Skyview Acres

Leader of the Pack

2012-02-08T02:06:00.000-05:00

Spending Locally

2012-02-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

It's easy to spend your money at the grocery store.

It takes effort to spend your money at a farmer's market or through farm pickup directly from a farmer. You have to find a place. You have to adjust your schedule to their hours. You have to contend with seasonality of produce. And if you don't get there early enough, they might sell out of the ingredient you were counting on having for dinner.

These aren't issues you'll find when you run down to Food Lion, Martin's, Safeway or Kroger.

So why visit a farmer's market? Why consider buying a whole, half or quarter of beef? Why join a CSA? Why drive out to a farm on processing day to collect your freshly processed chicken? Why pay $15 for a pasture-raised chicken fed grass and non-GMO feed vs paying $1.99/lb for a factory chicken at the grocery store?

Eating food produced locally is not a new concept. All our families lived this way just 50 or 60 years ago. Everyone planned their menus based on what was available in the garden at that time of the year. No one had a Shopper's Food Warehouse. Not only is eating locally going back to the traditional farming our grandparents lived, it's in line with sustainable farming, reducing your carbon footprint, and promoting a healthier lifestyle. And it promotes your local economy.

I won't sugar coat it: farming is hard and it's expensive. We are so used to bargain basement pricing brought to us in the grocery stores from commercial factory farms based on animals and plants genetically altered to grow bigger faster, often to the detriment of the animal.

When the factory farms can grow chickens from hatching to processing as quickly as 23 days and it takes us at least 45 days to reach that same chicken size, you have to wonder what is going on with those 23 day-old chickens. Antibiotics and growth hormones lace their water and/or feed. They often grow so fast that their bones aren't strong enough to support their body weight and they become lame and can have heart attacks from the stress. But you can get it for a bargain at just $1.99/lb if you wait for those boneless, skinless chicken breasts to go on sale.

When you purchase a $15 chicken, your local farmer can put his chickens out in a pasture of green grass. He can give the chickens access to sunlight and fresh air every day. He can let the chickens live like chickens should live. He can give them time to grow naturally without growth hormones. He can feed them organic and/or non-GMO feed to supplement their salad bar diet. He can take time each day to watch them; observe them; get to know them. Why would he do that? Because it's his job to know his animals and be aware of any problems as soon as they appear. For $15, your farmer can afford to do all of this and make a small (very small) profit to help him buy the next batch of chicks, fix a few fences and order the next round of feed.

If you buy one $15 chicken a week or $10 of produce from a farmer's market or a few gallons of raw milk from a cow or goat dairy, not only are you supporting those farmers but you're allowing them a modicum of profit that they will most likely spend locally to further expand or enhance their farm. Your $10 or $15 might go to a local feed mill, the local tractor parts store, or even the corner store selling a sausage biscuit for breakfast.

Local dollars circulate locally. The small farm farmer understands the value of buying locally and is apt to return those dollars back into the local businesses of his community. The Virginia cooperative extension office did a study and learned that if every household in the northern Shenandoah Valley area spent only $10 per week on local food every week of the year, it would benefit our community's economy by $170 MILLION. Yes, million.

So where can you spend your $10? Here are a few places:

Cristina's Cafe, Strasburg. They purchase as much locally grown products as possible for their menu and also host a spring/summer farmer's market on Friday evenings.
One Block West Restaurant, Winchester. Another restaurant sourcing as much local food as possible
Linda's Mercantile, Winchester. Farmer's market, grower
Freight Station Farmer's Market, Winchester. Year-round farmer's market
The Butcher Station, Winchester. Fresh food eatery and market
Panache Catering Co., Middletown. Caterer

This is a very small sampling. There are so many ways to find locally grown food. If none of the above are near you or aren't what you're looking for, head over to Local Harvest and do a few searches. Find some pick-your-own fields and take the kids strawberry picking this spring! Contact individual farmers and ask about their food (I promise that you will totally make their day). Make the effort. Is $1.99 chicken really such a great deal?

Breeding stock has arrived

2012-01-30T14:21:00.000-05:00

Matilda, Happy Jack and Big Bertha

We have added three New Zealand meat rabbits to the farm. In addition to Davidson, one of the bunnies Sammy got last year, we now have two does and two bucks. Let the proliferation of bunnies begin!

For the short while, all the rabbits are in the empty barn stall. We're slowly transitioning the new rabbits to a grass diet. All four will go out into the pasture in portable pasture pens (same concept as our broiler chickens). Davidson is used to a grass diet but the three new rabbits aren't. We don't want them to become sick on too much grass so we'll get them ready for the salad bar lifestyle. Their feed will be supplemented with organic, non-gmo (if we can find it) pellets.

Apple... chutney?

2011-10-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

The girls and I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon in beautiful Gore, VA on top of a mountain picking apples at a friend's house. I could go on for hours about how magnificent the view was, and how generous our friends were to allow our entire mom's group to come glean the trees. I brought back an embarrassing overload of apples and some pears too. I'm so inspired by all these apples that I had to dive in and start working with them!

This recipe will produce enough apples to fill one 1 qt jar. It's a chutney I suppose. I plan on heating it in a small pot and pouring it over a pork tenderloin.

3 Stayman apples
2 Golden Delicious apples
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 c. orange juice

Pour the OJ into a bowl. As you dice your apples, toss them in the OJ. This will keep them from turning brown and add some flavor. Once all the apples are cut up, mix in the seasonings. I winged it with the measurements, so taste and adjust accordingly.

