Buy local: farm stand spotlight

Well-known farm stands are always accentuated with large eye-catching signs, but this hotspot is hard to find — just like any well-kept local secret.

Just east of Palmer Vineyards on Sound Avenue in Riverhead, Ty Llwyd Farm (pronounced tee-clewed, it’s Welsh for “brown house ) has just three small signs pointing to its short driveway. The home and workplace to a family of three — David, Elizabeth and Christopher Wines — Ty Llwyd Farm has become Riverhead’s largest generator of farm-fresh eggs and Long Island’s sole producer of raw cow’s milk.

David Wines’ family has owned the 30-acre property since the 1870s when potatoes and cauliflower were the crops of choice. Back then, the farm functioned as a wholesale distributor, supplying the local, more popular stands for retail.

In 1974, David married Elizabeth — who formerly worked on a farm in Wales before coming to New York to work as a nanny — and decided to take over his grandparents’ farm to begin raising chickens.

“We knew there was a demand for local eggs and David had chickens since he was nine years old so it was pretty easy to get started,” Elizabeth said.

The couple began with 100 chickens. Today, they have more than 1,000.

“Over the years, the farm slowly changed, from being mostly wholesale to everything completely retail,” she said. “As the demand grew, so did we.”

“We’re now selling about 55 dozens of eggs every day or so.”

They sell four different sizes of eggs, available for sale by the dozen: jumbo ($5), extra-large ($4.75), large ($4.50) and medium ($4.25). The size varies because the chickens are all different ages.

“When a chicken lays its first egg, it’s very small,” Elizabeth. “As the chicken gets older, the egg size gets larger, so when they’re full grown they are all laying large and extra-large eggs.”

But they all taste the same, she added. “Fresh.”

“We give the chickens organic feed from Pennsylvania along with some of the feed we grow ourselves,” she said. “We grow wheat, barley, and oats which are later mixed with corn and soybeans.”

Four years ago, they realized that “there was a call” for raw milk so they bought one cow to start and Christopher, the couple’s son, took sole ownership of the milk business.

Now, the farm has 12 cows and milk five of them, twice daily. Christopher milks them at 6:30 in the morning and 6:30 at night.

“My niece in California is so impressed that they have raw milk here,” said one longtime customer Thursday. “They’re everywhere in California. We need to catch up with the times around here. I’m glad we have one place that sells it.”

And it’s totally safe to drink.

“Our milk is tested regularly by the state,” Elizabeth said. “They take samples to make sure everything’s up to standard so that people know they can drink it safely.”

“Pasteurized milk is heated up to 180 degrees to kill all the germs,” she said. “But what you’re also doing is killing all the good bacteria and good enzymes which are really beneficial to the body.”

Customers have told the Wineses that they prefer to buy raw milk because “it just tastes better,” they said.

“Most people buy it for the health benefit or for taste or because the milk is coming from 100-percent grass-fed cows.”

Fresh milk is $6 per half-gallon plus a $2.50 deposit for the glass bottle.

Eggs and milk are available year-round.

The farm also sells fruit and vegetables when in season. Though they’re not certified organic, no pesticides or weed-killers are ever used.

Ty Llwyd Farm is open everyday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Sunday afternoons in the summer time.

For more information, check out their website: http://tyllwyd.wordpress.com

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Michael Hejmej
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