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Reflections on 2024

written by

Jesse Straight

posted on

December 25, 2024

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2025 is just around the corner!

It’s hard to believe another year has flown by. As always, it was a year filled with adventure, and looking back, we are grateful and encouraged by all we were able to accomplish. So here’s the recap of Whiffletree’s 2024!

Whiffletree Crew:

This year, we had another set of amazing interns come through our farm!

  • Tyfani (Maryland): Tyfani joined us over the winter to gain some experience working on a regenerative livestock farm. She did a great job and was always cheerful and friendly. And bonus - she was a great cook! Now she attends the University of Maryland, pursuing a degree in horticulture. 
  • Lily (Florida): Lily came to join us during her gap year before starting school at the University of Florida. She was an excellent intern and worker, attentive to detail, and so great to have around!
  • Caroline (Virginia): Caroline is a track and cross country runner at JMU. She joined us as an intern for the summer with the interest of maybe getting something going on her grandparent’s old farm. Every now and then on breaks from school she pops in for a couple days to work with us!
  • Andrew (Virginia): Andrew is a local who graduated from the same high school as Jesse. He is a great and solid guy, and he is starting up his own business of growing mushrooms and micro-greens. We’re excited to see where that takes him! He also works part time now as the delivery driver for Whiffletree!
  • Akili (Virginia): Another Virginia local, Akili is a fellow you might recognize from being featured in the newspaper for completing the Appalachian Trail last year. He did the summer internship with us and has since stayed on as an all-star, full time employee!
  • Andy (Virginia): Andy grew up in a military family and attended college in Florida, but now lives with his family in Bristow, VA. He came for the fall internship, and was a good and thoughtful guy. He did great work with us! 
  • Anna (Virginia): Anna is a local to the Warrenton area, and her family has known Jesse since he was in high school. She helped out with chores, deliveries, and working the farm store, and she learned a lot! Her kind and cheerful spirit and smile were a treat, and she was a great worker!
  • Lani (Virginia): Lani is a long-time customer who is digging into the details of regenerative livestock farming over this winter and into the spring of 2025.  She is an enthusiastic and thoughtful addition to the team!

Some of our team also had some pretty cool things they did this year or life changes that happened to them!

  • Melanie (bookkeeper; inventory, processing, and freezer manager): Melanie and her husband Patrick are welcoming their first baby in January! The whole farm is so excited to meet their baby. Congratulations, Melanie and Patrick!
  • Elliot (cattle manager): After two years of working as the cattle manager for Whiffletree Farm, Elliot is moving on to work for the farm who supplies us with our calves. He was great to have as our cowboy and will be missed!
  • Carmen (farm store and neighborhood delivery manager): Carmen, who has been a part of the Whiffletree team for almost five years now, is engaged! We’re all excited for her and her fiance Brendon!
  • Bethany (wholesale, communications, marketing, and events manager): Bethany took a six month leave from Whiffletree to go intern at a farm in England! She had an amazing time learning regenerative farming there and exploring England, Wales, and Scotland.
  • Ben (pig manager): Ben is taking over as our cattle manager (and pig manager) here at Whiffletree! He’s excited for the opportunity and we’re looking forward to seeing what he’ll do with it.

Whiffletree Farm:

The farm has had a few big changes and fun happenings over the year…here are some of the highlights!

  • We got a third freezer installed. That has been a huge help to us to have more storage for our products here on-farm, and the people who work the freezers and help pack orders are all very happy for the extra space!
  • We welcomed Anthony Schiano as our new poultry manager. It’s been great to have him around and he’s done great work!
  • A fun highlight was getting to supply a Neil Young concert with our beef patties. Neil Young is one of Jesse’s favorite artists, and it was cool to have a celebrity want his concert to be supplied with products that align with our standards!
  • We got a vacuum sealer for our products! That has been a major difference in the quality of our poultry items. Retail and wholesale customers alike have all loved the change!
  • One of Jesse’s daughters has added a couple dairy cows to the animals of Whiffletree Farm. We’re hoping for the older heifer to have a calf next year!

