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Dare I say it? A piece fell into place today. I'm afraid of jinxing this little bit of good luck by typing it out loud, but with the run of bad luck we've had... Let's just say I will not be surprised if the minute I submit this post the hounds of hell show up on our doorstep looking for us to throw them a bone. I shouldn't complain about the bad luck, when we're surrounded by beauty and life and good fortune. I'll try to stop. After all, the tornados that went through our county today didn't smite us.

By now you're expecting me to share something dramatic, aren't you? Well here it is: liability insurance. Kind of let down now, aren't you? But I can't tell you how happy this makes me and how well I will sleep tonight.

We are working towards being able to sell frozen meat and poultry right here at the farm. The meat and poultry will be state inspected, processed and packaged by our local locker. We simply bring it home and put it in our freezer. This requires an inspection of our freezer, approved labels and a Food Warehouse License. Technically it doesn't require liability insurance, but if someone gets sick from eating our meat...there goes the farm.

I've been trepidatious about venturing into the world of farm product liability insurance, after a good share of horror stories from my classmates. And my experience last week pretty much ranked right up there with theirs. Our current insurance agent came back to me with, "If you insist on pushing it I can probably get you the coverage for about $500 a year. But we really don't even want to touch it." Those weren't his exact words, just my boiled down version.

So I went to see the Farm Bureau agent. I wasn't sure what to expect. Judging from my classmates' stories, not all FB agents are created equal. But this one knew exactly what we wanted to do and exactly what insurance we needed - commercial liability, which includes product liability. He assured me this insurance would only cost us a couple hundred dollars a year. Better yet, he later told me we don't even need the commericial/product liability insurance if our sales are under $20k. Our farm policy will cover us for that small amount of sales. He probably thinks I'm obsessive, because I asked him "are you sure" multiple times over the last couple of days.

So I can proceed with The Plan, with a few less worries. And I got a new customer out of the deal.

Uh-oh...I think I just heard something barking outside.

Welcome, Rudy!

Another new calf this morning! I was in the bathroom about 7:45 getting ready for work when I heard a strange "moo" outside. Having animals is about like having kids - you can tell more about what's going on by the tone of their voice than by the words coming out of their mouths. I looked out the window and the cow I had pictured in yesterday's post was licking her baby. I'd guess I was about 30 seconds behind seeing the actual birth!

By 8:30 he was nursing. By 9:30 he was running about and kicking up his heels. That never ceases to amaze me.

When Matt came home for lunch we walked out to have a look.

Me: His name is Rudy.
Matt: What if it's a girl?
Me: Rudy still works.
Matt: Only if you're the Huxtables.

But Rudy it is. This is one of our older cows and she was having none of us walking up to that baby. So this was the best picture I could manage:



We also caught sight of a couple other babies at noon - two little Canada geese swimming on the creek while mom and dad watched from the bank. So sweet! But by the time I walked down there with the camera the babies had disappeared, probably to somewhere safe. Mom and Dad Goose were alarmed by me, however, and got up from their nap to call for the kids.



Reminds me of me "honking" in a store for Olivia when she disappears, as she likes to do.

Working the Plan

I spent a lot of time as a kid with my maternal grandmother. At almost 90 years old now, she was a newlywed at the height of The Great Depression. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is a way of being, not a slogan, for her - saving scraps of fabric and cereal box liner bags, washing and reusing disposable dishes and plastic cutlery. Preparing for the "what-ifs" in life. Over-preparing, usually.

There are times when I am acutely aware of how much this rubbed off on me. Like last night, for example. I finally got to start some seeds. My experiment this year is to see if I can run a hypothetical CSA*. I'm going to plant as if I have a 2-member CSA, plus my own family to feed and freezer to stock. I may even find 2 people willing to be guinea pigs and buy my 2 weekly boxes.

So, plan in hand, I started in with the seeds. I had calculated how many plants I wanted to end up with in the garden, and therefore how many seeds to start. In most cases fewer seeds to start than what came in the seed packet. It about killed me not to plant the extra seeds. There's no such thing as over-prepared. If The Great Depression II hits this summer, I'll be sorry.

Just work the plan, I kept telling myself.

I seeded twice as many seeds as I want to transplant out, 2 per cell. That means after they germinate I'll have to snip off one out of each cell (unless one fails to germinate). This will also about kill me. They've only just gotten a start at life and here I come, all Grim Reaper with my scissors, and just like that it's over for them. These are the beginnings of food we're talking about here. I'll be really really sorry when The Great Depression II hits.

Just work the plan.



I did it. I stuck to my plan. I resisted the urge to overdo. No 300 tomato transplants for me this year.

Well, I started 12 cabbage instead of 11 because I don't like odd numbers. But close enough.

