Happy Holidays from all of us!

We wish you a "berry" Christmas and a happy new year!

Carmen, Keith, Frances, Lily and Parker

White Birch Dinner Club at Fruition Orchards!

Check us out in Penny's blog:  http://www.wanderlustandwords.blogspot.com/

We had a great evening with White Birch Catering.  We hosted their monthly dinner club at the farm.  If you want to experience food in a way you can't in a restaurant, you should become dinner club members!  Amazing food in a unique atmosphere, great people, and a learning experience about food all in one evening! 

our philosophy on raising animals...

We have had alot of interest in our animals lately, and we get a lot of questions about what exactly we do with our animals. Our family farm raises goats, sheep, and heritage poultry (so far, chickens mainly, as well as a smattering of ducks and a few turkeys). We strive to mimic how animals would behave if they were out in nature on their own.

We raise sheep and goats to use as lawn mowers and fertilizers in our orchards. They graze between the trees and eat the weeds and keep the trees from suckering. The chickens and ducks wander around after them, eating bugs and dragging straw around the orchard, consequently mulching around many of the trees. This is time and labour intensive for us, we move a temporary fence around the orchard to prevent the animals from eating the trees, and we haul water to them. We treat our animals kindly and compassionately. All our animals have 24 hour access to indoor and outdoor spaces, fresh water and food. All of our animals are used to being around people... They are handled kindly by our family and we ensure that everyone who comes to our farm does the same.

We also slaughter our animals for meat. We slaughter chickens ourselves and take our small livestock to a provincially inspected abbatoir. We have taught our children that these animals are not just pets, but are also being raised for meat. And they should be treated compassionately.

If you are interested in what we are doing, we would be happy to have you out to our farm and show you around. We also do school tours and have opportunities for people to help out.

Now featuring in our chicken house - fresh farm eggs!!

Five days ago our chickens started laying eggs! We were pretty excited and the novelty still hasn't worn off for the girls - they go and collect the eggs every morning and have one each for breakfast. They are the best tasting eggs we have ever eaten. (according to us!)

We think our chickens look pretty, happy, they have inside and outside areas to roam around, plenty of food and water, and lots of company. So, we are naming our eggs "Happy Chicken" - now available Wednesdays and Sundays at our Farmers' Market booth!

In the Fruition Kitchen...

I started a new blog, all about jam! (and anything else that you can put in a jar)

www.inthefruitionkitchen.blogspot.com

The barn reno

After much consideration, we decided to renovate the old barn on our farm. The roof looked like it was going to fall down, so we decided to take the roof off and see if the rest of it could be fixed structurally.

We replaced the hayloft floor and straightened out the walls, and then replaced the front and back and added some doors...

And, for the roof, we are installing a greenhouse. We'll see how it holds up in the wind!

looking for a summer student!

We are looking for a full time summer student to start June 1. Must be returning to school in the fall, have a driver's license, and some experience with small farm equipment (garden tractor, pull type equipment and ATV). Contact us for more details!

We are also pleased to welcome Tim and Calvin as our summer help this year... They will be working with our 4H program and helping us in the orchards, as well as doing a bit of landscaping and clean up after the flooding.

goats and sheep and puppies (oh my!)

The critters have started arriving at Fruition Orchards - we have six adult pygmy goats and two kids, six sheep, and a great pyrenees puppy named Buster (to keep the sheep safe from the coyotes). We are still looking forward to the chicken entourage, starting to come at the end of March, and a three year old miniature donkey named Tuesday this spring!

the chickens are coming, the chickens are coming!

Since we've moved to the farm and the weather got cold, we've been fantasizing about adding an animal entourage to our farm. I think we are too scared to dream too big about our orchards this year, considering we don't know what to expect when the ground thaws and we see how many trees we have actually lost.
So, we ordered our first critters - chickens! Lots of chickens! Lots of different kinds of chickens!
So, if we don't have fruit, hopefully we'll have eggs!
We're working in partnership with a 4H group through YDC, we'll house the chickens and they will assist in taking care of them. They will be making their first debut at the Saskatoon Farmers Market on April 20... stay tuned to find out how this all goes...

...about our orchard honey

Honey takes on different flavours and aromas depending on what type of blossoms bees collect their nectar from. Honey is commercially distributed by collecting from various apiaries and mixing all of the honey together.

Our beehives are located in the midst of our own fruit orchard. Our bees exclusively pollinate our fruit trees, which creates a honey with a unique flavour and aroma by concentrating their nectar collection on the fruit blossoms.

We've infused pure fruit juice to our orchard honey. This creates an extraordinary and flavourful honey that can be used in many unique ways.

Here are some ideas for using fruit infused orchard honey...

• as a sweetener for hot tea or iced tea


• as a glaze for baked chicken or ham


• try it in a martini - drizzle on top of chilled vodka or gin


• use in baking instead of sugar


• as a sweetener for hot oatmeal, granola, or your favourite cereal
• on ice cream


• great mixed into plain yoghurt


• in fruit salad for some extra zing


• and of course, perfect on toast or with a peanut butter sandwich!

Our flavours include sour cherry, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, and mango. We also have a spiced honey flavour.

We are at the farmers market every Wednesday and Saturday!