Life On A Farm Blog

Wow what a difference just a few days makes. The chickenhouses are dang near done. The guys have been busy daylight to dark hanging curtains and installing equipment. I still have a long list of things that need to be done before the chickens come, but I’m much closer than I was. The 6000 is still a muddy mess. I can’t count the buckets of mud, muck, gravel, and trash I’ve hauled. Just as soon as the weather warms up enough so I won’t catch pneumonia I’m going to give it a bath and a good greasing. I’d hoped to use the skid steer the contractors have rented for more of the cleanup, but with all the mud I kept finding myself sitting there spinning. The concrete trucks had left some huge ruts where we had’nt put down gravel yet. One peice of equipment I’ve been glad to have around is the trackhoe the excavating crew left behind. I was hesitant to use it even though they told me to, but after waiting almost 2 weeks on them to come back to clean up and get things ready for the feed bin pads I had to get things ready. The concrete crew was due back in town around noon so I arranged for a truck and my buddy Kenny and I got the feed bin pads ready for concrete. While we were at it we got all the culverts ready to pour headwalls on. Read more here

Razor’s Blog An Adventure in Farming

We are not ready for spring. Very simply put: this is crunch time. We have seeds to order, potting soil to mix, bird netting to find, row covers to locate, and kitchen windows to clear for a landing. Of course, the prep work for the garden is great fun! A seemingly simple question like, “What sort of tomatoes do we want to plant?” sparks a passionate discussion about the mistakes we made in the garden last year, articles in Grit, Victory Gardens, salsa ingredients, and the joys of yellow tomatoes. By the time we tire of talking, we may not have even made a decision. Ahh… but it is fun to think about. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out soon and then flood this blog with pictures of seedlings. Until then, here is some money-saving advice on starting seeds that needs no debate:

1. Pick varieties of plants/seeds that will actually succeed in your area.
2. Find a sunny spot (or use artificial light) where your new babies will not be disturbed and where the temperature stays between 65 and 70 degrees.
3. You can start seeds in all sorts of containers (yogurt cups, etc). Simply disinfect them, poke a few little holes in the bottom, and fill them with potting soil.
4. Make your own potting soil by mixing one part perlite, four parts vermiculite, and four parts peat moss.

While I’m chatting away about excitement… you just haven’t seen excitement until you’ve greeted chickens with a plate of homemade suet. Our Gabor sisters crowd the doorway to the coop (they are still cooped up because we only just got them and we want them to know that the coop is where they bed down at night once we let them free-range). The girls gracefully walk the edge of the nesting boxes like runway models and then dive for the suet. Here’s how I make my suet:

• 1 cup chunky peanut butter (could use smooth)
• 1/4 cup lard or bacon grease
• 1 cup wild game bird feed or chicken feed
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• a few tablespoons of corn meal

Mix all the ingredients together, scoop the mixture into a container, and then freeze it until I want to give the birds a treat. I use old store-bought suet containers but you could use muffin tins lined with wax paper. Serve suet to your birds once it is nice and firm.
Read more here

Going To The Country

As it turns out, everything Amy and I plan to do has already been done by various members or our family. It also turns out that sustainable small scale agriculture and low-energy living has been done by people all over the world for a very long time.

My Dad’s Father, Harvey Jones lived for part of his childhood in the canvas tent pictured above in New Mexico. He was a shepherd. He even told stories of a beast, a “chupacabra” if you will, that from time to time would descend upon their ranch for feedings. Both sides of our families raised chickens (my father actually won awards in FFA chicken judging), other animals and produced “organic” vegetables. Our parents all grew up in rural areas. I can recall my Mom’s tales of their farm house. When they moved in it didn’t even have a bathroom. Her father went on to sell John Deer farm implements. Amy’s Grandmother still lives in the town she was born in, Praha, TX. Still in the house her and her husband lived in, on the farm that supported her family, a portion of which we will begin to use again.

We eat up all of their stories and wisdom like candy.