After all, how can I tell what works if I don't at least start with the plan? I work the plan this year. Analyze what went right, what went wrong, and what adjustments I had to make on-the-fly. Adjust the plan next year and work it again. Penny should be proud. If I learn nothing else in her class, at least I've learned to make a plan and work it.

*CSA = Community Supported Agriculture

Noon Scenes

Each weekday at noon I emerge from the confines of my office and make the rounds outside. Today is (finally!) a beautiful spring day, sunny and in the mid-60's. Everyone seemed to be a good mood. I had my camera with me and thought I'd show you what I saw on my rounds.


Hen and cat sharing dogfood for lunch


Our mama pig, Sarah, and behind her
the hole she's digging to China


The piglets to the left, hanging out with the stocker calves. The whiteface looking at me is Beetlejuice, and the whiteface behind him is Casper. I can't tell the black ones apart just looking at them, but their names are Blackie & Brownie (twins), Jemima and Number Five.


One of our pregnant cows - I feel for
these gals and their big bellies.


Winston following me around
looking for treats

Happy Easter

Free Range Pork

The piglets are getting adventurous! The backside of their pen is just general livestock fencing instead of hog panels and the squares are big enough for them to squeeze through. They run about as a group looking for things to root up with their tiny little noses. Then if we come near they all run back to their pen trying to remember how to get back in.

Dang they're cute!

Birds of a Different Feather

We had a few visitors yesterday afternoon. Three bald eagles were hanging out in a tree in our front yard. I couldn't get very close before they flew away.

In this picture there is an adult eagle in the upper left - you can see that his head is white - and a younger eagle just below center.



Bald eagles develop their white head and neck feathers upon sexual maturity at around 4 to 5 years old. There was one adult with a bald head, and 2 younger eagles that were still all brown.

In this picture the second young eagle is coming in for a landing in the upper right.



They were so beautiful, and also a little ominous as they circled our farm a few times before heading up the creek to the next farm. Hopefully all of our chickens are still here. I think I'll do a chicken head-count when they come in to roost tonight.

In the last picture I got all three - the adult to the left, one young one to the right sitting sideways, and the other young one bottom left of center.



I'm going to look under that tree today when I walk out to get the mail - maybe they left us a feather.

Inspiration

There is an art gallery in our county - a rare thing in rural northern Iowa. Unionhurst Gallery is located in the tiny town of Toeterville, population 298, and features exclusively the work of Atlanta Constance Sampson . If you go in there you'll probably meet one of Atlanta's nieces or nephews. The gallery is a work of love for her extended family. Her story is so inspiring, and I think it's her story that makes her art so moving to me. She dedicated her life to art, relentlessly. She couldn't not do it. Many people would have given up long before she did but she kept on and finally got her one-woman show at the age of 96.

There are days when I wonder if the Powers That Be are trying to tell me to give up my dream of building a profitable, sustainable farm-based business. Mostly it's days when things die. One of our piglets is very sick right now, probably with a freak case of tetanus. Tetanus is supposed to be a freak thing anyway, but this is our second case of it. We had a calf die from it 3 years ago. I sometimes think this farm is cursed and half-expected to dig up an Indian burial site when we put the new basement under the house.

But I feel such passion for it I just can't give it up. Looking back at the journals I've kept, you'd see that 10 years ago I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn't know what kind. For years I toyed with various business ideas but never came up with anything that really got me fired up. Until one day at a cattle auction in a sale barn the lightbulb lit up and I knew I wanted to farm in some way, shape or form. Guess it's in my blood. My mom's parents farmed. My dad farms. I wanted to marry a farmer when I grew up. (I'd forgotten it until that moment.) It's my brother's passion, too, we're just taking different paths towards it. I want to see him succeed as badly as I want myself to succeed. I inundate him with articles on sustainable and organic agriculture. In my mind a three or four hundred acre diversified organic farm is the best chance at making your sole living from the farm, which is his goal. So I email him articles on successful Iowa organic farmers. He rolls his eyes at me. It's just because I love ya, bro.

I am happiest when I am growing food or tending to animals. I just wish I'd realized that 10 or 15 years ago. I am so saddened by the disappearance of small family farms. It seems impossible to make a living and support a family with one anymore. But hope lies in small, sustainable farms and in making connections with food eaters (which is all of us, right?). Knowledge is power, as they say. When people learn more about the food they eat, with what methods it was raised or grown, and how those methods affect the nutritional value of their food and the consequent effects on their own health...then people will start buying the good food. They will support small family farms. More of their food dollars will stay in their own communities, strengthening their local economies. They will be "voting" with those dollars - voting against large agribusiness and for the small family farm.