I packed all the apples and the OJ into a quart jar and put it in a hot water bath. You can pressure can if you'd like. I'm no expert on canning so do what you think is appropriate. I think we'll be having this for dinner tonight so I'll let you know how it turns out!

- Sharon

Escapees

2011-10-02T21:13:00.000-04:00

What a delicious view

These are our Buff Orpingtons out in the pasture pen. They love the fresh grass every day and are growing really well. They are almost thirteen weeks old now. They'll continue to grow larger for a few more weeks. We'll be culling the cockerels and will most likely keep the pullets for our layer flock. We have quite a few older hens who will be culled this fall once they stop laying. They'll be replaced by these pullets.

Because these birds are much lighter than the Cornish Cross were, they are energetic and are eager to roost and jump out of the pen. Every time I try to feed them by myself, at least one escapes. Mitchell, my seven year old son, was supposed to be helping me feed them today but was distracted by one of the barn cats. In the mean time, these chickens kept trying to jump out of the pen while I was trying to hold the roof up and grab the feeder out of the pen. I was able to keep all but one of them in the pen.

Then, the chase began. I let her walk around the pen. She stayed pretty close to it because she wanted the feed I had just put inside but she couldn't figure out how to get in. I was holding the roof open with one hand so she could jump in, all the while trying to make sure others didn't jump out and try to catch the escapee with my one free hand. My son just watched.

I finally got him to hold the roof up while I chased the chicken through the pasture. She finally made her way back in and went straight to the feeder.

I will admit that this is not the first time this has happened to me.

Find us at the market

2011-09-21T22:44:00.000-04:00

Have a hankering for chicken full of flavor and farm fresh eggs? Then join us at Cristina's Cafe in Strasburg, VA on Friday evening at the farmer's market in their parking lot. We'll have our pastured broiler chickens along with our eggs for sale. Come support a local farmer's market and a local business.

Cristina's Cafe
219 West King Street
Strasburg, VA 22657

6pm - 8pm

Kids on the farm

2011-09-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

Greg and I want our children as involved in the farm as possible. Sometimes they are very excited about helping out, other times they groan and try to find somewhere to hide. Not too surprising, really. We give them the invitation to be involved and encourage them to try more than they think they can handle. They surprise us from time to time!


Sammy was responsible for driving the 4-wheeler to transport the chicks to the field pen. She also took all the chicks out of the cage for us.

Once all of the chicks were out of the brooder, we had to clean out all the litter to prep the stall for winter calves. All of the kids helped out but Sammy was, by far, the star of the day! She shoveled chicken litter, drove the 4-wheeler and helped dump the litter in the garden.

Moving the empty pen to the top of the pasture for the Buff Orpington chicks

Feeding and watering the chickens

Sign up for updates

2011-09-18T03:53:00.000-04:00

We now have an email list for anyone who wants to keep up to date on product availability and info about any farmer's markets we will be frequenting. We promise not to spam, abuse or sell/rent your email address. We hate spam too. You probably won't hear much from us until Spring, but go ahead and sign up for updates!

First run; almost done

2011-09-05T00:32:00.000-04:00

After munching on grass and bugs all
day, it's time for some extra dinner.

Only July 28th, we plunged head-first into a new adventure. We decided to try something neither of us had ever done; neither of us had any experience. We had an idea. We had a goal. We had a vision. And as mentioned in previous posts, we had a little bit of crazy.

Our first batch of Cornish Cross broiler chickens arrived on July 28 as cute, fluffy puffs that chirped, ate and pooped endlessly. They started out weighing ounces, now they weigh several pounds each. The one constant has been their appetite -- these birds can eat! We are winding down on their life cycle and it's hard to image morning and evening chores without them as part of the routine. These are not pet chickens, but they have been part of the farm and we will definitely feel their absence. Our goal were to get this batch from peep to processing as healthy chickens, raised on grass and sunshine without the use of growth hormones or antibiotics.

On Friday, they will be processed and available for dinner tables.

Friday is quickly approaching and we're trying to prepare for the big event. The only poultry processor even remotely near us is several hours away. We aren't set up to process the birds on our own, nor are we prepared to deal with the governmental red-tape that accompanies on-farm processing when you will sell the broilers. Outsourcing the processing definitely cuts into the profits, but it's the right choice for us at this time. If we find that this venture can support us enough that we can take the time off to butcher on premises, if we can afford the equipment and if we're able to make it legal and workable, we will definitely consider butchering on-site.

As far as affordability goes, we're not cutting corners and buying feed with artificial junk in it. We've stuck to the all natural feed. But we are frugal wherever possible. I love that we have been able to recycle so many materials for the brooder house, the pasture pen and now for the transport crates.

We can fit 8 - 10 chickens in each crate and we'll need about 10 crates for each run of 100 chickens. Purchasing plastic, yet durable, crates would cost us almost $800. That is definitely not in our budget! We can't throw the chickens in the back of the truck and call it done, so we had to find a solution. Greg found instructions online for building wood crates. He used discarded wood from other projects and was able to build four crates today. Greg did most of the work, but I was able to let out some frustration with the hammer and staple gun. Most of the cuts are done for the remaining crates and we'll work on that all day tomorrow.

Tuesday afternoon, we'll receive a visit from the state to test the birds for avian flu. The test results must be received by the processor before we arrive Friday morning. Speaking of arriving... we need to be there at 5:20 am. All the kids will be coming with us. It's going to be a very interesting morning!

