Meat, Poultry, Eggs and Produce
Located in a rural corner of Lexington, Massachusetts, Meadow Mist is an integrated small farm that raises and sells grass fed beef, lamb, pastured chicken and turkey, cage-free fresh eggs, and seasonal garden vegetables and berries. We use only organically certified animal feeds, and avoid the use of any type of insecticide, herbicide or fungicide on our gardens and pastures. We rely on crop rotation, on-site composting, cover cropping and rotational grazing to build soil health.
Welcome.
Fresh Picked - Summer Harvest
It won't be long
Farm News and Current Offerings
March 16, 2013
Our Spring Egg CSA is now closed. Pick Ups begin on April 1 st and continue for three months.
Pastured Organically Fed Chicken
Best tasting chicken available. sold out
Grass fed beef: is here! Cuts and prices on our Fresh Pickin's Page
Naturally raised lamb: Available NOW. Check cuts and prices on the "Fresh Pickin's" page.
Cage free organically fed farm fresh eggs: One of our most popular farm products, our eggs are sold mainly through our 3-month Egg Share CSA. Some additional eggs are available for retail sale here at the farm. Please call to check availability.
Genuine organic, single cold pressed, unfiltered, unprocessed, extra virgin, single estate Sicilian olive oil. The best Italy has to offer. Lexington resident Giuseppe Taibi imports this premium product from his family's generational olive farm in Sicily. For the best and freshest quality, buy small quantities and use it quickly. Available from Meadow Mist.
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Losing 'Virginity': Olive Oil's 'Scandalous' Fraud
Olive oil is one of the central ingredients in the Mediterranean diet. But producing a truly natural, high quality olive oil is a far more complex and time consuming process than most people know.
Recently, Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air program interviewed Tom Mueller, author of "Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil"
TOM MUELLER: “Olive oil is really the only commercially important vegetable oil to be made from a fresh fruit. Everything else is made from seeds or nuts. And what that means, essentially, is that on the one hand, olive oil, you're getting fresh-squeezed fruit juice. And on the other hand, you're getting what has to be highly refined to make it edible. So soybean and sunflower and so on are always run through a refinery, whereas extra virgin olive oil should never be run through a refinery. It's a kind of a heavy industrial process, where the hexane or another industrial solvent is dumped on the crushed seeds or nuts, and then once the oil is out, it has to be de-solvent-ized and de-acidified and deodorized and de-gummed and all the other D's that you can imagine, which pretty heavily impacts the chemical structure of the oil.”
“And olive oil, you know, being fresh-squeezed fruit juice, has a remarkable range of highly beneficial ingredients that is very perishable and would disappear if you refined it. What that gets you from a health perspective is a cocktail of 200-plus highly beneficial ingredients that explain why olive oil has been the heart of the Mediterranean diet. And at the same time, you have a huge range, since olive oil is - comes from 700 different kinds of olives, you have a huge range of cooking options that great chefs are only just beginning to understand and use.”
You can read the rest of the transcript here:
(by copying and pasting to your browser)
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=143154180
Saved from the Dump!
We will soon have available bundled firewood kindling and bagged mini press-logs from our mill in Somerville. The kindling consists of strips of kiln dried lumber of various species. The logs (measuring about 2 inches in diameter by 4 inches long) are pressed from sawdust and wood shavings. Most of the material would otherwise end up on a landfill.
VOLUNTEER DAY AT MEADOW MIST FARM Sunday May 5th 10:30 am
We will be planting 500 strawberry plants tomorrow Sunday May 5th 10:30 am until we are finished along with some yellow raspberries and black berry bushes. It should be a lot of fun. Would anyone like to come over and join us? Wear causal, old clothes, long sleeves, long pants, hat, apply sunscreen and bug spray before coming or we will have some (Maybe not your brand )bring gloves and any hand spades you would like, we also have some. Any questions you may email us or call us. See you tomorrow!
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142 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02421
781-354-5037 laurenyaffee@gmail.com
(We are a small operation and off the beaten path, so please see directions on the Contact page, and call ahead if you're coming by)
We understand what food should be:
"Wholesome, seasonal, raised naturally, procured locally, prepared lovingly, and eaten with a profound reverence for the circle of life."
From The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollen
Meadow Mist Farm
To receive weekly emails of current offerings during the growing season, email us at laurenyaffee@gmail.com and write "add to list."