Matt and I were talking about how people want cheap food and are unwilling to pay more for organic food. I'll admit, ourselves included. We're very budget-concious and I just couldn't see doubling our grocery bill, even though I believe in the superiority of organic food. But we don't think twice about paying whatever it costs to make us well again when we're sick. Why aren't we willing to pay more for food that may help us stay well in the first place? So I'm easing into organics. I now buy organic milk and butter. Of course with the farm the meats and vegetables we raise and eat are almost organic. They're not quite because we have to buy the corn we feed the animals, and the corn we buy isn't organic. If we had the land to raise our own corn we'd be organic. But at least our meat's not laced with subtherapeutic antibiotics and artifical growth hormones. Our vegetables are not sprayed with chemical pesticides and fed synthetic fertilizers. And even though we're all fighting colds at the moment, overall we've had a very healthy winter.

I don't know if our little Sugar Creek Farm business is the destination on my journey into agriculture. I have a feeling it's only a stop along the way.

I struggle sometimes with what "tone" to take on this blog. It started out as a way to capture our journey in trying to build a successful, sustainable little farm. But it's such a great way to capture everyday moments that I find myself wanting to write a lot of non-farm stuff, too. Should I take a humorous, or informative, or philosophical tone? There are blogs I just love that seem to stick to a format or a theme. Like Happy and Blue 2 that tells an hysterically funny story and ends with an interesting question. Or Rurality that is filled with wonderful nature photos and interesting facts about the subjects of those photos.

I guess the conclusion I've come to is to stop struggling with it and just write.

Back to yesterday's post for just a minute. My mom wrote me a nice email saying she liked the story but did not actually remember that happening. (And in keeping with our theme of neurosis she wondered if some things she does remember actually happened or if maybe she has early onset Alzheimers.) But it is amazing the things you do and don't remember, and what will trigger memories you had forgotten.

Case in point - Madeline has a retainer and included in her retainer kit was a little bottle of Scope. She pulled that out this morning and all of a sudden I was standing in my grandparents' bathroom. I was in elementary school and they were still on their farm. It was a long, narrow little bathroom that had been carved from one side of the dining room when they got indoor plumbing in the fifties. They always used Scope, and I remember it was such a treat to me to get to use it because it wasn't something my parents used at home. I knew I wasn't supposed to swallow any, but I usually did swallow just a little bit because I thought it tasted so good . Such an insignificant little thing to remember, but it brings back those feelings of happy times spent at their house.

Still haven't started any seed. Monday night one of my best friends called so I spent a good hour just catching up with her. She lives in NYC now and it had been about a month since we'd talked. It was worth procrastinating on seed starting just to talk with her - made me so happy. Tuesday nights are the girls' dance night, so nothing else happens on Tuesday nights except grocery shopping/putting away for the week. I think at this point I'm just going to wait until the weekend. We have a little problem with the seed starting rack and fitting it down the basement stairs anyway. But Matt is off work Friday so hopefully he'll take care of that!

Sled of Death

From my office window right now I can see Olivia sledding. On the one hand, I'm a pretty laid-back mom. On the other hand I'm a neurotic worrier who always imagines the worst. If I have the slightest ache or pain, I immediately assume I have a tumor.

So I'm watching Olivia sled towards the creek, thinking "I hope she doesn't sled right into the creek" but not really feeling alarmed. There's not much danger of it happening. It's only a slight downward grade, and the bank is lined with trees and brush that would surely stop her before she plummeted into the icy cold waters of Sugar Creek. Then my neurosis kicks in...but if she worked up enough velocity and maneuvered the sled just so she might be able to do it. But the laid-back mom prevents neurotic mom from racing out there in my stocking feet, pulling her back to the house, and forcing her to do something safe like a puzzle. (I guess at 7 1/2 she's old enough not to swallow any pieces.) Now she's just lying on her back in the snow contemplating the sky. I remember days like that.

I also remember sledding down a tree-studded ravine. My brother and the neighbor girl were in a plastic toboggan and I was holding onto their sled from behind, lying on my stomach in my sled. The front sled went around a tree, I went headfirst into the tree and knocked myself right out. I came to, and my brother and I walked the half-mile home. My mom put me on the couch and told me not to fall asleep in case I had a concussion. So maybe that's where I get my laid-back/neurotic mother duality. On the one hand she let us go sledding a half-mile away where she couldn't even see us. That was pretty laid-back of her. On the other hand the whole don't fall asleep thing had me terrified to sleep for several days. I kept waking up in the night with a start wondering if I was dead or alive.

