That's right, okay, and what they naturally do, because training
Speaker 3: chickens is not very easy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't that doesn't sound like a fun thing I
Speaker 1: would want on my bingo card. So if you're following
Speaker 1: the ideas of dol, my thought then is do you
Speaker 1: have other animals grazing in the same areas with your
Speaker 1: chickens and turkeys?
Speaker 2: We had a pony the other day.
Speaker 4: So when we were at our height, probably you know,
Speaker 4: we've scaled back a lot, but yeah, we had the well,
Speaker 4: we we would sometimes move the chickens in behind the
Speaker 4: pigs and stuff, but.
Speaker 2: We also had that trouble. There's the pig, the chicken.
Speaker 2: Yeah out the craziest thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of her, we could go down this road.
Speaker 4: But so yeah, so so after that we were kind
Speaker 4: of like, all right, so we kind of got them apart.
Speaker 4: We think she had an iron deficiency, so I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, but whatever was not right there.
Speaker 1: She was a.
Speaker 4: Breeder and I think she was lacking something, but whatever,
Speaker 4: So so yeah, so but yeah, I mean a lot
Speaker 4: of that with with the and with with Joel's you know,
Speaker 4: especially with the pork. We were noticing that moving them around,
Speaker 4: getting them on grass was big for the for the
Speaker 4: pork because it seemed like it helped their digestion. They
Speaker 4: would eat and they'd go into the fields and you know,
Speaker 4: almost like it was a digestive thing. So it was
Speaker 4: so yeah, so Joel was a big one, but I
Speaker 4: think more importantly than Joel was.
Speaker 3: So Joel was kind of like a springboard. And then
Speaker 3: we were not following him exactly. You know, we don't
Speaker 3: have the cows and different you know, the grazing technique
Speaker 3: wasn't a picture fit. But the other thing that really
Speaker 3: influenced us was just the nutritional side. Farming, and I
Speaker 3: read a lot about Sally Fallon and her nourishing traditions
Speaker 3: and just a different way of eating and providing food.
Speaker 3: And what that looked like was, you know, just having
Speaker 3: a more whole food base to your diet. And so
Speaker 3: that was a big part of even wanting to continue
Speaker 3: farming really is just to have that food right there
Speaker 3: in your backyard and also as a product that other
Speaker 3: people in your community can have access to.
Speaker 2: Easily, beautifully said.
Speaker 1: So we talked about that there are turkeys still available.
Speaker 1: Can you share with folks how they can secure a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five turkey from y'all's farm?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the easiest is probably just the email
Speaker 3: to Idle Wild Farm. It's I D L E W
Speaker 3: I L D F A R M at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: And we have a website you can check out as well.
Speaker 5: When people come up when they pick up the turkey,
Speaker 5: will they be able to purchase any pork or chicken?
Speaker 5: Do you have that there still or good?
Speaker 4: So, yeah, we've you know, we have cut back for
Speaker 4: we still actually still sell to the health Nut and
Speaker 4: Lunchberg the Well in Bedford, so we still do about
Speaker 4: two to three hundred meat chickens a year and we
Speaker 4: have we processed nine pigs this a year or six
Speaker 4: or something. So but yeah, so we still have that,
Speaker 4: and yeah we do on farm sales occasionally when you
Speaker 4: can catch us. But but yeah, so if if you
Speaker 4: do get a turkey, you can come out and we'll
Speaker 4: probably have pork and chicken available for sale as well.
Speaker 5: Eggs not so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we're kind of our egg production has dropped
Speaker 4: off dramatically. We lost one of our dogs, Morgan. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she passed away at summer. Merlin's doing a great job,
Speaker 4: but I think we're slowly getting cold out by the
Speaker 4: foxes and and and and birds. But it's about time
Speaker 4: to replenish that. But eggs are they're they're limited.
Speaker 1: Early enough for your family and that's that's where it
Speaker 1: needs to stay. So you mentioned that people can find
Speaker 1: your pork and chicken in different spots.
Speaker 2: Well, and what was the place.
Speaker 4: In the health nut when her forest?
Speaker 2: Yep, they still and that's pork and chicken.
Speaker 4: They do pork and chicken at the health Nut the
Speaker 4: well every now they have.
Speaker 5: Eggs at the well. I've got your eggs.
Speaker 1: And with pork, do you sell cuts or are you
Speaker 1: selling if someone wants to buy porn and balk, can
Speaker 1: they do.
Speaker 2: A pork share with you?
Speaker 4: So we do, so we're selling them by the cut. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we don't do the whole and half hogs much anymore
Speaker 4: just because we're so we only we only do like
Speaker 4: you know, eight to nine a year, right, so and
Speaker 4: we don't have any this year, so for this is
Speaker 4: coming up here.
