Farm Updates

Spring time is always a busy time on the farm. This past week, we have been working on the garden, moving pigs and more.

We have had the pigs tilling up spots around the garden where we will be planting the corn.

Before:

After:

Today we are removing the old permanent fence that was there so that we can finish clearing the brush that the pigs were unable to root up. After we finish that, we will use a tiller to finish up the tilling before planting the corn. As the pictures show, the pigs do a great job.

We have moved the pigs to a spot in front of the garden to do a little more pre-tilling for us and so that we can start training them to electric fence. After there are trained, we will move them across from the garden to a brush spot on another old fence line in order to get a good start on clearing that area out.

This week we are also planning on building a pig waterer. We currently have been using a trough style waterer which just doesn’t stay clean. We plan to take a 55 gallon plastic drum and install a pig waterer nipple on it. This will allow the pigs to get plenty of clean and fresh water.

The Garden

Our garden is coming along nicely. We have already talked about the pigs helping us out with tilling for our corn. The gardening style that we are wanting to use is a no till garden. This requires a lot of wood chips to cover the ground for moisture and fertilization of the soil. We have the center of our garden covered with wood chips but we did not have to enough to cover the whole garden so we are doing both no till and traditional garden as we transition.

In the wood chips we have Lettuce, Radishes, Collard greens, Cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, and carrots planted so far. We will be adding bell peppers, tomatoes, squash, and more. Since we moved and were a little behind we are doing a combination of buying some plants and starting some from seed. We have a raised bed for strawberries.

Today and tomorrow we will be tilling additional spots to expand the garden for okra, corn, and more.

Stick with us as we grow our family farm and make Local Food Production the Norm – Again!

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!

It’s hard to believe that it is almost Spring again. This Winter on the farm we were busy cutting brush off the fence lines and working on getting the fields into shape. The fields have been bush hogged which brings some bad news, we won’t have blackberries this year. But on the good side it is paving the way for us to be able to support more grazing.

This year we hope to add a couple of cows to start our grass fed beef program. We have made great strides in our rotational grazing program and are confident that we will have tall and delicious grass for our animals this summer.

Thanks to Kyle’s bit of luck winning an Internet contest we have some new fencing stakes to try out and we are looking at buying some new equipment to facilitate the progression. We were also blessed to get our first tractor over the winter – a 1949 Harry Ferguson. It seems like we’re always working on it but it will allow us to keep the fields in better shape.

We will be offering our pastured poultry again this year and we are taking orders now. Our chicken sales are on a pre-order only basis. Whole birds are $3.75 a pound. Cut-up chickens are $4.50 a pound. Our birds average 4-4.5 pounds each.

The Cornish Cross chicks arrive as little more than little yellow balls of chirping fuzz when they arrived at the farm. Our brooder keeps them warm and safe but still gives them access to sunshine and fresh air.

At three weeks old, the birds are moved out into the pasture and placed in a “chicken tractor” that gives them room to scratch and peck and express their “chickenness” while keeping predators away and providing shade and weather protection.

Early every morning the chicken tractor is moved by hand to a new fresh patch of pasture. Thirty percent of the birds diet can be grasses and bugs with this method. The birds are checked for water and given more grain at least twice a day.

When the poultry reach maturity, at about eight weeks, the birds are carefully and respectfully butchered, cleaned and bagged by us here on the farm.

This year our garden will be all GMO free and mostly heritage seeds and of course no pesticides – just plenty of manual labor. As usual we plan the garden for the family needs but look to make a trip or two to the local farmers markets with any excess. We’re looking forward to continuing to provide great natural beyond-organic foods.