Didn't get any seed started yesterday like I planned. Matt and I stayed out too late on Saturday night playing 500. I've fallen out of stay-out-all-night condition since I left the band . Instead I took the girls shopping after church Sunday, then came home and made a big Sunday dinner...bbq pork ribs, roasted asparagus, and homemade oven fries. And then I pretty much crashed. Going to try and do some seed starting tonight.

Digging Out

Mother Nature most definitely did not cooperate. In fact she pretty much thumbed her nose at me. I did not make it to class.



Matt and Rafe ready to go out and move some snow.
Rafe is wearing his super Spiderman glasses.



I don't know why, but chickens in snow fascinate me. Maybe because it just doesn't seem natural. Or because the contrast brings out their colors.


Silver-laced Wyandotte Hen

Gold Star Hen

The chickens were so happy with the treats I brought them today - spaghetti, brown rice, wilted lettuce, and a soft tomato. Notice the cats hanging out in the chicken coop.



There will be no longing gazes at my garden today because I can't see it for the snow. But tomorrow I'm going to start some seeds in the basement, yay! Happy Saturday, everyone!

No post yesterday, I spent the evening plugging away at the next section of our business plan that is due tomorrow.

I also played around with an idea for a new farm logo. Our old logo just had a cow on it and I wanted to include our expansion into pork and poultry. What do you think?

Edited: I had to make an adjustment to the logo because my husband and his coworkers have vulgar little minds.





I've also been tossing around website address ideas. I want something easy to remember and to spell. Some of these I think are too long, maybe three words is the limit. What do you think?

www.oursugarcreekfarm.com
www.thefarmonsugarcreek.com
www.sugarcreekpastures.com
www.sugarcreekhomestead.com
www.sugarcreekhome.com
www.sugarcreekfarmhome.com

We got hit with a nasty storm last night so the kids get a snow day today. Hopefully the weather cooperates so I can make it to class tomorrow

Garden Fever

If you were a fly in the barnyard this is a sight you'd see more and more often in the next month or two - me gazing longingly at my garden. There is just something so satisfying about digging in the dirt, helping things grow, and eating the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor.

Now show me a houseplant and I'll show you a dead-plant-to-be. When it comes to houseplants my thumbs are black. Matt got me a beautiful ivy for Valentines Day. Gee, thanks, another plant to kill. "I thought since we'll finally have a real front porch again this summer, you could hang this out there." He's so optimistic. I gently forewarned him that it would probably be dead long before we get the porch put on. But, for the moment, it's alive and well and only missing perhaps a third of the leaves it came with.

But for whatever reason vegetables are an entirely 'nuther matter. I love to grow vegetables. Last year was the first year we'd had a garden in 6 years (long story, involving rats). I got a little crazy and started 300 tomato plants in our basement. I guess I just got a little over-excited by the Seed Savers catalog, with the sheer number of wonderful sounding tomatoes and their equally wonderful descriptions. Soldacki, Amish Paste, Black from Tula, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cherokee Purple, Druzba. I don't even like to eat fresh tomatoes, unless it's on a sandwich or in a salad. But all of these interesting sounding tomatoes intrigued me.

We had a very wet spring last year and everything was late going into the garden. I was (and still am) working full-time at my day job, and by August the garden was literally a jungle with weeds reaching over my head. Regardless, we got quite the harvest .

Ah, but the tomatoes. I managed to get a few canned and then Matt and I had a trip to San Diego at the end of September. It's a trip I've made a couple of times to the beautiful Hotel del Coronado as part of my day job. But driving home from the Minneapolis airport when we returned I started noticing frost on parked cars we passed. Frost! All of those tomatoes getting frostbite. I almost cried the whole way home.

But don't you just love the internet? With a quick google I found out that while you can't can frostbitten tomatoes, you can freeze them. So we ended up with a freezer full of tomatoes in baggies instead of shelves full of tomatoes in jars. I even made freezer salsa.

So a garden is another thing I would still have, if I ever have to sell the farm and move to town. Ideally I'd like to start saving my own seeds, make this a "closed system" where most inputs come right from our own farm. That means manure composting is another thing on my To Learn list.

One of my best friends, who also grew up on a farm, has lived in big cities ever since high school. When she comes home to visit she says one thing she misses most is the feeling of having your feet directly touching the earth without a concrete barrier. It quite literally and figuratively makes her feel more grounded. I'd never even thought of it until she made that remark. Now I think of her when I'm out in my garden, I'm more aware of my blessings, and I am thankful.

Chick Fever

Karen over at Rurality has me so looking forward to getting new chicks. Click here and here to see pictures of her cute, fuzzy little babies.

There's nothing like picking up that box full of soft peeps, all cheeping away merrily and looking like yellow cotton balls that hop. Everything is nice and warm in the brooder and I could just sit for hours watching them and listening to their constant cheep cheep .