Who are you going to trust? We can get wisdom from people we love, or we could listen to the advice of the very companies that manufactured weaponry and explosives (which begot synthetic nitrogen fertilizers), companies that created nerve gas (which begot agricultural pesticides) and the makers of “Agent Orange” (which begot agricultural herbicides). Don’t get me started on the banks, either.

We don’t plan on being at war with our crops and animals, we plan on loving them, like our families have done for ages.
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Thane’s Neck Farm

Last night I started a batch of sourdough bread and set it by the wood stove to proof over night. So today, while at home, I punched it down and shaped it into two loaves and set them back by the fire to proof a second time. The second proof took about 3 hours and then into the oven they went. I made these loaves with 50% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour and %50 Organic AP Flour both from King Arthur Flour and they came out as a very tasty but dense loaf. The dense nature had more to do with my neglected sourdough starter then the flour I am sure. I should have fed my starter for a few more days before trying to use it. Still the loaves are very tasty, at least to the adults in the house, the kids don’t care for the flavor of sourdough yet.

For those not familiar with sourdough I have found that the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin “Baking with Sourdough” by Sara Pitzer a wonderful resource to begin your adventure in sourdough. On the most basic level a sourdough starter is created by catching “wild” yeasts in a mixture of flour and water. These living yeasts feed on the flour and in doing so produce gases that cause a dough to rise. Like any living thing your starter must be cared for and fed regularly or risk killing it off. The more you use your starter the healthier it will become.

The chickens gave 17 eggs today. Read more here

Raising The Tribe

So it is 10:40 here in VA and we have been busy. Kids are fed (pumpkin muffins homemade with love), laundry is switched, coffee has been roasting all morning, and the fire is made. I have worked on a paper and done some work work as well. i am about to get started on the bread, and then I will stack some more wood. I also promised the kiddos some granola bars today, so those need to be ready for snack time. After the bread is set to rise and the wood is stacked, I will switch the clothes again, vacuum the house and start dinner. Tonight it will be chili with rice, I am thinking of making some cornbread as I have cornmeal just waiting to be cooked up, and we will have an apple cobbler for dessert. I love the hum of a busy house, chores getting done, kids playing, and the warmth of good food cooking. I am off to get covered in flour and to bundle up to stack the wood. I am hoping that all of the cooking and cleaning will make us warm and happy today. Read more here

The Future House

Today was the day for rotating the leaves in our chicken composter. With the aid of our feathered friends we were able to collect all of the scratched and shat upon leaves into an impressive mountain of rich compost. As we said in the last update, we’re guessing that the first string of warm weather to roll through will roast this stuff into black gold.

We thought that we may have lost a lot of mass from the months the leaves spent in the pen, but the material we gathered today was able to heap over four yard cart loads. Once it was all out, the pen looked a bit barren. I can’t wait until we plant rye in there; it should grow like crazy. In the mean time, we have about twenty bags of salvaged leaves to fill the pen at least two more times. We’ll probably post on the refill tomorrow. With the weather warming, we shouldn’t have to keep them in the pen as long as the first go around.

I must say that the cache of compost from this first haul was impressive. We have five compost bins and all of them were filled to where it was running out the front. I’m sure we’ll use it all once the garden gets going this spring. The compost we get from rounds two and three will serve as a refresher for the garden in the summer and fall. Read more here

Buterfly Hollow Farm (first person)

One spring day several years ago, the path Sharon and I were traveling led us to this country road and way of life. We followed it back into the end of a hollow and found an old abandoned farm and frame house, a couple leaning barns, and 85 acres of wild and overgrown forest, hills and pastures and somehow fell in love. We took a deep breath and a giant leap and have been blowing life back into Butterfly Hollow ever since. Read more here

Touch The Heart Farm

We are a family of five: myself, my husband and our three children, ages 10, 9 and 7, living in the Northwestern Mountain Region of Maryland. Our land is home to many creatures, and our goals are to farm sustainably, to preserve biodiversity by growing heirloom plants and protecting rare/ heritage breeds of livestock and poultry, and to preserve native habitats. The kids and I run a small CSA, which keeps us busy learning and playing. Read more here