Sonrisa Family Farms

27/03/2015

This Winter Caroline Spurgin and Alycia Lang came out to Sonrisa to write an article and take pictures for Fibershed's blog about our Angora goats, new Romney sheep and me for Fibershed. If you are interested in local fibers and the animals that produce them, they are a great local organization to connect with!

I'll be introducing our new kids for sale this year very, very shortly : ) Our new brown buck Tallis was our good luck charm this year and we have had 6 doelings, and one buckling born : ) All beautiful browns and blacks.

By Caroline Spurgin / Photos by Alycia Lang Lisa Colorado is one of those people with such tangible conviction it all but glints in the sun. She is an activist, philosopher, academic, wife, mother,...

31/08/2014

Dear FB friends,

I have appreciated your commitment to supporting our small farm over the past 3 years and wanted to let everyone know who connects with it through this medium that I am switching my farm focus from a diverse farm to a fiber farm and focusing more on my family and working with Mohair & fiber arts. Being committed to the whole foods movement, I will still be raising pastured poultry yearly for my family's needs and still have a baker's dozen flock of laying hens and a super large garden space (with all the canning and preserving I like to do), but due to the energy it takes to keep things running on a large scale and the dawn to dark 30 time commitment that all farms need, I know in my heart that it is the right choice at this time.

Being committed to the whole foods movement takes a lot of work and I commend you all for what you are doing to support the local food movement through choosing to buy and support farms and establishments that focus on growing, serving or providing wholesome, healthy and healing foods. I will be putting a sourcing list together for interested people for pastured poultry, pastured eggs, pastured pork, 100% grassfed beef, wild caught fish, free trade coffee, along with fruit, grain and vegetable sourcing through organic, sustainable and regenerative farms. Please message me directly on FB with your email address and I'll email you back this list that I feel good standing behind : )

*Please keep in mind that pasture raised products are not always organic, which means the grains they are fed have GMO's in it, so be sure to ask the farms, stores or farmers market vendors that are selling pastured meats or eggs if the animals are fed organic feed if they are not certified organic with the product you are looking to buy.

In Health and Wholeness,

~Lisa

08/08/2014

Experimenting in my test garden with a sheet mulching layering process over the Winter has resulted in an amazing Summer garden. My main resource and inspiration came from the book Gia's Garden, you should check it out : ) Planted are~ Blue Guatemalan Corn, Sweet Corn, Amaranth, Cantaloupe, Tomatoes, Eggplants, Sweet Peppers, Tomatillo's, Runner Beans, English Peas, Sunflowers, Edamame and Quinoa. I plan on doing the same techniques for my market garden for next year.

Hope your gardens are happy and giving you awesome healthy food!

30/07/2014

Three small gifts from the universe.

One of my favorite kiddo's Odin found these three kittens under our farm stand this morning when he was playing with berry baskets on the patio this morning. He honored them with the names Blackberry, Raspberry and Tucan (I'm calling this little guy Tuci for short). We are going to trap the mom to get her spayed through Forgotten Felines. Hopefully these three will grow up to be good mousers.

25/07/2014

"Hey Mister, wanna buy a duck?"

We had runner duck babies born yesterday and another group born 3 weeks ago that have already feathered out and are ready to find a new forever home. Runner ducks are the most voracious bug eaters! A great IPM tool for your backyard/garden. Two ducks will keep snails, slugs and cucumber beetles in check. I am rehoming most of them. Their colors are blue, fawn and white & black. A baby pool and night time enclosed shelter is a must for these guys if you are seriously interested. Contact me at 707-338-2998. If you have any friends interested in ducks too, feel free to share this post ~Lisa

25/06/2014

Yes, it's that time of year again : )

We have our first group of sustainably raised pastured poultry available on this Sunday from noon-Sunset. We sold out fast with our last group last year, so we are taking reservations for our first group this year to pick up at our farm on this Sunday (June 29th). This group of Freedom Rangers were raised as roasters and have turned out awesome. I expect that most of them will have a finished weight between 4-5 lbs. Our pricing is $6.00 per lb. Let me know how many you would like me to reserve for you via e-mail at [email protected]. Pick up will be from noon-Sunset on Sunday. All of our poultry is packaged in BPA free shrink bag packaging, which makes it so chickens will freeze well if you are getting more then one and freezer burn is a non issue (Yay!). If you are interested in chicken parts too, please let me know so I can set some aside for you.

All of our poultry and laying hens get locally sourced organic feed only and live in a pasture environment where they get to forage on grass, seed heads and insects and do their chicken thing : ) They also gets supplemented with garden greens and organic kelp meal too. Food quality and optimal care of ALL of our livestock is always a top priority for me, so you can rest assured that you are getting the exceptional pastured poultry that all of us hope we are getting when buying grass fed or wild caught meats.

If you would like me to add pastured eggs to your order, please let me know too, as I will need to make sure they are set aside and available for pick up also. Veggies and herbs are starting to come in too, so make sure to browse the farm stand when you are here : )

Our address is 2454 East Washington St. in Petaluma.

~Lisa
Sonrisa Family Farms
707-338-2998

06/05/2014

"Yogurt. Yum! " We started recently started giving our laying girls a small amount of homemade yogurt or kefir every week as a natural probiotic to make sure that they are happy and have the optimum nutrients they need.

09/04/2014

The last two of our Angora bucklings were born this Saturday. The mom gave no indication of being ready until I heard her bleating four times loudly. Knowing that sound, I ran out of the greenhouse to find her in labor under a large willow tree. Grabbing her birthing kit, I made it back just in time and helped her deliver her first little boy kid and clean him up. I was able to move Daisy over to her kidding stall to deliver her second kid, which she did smoothly a half hour later. Daisy is such a great mom and her babies were up on their feet and nursing within half an hour. Here is a pic of the little darlings.

21/03/2014

We are happy to be hosting a series of Holistic Events this year at Sonrisa Family Farms! The first of which is our Cobb Oven Building Workshop on June 7th and 8th that is designed for all of you bread and pizza making enthusiasts who have dreamed of making a pizza of your own in the great outdoors! You can find more about this class lead by Miguel Elliot at our events page at sonrisafamilyfarms.com and find out about Miguel's extensive earthen building background on our Instructor Bio page too.

Happy Friday!

16/03/2014

We are all about the goatie goat love these days : ) Here is a picture of Rae with her two five day old kids Pablo and Salvador.

27/02/2014

A lot has happened since Fall at Sonrisa! We pressed apples for fresh juice, did a LOT of rice straw bale mulching in the large garden, planted cover crops, sheet mulched the small garden, displayed fiber at the Fibershed Symposium, played with Kefir, Kraut and sourdough ferments, planted new fruit trees and the list goes on.

We also acquired a new livestock guardian dog named Pearl this Winter. She has made the hawk predation issue that we were having that took out 12 hens a thing of the past (Thank you Pearlie girlie!) and she helps protect our Angora Goats from the coyotes that range on the property at night. We do give Pearl puppy play time every day with our farm dogs Riley and Gracie, so her life is not always about protecting. She's a sweet dog and we are thankful for her presence. We just had our first Angora kids named Diego born last Saturday and are expecting 4 more kiddos soon!

Yay! Green is finally abounding at the end of this February thanks to Mother Nature bestowing the much needed rain : )

24/12/2013

Wishing you all love, warmth and much to be merry about!