I grew up on a farm but we never had chickens. Matt and I got our first batch last spring. I don't know why, but I was a little freaked out by them at first. One of the first things you do when you bring them home is take them out of the box one at a time and dip each one's beak in the water. Matt did all 120 chicks because I just wasn't ready to touch them yet. It didn't take long to get over that, though. I never imagined how entertaining chickens would be.

Karen's so right on about how chickens can't stand to be left out of something important. The hens will be out in the yard, scratching about for goodies. When one finds a particularly wonderful prize, like a worm or a piece of bread, she'll attempt to run off and keep the wonderful thing for herself. But the others usually catch sight and a chase ensues. They'll chase the lucky hen around until she either drops her prize or they manage to pull it from her beak. Then the chase begins anew after the new prizeholder. Last year I saw a hen running about with a mouse in her beak. Don't know if she caught it or if it was gifted to her by one of the cats, but you would have thought it was gold the way those hens fought over it.

People who have chickens will tell you they're addicting. I have to agree. If I ever have to sell the farm and move to town I will be taking chickens with me. I believe in most places you can have a couple and call them pets.

Chicken catalogs are even more fun than vegetable catalogs. Go to Murray McMurray Hatchery and get their free catalog. The pictures are heavenly.

I've introduced the girls to this chicken addiction, and they're each getting their own chicks this spring. Madeline will take hers as a 4-H project. She's getting Partridge Cochins and Golden Polish . Olivia is getting Columbian Wyandottes and Lakenvelders . Both girls are getting Araucanas , which lay "Easter eggs". All of these chicks will be pullets (females).

I wasn't going to get any chicks myself. I already have 27 hens and as it is the pigs end up with a lot of eggs we don't get rid of. But the minimum order is 25 so I decided to add a few roosters to the flock, just because they're so pretty and I'd like to hear that cock-a-doodle-doo around here. So I'm getting a Rose Combed Brown Leghorn , a Buff Laced Polish , and a Salmon Faverolle .

These 25 chicks will arrive in the mail April 4, and then I'm picking up 100 broiler chicks from Hoovers Hatchery on April 7. Chicks have become one of my favorite rites of spring!

Head to Head

The good news is that nothing else died here this weekend. I'm not sure why we're having such bad luck with the cattle this year. Last year we got 8 healthy calves out of 7 cows with no problems whatsoever. I guess we just got some lemons when we bought this set of 4 heifers last fall. Our 4 older cows have yet to calve, hopefully things will go more smoothly with them.

I'm getting a bit paranoid, though. Sunday before church I saw Winston sleeping next to the cows' bale feeder. When I got home 3 hours later he was in the same spot. So I had to walk out and get him up to be sure he was all right.



Poor Winston is a little homeless at the moment. He had to be separated from Sarah once she farrowed, but the ground is too frozen to build him his own pen. So at first he was bunking with the stocker calves. But he liked to have a little too much fun with them, constantly chasing them around and bothering them. When it got to the point where they couldn't eat in peace Matt moved him in with the older cows and bull.

When Winston started trying to push them around the bull pushed back. I got a little concerned for his safety at one point so Matt relented and let him back in with the stockers.

That didn't last long, though, so back with the cows and bull he went. But they seem to have come to a bit of a truce, and the bull and Winston actually look to be playing together. Today when I looked out Winston was using the bull as a scratching post, rubbing his shoulder up and down against the bull's front leg. The bull tolerated this for a bit and then swung his head around, telling Winston to move on.

Then I got this shot of them going head-to-head, each looking like he thinks he's one bad barnyard animal. Obviously that bull could have Winston for lunch if he wanted. But they just kind of push each other back and forth and then step off. Right now I can see them from my office window, both napping a short distance from each other.

Peace in the kingdom, for the moment.

*sigh*

Called home on my way back from class. Bad news. The last of the heifers had her calf last night. Dead. Things like this just bum me out.

Remember Hee Haw ?

If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
Gloooom, despaaaaiiir, and agony on me.

Okay, better throw something positive in here, too. The pig castrating went well and they are all doing great. And Matt is out right now picking up my new seed starting rack. That means I get to play with dirt next weekend!

The List

A typical, blustery March day in Iowa. I hate wind, but in March I try to be grateful for windy days. They help thaw out, dry out, and warm up the garden.

Not much going on around the old homestead. Two more dumptruck loads of woodchips came this morning. I think they're bringing us more than last year. Matt said people are less willing to take them after realizing that sometimes the trees they're made from are diseased. People spread the chips as mulch around their own trees, and end up spreading the disease.

