DELANSON – The Chandler household has been steadily rising Mariaville Farm over the previous few many years, branching out from beef and bacon to mushrooms and extra.
Bob and Christine Chandler based the farm after transferring out of Rotterdam and into Delanson in 1988.
“They grew up in Rotterdam. That they had no thought about farming,” mentioned the Chandlers’ son Bobby. “My dad constructed homes and my mother was a photographer. My dad at all times needed to boost children within the nation.” That included Bobby and his two brothers, Billy and John.
“We simply raised animals for ourselves, perhaps another folks that had been family and friends,” Bobby mentioned.
Then, Bobby and his siblings obtained concerned with a 4-H Membership and commenced exhibiting chickens and rabbits on the Altamont Honest, amongst different locations.
“[It] actually simply constructed from there,” Bobby mentioned.
They raised Black Angus cows on the practically 300-acre farm alongside the pigs and chickens. As they began doing extra exhibits — and the bills of retaining and caring for the animals grew — they turned the farm into extra of a enterprise, and commenced going to farmers’ markets, together with in Schenectady and Troy, practically twenty years in the past.
“It’s an enormous studying curve, particularly as a result of we’re doing all our personal breeding inventory. In terms of having infants born on the farm, that’s in all probability the toughest factor it’s a must to take care of as a result of they at all times prefer to have their infants on the coldest day of the yr,” Bobby mentioned.
“However you understand what? Different farmers will enable you to,” Christine Chandler mentioned.
The household has leaned on different farmers over time as Mariaville Farm has expanded. At the moment, the farm has about 80 head of cattle, 250 laying hens and 100 pigs. They’ve additionally obtained geese, and so they elevate turkeys particularly for Thanksgiving.
They promote a lot of their merchandise on the farmers’ markets in addition to at For the Love of Bacon, the shop they opened 5 years in the past in Guilderland. They’ve since moved to Rotterdam, proper throughout the road from Schalmont Excessive College, the place Christine works as a bus driver.
“Transferring right here was an enormous change as a result of that is nearer to the place [the farm is] and I went to highschool at Schalmont, so lots of people round Rotterdam know us. It gave us a extremely good jump-start into the shop right here,” Bobby mentioned.
The shop’s cabinets are nicely stocked with eggs, milk, steak, hen and pork, in addition to different domestically produced goodies corresponding to Buddhapesto, which is made in Woodstock; and pickles from the Adirondack Pickle Firm.
There’s additionally a gentle provide of mushrooms thanks to a different household enterprise often called Mariaville Mushroom Males, which Bobby Chandler helped begin a couple of decade in the past.
Bobby was drawn to the medicinal properties of mushrooms after learning prescribed drugs and getting fed up with the business.
“I don’t just like the drug business and the way they deal with medication. However mushrooms are probably the most medicinal meals on the planet, so I fell in love with them,” Bobby mentioned.
They began with rising shiitake mushrooms.
“Usually they take a couple of yr to prepare. The primary batch I used to be rising [were ready] inside 5 months. So the enterprise simply took off,” Bobby mentioned.
Finally the farm devoted a small, 400-square-foot barn to rising all kinds of fungi, together with oysters, lion’s mane, cinnamon cap, pioppino, reishi and others.
“All of them combat most cancers, micro organism and viruses. However lion’s mane mushrooms have at all times been one in all my favorites to work with. It’s one of many solely substances on the planet recognized to regenerate nerve injury. It’s good for neuropathy … so it’s good for nervousness, melancholy [and] temper stabilization,” Bobby mentioned.
For years, he and his spouse, Allie, made tea and tinctures with their mushrooms, and offered fairly a little bit of their harvest to high-end eating places. Extra not too long ago they’ve stepped away from that world and centered on one other household enterprise: Allie’s Keto Kitchen.
They’ve each been consuming a ketogenic weight-reduction plan for a number of years. In response to Harvard Well being Publishing, the ketogenic weight-reduction plan is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate routine that goals to assist folks drop pounds by making the physique depend on ketone our bodies (a sort of gas the liver produces from saved fats) quite than on glucose from carbs.
A few month earlier than the pandemic, Bobby and Allie started providing ketogenic meals to clients at For the Love of Bacon and delivering them to properties so far as an hour away from the shop.
“It’s simply [about] making folks be ok with themselves, [and] more healthy,” Bobby mentioned.
Within the brief time period, analysis has proven that the weight-reduction plan could assist with weight reduction together with insulin resistance, hypertension and elevated ldl cholesterol. One of many pitfalls is that the weight-reduction plan could also be laborious to take care of long-term, in response to Harvard Well being.
Bobby was impressed to enter the pharmaceutical discipline partially as a result of diabetes runs in his household, and regardless that he’s not working within the discipline he feels he’s nonetheless serving to relations and clients handle the illness.
“I needed to discover a method to assist with it and it wasn’t [through] pharmacy. It was [through] the meals,” Bobby mentioned. “We like to have the ability to ensure we will present high quality and know precisely what you’re consuming. Meals is medication.”
Every week they cook dinner up a wide range of meals within the kitchen at For the Love of Bacon, together with hen parm, shepherd’s pie, pizza, pulled pork and chicken-bacon-ranch casserole. There’s additionally a hearty collection of decadent desserts, from cinnamon buns to cheesecakes to pies. The meals are offered on the retailer — which has a number of fridges and freezers devoted to the meals — and in addition delivered.
“All these companies are intertwined collectively as a result of they use the meat that we produce to do a few of their meals,” Christine mentioned.
The farm has been busier than ever throughout the pandemic.
“When the pandemic hit folks had been coming to us, trying to inventory their freezers,” Christine mentioned.
They’ve continued to obtain calls from neighbors and clients about eager to refill, notably by shopping for complete or half animals.
“A whole lot of households … will come to me and say, nicely how a lot is it for a complete animal? We’ll go over it, after which they might get two or three [families] to go in with them in order that they’ll all fill their freezers. They’ve stuff of their freezers in order that they’re not as frightened. … They obtained meals to feed their households and it got here from an area farm, and so they understand it’s good high quality,” Christine mentioned.
Mariaville Farm
Whereas the farm is a seven-day-a-week operation, the For the Love of Bacon (834 Duanesburg Highway) retailer is open Tuesday-Sunday.
For hours and data, go to baconandmore.com.
For extra on Allie’s Keto Kitchen, go to alliesketokitchen.com.
Extra: Local Bounty | All News
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Classes: Local Bounty, Rotterdam, Schenectady County
