A lot of people have been asking how we've been impacted by the rain. Well, the driveway is washed out, the store is opening later than expected but the worst problem is best described by this:
Rich, "Get some Off while you're out."
Jackie,"Ok" (forgets to get Off)
Rich, three days later, "I got the Deep Woods stuff - it burns a lot when it goes on, but you'll get used to it."
FINALLY!
The Morels arrived. One day after the open house. It is spring!
Here's a few images of our chickens, their eggs, spring - etc.....
See the eggs?
Here they are..
On to a much lighter subject...here's the babes....
Every one wants to know what the turkeys look like! Here they are!
When we first started farming, most of my guidance came from books. Eliot Coleman, Helen and Scott Nearing, etc....
Helen and Scott Nearing, for example, believed in producing only what they needed to pay the bills. They had visitors come to their farm to work, play the flute, smoke a joint - whatever....(I never read anything in the book about joints being smoked, but they sure had a sing-song sort of life.)
Eliot Coleman makes it look easy too. He claims that you don't need a tractor. A broadfork will do. Perhaps a walking tractor, but for heaven's sake, you don't need a tractor.
So...it seemed to me that we'd be able to earn a living at this farming thing. Never, in my wildest dreams did i imagine the work would be so challenging. It IS possible to earn a living at this, so let me not discourage anyone with my rant. It is just much, much more challenging than one would imagine.
This is the last two days. Thurrsday and Friday; Up at 5 to capture 125 chickens which must be delivered to the processor. Rich on his merry way, drives 3 hours round trip. I continue work whilst he is away, feeding chickens, untangling sheep from fence, weeding garlic, weeding spinach....you name it. Oh, I planted tomatoes and that night we got a frost so now we get to replant them. Then off to deliver chicken to a store in town. Off to Mineral Point to deliver lamb and chicken, home, sleep. Lord knows what Rich did all day - Oprah? Bon Bons?
Next day - up at 5 again. Rich drives 3 hours round trip to pick up chickens. I feed the remaining chickens whilst he is away. Hand weed spinach. Garlic. Flowers. Weed - weed - weed. Weed the hoop house. Feed the chickens again. and again. Weed the garlic again. Then at about 4 we start to think about the market tomorrow. Harvest green garlic, cut flowers, pack the van, make pricing signs. Good grief it never ends!
None of that accounts for the bookkeeping, housekeeping, etc, that only happens now and again. Plus a few sales on eBay. An antique show next weekend. Customers calling with orders. Us calling others with orders....and on and on. Wait until my rant on 'Producer Only' Farmers Markets. One of which I am going to tomorrow at 4AM. See ya!
Want to know how we raise the chickens that you eat? Many people ask. So here's the scoop:
Baby chickens are ordered from a small hatchery in Iowa. We've ordered from a few places in the past, but have decided the healthiest, happiest day old chicks come from Decorah Hatchery in Iowa. They are shipped on the day they are born and arrive at our local post office the next day. They usually pull in to the Monroe post office around 4:30am, at which point our phone rings and the guy or gal at the post asks us to come retrieve the peeping birds. We go get them. The peeps below are about 4 days old.
We raise Cornish Cross birds. They grow relatively fast, and produce a lot of white meat. We're going to try some ole fashioned black chickens this summer too.
So when they come home from the post office, they go into a brooder that keeps the environmental temperatures at about 95 degrees. They stay under the brooder for about a week without ever peeping out. After about a week, they get hot and hungry, and start coming out of the brooder. They can come out from the sides of the brooder any time they want. Our best brooder is in an old insulated horse barn. We have also converted our personal, two and a half car garage into a brooder for up to 1000 chickens.
The chickens spend weeks two & three peeping and rambling about their brooder and the space around it.
At about week three to week three and a half, they head outside to either a stationary house, or a moveable house. They sleep at night in their houses, and wander the pasture during the day. We put up fence that keeps raccoon, coyote, fox and the neighbor's hungry cats away. For every 100 chickens, they get about 1/4 acre of pasture. That's a lot for chickens. Sometimes, even more.
Here's their feeder below! I am pretty sure anyone driving our Gator could open a chicken fence and have a chicken parade, because they've become used to the sound of the Gator bringing food. In order to ensure that a majority of their food comes from pasture, we sprinkle their grain right into the grass.
As for the grain they receive, we special order a mix of feed. A non GMO mix. It makes up a good percentage of their diet when they are little, and much less when they are on pasture.
People often ask if our chicken is organic. We aren't certified. We don't really plan to be certified. Everything we do with our chicken, including the pasture on which they graze, is eligible for certification. But in order to get certified feed for our chickens, we'd have to have it trucked in from a town about 4 hours away. Your chicken would be about 5 dollars a pound at that point. So we can't do it.
Healthy, happy chickens raised here...
Hi - I'm a new hen this year - I will be laying your blue eggs in about 5 weeks
I'll be laying brown eggs
We love our new home!