The Straight Fam:

Liz and I (Jesse) are very grateful for each other, our kids, my parents, all the farm team, our church, and all our friends.  We are very blessed with all the good people that surround us.  Here are some of the highlights this year from our family:

  • Liz has done a great job homeschooling 7 of our 8 kids (Whew!  No small task.)
  • Our oldest daughter got her driver's license!
  • Some of our older kids have really enjoyed being involved with a local theatre group.
  • The kids and I have read/are reading so many good books together!  I love Story Nights with the kids!  Some examples:
    • To Kill a Mockingbird
    • The Virginian
    • Lord of the Rings
    • The Hobbit
    • Mossflower
    • The Little House on the Prairie stories
    • First Farm in the Valley
    • Murder in the Cathedral
    • The Yearling
    • The Sherlock Holmes stories
  • The older kids do a great job helping on the farm (for pay!) and doing their school work and having fun with each other and friends.  
  • We are all looking forward to when my daughter’s new dairy cow has her first calf in August, and she starts milking!

Blessings to you all, and thank you for all your support of our farm, our team, and our family!  We will continue to work so diligently to raise you food that is tasty and truly healthy for you, the land, the animals, and our community!

Jesse Straight

More from the blog

Easy One-Pan Turkey Drumstick Recipe

Everyone has those hectic days when no one has time to spend hours in the kitchen, so we all need quick and easy meals in our back pocket. This one-pan meal (inspired by a combo Liz Straight likes to make for their family) combines the sweet and savory flavors from thyme, sweet potatoes, balsamic, garlic, onion, and goat cheese. It serves about 3-4 people, takes about 20 minutes to prep, dirties only a few dishes, and is packed full of flavor, so it’s a winner! A bonus to turkey is that it is actually cheaper per pound than chicken is, and can be substituted for chicken in just about any recipe! And it is packed with a wide range of minerals and B vitamins. This recipe uses turkey drumsticks, which is the most economical cut of turkey we carry (and dare I say the tastiest?). But you can substitute whatever cut of turkey is your favorite and adjust the cooking time accordingly! Easy One-Pan Turkey Drumstick Recipe: Ingredients: 2 turkey drumsticks (I used 2 - 2.5 lbs drumsticks) 3 Tbsp. butter, tallow, or lard 4 sweet potatoes 1 small onion 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves ½ tsp. Garlic powder Salt and pepper to taste 1 cup fresh arugula Crumbled goat cheese (optional) Balsamic vinegar or glaze Chopped pecans (optional) Directions: 1. Preheat your oven to 300. 2. Peel and dice the sweet potatoes, then slice the onion. Combine both in a 9x13 pan. Add in the minced garlic, thyme leaves, and sprinkle salt and pepper on top. Melt the butter, tallow, or lard in a small saucepan. Add a couple tablespoons to the sweet potato mixture (make sure to reserve some for your turkey drumsticks). Mix everything together. 3. Pat your drumsticks dry. Rub the rest of your melted fat of choice onto the drumsticks, then sprinkle on the garlic powder and some salt and pepper. Nestle the drumsticks in the pan with the sweet potatoes. 4. Place in your preheated oven and cook for about 80-90 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 165 F. 5. Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool a bit. Then add in your fresh arugula, crumbled goat cheese, and pecans. Mix it up, and drizzle the balsamic over the top. 6. And you’re done! I made this at work on a day when I didn’t have any leftovers in my fridge to bring for lunch. It was super quick and easy to whip up, but still a very satisfying, delicious meal.  Another variation you can do with this is to substitute butternut squash instead of the sweet potatoes. Your choice! Enjoy! ~Bethany

Not Made, But Found

My daughter and I run together some mornings of the week, and besides catching up we also like to listen to "The Daily Poem" podcast. This morning we heard this one by Pulitzer Prize winning Richard Wilbur.   Wedding Toast "St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast, The water-pots poured wine in such amountThat by his sober countThere were a hundred gallons at the least.It made no earthly sense, unless to showHow whatsoever love elects to blessBrims to a sweet excessThat can without depletion overflow.Which is to say that what love sees is true;That this world's fullness is not made but found.Life hungers to aboundAnd pour its plenty out for such as you.Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.May you not lack for water,And may that water smack of Cana's wine."   My daughter and I both thought it a very sweet poem.    Part of what this poem is about is making a claim about reality--how in a fundamental way, reality (or God and his world, as shown by Jesus at the wedding) is full of love and blessing and abundance and life that "brims to a sweet excess."   With that context, this line stuck out to me: "That this world's fullness is not made but found." One way of looking at the world and our work is that the main task in life is man-handling what we want out of this world.  Squeezing and imposing and "building".  The alternative orientation is the way of this poem--that our main task is mostly figuring out how to best co-operate with reality that is already bursting with life.   Our approach to farming is with the presumption that "life hungers to abound."  And it is our fundamental job as farmers to facilitate the life that is much bigger than us--we help put the right pieces in the right places at the right time (which is no small task!)--but we don't really "make anything grow."  We can move the animals around the pastures in the right rotation at the right times to make the soil, and plants, and animals happy, but we don't make the sun shine, and we don't crank any gears to make photosynthesis happen, and we don't make the soil microbes work, and we don't wind up the chickens to keep them running.   In other words, as farmers "This world's fullness is not made but found."  We don't do good work when we aggressively impose our will on the soil, plants, and animals.  We do our best work when we find the abundant ways of nature and life, and in humility, join in collaboration.   Of course, this poem was not written about farming (ha!), but it is about living and love and how to see the world and ourselves--how it is a sad joke to live in Scrooge-ish grasping dominance, but wonderful to live in the harmony and abundance of collaborating with the nature of reality.  And being a farmer, I couldn't help but hear those thoughts when I heard those lines.   Our aim is to "find" the abundance in nature's ways, and pass that abundance along to you, our customers, in the form of tasty food that is truly healthy for the land, animals, and community.   ~Jesse Straight

