Cupcake, Pancake, CSA at Chubby Bunny

FALLS VILLAGE — The farm stand at Chubby Bunny Farm is now open. Produce from the farm, plus other products such as grass-fed beef from Whippoorwill Farm in Salisbury, pasture-fed pork from Howling Flats Farm in North Canaan, dilly beans, jams and pickles from Adamah in Falls Village and raw milk and yogurt from Rustling Wind in Falls Village.Hours for the farm stand (which is actually a couple of indoor rooms on Undermountain Road at the junction with Cobble Road) are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.It is basically self-serve. Call ahead (860-824-4362) if you require assistance.Chubby Bunny Farm, a community supported agriculture farm, is now in its 11th year, Tracy Hayhust said.She and husband Dan have tweaked the CSA model over the years. For the farm stand, they have introduced “Bunny Bucks.” With this option, people can sign up, pay $350 in advance and receive a 20 percent bonus on their account at the farm stand, for a total value of $420. Bunny Bucks holders can come anytime the farmstand is open and purchase as much or as little as they like. The amount will be deducted from their account.If $350 is too much at once, installment payments can be arranged.There is a new cold room, where the perishables are kept. The room lives up to its billing.And in the retail space are things like maple syrup.“We want people to know they can get all their local stuff in one place,” said Tracy Hayhurst.Regular CSA members can pick up their shares at the farm or at Whippoorwill Farm in Lakeville on Fridays and Saturdays. The share will be pre-boxed this year except for items customers pick themselves. Meanwhile, apprentice Dan Cunningham was puzzling over the new tractor on Wednesday morning, June 18. Specifically, how to start it. Also, where do we put in the gasoline? “New” is a relative term here. The early 1960s Ford 2000 tractor is new to the farm, and the cultivator it is going to pull is brand new.The Ford rides higher than the Kubota tractor the farm also owns. That way it can be used as plants are starting to sprout.Cunningham, from Concord, N.H., and in his second year at the farm, flipped switches, pulled on cables, depressed pedals and twiddled levers. None of them were marked.Eventually he hit on the correct combination, and the tractor roared to life. The Hayhursts tried to congratulate him, but he couldn’t hear it.There are four apprentices at the farm this year, three of them returnees.Cunningham drove off, and Tracy Hayhurst, with son Baxter, took a visitor into the shed to meet the new cow, Cupcake.There is also a calf, Pancake.The story here is that Pancake’s mother died unexpectedly, leaving Pancake an orphan, and Chubby Bunny without a cow to milk.Enter Cupcake.“They seem to have taken to each other,” said Tracy Hayhurst. “They like each other.”But it only goes so far. “Pancake still wants us to come around with the bottle.”Which is fine, because it’s easier on Cupcake not being required to nurse the calf as well as being milked in the standard manner.For more information on Chubby Bunny Farm, go to www.chubbybunnyfarm.com.