Madeline and I watched our Canada geese on the creek this morning. They were swimming around and dunking their heads in the water. (Brrrrrr) Were they bathing, or eating? I haven't been able to get out there with the camera and get a shot of them yet. Every year we have a pair stop on the creek and hatch their young. Do you think it's the same pair each year? I felt so sorry for them last year. After they had their eggs layed the inundating rains began. We had the worst flood we've had on the creek and their nest just washed away. Once the waters receded they walked around so piteously, looking for their nest. After a week or two they gave up and headed on north.

I'm heading on south to Ames for class in the morning. Our friend Andy is going to come and help Matt castrate the baby pigs. Then we're having my family over to supper for Rafe's birthday. (And no, those 2 activities aren't related. No rocky mountain oysters here!)

It's that time of year where things just seem to be accelerating and won't wind down again until October. It's exciting, but I get tired if I think about the months to come so I try not to.

I'm really itching to start my vegetable seeds, and probably will next weekend. Our friend Jeff is building me a really cool seed starting rack . This year I'm starting 7 varieties of tomatoes (but not 300 plants like last year!), cabbage, egg plant, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, and tomatillos. I might also start seedless cucumbers, zucchini, and watermelon. We'll see how the weather goes in April, and whether I'll be able to get in the garden early May or late May. Still deciding whether to do a spring planting of broccoli and brussels sprouts, or just a fall planting. I need to get busy with the graph paper and plan the garden layout for this year. Madeline will probably start flower seeds for her 4-H horticulture project. I love seed starting. It's like having spring inside the house, even when Mother Nature isn't cooperating outside.

What else is on the Homestead To Do List?

1. Baby chicks arrive April 7th! I need to get the brooder ready (aka giving up my heated garage), sanitize the feeders and waters, and purchase feed and bedding.

2. The baby chicks will go out to pasture on April 30th. Matt is going to build a hoophouse for them this year. We'll leave one end of our hoophouse open so the chickens can free range within the safety of the 160' of electrified poultry netting we use for protection from predators. We've purchased the materials but haven't started on it yet.

3. I'm trying to purchase a used freezer, so that we can proceed with obtaining our food warehouse license. This will enable us to sell our meats right from our home, instead of people having to take a quarter or half of beef, half or whole hog, or whole broiler chicken, and have it processed by the locker.

4. We also need approved food labels, in order to be granted a food warehouse license. We need to work with our processors to get that in place.

5. I have several promotional things I need to work on - a new logo for the farm, a new brochure, business cards, the yearly newsletter sent to our customers, getting our farm linked on websites that connect people with locally grown food, and a website for the farm. One big hangup is that the domain name "sugarcreekfarm.com" is already reserved but not in use, and the domain name "sugarcreekfarm.org" is being used by a family farm in Michigan. So what to do? Change our name, or come up with some other domain name? Ideas, anyone? I'd also take ideas on a new logo. Our current one is just a cow, but I want something that incorporates our new chicken and pork ventures, and probably some kind of future produce venture, too. I'm trying to get my artsy mom to help out on this one.

6. Complete an evaluation of adding produce to the farm, most likely berries and asparagus.

7. The business plan! I haven't been able to spend much time on it yet this week. (Hopefully Penny isn't reading this!)

8. We need to meet with our insurance agent and discuss our liability coverage, product liability, and all of that un-fun stuff.

9. We're probably going to file the farm as an LLC. More paperwork.

10. Obtaining one or more purebred Large Black breeding females.

That's an even 10, I think I'll stop there! Happy weekend, everybody!

Three

Rafe Henry is 3. Or "free", as he says.

My baby - though when I say that he replies,
"I not a baby, I Rafe!".

Happy Birthday, buddy.

More Woodchips

We got a couple more dumptruck loads of woodchips today, and it was an early out of school for the girls. So as soon as Matt got off work they got busy making more piles for the cows. As soon as I got off work I got busy taking pictures of them.



The weather is still cold here, and the ground is still frozen, which is good for hauling woodchips to the pasture. The tractor won't tear up the ground when it's still frozen.


Yep, that's our house in the background, half blue and half green. Hopefully we'll have the funds this summer to finish it all green.


Hard work and cold, fresh air. The girls ought to sleep well tonight!

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Today when I went outside on my lunch break the heifers and Fudge were sunning themselves on a pile of woodchips. They're pretending not to notice me, but see how they have their ears turned backwards towards me? Silly girls.

Woodchips have been a huge godsend to our little farm. In Matt's work as a lineman he does a lot of tree work during the winter, cutting down dead trees now so that they don't come down on power lines during summer storms. The trees are sent through a chipper, and the woodchips are free to area residents for the taking.

