Saturday at ARTfarm, 10am – 12 noon

Harvested for you, for Saturday: Lots of sweet potatoes, sweet potato greens, bunched arugula, pumpkin, seasoning peppers, garlic chives, parsley, rosemary, lemongrass, papaya, a few dragonfruit. 

From our partner farmers we have beautiful local mild goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm and hopefully we will also have avocados from Tita!

Pet owners who need unsupervised off-leash time for their pets can safely contain them in permanent or portable fencing. The tamest and sweetest of house pets can maim, injure and kill livestock.
The number one problem for livestock farmers on St. Croix is feral dog attacks. Even dogs as small as 10 to 30 pounds can wreak havoc, gravely stress and injure, and even kill a turkey, chicken, sheep or goat. Early Thursday morning a pack of three small dogs slipped through a woven-wire fence into the paddock where our rams were grazing. The dogs inflicted deep, painful, severe bite wounds on the face, neck and legs of one of the rams, who has lost a lot of blood and has been in a state of shock. We treated him with medication and palliative care and further increased the fence security for the other rams. So far we have been unable to trap the dogs responsible and have had three stressful sleepless nights protecting our livestock as the pack continues to roam widely across and around the four farms in this area. 

All this to say, NEVER abandon a dog or cat.  Please instead find them a responsible home or release them to the animal shelter. It is kinder to ALL animals to do so. Stray animals often injure and kill other wild and domestic animals, only compounding the misery from overpopulation. It’s sadly true that the shelter sometimes has to euthanize unadopted animals, but by releasing animals into the ‘wild’ instead of bringing them to the shelter, it is much less likely that they will ever be adopted (they can become untame-able and can contract heartworm, injuries other health issues) and in the meantime they may be hurting or killing yet more animals, acquiring and spreading disease or injury, or even breeding. 

Do not let pet animals roam off your property – keep them indoors, on a leash, or use a secure fence and train your pets to respect it. Never assume that your ‘gentle beloved house pet would never’ wander quite far, join with other animals, and act instinctively and violently when it is loose away from you and in the presence of prey animals such as poultry or sheep. A pet animal caught injuring livestock may be fatally injured and the pet owner held liable for damages. Most pet owners would be quite surprised and shocked to see the instinctive behaviors their pet is readily capable of.

Please, support the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center. We thank the staff there and all the other animal lovers on St. Croix who work hard to recover feral dogs and cats from the bush or the streets, and find them homes. 

ARTfarm Is-it-really-late-August Wednesday 3-5:30pm

Flamboyant trees are blooming on the farm.
Summer is gliding along. Here’s the afternoon farmstand lineup: Lots of sweet potatoes, sweet potato greens, garlic chives, rosemary, lemongrass, papaya, dragonfruit. And avocados from Tita! 

It’s hot out there folks. Drink water (or bush tea), lower your expectations and hit the beach!

Love, ARTfarm

Pre-Eclipse Saturday Farmstand 10am – 12 noon

Join us on the path of partial totality and make sure you’ve got all the most cosmic farm-fresh eclipse snacks ready for Monday afternoon’s Lunar vs. Solar battle of the century! Re-create the solar system with fruit, and then eat your working model!

Here’s what we’ve got for you to work with: Lots of papaya, huge amounts of dragonfruit, passionfruit, pumpkin, lots of sweet potatoes and sweet potato cooking greens, seasoning peppers, bunched arugula, Italian basil, garlic chives, recao, rosemary, lemongrass! Plus lots of native trees and pineapple slips for those interested in doing some gardening under this auspicious alignment of planetary energy. 

And from our partners we have local goat cheese from Fiddlewood Farm (very moon-like) and avocado and limes from Tita!

Multiple Dragons on Wednesday 3–5:30pm

It’s dragon season! This afternoon at ARTfarm we will have half a dozen different kinds of dragonfruit, including the shy producer Zamorono! Come try one of each!  We also picked for you: Lots of papaya, lots of sweet potato, sweet potato greens, Italian basil, garlic chives, recao, lemongrass and passionfruit. Pumpkin slices by request, just let us know we’ll cut you a fresh slice!

From our partners we have beautiful eggs from Yellow Door Farm, and avocados and limes from Tita.