Even though we're in the final week of the chickens' life cycle, there's still much work to be done. Now we need to find homes for all these yummy birds!

Pastured chickens

2011-08-23T22:39:00.000-04:00

The Cornish Cross chicks are three and a half weeks old and are finally out in the pasture. They outgrew their part of the brooder stall about a week ago and were invading the Buff Orpington side daily. It was really hard to keep their litter dry but wow is it composting well! How weird is it to be excited about composting chicken poop?

Greg built the pasture pen from scratch. I'm really impressed because he built it based on seeing pens at Polyface and looking at pictures in books. I sure couldn't do it! He did an awesome job on it.

The pens are designed to give the chickens maximum protection from weather and predators while also allowing them to free range on grass and get sunshine and fresh air. Not too shabby a life for a chicken! I could pull out my soap box and rant about factory chickens but it's not worth the effort. I'm really proud that we are raising chickens in a humane, healthy and natural environment. They aren't the most beautiful birds you'll see, but they will be so yummy!

Out to pasture. This section normally has a solid roof over it. It's open here so I could feed them.

As for the construction of the pens, we went as redneck as possible. Well, not really. Greg did recycle a lot which is pretty cool and helps keep costs down. Old metal roofing was used on the sides, wood from a torn down privacy fence became support beams. And Sammy's old skate board is temporarily being used to help transport the pen each morning when it's moved. Eventually we'll have wheels or a dolly to help move it. Greg sticks the skateboard under the center of the back, then goes around front and pulls the entire contraption forward twelve feet, very slowly. As it moves forward, so do the chickens.

Three quarters of the roof is covered for protection from the weather (rain and sun) as well as protection from predators. The waterer is in the sun which forces these lazy birds out into the sunshine for the sun's Vitamin D. The chicken wire roof and the metal roof to the right of it are both removable and are not permanently attached. We keep a five-gallon bucket up on top to collect rain water. The bucket feeds down into the waterer in the pen. We haul water to it as needed but hope that rain will give us a hand from time to time.

Transporting the chicks from the white barn out to the pasture.

Growing

2011-08-20T22:42:00.000-04:00

1 day old

3 1/2 weeks old

Those Cornish Cross are some ugly birds.

Peep Anarchy

2011-08-20T22:36:00.000-04:00

The chicks are now 4 weeks old and they have outgrown the brooder house. Every time we go in there, chicks are everywhere. Layers are in the meat side and meat chicks are mixed in with the layers. It's becoming hard to keep the meat chicks from running out of food and water because they are voracious eaters! We bring them fresh grass every day. This helps offset (albeit minimally) the amount of feed they're eating but it also gets them used to a grass diet which is what they'll be eating once they're in the pasture.

Every morning, the pen will be moved 12' to new grass

Greg has been working hard to build the 12' x 10' pasture pen. He's almost done and we should have the broiler chicks in the field on Monday. The concept of the pen is pretty simplistic: give the birds fresh air, sunshine and fresh pasture every day. They will receive as much sun and shade as they like, they'll be protected from predators and they'll eat fresh grass daily. Three quarters of the pen will have a metal roof and the remaining quarter will have a chicken wire roof. We've used as much recycled materials as possible to cut down on costs and because, well, why not!

I weigh the chicks each Sunday to track their progress. I knew that the broilers would grow much faster than the layers, but wow are they growing fast!!

W E I G H T
	Broilers	Layers
7-Aug	8 5/8 oz	4 1/2 oz
14-Aug	1 lb 6 1/4oz	6 5/8oz

I'm excited to see how much weight they've all gained in the past week. Any guesses on what they'll weigh?

Special Delivery

2011-08-08T19:12:00.000-04:00

This is how they came to us through the USPS

50 Buff Orpingtons egg layers | 100 Cornish Cross broilers

Toasty warm under the brooder lamp

First feeding

A week and a half ago, I picked up a very noisy package from the post office: 150 day old baby chicks.

Greg converted one of the barn stalls into a brooder where the chicks will live until they are four weeks old. After that, the broiler chicks will go into a special 12'x10' pen in the cow pasture. Every day, this pen will be moved 12 feet to fresh grass. Our broilers will feast on green grass, bugs and other yumminess in the pasture. They'll receive supplemental, all natural feed to help them grow. In about 45 days after hatching, we'll transport the chickens to a USDA certified processor who will butcher the chickens for us. Mid-September, we'll be selling all natural, pasture fed broiler chickens.

Between now and then, there's a lot that happens. Two to three times a day, we go out and feed the chicks. They eat a lot. I mean a LOT! They drink lots of water too so we're constantly refilling their waterers. We pull fresh grass every day so even though they aren't outside, they still get fresh grass and, wow, do they love it! I spend time simply sitting on a bench in the stall watching them to make sure they are all doing well and none of them are having problems. These are some very happy, active, curious chicks. I love watching them chase each other when one has a special leaf in its mouth. They eat, they drink, they play, they sleep.

Now that they're a week and a half old, they are losing their fluffy baby-chick down and their real feathers are coming in. It's an odd-looking stage for the chicks. They're growing and gaining weight like champs. The Cornish Cross are now almost 9 ounces. The Buff Orpingtons are about 4 1/2 ounces. This weight difference is normal because the Cornish Cross are fast growing, meat birds. They are bred to grow quickly. The Orpingtons are an egg laying breed. They don't need to gain weight and since they're a laying breed we'll butcher the cockerels at around 4 or 5 months of age. We'll most likely keep the hens to augment our layer flock.