When I arrived home from vacation in Jaunary, it was about -20 degrees. There was a near dead lamb in the basement. Rich brought it in to revive it. We thought that was a little weird. And then when we realized it was going to live, we moved it to a little box in our 'mudroom' bath room. And it stayed - oh, I dunno, about 2.5 days bleating its little heart out.
Sometimes when we're doing farming sort of things we look over our right and left shoulders, back and forth, to see if other farmers are looking. Do we look like complete buffoons? We do that way less now than our first year, because we have come to realize farming is a personal 'art' more than it is a science.
So I talk to my friend a little about it...."Say there.... , friend, we, uh, had a lamb, in the bathroom for a couple of days..." (checking to see if this is weird.) Friend says, "Oh yeah, we had cows in the house all the time on the farm. Gotta do what you gotta do."
She's apparently taken it to the next level...I think she is having veal for dinner tonight, got the lil' one right there in the kitchen. (Oh she isn't having veal, that is a joke.)
Rich is the laziest blogger I know.
I have recovered from the chicken disaster. The very next day one of our ewes decided to go into labor at around 7:00 in the morning and a cute little white-as-snow baby lamb arrived. She apparently heard about the chicken disasters and wanted to help us prove our competence at taking care of livestock.
She went into labor and refused to deliver the little lamb. Just two hooves and a little mouth in view for a very long time, so we decided to give her a hand. A sheep in general is hard to catch. A sheep in labor even more challenging. Anyhoo – I caught the sheep and made her be still. Rich with a long plastic glove on his arm took hold of hooves and delivered the little snow white lamb. It is healthy and happy. A good animal story.
The hens gave us these eggs. We like the hens.
About six months ago we counted the chickens in our semi annual chicken round up. Make sure everyone is present and accounted for. All the hens were there. The rooster was there. But there was an extra rooster. A very pretty, but extra loud rooster. After scratching our heads for a few days, trying to figure out where the extra rooster had come from, we realized the only possibilty was a visiting livestock trailer. He was a stow away on a sheep delivery.
We called the rightful owners and they confessed that it was in fact possible that their rooster had jumped the sheep train. In fact, they realized it when they were here but decided the rooster would be quite happy here...and who felt like trying to catch a rooster anyway?
So we allowed the rooster to stay. We thought he'd get along. But old rooster wouldn't have any part of new rooster. So new rooster went to live with the sheep. He had no hens of his own. He was a little on the sad side. But a beautiful rooster he was!
Black and white rooster had this habit of crowing all night long. I mean, ALL NIGHT LONG... Cock A Doodle Doooooooooo....All the night through. All night, every night, for many, many months. I, an insomniac in the first place do not need any help staying awake at night.... so I decided the rooster had to go. I was planning to send it to 'live' on a neighboring farm. Where they kept hens but no roosters. I don't know what they did with the roosters, and I had decided I didn't care. Truthfully, I am positive they made no bones about eating old roosters and that the fate of B&W rooster was likely a seat at the neighbor's dinner table.
So today is Friday. B&W was going to live with new people on Saturday. This morning I went outside to check on sheep; see if any babies arrived overnight and there in the pasture were the feathers of B&W...everywhere. All over, nothing but feathers. I followed the feather trail into the woods. No sign of B&W but feathers. Poor guy. I really hated him, but I didn't want to see him go this way. He was such a loner. He wouldn't go inside at night. I mean, I reallly, really hated hearing him scream all night, but I didn't want to see him go feathers-all-over-the-place style.
Rich didn't believe me when I told him ole' B&W was gone. I told him to go see the feathers for himself. He called me out to show him the feathers. He didn't believe it either. I think it was a fox. Rich firmly believes it was a neighbor, either to the west or to the east, that was also sick of hearing ole B&W....he almost believes that rooster was so annoying that it is possible that a neighbor even came dressed as a fox, captured the poor guy and left nothing but feathers to make it look like an 'accident'.
Very sad - ole rooster! We didn't want to see you go this way! we'll miss you!!! Even your annoying 2AM COCK A DOODLE DOOOOOOOOO will be missed. We bid you adieu ~ Cock A Doodle Doo!
Looking good. Here's your spinach. Second leaves have arrived. I wish the second hoop house would arrive so that we can harden it off before it goes into the ground in three weeks. You are gonna love this spinach. It is very pampered. Watered every morning. Spritzed in the afternoon. This spinach is going to be fabulous. Follow it with us to your table.
Your spinach has germinated. It will be ready for the farmer's market in about 45 days. I planted it for you about a week and a half ago. Along with some other things; tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, fennel, oregano, broccoli and celery. This weekend I will be planting your flowers for you. And in about three weeks I will plant some squash so that is can be ready by mid to late June.
Your spinach seeds were flown in from Maine. Certified organic seeds, very nice. They're growing in some very fancy certified organic germination mix, also flown in from Maine. No lobsters though, we didn't have any of those flown in. The soil is a luxury item. We've mixed our own in the past with mixed, mostly poor results. So this year we sprung for the good stuff so we can supply you with even more spinach.
