Categories
Land Plants

Rotational Strip Grazing

This is the story of how I learned how to properly care for our pastures. Photos from when we first bought the property, fall 2012: When we first put livestock on our property in 2013, we fenced 1 acre to start (out of 3 that were in pasture) and continuously grazed with a few calves […]

Categories
Animals Market Personal

We’re still here, with meat galore.

I realize that I never update this thing! We’re pretty Facebook-oriented right now, so that’s where you’ll find the most recent content. I apologize for disappearing, the Lyme disease and subsequent health issues really took their toll these past 2 years. We downsized to keep everything manageable, and that was really the best decision. But […]

Categories
Animals Lambing

Lambs Spring 2017

 

Categories
Personal Plants

One Vibrant, Overwhelming Season

Each year, spring overwhelms us again. I have a feeling that it’s the same with most homesteaders. We purge the clutter from our closets and our yards and our fields; rearrange the livestock quarters and realize that, once again, we’ve failed to prep enough garden beds for the coming season. In February and March, we […]

Categories
Animals Lambing

Lambs Spring 2016

It’s been a long time since the last post! The dark winter months are starting to let up and spring is just around the corner. We’ve come out of lambing doing well this year, despite the rocky start losing 2 out of 3 triplets from our new ewe Ginger.  

Categories
Animals Plants

Coming on Fall

The wheat harvest did not go as planned. Mostly, this means that the chickens broke into my hoop where it was drying and decimated my crop. The good news is that this fed them for 3 days. The bad news is that it took me 6 months and 100 sq ft to grow enough feed for […]

Categories
Animals Lambing

Lambs Spring 2015

I thought we were overrun with babies before, but we have more than ever! There are 100 meat chicks in the brooder, future egg-layer chicks hatching from the incubator, baby rabbits on the way, bottle piglets, and plenty of lambs. The momma sheep have been excellent at their jobs and have really helped this newbie […]

Categories
Animals

Spring in Full Swing

There are all kinds of babies running around the farm, and there will soon be more. We’ve got chicks, piglets, lambs, and bunnies! The piglets have been doing a fine job of tilling the garden. When we first brought them in the whole thing was covered in grass. Now it looks like someone took a […]

Categories
Animals

Sheep Flock in the 2014-2015 Breeding Season

With any luck, the ewes are all bred up and ready for lambing in April/May. The ram’s aggressive tendencies have not let up, so he is currently for sale and may become mutton. The girls are fat and gaining quickly for the worst of winter. Spotty, Sarah, Helena, and Cow needed a deworming one last […]

Categories
Animals Butchering

Pig Processing Day

Warning: this post contains graphic images and descriptions. If you’re going to get offended by knowing where meat comes from, don’t look! We didn’t get as many pictures as we would have liked because we were so busy dealing with the pigs. Unexpectedly, in just 6.5 months, they had grown from about 3lbs to almost 200lbs. […]