The Best BBQ Drumsticks

Nothing says summer more than a good BBQ (I know, it’s not summer yet, but one can dream!).  But honestly, these drumsticks are good any time of year - the BBQ flavors are compounded when mixed with the smoky essence of a grill, or when it’s cold the spices warm you up and fire up your tastebuds. And served with some roasted potatoes slathered with butter? They are smashing! This recipe is inspired by a recipe that Jesse and Liz Straight and their family love. These drumsticks are served with a tangy white BBQ sauce with a bit of spice…a perfect compliment to the spice rub on the drumsticks! (Or serve ‘em up with whatever your favorite BBQ sauce is!) Drumsticks: 2 Tbsp. coconut sugar 1 ½ Tbsp. salt 1 Tbsp. garlic powder 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika 2 tsp. black pepper 1 ½ tsp. onion powder 1 ½ tsp. chili powder 1 tsp. cinnamon (optional, but adds a nice twist!) ½ tsp. cayenne (optional) 2 Tbsp. water 1 Tbsp. olive oil 2 ½ lbs. chicken drumsticks (or use turkey drumsticks!) White BBQ Sauce: 1 c. mayonnaise ¼ c. apple cider vinegar 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 1 Tbsp. honey 1 tsp. prepared horseradish 1 ½ tsp. hot sauce ½ tsp. cayenne (optional, depends on how much spice you like!) Directions: 1. Heat your oven to 375. 2. While the oven is heating, mix together the dry ingredients for the drumsticks. Add in the water, stir, and let sit for a couple minutes to allow the water to soften the spices. Then add in the oil and let sit for another couple minutes to allow the water and oil to draw out the flavor compounds of the spices. 3. Place a wire rack on your baking sheet. Pat the drumsticks dry with a paper towel, then rub them with the spice rub. Lay them on the wire rack with the fat end facing the edge of the pan. (You can always skip the wire rack if you’re in a hurry and want to get supper on the table as fast as possible, or want to minimize clean up after. A wire rack will just create air flow to give you the crispiest skin possible!) 4. Bake in the oven (or on the grill) for 1 hour. 5. While the drumsticks are cooking, mix up all the ingredients for the sauce. Add as much hot sauce or cayenne ‘til it’s as spicy as you want. 6. Serve the drumsticks with the sauce on the side. Some lemon wedges add a nice bright note to the dish as well! I think this is my all-time favorite drumstick recipe. They’re quick, easy, and delicious. I highly recommend adding these into your meal rotation! If you’re looking for more ideas on how to make drumsticks, here’s a few more ideas from Liz Straight: A one-pan meal with drumsticks, brussel sprouts, and diced sweet potatoes tossed in melted lard or bacon fat and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Crumbled bacon on top is a bonus! Nestle everything in a pan and bake at 375 for 60 minutes.Drumsticks, melted lard or tallow, diced potatoes, a few minced garlic cloves, diced tomatoes (canned or fresh), lemon zest to taste, dried or chopped fresh herbs of choice, and olives. Cook the same way as above!Mix equal parts of melted butter and Dijon mustard, mix in dried or chopped fresh herbs of choice (dried basil or tarragon, or fresh thyme recommended!) and paint onto the drumsticks. Cook at 375 for an hour! And the ideas are endless. Have fun in the kitchen experimenting and finding your family’s favorite! Cheers! Bethany