Your spinach will be watched closely for the next week or so. We have to make sure it doesn't grow too leggy or dampen off. It will be moved to the hoop house in about two weeks. Then very shortly after that it will be in the ground and a couple of weeks later we'll start cutting the leaves and bringing them to market.
It is pretty close to organic. The seed and soil organic. The ground it will be grown in is eligible for organic certification. The only thing prohibitting your spinach from being certified is the hay that we use for mulch. It comes from a field we own, which we rent out to another farmer. He's growing his hay organically, but it isn't certified and that problem trickles all the way down to your spinach.
I make no guarantees, but we'll try to follow your spinach from seed to table.
I tend to be an inquisitive person. What's this? What's that? Hey Mister, Watcha doin?
This weekend Rich and I went to the annual meeting of the Dane County Farmer's Market. We aren't meeting people, but as new vendors, who have been on the waiting list for 3 years, we went. We had to. It was required.
So it was a meeting like all - long and boring. Except for the potluck which was fabulous. I didn't know it was a potluck because Rich read the invite and he doesn't know what a potluck is. At the very last second, I read the invite and grabded an unopened bag of organic cookies. I wasn't missing out on a potluck and you can't have any if you don't bring something. That's the rule. I LOVE POTLUCK. A Laotian women brought eggrolls. Not the crappy kind you get at Chinese places - the really good kind. They have a name - don't know what it is.
Anyway. Potluck was over, boring speakers finished and we're on to rules and regs. Food safety comes up. I ask a few questions - they get answered. no biggie.
Then - at the end of the meeting I ask food safety about eggs, "Says right here I need a mobile retail food licesne to sell eggs. Unless I sell them wholesale, then I need a food processing license. But the Beloit market tells me I need a food processing licesne. Which is it?" Well - round and round and we all don't know how to interpret to rules. So today, food safety calls and thanks me for alerting them to the issue. "Yes, you need a food processing license. You and everyone else selling eggs. Thanks so much for alerting us to this." So now we add to the list of things to do...
211. Get a certified kitchen
Very tricky. You have to have a building, sixty four sinks, hot and cold water, etc. etc. We're going to try, but that'll teach me to open my mouth again.
So when the neighbor stopped by today I found myself asking lots of questions about his milking shed. They are highly regulated too. "Got hot water? What about septic? Is that a small scale septic or just your average house septic?" Septic tanks? Why am I talking about that. Phew.
We've got a list of things to do this spring. Most everything has to get done in March and April in order to be ready for the summer season.
1. Build hoophouse. Old hoophouse belongs to new hens.
2. Fix up henhouse, actually old hoophouse. Need shadecloth, roosts and nesting boxes. Clean up from over wintered roasters.
3. Build brooders for 1000 chickens. That's right, 1000.
4. Locate a brooding house for 1000 chickens...how bout the garage? The cars can stay outside. The chickens can't.
5. Build moveable pens for 1000 pastured chickens
6. Erect fence to keep chickens in their allocated 3 acres of pasture.
7. Get certified organic. No don't. No do. No later. Oh boy.
8. Mix soil. Plant seeds. Grow plants.
As usual, even without a full time job it is going to be chaos. The full time job has actually been replaced by full time antiquing which includes buying, restoring, selling, shipping, etc. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Every year since we've been farming at least 10 people ask, "What do you do in the winter with all that down time?"
Every year I answer the same, "Sit in front of the TV, watch Oprah and eat bon bons."
The 'winter' doesn't start for us until December. Markets aren't finished until the end of October. In November we pick up the pieces of what's been left behind and ignored for the entire spring and summer. We mow the lawn for the first time, for example. We put away the 50 or so hoses that feed our gardens. We plant garlic. We plant tulips. We clean up all the messes we've left behind all summer long. We chop down overgrown trees, bushes and weeds. November is as crazy as June.
December rolls in and we often times give ourselves three or four minutes a day off. We raise livestock, not just tomatoes. In the summer, livestock feeds itself on pasture. In the winter, we roll in bales of hay. All the time. They eat fast.
The seed catalogs arrive in early January and it frightens us into creating a business plan for the coming season. We assess last year's crop profits. We pick and choose the items and varieties we want to sell in the upcoming season. We feed the animals. over and over again.
February has now arrived and we start talking with other farmers. We talk about how to sell goods to one another's customers. How to best distribute food. We go to farmer's market planning meetings. over and over again. We scramble to figure out where we'll house 150 hens, how we'll brood 1000 broilers at a time and how we'll keep up with the endless demand for lamb chops. And we need another hoophouse. We have to plan to build it in March. Oh and we still feed those sheep and chickens in the barnyard.
March brings seed starting and emergency set up of greenhouses, buildings and what not. Because we've spent out winter eating bon bons and watching TV - we're just never ready.