Enjoying some fresh grass

Those are some hungry chicks!

New arrivals

2011-07-27T16:18:00.000-04:00

Preparing for some new arrivals. They'll be here Thursday or Friday.

Here's how slow food works

2011-07-25T19:29:00.000-04:00

What is Slow Food?
Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.

Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policy that is good for the public, good for farmers and workers, and good for the planet. Through hundreds of volunteer-led local projects, national advocacy campaigns, trainings and education, Slow Food USA seeks to transform our food and farming system through the power of everyday people.

For me, Slow Food is about using everything you have and letting the food work for you. That means not throwing our food waste in the trash bag. Instead, it goes out to the chickens. It means pulling up the peas and green beans at the end of the season and feeding the vines to the cattle.

We start with these green peppers. Clean, slice and freeze them for the winter.

And these cantaloupes which are turned into jam

All of the seeds, bad spots, shells, etc are given to the chickens

The chickens give us yummy eggs. The egg shells are given to
the vermiculture worms (which I don't have yet!). The worms
will compost the shells giving us compost and worm tea to
fertilize the gardens. And we start all over again.

Preserving and perseverance

2011-07-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

The garden is exploding with yummy goodness daily. Cantaloupes are starting to come in and the watermelons won't be too far away.

This is what we preserved today:

Tomatoes and green peppers went into spaghetti sauce
Green peppers were sliced and frozen for the winter
Cantaloupe was turned into jam
Green beans were snapped and served for dinner. More will be snapped and frozen and/or canned
Peaches are cooking down to make Peach Spice Delight jam

We have yellow squash to put up, cucumbers, patty pan squash, zucchini and acorn squash as well.

We'll keep plugging away, preserving more every day so we have wholesome food from our garden to eat this winter.

More Polyface photos

2011-07-13T11:26:00.001-04:00

Greg checking out the pasture-fed rabbit pens

Broiler chicken pens up the hillside

Chicks in the brooder house

Us!

Inside one of the egg mobiles

Dwindling numbers

2011-07-12T05:12:00.000-04:00

About a month ago, we brought 41 new hens to the farm. It was crazy. We felt crazy. We were told we're crazy. There was a lot of clucking going on and it wasn't all in the field. But that's okay because we welcome opinions and input and ideas. We don't have all the answers, just the determination to try something a bit left of center. I'll freely admit that the majority of the crazy around here comes from me, but Greg can get crazy too.

So, back to the chicken crazy part.

We brought home 41 hens. We already had a dozen Rhode Island Reds (including two roosters) as well as about 7 or 8 Ameracaunas (which included 3 - yes, 3 - roosters). The idea was to take the coop raised RIRs, the "I own this farm and will go wherever I want" Ameracaunas and all the new hens and throw them all into the pasture with a new roosting house and a new nesting house. Everyone would free range, a new pecking order would be established, all our eggs would be produced from hens happily scavenging for bugs and grass and seeds and weeds the way happy chickens do. It would be a Norman Rockwell, picture perfect, slice of apple pie, American farming dream come true.

Ha!

They didn't know how to roost

That first night was, well, horrible. The Ameracaunas all went through the electric fence and made their way back to their coop either during the night or during the next day. The new hens had no idea what roosting was so they all clucked around and slept on the grass in the roosting house and wouldn't come out until I physically picked them up and shoo'd them out the next afternoon. By that time, they hadn't had food or water for 24 hours. And the RIRs. Oh the poor RIRs. Let's give them their very own paragraph.

Greg's Rhode Island Reds

Greg's Rhode Island Reds have been in the coop for most of their lives. For a while, they free ranged. Until a kindly neighbor in the subdivision that borders the farm started feeding them seeds and one day forgot that they had fed the chickens and let their dog out who killed on of the birds and Animal Control was called. Since then, Greg has kept the RIRs in the coop. They have been in there for a year, happily eating and clucking and producing eggs. They have a very strong sense of where their coop is. So when we tossed them into an open air roosting house, we had no way to keep them in there to help them redefine their sense of home. Consequently, they tried to get home that night. They wanted the safety of their coop and the security of roosting in the same place they had roosted for the past year. We didn't think about that. If we had, we would have hopefully been smart enough to leave the coop door open so they could get back in. We didn't. One rooster was eaten. The other rooster was caught in the deer fencing for the garden right next to the coop. He was severely traumatized although not very injured. It took several weeks before he would crow again. Some eventually found their way back to the coop, although one hen decided to stay in the pasture with the new hens. Sadly, about half the RIR hens were eaten. Greg now has one rooster who, when crowing, sounds like he has a frog in his throat or is a 13 year old boy going through puberty. It's pitiful. And a little funny. But mostly pitiful.

We learned quite a few lessons that night and the next day.

About two weeks later, a fox or coyote attacked the flock and killed about 20 chickens. We had been doing a lot of other things on the farm and didn't realize what had happened until late afternoon. I went out to check on them and realized the flock looked very sparse. I thought maybe a bunch of the hens were hanging out in the nesting house since it was so hot outside and the nesting house is dark and cool. But as I walked through the pasture, I kept coming across piles of feathers. Each time I saw a pile of feathers, my stomach tightened a little bit more. When I came across the first dead chicken, my fears were confirmed. The more I walked the pasture, the more dead chickens I found. We did a count and came up with 21 chickens and 1 rooster. Half the flock was gone.