Speaker 1: So all right, Well, I think that we've really Uh
Speaker 1: I'm excited that you still have turkeys leftover. So if
Speaker 1: listeners want to be a part of having a local
Speaker 1: Bedford County turkey.
Speaker 2: They can do that.
Speaker 1: And uh, the other thing is is there anything else
Speaker 1: we need to know about y'all your farm or anything else?
Speaker 1: Because we're getting ready to go into announcements, but is
Speaker 1: there something that we didn't go over that you just.
Speaker 2: Like, hey, we need to say this.
Speaker 3: I guess if you want to try farming, I encourage
Speaker 3: you greatly. We love to be a resource for people
Speaker 3: if people want to come out check out what we
Speaker 3: do because it is unique. We kind of we're not
Speaker 3: the fanciest farm out there. We just kind of make
Speaker 3: it happen with what we got, so that can be encouraging.
Speaker 3: The people to see like, hey, I can do this too, right,
Speaker 3: It's pretty accessible coming from a like an input status.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to buy all in to
Speaker 3: get a few chickens and check it out.
Speaker 5: So I.
Speaker 3: Like to encourage people to come out and just see
Speaker 3: how it is. A lot of times they're surprised that
Speaker 3: it's really not as big as you might in your
Speaker 3: mind thinking it is. And then I also love to
Speaker 3: include children in agriculture. We have four of our own
Speaker 3: and they may or may not be farmers when they
Speaker 3: grow up, and that's fine too, but just to have
Speaker 3: them experience being outside with farm animals is very healthy
Speaker 3: and great for kids, good experience for them to have.
Speaker 1: So I think what you just said, whether they're farmers
Speaker 1: or not, I think any farm kid that lifestyle is
Speaker 1: not in vain because whether they pursue farming or not,
Speaker 1: the work ethic, just knowing where their food comes from,
Speaker 1: there's so many things you can glean just by having
Speaker 1: your child around it, and whether or not they pursue
Speaker 1: it or not, it's not in vain.
Speaker 2: It's still going to be. I'm glad we did that.
Speaker 2: There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah sure, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and just.
Speaker 3: The consistency, you know, like it's every day m hmmm,
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if it's one hundred or a negative.
Speaker 1: Fife work ethic, Yes, yes, and something can. You're very
Speaker 1: welcoming about your encouragement and offering and folks to stop by.
Speaker 1: I love that, Thank you for that. And how do
Speaker 1: they do that? I'm assuming you don't want people just
Speaker 1: to pop in. What does that look like if someone
Speaker 1: wants to chat with you or learn more?
Speaker 3: Right, So, when we have initial contacts for customers, a
Speaker 3: lot of times I want to make a point to
Speaker 3: meet them and offer the farm tour just kind of
Speaker 3: check it out. Moving forward, we will set up times
Speaker 3: they can come pick up product. And because we don't
Speaker 3: always have time to meet and greet and chat understood,
Speaker 3: even though that's a lovely way to do life, it's
Speaker 3: a little more busy than that. So generally just reaching
Speaker 3: out through email.
Speaker 1: And give us, give us the ways people can connect
Speaker 1: with you one more time. So I love this idea
Speaker 1: of face to face, get to know who's the people
Speaker 1: raising and growing your food. And then, like you said,
Speaker 1: you can't always stop what you're doing and have a
Speaker 1: meet and greet.
Speaker 2: But if you schedule something.
Speaker 1: Everyone can set time aside and make it a meaningful
Speaker 1: connection and I love that. That is so welcoming. So
Speaker 1: give folks the connecting points one more time about how
Speaker 1: they can reach you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got a website with all our information on it.
Speaker 3: It's www dot idlewildfarm dot org and you can email
Speaker 3: us through that and has our phone number and everything wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, guys. It was great chatting with
Speaker 1: you and just getting to learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about folks. I went and raising our food right here
Speaker 1: in Bedford County. So since we have Darthy with us
Speaker 1: today and Darthy you are all things forest farmers Market,
Speaker 1: go ahead and tell folks about what's going on with
Speaker 1: the forest Farmer's market.
Speaker 5: Sure, so we are still having markets. We changed times
Speaker 5: right now from nine to we were eight to noon.
Speaker 5: We are now nine to noons. So there's a little
Speaker 5: bit more light, a little bit more warmth, a little
Speaker 5: more camaraderie there going on. We will go till November
Speaker 5: twenty second. November twenty second is kind of like a
Speaker 5: holiday market. We have approximately sixty vendors that day, all varieties.