The woodchips make excellent beds for the cows. This time of year the corral area gets very wet and muddy. The woodchip piles are dry, they warm up nicely in the sun, plus they generate heat from underneath where the bottom layers are starting to compost. They are the cows' favorite place to birth their calves.

Farm Sale

Mother Nature sure enjoys toying with us mere mortals. Almost 40 degrees colder today than yesterday, with light snow and 30 mph winds. Great day to stand around outside and buy farm machinery. (Not!)


I wanted to take more pictures, but the other farmers were already looking at me funny enough just for being a girl at a farm sale. Even though the weather was miserable it was still fun. (Don't tell Matt I said that.)

I'm always eavesdropping on the conversations going on around me. They're usually about the most mundane things, and yet if you listen carefully they can reveal a lot about the "culture" on this square of the planet. Today I noticed many conversations that go something like this:

"What are you up to today?"

"Just down here killin' time."

"Yeah, me too."

Now I know better. Farmers always have a To Do list 10 miles long. They definitely don't have a need to kill time. So to me that response is really about:
(A) It's an auction and they don't want to seem too interested, or
(B) They're here because auctions are social events for farmers but they won't admit that.


This is the prize we came home with today - a hay rake. Matt assures me it's a great rake, despite its "rust"-ic appearance.

Spring Is In The Air

Sunday was the first day to hint at spring, almost 70 degrees and sunny. The 6-day-old piglets found their way outdoors, and in the sun we could see copper-colored streaks in their hair. My brother says that may be some Duroc in their bloodlines coming through.

They were funny to watch. Sarah would only let them stay out so long before grunting at them to get back inside. Some of them have more ginormous ears than others, some of their ears have yet to come forward, others' ears stick straight up in the air making them look like a pig version of Dumbo.


The chickens really enjoyed the warm sunshine. They would stretch themselves out so that as much of their body area was exposed to the sun as possible. Couldn't catch any of them on camera in that pose, though. The red one is a Production Red and the white ones are White Rocks.

Q&A: Pigs - The Large Black

Our boar, Winston, is a purebred Large Black. Large Blacks are listed as "Critical" by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy . This means that there are fewer than 200 annual North American registrations of these pigs, and it's estimated there are fewer than 2000 of them in the global population.

The Large Black breed is an orchard pig, developed in the 1880's in England where they enjoyed a period of popularity until about 1960. There were some importations into Canada in the 1920's, and into the U.S. in 1985 and 1998, but there has never been a large North American population. Even today in their native England they are listed as "Vulnerable" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust , meaning there is a population of less than 300 in that country.

They are a large pig, just slightly smaller than Yorkshire's. Originally bred as bacon pigs, they have good body depth and length. The shoulders are smallish, but the sides and hams are larger and lean. They have a good amount of intra-muscular marbling, which makes for a moist, juicy and flavorful meat.

Large Blacks are suited to being raised outdoors in a wide range of climates. They are hardy, and good grazers. The sows are known for their mothering ability, milk capacity, and ability to raise large litters on modest rations. The breed is extremely docile, perhaps attributable to the vision impairment created by their lopped ears. All of these qualities make them ideal for the small farm.

Waning poetic

I started this blog to capture both the ups and downs of our experience on this little farmstead. In yesterday's post I waxed poetic about the ups. And it's all true. But I was giggling to myself a little, thinking if they only knew . There are big setbacks and little setbacks, but I'm finding it's not so much the individual events as it is the cumulative effect that gets me. Two steps forward and one and a half steps back.

So back to the cow. We bought her last fall at the sale barn, as part of a group of four. You know how it is at any auction. They throw something that won't sell well in with some more desirable items. The two Hereford cows Matt wanted were grouped with a nice Simmental plus this cow. But she didn't look sick at that point, just really laid back.

A few months later she's losing weight and looking sickly. We talk to my brother, who works for our vet, and he says it could be a really heavy parasite load or it could be Johnes disease. So we treat her for parasites, but it's pretty obvious that's not really it. Johnes disease is basically chronic diarrhea and the animal just slowly wastes away. More common in dairy cattle than beef. It's kind of like Crohn's disease in humans. Incurable.

The best case scenario was that she'd have her calf - which would be worth $200 as soon as he hit the ground - and then we'd sell her at the sale barn, probably for about $400 less than we paid for her. Worst case scenario was that they'd both die and we'd be out the $750 we paid for her.

She lost the calf last Wednesday. So much for best case scenario. The plan was to take her to the sale barn Monday evening to be sold on Tuesday. But she beat us to the punch and died Monday morning. Worst case scenario.

Now I have a lot of passion for our little farm, but admittedly I can also lose focus at the drop of a hat and at lunch Monday I was kvetching to Matt about losing the cow and the $750 we paid for her. "$750 would have bought me a new camera and a lens, and I would have had something to take pictures with instead of a carcass." I can be real whiner.