Five days later, we were hit again. Ten more hens were dead or missing. We're down to 11 hens and my white Ameracauna rooster who claimed the flock.

The hens have stopped using the roosting house and are roosting on the nesting boxes. It's a mess. Greg is going to make shutters so we can close the chickens up at night for their safety and to keep them from roosting in the nesting house. We plan to replace the electric wire with electric poultry netting as soon as we can afford it.

We're going to try to buy more layers as we can and continue to produce eggs. We've learned some tough lessons and made some costly mistakes.

And we're still crazy enough to keep at it until we can make it work.

Learning by doing

2011-07-11T09:12:00.000-04:00

A month ago, I put eggs in the incubator. I thought I was following the instructions and eagerly awaited 4th of July weekend when they were scheduled to hatch.

About 2 or 3 days before the hatching was scheduled to occur, I thought I was losing my mind because I kept hearing chirping in the kitchen but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then I realized that it was coming from an egg!

Greg didn't believe me. The chirping never happened while he was in the kitchen with me. Until it did. And we both froze and stared at each other with wide eyes. "I TOLD YOU!!! I TOLD YOU!!!" He pretended that I was crazy and that he hadn't heard anything but he was excited too.


Pipping! I know someone will ask... That's a folded up cereal box at the bottom of the pic. I put it in there to separate the RIR and Ameracauna chicks when they hatched.

Then, the chirpy egg started to hatch, also known as pipping. The chirps grew louder and more incessant. Through the crack, we could see the chick moving around in the egg. It was so exciting!

We got the brooder ready and then waited.

A few things bothered me: there was only one voice chirping when there should have been close to 40 and the chick was no longer making progress with the pipping.

Everything I read was very consistent: Do NOT open the incubator unless the chick is in danger of dieing. Do NOT help the chick unless it is seriously stuck. So I left the chick alone even though my gut was telling me something was wrong. I wasn't seeing any movement through the crack in the shell and that had me concerned.

The chirping continued for a few more hours. Finally around bedtime, I decided it was time to help the chick, but it was too late and the chick was dead.

What I learned was that there wasn't enough humidity in the incubator so the shell had dried out, trapping the chick inside.

None of the other eggs hatched.

I did several things wrong from the very beginning.

As Greg can attest, I am not a very patient person. I didn't wait long enough to stabilize the incubator temperature before putting the eggs in.
There were a few high and low temperature fluctuations throughout the incubation.
I did not put the eggs point down in the egg turner.
I did not add water to create humidity during the incubation period.

These are all big issues that caused the chicks to die during incubation.

Sometimes you have to learn by doing. I am sure I will not make these mistakes again. Yes, I'll try to hatch out chicks again at some point. I'll probably wait till fall so they will be at laying age just as spring starts and the rest of the hens start laying as well.

Polyface Farm Field Day Photos

2011-07-10T21:33:00.000-04:00

Greg and I spent Saturday at Polyface Farm in Staunton, VA for their Farm Field Day. For one day, they open their farm to the public, and share their trade secrets with anyone willing to pay the admission fee, make the drive and endure the heat. Fortunately, it wasn't beastly hot!

We arrived around 7:30am. Because of some radical changes in the weather, there was an amazing fog in among the hills and gullies as we drove down some very windy and narrow back-roads to get to the farm. After registering and checking out the vendors, we did some exploring. We were able to get a good idea of how the broiler pens were constructed and laid out, how they build their pastured rabbit pens, checked out the rabbitry, hay barns, hoop houses, and egg-mobiles.

We sat in on some small group "workshops" while the morning tour was underway. Polyface served a fantastic lunch of bbq chicken, sliced fresh peaches and cucumbers, buttermilk chocolate cake as well as beef and pork bbq. It was delish!

After lunch, we participated in the afternoon tour of the farm. We saw their feather-net enclosed laying hens, salad bar beef, pasture fed broiler chickens and turkeys, sows with piglets, pastured hogs, brooder houses and hay barns. With all of this, there was a lot of discussion and information sharing.

I didn't take a lot of pictures but here's the few I did remember to snap while on the tour. We had a great time on the Polyface farm and are very encouraged about what we can do on the farm.

The 1-mile trek around a small portion of the farm was such an educational experience.

This coop houses 1,000 chickens plus a couple guard-geese and is moved daily.
It sits on 1/4 acre, fenced with electric poultry netting.

A little bit closer look

Joel telling us about the set-up

All of these layers are Barred Rocks. Gorgeous chickens!

Walking to the next site for the tour... but we went the wrong way and had to back track.

Free range turkeys. In the background are the broiler chicken pens.

Joel standing on a broiler pen talking to everyone.

My own personal Farm Report

2011-07-05T14:12:00.000-04:00

This morning's Farm Report from Farmer Greg:

- all the pastured chickens are still there (yay!)
- calves fed - everyone is healthy (yay!)
- cattle are in the field where they belong, not in the chicken pasture where they were last week (oops)
- let my chickens out of the coop (no eggs)
- no eggs from Greg's chickens
- cats underfoot
- bunnies being cute and eating green stuff
- dogs fed

Not a bad farm report. I especially appreciate that the Farm Report did not require me to leave the comfort of the sofa.

My portion of the farm report...

- Stealth Cam infrared red detector tested and it works. No, you don't need to see proof.
- It rained last night. While I was in the pasture. It rained a lot. It rained hard. I hoofed it back to the garage to drip dry because I was too wet to get back in the truck.
- Gardens don't need to be watered today (see above).
- Pipping chick died in the egg before completely hatching last night (big bummer).

