Location

“The taste of our meat speaks for itself,” say Jeanne and Kim Hadwen of Merryville farms. They sell Black Angus beef and pork by the individual piece (occasionally sides are available) at The Farm Meat Shoppe at Tuckers Corners.

Store hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. and Saturdays by chance ( but when open it is open form 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.) For more information call (613) 969-1345

The Black Angus cattle are reared on the farm and fed naturally. The meat is home grown, hormone free, antibiotic free, and is government inspected.

There are excellent quality cuts of meat for grilling, roasting, slow cooking or stewing. Beef cuts for roasting are rump, sirloin, eye of round, cross rib, short rib and blade roasts. Steaks are tenderloin, strip lion, ribeye, top sirloin and blade. Also available are ground beef, boneless stew, beef/pork sausages, beef jerky, pepperettes, liver, heart, tail, tongue and soup bones.

Pork cuts include butt chops, loin chops, pork roasts, butt roasts, pork steaks, bacon, spare ribs, ground pork, pork/beef sausages, pork breakfast sausages, soup bones and hocks.

Also available at The Farm Meat Shoppe are their own free-run eggs, local honey, cheese and maple syrup and vegetables in season.

The Hadwens have 24 Belgian horses. The Belgian breed is a heavy draft horse. As the price of fuel goes up Kim is using them more and more for farm work. The Hadwens hope to be putting most, if not all, their crops in under horse power. They offer horse-drawn sleigh and wagon rides year round(weather permitting). For details please contact the farm. Also on the farm, seminars for folks to learn how to work with teams of horses are available. Call (613) 969-1345 for more details. Broke teams of horses are available for sale.

Kim Hadwen organizes the horse plowing competitions at the Hastings County Farm Show and Plowing Match in August, which is in Tyendinaga this year.

2010 sees the start of a new project on the farm with the launch of “Back to the Future Gardens” with vegetables grown without herbicides and pesticides. You can book a plot (garden allotment) for the season to grow your own healthy vegetables for your family. Or you can “pick your own” at our field of vegetables. All the field and allotment set up ground work is done with horses.

For more details about the “Back to the Future Gardens”, horse-drawn rides, draft horse seminars or The Farm Meat Shoppe, please call (613) 969-1345 and ask for Jeanne or Kim.