Goat Kids -- For Sale

Sara's Toggenburg goats had kids over the weekend.  One goat had twin females and the other had triplet bucks.  They all look very healthy and were jumping around after the first day.  Sara is bottle feeding the kids so she first has to milk the mama goats and then feed the kids with the milk that she just stripped.  It takes a long time, but Sara has always like to work with her animals regardless of how long it seems to take.  She really has a passion for her animals.  You can see a few pictures of the goats on our website here.

Vegetable Seed Orders -- DONE!

Whew!  It took most of the day but it's finally done.  The orders for this years vegetable seeds are in.  Next steps are to receive them, sort them, and start them.  We have about 10 days until we'll have plant trays strategically located all over the warmest spots in the house to facilitate vegetable plant germination.  Ready or not!

Geese and Vegetables

The weather is finally above freezing but we can already tell that the season is "behind schedule".  We usually see our first flocks of geese going over the farm by about Valentines day.  This year Tom saw geese on Friday of last week and I saw two ducks the same day.  I'm not sure if that will equate to a two - three week delay in everything else, but I kind of hope so.  This year has been very difficult to get our vegetable plans in order.  We learned last year that vegetables are a time killer and we thought about really scaling back.  They compete with everything else that goes on which I guess one would assume, but as with most things in life and farming, you have to choose what your priorities are.  So when we have hay on the ground or hay that needs to be cut, the window to get it done is set and the clock starts ticking.  The old saying make hay while the sun is shining is true to a point.  Grass hay can be made into bales at any time once it's dry, but alfalfa hay that we grow has to be made while the sun is shining but with enough humidity to keep the leaves from shattering, so not too dry, but not too much humidity or it will mold, and no rain on it or it will lose its quality etc.  But I digress...  Anyway, if it comes down to making hay, processing chickens, or picking vegetables, the vegetables lose.  So vegetable crop management is key.  If we can plant items that take less human capital, in a way that keeps us from having to "tend" the plants as much, we can then maximize our produce efficiency.  Sounds easy enough, but since we don't use herbicides, if I plant too much of the wrong stuff the wrong way, we'll be out pulling weeds, and when you have acres of vegetables, pulling weeds is not an efficient use of time.  Today is the deadline for getting the plants ordered to make our March 15 date for starting our plants indoors.  Interesting that I had all winter to get this done and today I'm running up against a deadline...

I'm officially sold out of hay.  I did really well on the hay that I took to the sale barn this year, but then I only sold hay that was my best.  The best round and square bales of alfalfa were kept in the hoop building which were kept nice and fresh, and when they were put next to other hay at the sale barn looked really nice.  I sold my very best hay to some direct hay customers, and I now know that I sold well below the market, but that is the way it goes I guess.  I'm really optimistic about this coming years crop of hay.  If I can get good hay making weather I hope to be able to make a great product.  But as I'm not in control of the future, the weather, or the market... Okay, since I'm not really in control of anything I guess I'm just excited to see what He give us.

Note to self.  Don't make a compost pile right next to the cattle paddock.  Especially if old moldy bales are on the pile.  Today the sun melted the snow off of the top of a bale on the compost pile which is right next to the cattle paddock.  The bull decided he wanted to reach that bale so he pushed on the cattle panel until it broke the welds on the panel.  Then he was half in the paddock and half out so he could enjoy the moldy hay.  Sara ran in to say the bull was out!  The got everyone moving.  It wasn't as bad as I thought, but we did have to dig down through the snow and drop another panel in place.  And just for good measure I torched the bale to discourage any of the cattle from wanting to try that bale again.

Today I was going to do equipment maintenance, but as with many days this year, the weather turned me back.  I took the round baler to my brothers farm so that I could do yearly maintenance on it in his shop but all I did was drop it off and head back home.  The wind is howling and the snow is blowing and drifting today, so instead of being out I've decided to research 2010's vegetables and also start researching the grasses and forages for grazing.  I pulled up last years vegetable spreadsheet to see when I started germinating our plants in '09.  It looks like I started germination for the first run of plants about the middle of March.  That gives me a little time to make this year's list and place my orders.  We're looking into working with a co-op this year and I kind of volunteered for summer squash and cucumbers.  I chose these two vegetables because they are the easiest plants to pick, don't take much tending and will save us something that we lack during the summer - time.  These two crops also work really well in our beds and mulch system.  So at the very least, we'll plant summer squash and cucumbers in quantity.  The other items will be sold as part of our product selection direct.  We tried the farmers market last year and found the time vs. return to be out of balance, so until something changes we'll probably continue to direct market our products.  The next step is to determine what our customers want in vegetables.

Snow, Snow, Snow Oh Yeah and Cold, Cold, Cold

It's been a while since I updated the blog.  There hasn't been much going on around the farm unless you count moving snow for hours at a time.  With the tractor in the shop for an overhaul, moving snow has been reduced to using a skid loader and I have literally spent whole days moving snow.  The last bout with the snow took about 9 hours just to clear the lane and that didn't include the time that George spent clearing the snow down to the cattle.  I did sell some hay at auction that brought great money and I've made some individual deliveries too.  But in general the snow and cold have dominated everything from equipment maintenance to setting up bunks for the cows.  We've lost a couple of small steers this winter and to make sure that everyone is getting enough energy to get through the winter I dropped a couple of large wooden feed bunks into the cattle paddock area.  We've been supplementing the cow's hay with oats that I held back from our oat harvest in 2009.  The cows and especially the horses love oats and eat themlike candy, which is why I can't pour it too them too fast or they can actually make themselves sick from over eating.  A challenge has cropped up however.  Keeping the cows from crowding the calves/steers out of the feed bunks.  The first thing I tried was to pull a hot wire off of the electric fence.  Knowing that the snow is insulating the ground and knowing too that the fence charger is weak from the snow pulling the wires down and covering them, I ran both a + an a - within inches of each other.  Turns out that the cows like oats more than they mind being shocked.  I haven't tested the wire to see what the volts are, but I can occasionally hear the snap of the shock, so it has to be some volts, but obviously not enough to deter them.  I also put one of the bunks right by a set of small trees but the cows weave their heads through the trees and still pinch the calves.  I guess I can try building some wood fences to the bunk, but I'm pretty sure the cows will push against anything I build hard enough to break them loose.  We're still thinking, but suggestions are welcome!