Modern Farming

2011-06-27T14:39:00.000-04:00

Could you do it?

2011-06-24T12:45:00.000-04:00

Could you ban yourself from a grocery store for a year? Only purchase foods from a farmer's market or local farms for an entire year?

That's exactly what the Halsten family is doing. While the time frame of sticking it out for a year was arbitrary, they do have two rules for their change in lifestyle:

1. We can shop at any farmers markets or local farms whenever we want.
2. We can get "bits and pieces" twice a month. It must be organic, it must be very basic and something you cannot get at a farmers market or farm, and the total purchase must be less than $25.

Think about it. How many people are in your family? Could you plan your meals for the week around local produce, meats, fruits and grains? Think about breakfast without Rice Krispies or Coco Puffs or Quaker Instant Oatmeal. Shoot, what about your milk? Could you really do it? That one meal alone would kill us in this house! My son will *only* eat cereal for breakfast. My daughter, who loves fried eggs, is addicted to oatmeal for breakfast and will rarely eat anything else.

Yes, addicted. And maybe that one word is reason enough for me to rethink how we eat.

Could we live without chips? Soda? Sweet tea? Could I commit to making my own pasta from scratch? We don't eat a lot of rice but I have no idea how we'd buy it locally from a farmer's market. Maybe that would qualify as something under Rule #2. No Gatorade.

Based on that last paragraph of things that would be off-limits, I can already hear the cries of agony and desperation from a few people.

I think I could do this for the majority of our eating but there would definitely be struggles and angst. I couldn't do it 100% while working full-time though. The time required to make from scratch, can and pre-plan for the winter would leave me with no time for my kids or other housework and obligations.

Angie Halsten - you rule! Big time respect to you for managing it all.

2011-06-19T08:35:00.000-04:00

Roosting house on the left, feeding area in the center, nesting house on the right

The hens seem to have settled in nicely. Yesterday they were all over the field foraging. Yay! They have started using the nesting house but I'm suspicious that there might be some eggs in the pasture somewhere. I'll keep looking.

They have created some dirt pits to roll around in so we added diatomaceous earth to the pits to help with any lice or mites, although they looked very clean when they arrived.

The white Ameracauna rooster has claimed the entire flock as his own and will not share with the other roosters. He squawks at his girls and prances around with them all milling around him. Until you've seen a rooster in hen-heaven, you really can't understand the meaning of "cock walk".

One of the hens got out of the electric fence. She finally found her way back in - which is good and means that she knows where her home is. But the fact that she got out and back in isn't so good. We need to save our pennies for electric poultry netting.

Toasty warm

2011-06-15T21:28:00.001-04:00

34 Rhode Island Red eggs

6 Ameracauna eggs

1 empty spot

99.5 degrees

21 days

All adds up to a bunch of fluffy chickies hatching sometime around July 4th weekend!

Yes, we're crazy

2011-06-13T20:25:00.000-04:00

"Yes, we're crazy." Yep, that about sums up our weekend.

It was Chickenpalooza at the farm. Seriously. Chickens everywhere!

Let me back up and start at the beginning.

This past winter, Greg and I spent a lot of time discussing what he wants to do with the farm, the direction of his goals, where we should invest our time, energy and money on the farm and how we can accomplish these goals. We are both in agreement that natural, sustainable, slow-food is our focus. That's a lofty goal and somewhat of an agricultural buzz phrase in recent years. But the truth is that more and more consumers want locally grown food from farms they can trust. They want to know that their food is wholesome and that they're not serving pesticides to their family while increasing their carbon footprint by importing food from other countries while their own local farms struggle to survive. We get it and that's what we want too. We want to provide that for our own family and we want to provide it to our local community as a producer.

With all of this in mind, we decided to focus on produce, beef cattle, eggs and broiler chickens. There were a lot more ideas on our list of goals but not everything could be accomplished this year so we tabled a few items for 2012.

Green egg!

Greg had some Rhode Island Red hens and I bought a baker's dozen of Ameracauna chicks this past November. All together, we had about two dozen chickens on the farm. We kept the two flocks separate and let the Ameracaunas free-range around the farm. It was so exciting when those hens finally started laying! I still get excited every time we have a green egg. We both especially liked that the chickens were running free all over the place, pecking at bugs and grass and doing their part in the cycle of farm life.

We wanted to expand our flock and kept an eye out for layers to go on sale and eventually found someone selling 17 week old, red sex-link hens through Southern States. We each ordered 12. We estimated that, based on the number of eggs our current flock was producing, we would be gathering over 30 eggs a day once we added 24 more hens to the farm. With that amount of production, we could commit to providing regular delivery to weekly customer base - people like us who wanted pesticide free, cage free, hormone free, arsenic free, antibiotic free, all natural, pasture-fed eggs. That's a mouthful, but you get the point. Chickens doing and eating what chickens are supposed to do and eat so they can produce nutritious eggs.

Part of this equation was providing the free range without annoying the neighbors, keeping the hens safe and controlling where they lay their eggs. This is where the crazy part enters.

I did a lot of research. We had lengthy discussions. We weighed the pros and cons of each free range model. And of course we ended up with the most unconventional model. Based on Robert Plamondon's personal experiences, research and instruction, we decided to break away from the traditional chicken coop that included nesting and roosting in one facility. There are a lot of reasons we felt this would work best for us and I'll discuss those reasons in another post. We could have built a large traditional coop or an egg-mobile. Nope! Greg built a nesting coop and a roosting house - and at the last minute, he also built a feeding station. This two-house system is designed to encourage ranging, discourage egg cannibalism, and stress the field as little as possible while providing the best possible field fertilization.

