Building a legacy rooted in respect for the earth, family traditions, and shared knowledge
This morning, we drove an hour away to pick up four sheep to start our flock. They are Dorper / Khatadin mixes. We have three rams and one ewe. We’ll process the rams for meat and will eventually purchase more ewes for breeding.
We’re working on training them to the electric fence now and getting them acclimated to our farm.
A while back, Dad bought two Holstein bulls from a local 4H kid selling them in front of Tractor Supply. He kept them in his yard, but it eventually turned into a muddy mess since it was just too small for them. Fast forward a few months and we decided to bring them nextdoor to our pasture so they’d have more grass to graze on.
The girls are super excited for the new additions. We’re training the cows to electric poly-wire so that we can move their paddocks as needed without investing in permanent fencing.
We planted some turmeric and some ginger into the aquaponics system and both are thriving. I wasn’t sure how it would do in the constant flood and drain cycle, but its taken off and producing like crazy.
The tomato plants are doing great in the aquaponic dutch buckets. They’re putting on fruit and before long, we’ll have fresh tomatoes! I’ve been hard pruning them so that they stay in an aggressive fruiting mode.
Over the past few months we’ve done quite a bit of research online and really like the idea of aquaponics.
Continue reading “We’re trying our hand at aquaponics”As Thanksgiving approaches each year, it’s always a mix of emotions on the farm. We’re incredibly thankful to live a great life, and for everything that we have. We are thankful for our health, our friends, our family, and our customers.
But we’re also a bit sad. Continue reading “Thanksgiving: A mix of emotions”
Do the chickens drive the tractor?
That’s just one of the questions that we’ve been asked about our “chicken tractors” that led us to write this post and describe them a bit more. Continue reading “What’s a chicken tractor?”
Huh? You’re a farmer?
That’s the question that I get asked at least once a week by people that I meet, by colleges at work and vendors or suppliers, and even by my family. It’s something that leads to good conversation and a chance to explain some of the things that are broken with the large-scale conventional food system. Continue reading “Why farm?”
Our first round of meat chickens was successful so we decided to move things along and expand into turkeys for Thanksgiving.