Free delivery for orders over $125!

Reflections on 2024

written by

Jesse Straight

posted on

December 25, 2024

Straight-Family-2.png

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

Budget Series: 3 Ways to Use a Whole Chicken (Part 2)

Budget Series: 3 Ways to Use a Whole Chicken (Part 2)

Next up on this budget series, we’ll learn how to roast a chicken in a crockpot. This super easy way of cooking a chicken will ensure dinner is on the table without any hassle for you! Easy Crock pot Chicken: Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (I used a 6lb chicken - the bigger you go, the more meat you get out of it for about the same amount of time put into prepping it) Salt and pepper, to taste Optional: herbs, garlic, onion, etc. Get creative! Directions: 1. Place the chicken into a large crockpot. For the 6lb chicken, I used an 8 quart crock pot. Just enough space! Add any seasonings or herbs your heart desires. No need to add water - the chicken will release water as it cooks! 2. Turn the settings to low. 3. And let it cook for six hours or until the internal temp of the thigh is 165! Carve and serve with some gravy or bbq, or shred it to use in other recipes. ***For a whole chicken, the rule of thumb is about an hour per pound of chicken on the low setting. And if you’re like me and you forget to pull out your chicken to thaw ahead of time, add a half an hour per pound to that. But as always, go by temp instead of time to make sure you don’t get a dry chicken! It really is that easy. I made this chicken to prep for writing this blog post yesterday. I was at work, doing my work for the day and also prepping to leave for a week’s visit home to MN over Father’s Day. When I went to get my chicken to cook it, it was actually still mostly frozen. I had planned for it to be thawed, but I had forgotten to pull it out in time. Oh well, I popped it into the crockpot and just hoped for the best in the middle of a chaotic day. The day was super busy - packing orders to go out on deliveries the next day, processing chickens, and getting everything planned ahead of time for while I’m away on vacation, plus all my normal daily work. Then right after work I had to meet someone in town. Then back to the farm to finish prep for deliveries tomorrow and wrap up any loose ends. Then out to my garden to water and make the plants happy. Then back home to pack, do laundry, clean, and get ready to head out in the morning. And after all that? Dinner, ready and waiting for me in my crockpot. It took about nine hours for the frozen six pound chicken to fully cook, and I didn’t even have to think about it. I shredded some, made a sourdough sandwich, then put the rest into the freezer for while I’m out of town. There you have it! Crockpot chicken for a busy gal’s or guy’s life. It’ll be your best friend! Pro tip: Get a timer for your outlet to plug your crockpot into! Then you can set the timer for when you want it to start and end cooking. That way it’s done when you have time to take care of it. Drop a comment below and let me know how it goes for you! Cheers! ~Bethany

Read more
Budget Series: 3 Ways to Use a Whole Chicken (Part 1)

Budget Series: 3 Ways to Use a Whole Chicken (Part 1)

Cook a whole chicken? Sure, it’s more budget friendly, but… how and what do you do with it? This month, we’ll be kickstarting a budgeting series with a few different ways to use a whole chicken. Trust me, it’s actually super easy, and I think it saves more time! Per pound, the price of a whole chicken is much more budget-friendly than getting parts. For example, thighs are going for $14.00 per pound, but a whole chicken is $6.50 per pound! There will be four parts to this blog series. This week, we’ll learn how easy it is to roast a pasture-raised chicken that isn’t dry and tasteless. Get ready to save on time and money! Easy Roasted Whole Chicken Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (I used a 5.5 lb chicken) 2 Tbsp butter, melted Salt and pepper to taste 4 garlic cloves, whole Instructions: 1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. 2. Place a roasting rack in a 9x13 pan (optional, but helps the chicken get a crispier skin). Pat your chicken dry with a paper towel and place breast side down on the rack. Using a pastry brush, spread the melted butter all over the chicken, then sprinkle with salt and pepper (you can also get creative and do a few different seasonings or herbs, like thyme, paprika, etc.). Next, place your garlic cloves inside the cavity of the chicken. 3. Set the pan on the middle rack of your oven. Roast the chicken for about 1.5 hours (about 16 minutes per lb), or until the thermometer reads 160 in the breast and 165 in the thigh. Make sure to stick the thermometer in the meatiest part of the breast or thigh! As always, go by the temperature rather than the time - the time can vary, so you really want to be paying attention to the temp so you don’t overcook. *If you have a smaller chicken, the time will be less for it to fully cook, so adjust the time by multiplying the total weight of the chicken by 16 minutes, and that will give you an estimate of how long it will take.  4. The opportunities are endless! You can either serve it as a roast chicken for dinner along with some mashed potatoes and roast veggies, or you can shred it to use in any chicken dish you want! I cooked up a 5.5lb chicken for one of our team lunches and shredded it all to use in a version of chicken pot pie (homemade biscuits topped with a chicken pot pie filling - I know, not really a pot pie but it tastes the same!). It fed 14 people hungry from a day of hard work on the farm. So it can stretch a long ways! And I saved the bones and skin so I can make a broth out of that. Nothing goes to waste! If I don’t have people to feed and it’s just me, then I find this saves time and money because I can cook a big chicken all at once, shred it, and then portion it out and freeze what I won’t use right away. That way during the week I can just grab out a bag of already cooked and shredded chicken to make a quick meal out of. And there you have it! One easy way of cooking a whole chicken and prepping for more than one meal at a time. Next week, we’ll show you how to make a crockpot version of a whole chicken. Stay tuned! Cheers to you and your health…and your wallet! ~Bethany

Read more
Return To Top

WAYS TO SHOP

BUY BULK

MORE @ WHIFFLETREE

4-Animal-Row.png


Whiffletree Farm

8717 Springs Road
Warrenton VA 20186
(540) 935-0600

info@whiffletreefarmva.com

Store Hours: M - F 11AM to 5PM; Sa 10AM to 5PM