End of the Road
The watering hole - Garden pond in late spring
Presentation and Q & A with Rancher and Restoration Ecologist
Allan Savory
Founder of the Savory Institute and originator of the Holistic Management approach to restoring grasslands, winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award, finalist in the Virgin Earth Challenge
While governments posture and dither, a pragmatic practitioner and intellectual entrepreneur, Allan Savory, has been developing and demonstrating a powerful technique that can reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere immediately while reversing desertification and providing livelihoods and food for millions of people. His applied research based in Zimbabwe on the restoration of grasslands has now been replicated onmillions of acres worldwide. The application of his methods has the potential to significantly reduce atmospheric carbon through an increase in plant growth and soil formation. This process begins immediately and involves no new technologies, only a shift to the Holistic Management practices for livestock that he has pioneered. Major organizations and institutions are now recognizing his work, but climate scientists and governments have yet to incorporate it into their analyses and policy prescriptions.
Free and open to the public. Hosted by the Agriculture, Forests, and Biodiversity Program of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School and Planet-TECH Associates.
View event flyer
.MEADOW MIST FARM ALSO PRACTICES SUSTAINABLE FARMING PRACTICES
5 Things You Don't Know About Sustainable Farming
By Allison Gray, PBS Food
For more than 40 years, Earth Day has raised awareness around the need for environmental conservation. Sustainable agriculture embodies what Earth Day is all about–protecting our landscape from development by keeping it in production, while providing healthy and nutritious food for our communities.
I talked to Kathleen Frith, president of Glynwood, an agricultural nonprofit based in Cold Spring, NY working to strengthen the regional food system in the Hudson Valley, to get her perspective on how we can advance the field of sustainable agriculture. Along the way, I learned five surprising facts about sustainable farming and food that you might not be aware of.
MEADOW MIST FARM ALSO PRACTICES SUSTAINABLE FARMING PRACTICES
1. While livestock is important to keeping our agricultural land in production and our ability to provide healthy food to our communities, most of the meat in our country is raised through CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations, which have a host of environmental and animal welfare issues. These operations don’t provide much room for the animals and use antibiotics to keep animals disease-free.
The good news is that there is a growing sustainable meat production movement. “Sustainable farms, such as Glynwood’s Farm, integrate their livestock into the fertilization process across the entire farming operation. There is a way to raise animals in an environmental and humane manner that results in really beautiful meat,” said Frith.
2. It’s difficult to source organic feed for livestock, especially grain. “At Glynwood, we have moved away from all genetically modified feed for our livestock, but it’s proven challenging to produce food in an economically viable way that doesn’t involve genetically modified feeds,” said Frith. Organic feed is more expensive and harder to procure than traditional feed varieties, and raises the cost. “We need to expand our availability of affordable, organic feed,” adds Frith.
3.. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture performed by the USDA, the average age of farmers across the country is around 57, and the fastest growing group of farmers is 65 and older. “We are quickly losing our farming population, so one of our priorities at Glynwood is to help new and young farmers overcome the challenges that are inherent in entering the field of farming. We desperately need new farmers, but it’s particularly hard to access land and capital when you’re just starting out,” said Frith. One of the many things Glynwood has done to respond to this need is to develop a farmer apprentice program that offers both farm-based and business training. “There is a growing interest in sustainable agriculture, but those just entering need training, which, historically, has been handed down from generation to generation.”
4. Agriculture needs to transition towards more of a regional-based system, creating products and using farming techniques that are suitable for particular regions. “I would like to see a regionally-based agricultural system across the nation that produces specific products that speak to that particular region,” said Frith.
One way Glynwood is working to create a regional food identity in the Hudson Valley is through its Apple Project, which has fostered the creation of a regional food culture around hard cider produced in the region. “Many farmers have been losing their apple orchards because traditional apple production is economically challenging, so we’ve been working with apple growers to help promote craft hard cider production. Due in large part to Glynwood’s work in this area, we’ve witnessed a recent reemergence of hard cider, which is actually one of the most traditional American beverages.”
5. Rural communities are becoming increasingly aware that keeping their landscape in agricultural production is essential for their economic viability. As a result, sustainable food and farming is now recognized as a critical component of community planning and development, as rural communities work to ensure economic prosperity into the future. Another one of Glynwood’s programs, Keep Farming, helps communities do just that by guiding them through a process of identifying their agricultural resources and establishing strategies that will encourage the long-term viability of farming.
