wORKING WITH THE LAND
LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT… er… ALMOST EVERY MINUTE
Thank you for stopping by! I hope you enjoy the stories of our adventure. Feel free to have a look around. We are exploring a number of farm-business opportunities, so please let us know if you are interested in any of them. For now, we are proud to offer you pork. You can pre-order a half or whole hog. Just fill out the form, and we will contact you with further details!
A Lamb of God
"I thought people would find it really impactful if Maple walked down the center aisle and onto the stage when I talk about The Lamb of God be lead to His crucifixion during the sermon on Good Friday." Those were the words (essentially) that were said when the Pastor at Tiffany's church asked about the possibility of including my little ewe in the service. I was fairly apprehensive about it. It took a while to convince Maple that a halter was not a death harness. There was no need to scratch at it with her hoof. No need to bellyache about the cruelty of life. No need to throw daggers with her eyes at me for an hour. Ultimately, she finally agreed. However, we had made no progress regarding leading [...]
Spring has Hatched… early?
In case you are unaware, bantam chickens like Laverne are famous for frequently going broody. Well, they are famous if you are someone who likes to regularly hatch eggs, they are infamous if you want eggs, and don't want to deal with a chicken who is an emotional wreck for a month or so. Laverne goes broody a lot. Over the years I have simply removed her eggs, and taking out the liner in the nest box, if she actually decides to go broody in the nest box. She has found other places around the house that were very dangerous should a raccoon get hungry. I can now tell immediately when Laverne goes broody. You see, Laverne sleeps on antlers above the french doors that exit the kitchen on to [...]
Learning until I Die…
A few years ago, having learned from my frequent Gator rides, I decided, and eventually convinced Tiffany, that we should raise sheep as a source of income as well as meat for us and others. How hard could it be? I see large flocks of sheep in large pastures by themselves, smaller flocks in smaller pastures... Sheep and goats are everywhere. I'll get to that strangeness another time. At this point after taking with people and seeing how the sheep are managed, I figured this should be easy. I read several books cover to cover. I took a few online classes. I watched countless videos online of people talking about how they raise their sheep. Tiffany has gone to the salebarn and watched the activities there. Ok. Maybe it's not [...]
Sailing the Seas of Cheese
Nope. This is not about Jerry or his Racecar. Neighbor friends had more goat milk than they needed, couldn't store it, and didn't want to throw it out. So? They offered it to me. They figured at least it could go to the pigs and increase the marbling. They were, of course, right, but that is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to experiment with something that I always wanted to do. Maybe not always, but for a while. I wanted to make milk products. Tiffany has enjoyed cream from goat milk for quite a while as I learned how to separate out the cream. Goat and sheep milk are naturally homogenized, so it is a little different than cow milk. I haven't completely abandoned technology in my [...]
I Stand (actually Sit) Corrected
What. Was. I. Thinking? "We'll get pigs in early December," I said. "It will be awesome," I said. "I won't spend anymore time running hoses and water three times a day to keep them cool," I laughed. Yes, I ran a lot of buckets of water. A lot. I could have filled a small to medium pond with all the water I hauled this winter after everything froze. Even with a heater in their water, the nipples froze solid. I bought a heat gun. That was able to thaw the nipples as long as it had not dropped below about 22 degrees that night. Even if I got them thawed, I'd be out there every 90 minutes to two hours thawing them again. If the sun was out, and they [...]
Pigs at a Water Park
It was a beautiful afternoon, and the pigs needed some entertainment... https://youtu.be/GrojPka54H0
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. – Proverbs 14:23