Fast forward to supper time, when he comes in to say Sarah's going to have her piglets. I, not having regained focus yet, replied, "You'd better get Winston out of there now! If she has those pigs and he eats them, that might be what sends me over the edge to buying a house in town."

After all was said and done Matt's take on the day was, "See, if that cow hadn't died I would have been traveling to and from the sale barn tonight and I wouldn't have been here to help Sarah have those pigs. If I hadn't helped her we might have only had 3 live instead of 9."

Call it what you will - fate, serendipity, God's plan. Whatever it is, it's the same thing that paired me up with this man. He helps balance the scale against my tendency to hit all points on the emotional spectrum (often in the span of a single day). I'm amazed each day that the two of us are still together, and there are days when I wonder if we will remain so. The situations this farming thing puts us in often push us to the limits of our affection. So why do we do it? See yesterday's post, I guess.

Despite the above evidence to the contrary, this ag entrepreneurs class I'm taking has helped me be less emotional and more analytical about such setbacks. We have to try and simply look at the situation, find what lessons we can in it, and move on. In this case, we'll make it a goal to not purchase future breeding stock at the sale barn. We went the sale barn route initially because we didn't have much money and we were having a hard time finding the stock we wanted around here. I'd still say it's a good way to get started, despite the risks, especially if you're starting small as we did. But for us it's time to learn and grow, and to have a new plan.

Plans-R-Us these days, thanks to the class..."if" plans, "when" plans, "how" plans. Matt says he's perfectly happy to leave this as a hobby. Of course I have to remind him that three head is a hobby. Twenty-one head is either an addiction or a business.

Fudge

That's what we named calf #2. His mama's name is Carmel, so I was thinking carmel sundae...fudge sundae...and there it was. Fudge.

All of the porcine and bovine babies are doing well today.

Why we do this

I had the nicest email last night from a gal who somehow stumbled into my little blog and was taken back to her own childhood growing up on a farm. She ended her email with the words "You are truly blessed." Thank you for the reminder, Laura.

We are blessed indeed, though it's easy to lose sight of it some days when the cow has died, the truck needs a new what-cha-ma-giz-it, and the well runs dry. (Okay, only 2 of those 3 things happened this week. I shouldn't even jest about the well running dry.) And since starting the agricultural entrepreneur class I've of course been hyper-focused on the business side of things - profit and loss, business plans, industry trends.

So I need to be reminded occasionally why we started all of this, 3 years ago with 4 bottle calves - for our kids. We want them to have the experience of growing up on a farm and all that it entails. Life and death, stewardship, self-sufficiency, hard work, appreciation for the simple things life offers. The experience of watching piglets being born ("I didn't know that's where they come out!" ~ Madeline). The experience of burying the dead cow. The experience of eating what you've raised and grown. There's nothing wrong with treating this farm like a business. Lessons in entrepreneurship are worthy, too. We just have to remember when all things are considered to consider the intangibles as well. Those things that don't have a place on a balance sheet - the beauty of chickens running about, of eating a large green pepper you've grown, of being able to run in the grass in a big circle screaming your head off just for the fun of it - need to be given the weight they deserve.

So you go for that 20 acres, Laura. Sit under that tree with your babies. Teach them all the wonderful things you know about growing vegetables and raising livestock. Their souls will be so much the better for it (and yours, too).

Maternity Ward

Matt came in the house about 6:00 last night and said Sarah was definitely acting "piggy". He took the girls back out with him to get Winston moved and then they set up shop with Sarah, right inside her little hut with her. I'll bet a pig never had such good labor coaches. Except for coming in to quickly wolf down some supper they hung in there with her, rubbing her back and cheering her on. They even played cards for awhile. It was quite a sight, all of them hanging out in this little 10' by 12' pig house that's only about 4 feet tall.

Shortly after 10:30 the girls came in to tell me the first pig had been born. I went out to check her out, and then made the girls come in (against their will) and go to bed. Hopefully their teachers will forgive us for keeping them up so late on a school night. Sometimes there's a real life lesson that's just too good to pass up.

It was almost 1:00 a.m. when Matt finally came in. 9 piglets born live, 2 dead. Not bad at all. They're absolutely adorable. Each of them is solid black with the floppy ears - just like their dad, Winston, who is a purebred Large Black.



Before all of this excitement began, Olivia took the camera out and brought back a couple of good shots of the other 2 new babies:


This is our pretty red heifer calf, Petey, named for the Little Rascals dog because of the circle around one eye.


This is our cow, Carmel, and her black baldy bull calf. No name yet - any suggestions?