This weekend, it was time. It was time for the ... what's the saying? The hens to come home to roost?? Whatever. It was chicken time!

The hens were delivered to Southern States on Saturday and we had to pick them up. We weren't quite ready and it was a rough weekend with lots of frustration. We made mistakes - some costly mistakes and some that were easy to remedy. We worked hard - really hard. I mean REALLY hard. There was yelling, there was laughing, there was excitement and disappointment and frustration and exhaustion... and lots of sweating in the sun.

By the end of Saturday, we had 41 new hens out in the field. Did I mention we got more than the 24 we originally ordered? When we got there to pick up our hens, they asked if we wanted more. A gentleman had ordered 24 hens but was sick and unable to get them so they were available for sale. In the three minutes time it took us to discuss if we wanted more and how many more, more and more of the hens were being sold off to people on the waiting list. We ended up buying an additional 17 hens. Again with the crazy.

The one thing I keep coming back to is this -- what if it works? What if we never tried? What if it doesn't work? Would we try again and do things differently? What did we learn this weekend?

And, hey, what. if. it. works.

I knew going into this that we'd get a lot of criticism. I also knew that not everyone would understand what we are trying to accomplish. I'm not afraid to make mistakes and I'm not afraid to fail. I don't want to look back and say, "Gee, we should have tried..." Neither Greg nor I know how well this will work. But here's what I do know - I know that we're taking a chance and working on our goal of making the farm self-sufficient. We're trying to provide a superior quality product than what you can get in the grocery store. We have happy hens who will have a happy life. We're working together and learning as we go.

And we're a little crazy.

Time to grow some worms

2011-06-08T19:10:00.001-04:00

One of the first things I want to do at my new house is to start some worm composting, also known as vermiculture. I've been reading about vermiculture, the virtues of it, and lots of how-to's for over a year. I didn't want to start this project while living in an apartment so I've held off for a long time. Now that I'll have the space, and the need for the worm castings, I'm excited to get started!

I was attracted to vermiculture is because it's an enclosed system that requires very little effort. If you have large amounts of food waste, vermiculture may not work for you and you should probably stick with traditional composting. But I have a bad back, a small family, and can't really do the work to turn traditional compost.

This is a pretty straight-forward how-to on getting started with your own worms. There are plenty of companies making worm huts and other vermiculture contraptions and charging big bucks for them. I'll probably end up opting to recycle a plastic container and make it myself. I get so much more satisfaction when I'm in control of the project from start to finish.

Worm Farming Secrets is a good resource even though it hasn't been updated in months. Just dig in and start researching. Most people will tell you exactly the same things so it's pretty hard to mess up with this type of project.

Big Brother vs Baby Bunnies

2011-05-24T14:05:00.001-04:00

The story of the Dollarhite family and their USDA entanglement makes me ill. It also scares me. I'm not a big conspiracy theory person, but I do believe that when someone in the government with a little too much power decides to target an individual or company, that person is pretty much screwed.

We've been considering raising meat rabbits next year. This article is making me think twice about it. Greg and I have been considering ways to use the farm to raise animals with quick return on investment. Meat rabbits would work well because they don't require large pastures, eat grass, are a great accompaniment to chickens, and, well, multiply like rabbits! Rabbit meat is showing up on the menus of more and more quality restaurants and we would do some targeted marketing to build relationships with restuarants in a very wealthy county near us.

But could we be the next USDA target? I sure don't have $90k for fines and I'm sure the Dollarhite family doesn't either. I can't imagine the fight they have ahead of them.

There's been a follow up on this debacle. I don't see this ending well for the Dollarhites. And now I'm nervous about even investigating our options for raising meat rabbits. Who knew Big Brother really was logging every inquiry into the USDA??

Whether it's a small farm or a backyard business, it's scary taking that leap especially when you read stories about how the government, the USDA in particular, has become a bully to farmers. The raw-milk raid in Pennsylvania, now this. Ridiculous.

Growing bunnies

2011-05-23T14:27:00.000-04:00


Harley & Davidson or is it Davidson & Harley? They're growing fast!

Good fences

2011-05-21T15:54:00.000-04:00

... make for good neighbors but for the farm, good fences keep the deer out.

We lost our entire corn crop last year to deer. Here's hoping they will stay out this year. Took Mike and me a few weekends to get this done. Couldn't have done it without him, for sure. Time to disc this field and get it planted!

Tire Potatoes

2011-05-12T11:12:00.000-04:00

Greg and his cousin, Mike, think I'm nuts. This isn't breaking news, for sure.

Who can blame them when I talk about planting potatoes in verticle planters using old tires?

My friend Janet and I were discussing ... oh who knows... anything and everything... and somehow we got on the topic of gardening. She told me about this idea of stacking tires to grow potatoes vertically to increase your harvest. I was intrigued! She hit all my buttons with this idea - recycling, thinking outside the box, getting more harvest for less effort.

"Generally, a stack of four or five tires that are progressively filled with some good compost and a couple of pounds of seed potatoes will produce around 25 pounds of potatoes."

I convinced Greg to give it a try so this past weekend, we got busy with the tires! I only put three seed potatoes in each tire. After 13 tires, Greg cried uncle and said we'd plant the rest of the seed potatoes in the dirt the old fashioned way. Smart man... Let's do the math: 13 tires, all needing to be stacked at least 4 high = we need a total of 52 tires! I didn't think about that part!

