We bought a new place four miles down the road where we hope to expand the family farm. Moving was a tough, sometimes a fun adventure. One fun experience was moving the animals to the new place. We do not have a stock trailer yet so we had to find ways of transporting the animals. The horses were the first to be moved down.
Honeybun(the big mare) was saddled up and we put the halter and lead rope on Sugar. Got the four-wheelers and a chase car started. We had one person riding honeybun and leading Sugar with two four-wheelers leading. We were a sight. It was a fun experience and we made it with no trouble. Praise the Lord!
Next we had the 3 steers to move down. We were furtunate that a couple from our church let us borrow a trailer that had sides. I’m sure they didn’t expect us to move cattle in it but it worked. The sides of the trailer were about two feet high so to ensure the cows couldn’t jump out we took two 16ft cattle panels and lined the sides. It took a little coaxing to get them in but they did it and rode fine to the new place. This a prime example of a motto that we try to follow here on the farm wich is: Make it, make do, or do without.
Since we moved, it is like starting over on the land maintenance. We moved in the winter so we are a little behind this year. We have a lot of fence clearing to do and some infrastructure to build and a lot of decision making to do(where to build a hay barn, horse stalls, how to fence out ponds, and more). We are very excited about all this extra work because we now have 40 acres and room to grow the family farm. The farmhouse is in need of some renovation which we are working on as well as getting ready for spring which is here.
In the farmhouse, we are having to redo the upstairs bedroom because it was not ventilated correctly so all the paneling was warped. The stairs going up were very narrow and open underneath so we are extending the steps and inclosing the bottom to make a closet. We have some pictures on facebook and we will be sure to post more.
With spring here, we are excited about our spring batch of chickens coming soon. Our cattle herd has expanded to include a cow/calf pair. This will be the start of our breeding program to increase our herd so that we can start offering quality salad bar beef. Pigs, we acquired 3 pigs as our first run so we can work out all of the logistics in order to provide pastured/woodlot pork. 
The next expansion goals are to get egg layers, more guinea fowl, and rabbits.
Stick with us as we grow our family farm and make Local Food Production the Norm – Again!