Speaker 5: There will be other farms in the area that might
Speaker 5: have turkeys there too, because there's quite a few. In
Speaker 5: the beginning, when I first had the over streets with us,
Speaker 5: we didn't have that many people doing turkeys, and now
Speaker 5: it seems that I think I have three or four.
Speaker 2: It will be there too that my or might not.
Speaker 5: They need to check with that particular vent rate kind
Speaker 5: of thing. And then we'll have a market on December thirteenth,
Speaker 5: which is a holiday market right before Christmas, and we'll
Speaker 5: have about fifty five inders then.
Speaker 2: But you will not have market in January or week go.
Speaker 5: Once a month, we take a little bit of a break,
Speaker 5: and then we go the second Saturdays of the month
Speaker 5: from January to April. Ok those are nine to noon.
Speaker 2: So you're never a month without the market.
Speaker 1: That just may look unless it snows, right, And I
Speaker 1: would say to look at your Facebook page.
Speaker 5: Facebook, and there's a website Forrest Farmersmarket dot com. I
Speaker 5: try and keep that updated at least with the dates.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's that is a good resource. So we've
Speaker 1: talked about Thanksgiving turkeys and going to the market to
Speaker 1: get what you need. Now we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: Christmas trees. Hatcher Christmas Trees will be open for just
Speaker 1: one weekend in twenty twenty five and you can join
Speaker 1: them November twenty eight through thirtieth to get your Christmas tree.
Speaker 1: All trees are sixty dollars. They're located at forty sixty
Speaker 1: four Phoenix Mill Road and that's in Bedford as well.
Speaker 1: To get up with them, you can call five four
Speaker 1: zero three three zero nine one one three. They also
Speaker 1: have a Facebook page and under Hatcher Christmas Trees, and
Speaker 1: on that Facebook page they say what type of trees
Speaker 1: they have, so if you're looking for a particular tree,
Speaker 1: they note that on their Facebook page. So again Hatcher
Speaker 1: Christmas Tree. Christmas Tree sales will only be the weekend
Speaker 1: of November twenty eighth, twenty ninth, and thirtieth, so we
Speaker 1: are just rolled up.
Speaker 5: They don't have a little bit of crafters that day too,
Speaker 5: don't they.
Speaker 1: I think I saw that they're going to have it's
Speaker 1: a new this year, like pottery and things like that,
Speaker 1: so I think it's going to be a fun event
Speaker 1: to go out there. We've got our Christmas tree there
Speaker 1: maybe two or three years. He's they're a really nice
Speaker 1: family and we enjoy chatting with them. Last year that
Speaker 1: we just went out calfield and got an old cedar tree.
Speaker 2: And kept it.
Speaker 1: Really just a little hometown, little country Christmas. But we
Speaker 1: like working with the Hatchers a lot. They're great folks.
Speaker 1: December third at seven pm is our next ag Board
Speaker 1: meeting and this is open to the public. Our meetings
Speaker 1: are at the County Building on Falling Creek Road, and
Speaker 1: again December third at seven pm. Our ag Board meeting
Speaker 1: is always open to the public, so join us if
Speaker 1: you want to. And then January twentieth, spring Lake at
Speaker 1: six pm will there will be the Bedford Beef Producers.
Speaker 1: They will be having an educational meeting basically talking to
Speaker 1: folks about estate planning in regards to agriculture. And you
Speaker 1: can be in farming or just interested in farming.
Speaker 2: Have cows, not have cows.
Speaker 1: It's really they just if this is something that you
Speaker 1: think you could learn from, they invite you again spring
Speaker 1: Lake at six pm. If you want more information, you
Speaker 1: can talk to Scott Baker who is our county Extension
Speaker 1: agent and his office number is five four zero five
Speaker 1: eight six seventy six seventy five. All right, so please
Speaker 1: remember to explore all of our local ag podcasts and
Speaker 1: you can download the free media Squatch plus app to
Speaker 1: access this and numerous other local podcasts, and we invite
Speaker 1: you to discover and enjoy them all there. This is
Speaker 1: a great resource for really staying in the loop with
Speaker 1: your community. So wonderful option there. And we're always, always,
Speaker 1: always grateful for Media Squatch and their crew. They're making
Speaker 1: the local ag podcast a reality, putting up with us
Speaker 1: and the trains and all the things that We're always grateful,
Speaker 1: big thanks to our guests today, and we want to
Speaker 1: wish everyone listening a very happy Thanksgiving. We hope it's
Speaker 1: filled with love, good food, and great memories. This is
Speaker 1: Melody Divers reminding you to be good to yourself and
Speaker 1: be good to others.