Change is inevitable. It can be both good and bad. We may not like change or we may embrance change. Change can be one of the most difficult things in life we deal with or one of the most exciting things we do. Change can enhance growth or it can hinder it. Change comes sometimes through no fault of our own or because we learned something new and used that new knowledge to make the change. The one constant about change is that it always happens, nothing stays the same forever and that is absolutely true here at the farm.
First change on the farm...the title of this blog. It has been quite a while since our last blog post and the reason is we have been living life. I (Amy) haven't had a minute to sit down and write about all the ways we are doing life and I realized that, yes, this blog is about the lessons we learn in this new adventure we are on but more importantly, it is about sharing how we do life together as a family. So starting with the next entry, the title of this blog will be "Doing Life at Gray Kettle Farm".
Second change on the farm....animals. We are constantly learning and adapting when it comes to taking care of the animals we have and learning about new animals we think we want. If you are an animal here at the farm, you must either be food or help. If you aren't either one of those things, you can't stay because you are freeloading and that can get very expensive. So as we are constantly evaluating what animals to have here, we are looking to see how they can benefit us. We currently have 6 sheep....Dotty and her lamb, Marcia, Sandy and her lamb Steve (who is our only male who will help us have more little lambs), Sasha and Snowflake. We also have three goats.....Lilly, Laylay and Jonathon. All the names are curtesy of the grands. Side note, we all know if the animals are for food you don't name them, however, our grands all know that most of the animals we have here at the farm will end up going to freezer camp at some point and they are okay with that.
We originally thought that we would raise sheep and goats for meat. However, after raising them for a while now, we have decided that we will use the goats for clearning out poison ivy and underbrush in the woods. We will breed the sheep at least one time and see what it is like to have baby sheep born here at the farm and then make our decision as to whether or not we will raise sheep to sell for meat. We have also made changes to how we graze the animals. We used to have them all together in one field. Because of learning new information, we have divided our one field into three pastures with electric fencing and now the goats have a field and the sheep have a field and we rotating them every week to a different pasture. This keeps the animals parasite and worm free and allows a pasture to rest each week.
We also have been raising meat birds. Our first batch was 13 Cornish cross and our last batch was a blend of Cornish cross and red rainbows, 30 total. We had our processing day this past Saturday and it went really well. As a result of processing two batches, we have decided raising meat birds is fairly easy and inexpensive and it is something we will continue to do as a possible income for the farm. We have made a lot of changes between each batch and the processing just keeps getting easier and more efficent. Bonus, our freezers are full of chicken that tastes better than anything you can buy at the store!
We currently have about 35 layers, which are producing 15-18 eggs per day. We love having fresh eggs here at the farm and will continue to raise them. One of the major changes we made to the layers is we built new coops for them and moved them all into the field, away from the garden. Now not only do they have fresh grass every day but there is zero cleaning to do in the coops. We just supply them with layer feed and fresh water. They are very happy with their new home and I (Amy) am happy I don't have to clean chicken poop up ever again! Another bonus, the grass in the field looks amazing from being fertilized every day.
We currently have one beehive. We had two but one just decided to up and leave. We did our first honey extraction a few weeks ago. We got about two gallons of honey off the one hive. It tastes so good! After having these bees for a while now, we have decided that bee keeping is just not where we want to spend our time. We will probably always have one hive for honey but no more than that. It is time consuming and expensive to have multiple hives. We are deciding that we want to spend our energy elsewhere.
Future plans for animals include raising alpacas (four to be exact), two angus cows for beef, several pigs for meat and we will eventually have another farm dog. We will add animals slowly and only after we have the infrastructure in place to house and take care of all of them. We are enjoying all we have so far and are looking forward to learning how to care for others.
Speaking of learning, I(Amy) went to an all day small farm bootcamp recently and learned so much about what it takes to run a small farm. I have a whole new appreciation for small farmers and the amount of effort it takes to earn a living. I love the fact we can do so much on our 53 acres to feed our family with food that is so much more nutritious and good for you than anything you can buy at grocery stores and earn some income by what we produce either through animals or the garden. I was able to make connections with others who are building small farms and also with people who have resources I didn't even know existed that can make farming easier and more affordable.
Third change.....the garden. It is finished for the season and is getting a complete overhaul. Again change is good but hard and working to get the garden ready for next season is no joke. After learning a lot of new information over the summer, we have decided that the raised beds need to go. We are converting the entire garden space to inground, with just two raised beds for specific plants. We will build overhead trellises and have drip irrigation installed. It should make next year's garden so much easier to maintain. It will take a lot of work in the coming weeks but will be worth it when we are eating all those yummy vegetables we work so hard to grow.
We have done some improvements on the farm over the summer. We enclosed our big shop, where we lived during construction. It has given us an indoor space now to build stuff and house farm equipment out of the elements. Nick and I also added a patio to our house, which gives us a nice space to hang outside and have evening fires. We will be adding more fencing and pastures in the coming weeks and we have one big construction project in the works and we will share updates on that when the time is right :)!
As far as the family goes, everyone is doing well. The grands are growing like crazy and are so fun to have running around the farm. We try to include them in all that we do. We are all looking forward to cooler weather and being able to open windows and be outside more. We have two with big 30th birthdays, Will just celebrated on the 23rd and Erik's is in April of next year. Nick and I had the priviledge of taking both of them to the bourbon trail as a gift from their wives. We had a great time and enjoyed getting to spend time with them. Emily spent a little time in the hospital recently with pneumonia. She is doing well and almost fully recovered. Erik and Natalie are in the midst of raising a two year old and a four month old and all that comes with that busy life. Nick and I doing well, enjoying all that comes with this life we have created here at the farm.
Until the next blog, please enjoy pictures of our life here at the farm...
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