Well, the first layer is planted. We have plenty of time to find tires for the second layer. Mike is convinced this won't work. I'm not 100% sure it will, but it's worth a try. And if Mike's right, I'll just hand him another beer while I think about my next crazy idea.

Cut one wall out of the tires and place that side down in the roughed-up soil

Try to make them level or you'll have problems as your stack gets taller. I'm not so good at leveling.

Add your seed potatoes and nutrient rich compost and let the potatoes get to work

Ramp Potatoes

2011-05-08T21:58:00.000-04:00

Greg's cousin, Mike, found more ramps. Yum! I'd never had a ramp until a few weeks ago. Once I tried them, I kept finding more and more ways to cook with them.

Ramps are a wild leek and have a strong zing to them. Even the smell of them is strong enough to make my nose tickle. Imagine if garlic and onions had little babies. They would be ramps. Delish!

I decided to add chopped ramps - bulb, stem and leaf - to one of my favorite potato dishes, smothered potatoes. Yum!

You'll need:

1/2 lb red potatoes, quartered
1 handful cleaned ramps, finely chopped
2 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 teaspoon Cajun/Creole seasoning

Melt your butter on medium. Add the potatoes and ramps, then sprinkle about half of the Cajun seasoning on top. Cover and cook. Stir every 10 minutes or so, testing flavor as you go. Add more ramps or Cajun seasoning as needed. Cook until the potatoes are soft. Top with sour cream if you like.

Head count

2011-05-07T13:59:00.000-04:00

We're down to 3 Ameracauna hens and 4 Ameracauna roosters. Something has been picking off the hens every few weeks. Could be a fox or a hawk; dunno. Whatever it is, Sharon's not too pleased to be losing her hens especially now that they've finally started laying. Hopefully the losses will end once we put them in an electric fenced area to keep predators out. Sharon started out with 13 total and now we're down to about half that.

Banded three of the bull calves last week and tossed a bunch of them out into the pasture with the older calves. They were growing so fast and didn't need to be on milk replacement any more. Left one as a bull. He's looking really good and I might keep him for show.

The barn cats have been having a great time chasing mice and roaming around. It's time to give them their Frontline. Gotta keep the mousers healthy and clean.

We ordered 24 red sexlink hens. Yes, 24. They'll be coming in June 11. The nesting coop is finally painted. I need to finish making the nesting boxes and put a roof on it. Then I need to make the roosting coop. It should be pretty easy, just need to find the time.

The latest additions to the farm are Harley and Davidson, Sammy's bunnies. They are hare mixes we bought at a 4H meeting. Sammy will show them at 4H and eventually sell one of them. We keep them inside when we're not at home but put them in a large cage on the grass whenever possible. The love munching on the grass.

Tommy & Sally

2011-04-22T08:52:00.000-04:00

The kids have renamed the cats as Tommy and Sally. Not as cute or witty as I was hoping for, but the kids are happy and the cats are oblivious.

It's cause for great celebration when the cats come out and play with the kids. Mitchell in particular is so excited about having the cats. He can't seem to keep himself from holding onto the cats' tails for some reason. He doesn't do it to be mean or hurt the cats; he's just fascinated with the tails.

The kids made a play toy bottle for the cats. They filled an empty 2-liter bottle with beads and rattle-y types things. Not sure the cats really liked it but the kids had fun making it.

Everyone outside!

2011-04-21T08:20:00.000-04:00

All the fencing has been fixed and new gates have been installed. The large calves are now grazing on about three acres of lush, green grass.

Sharon's chickens are back to free-ranging now that they've figured out that their eggs belong in the nesting box, not on the floor. There's one bird who keeps laying eggs on the floor but she'll figure it out eventually.

The weather is warming up and the kids are playing outside more and more each day.

We have a few rows planted in the garden and two barn cats roaming around, hunting for their board and keep.

Everyone is outside as much as possible. Spring is good.

Two new faces on the farm

2011-04-20T11:37:00.001-04:00

Meet our mousers - a brother/sister team. They will be residing in the barn, getting fat on the mice that have been eating the chicken's field corn. We're not sure if we'll be keeping their names or not. Sharon likes "Hickory and Dickory". Suggestions?

Fixing fences

2011-04-06T20:52:00.000-04:00

The older calves really need a pasture. They've been penned in the fenced area behind the barn. It's a great area for keeping an eye on the younger calves and makes it easy to keep an eye on their health. But they've eaten down the grass until there's just about nothing left. Then need more pasture and the grass needs a chance to grow back. I've had to hold off putting them in the pasture behind the barn because the fences needed to be fixed. Barbed wire needs to be tightened or added, field fencing needs to be replaced, new fence posts need to be driven and a new gate needs to be put up.

I was able to get some partial rolls of good field fencing at a farm auction and my cousin Mike got us a great deal on fence posts. Every day after work, we've been working on putting the posts in the ground, tightening barbed wire and putting up the field fencing. If the weather holds out, we should have it done this week.

This pasture will give the calves about three acres to roam, eat lush, green grass and get into trouble. I'll be putting Sharon's crazy nesting house and roosting house out there too. It'll be a busy pasture!

Growing

2011-04-04T19:50:00.001-04:00

Four containers of heirloom tomatoes. Two containers of spring onions in the back

Cantaloupe on the left; cherry tomatoes on the right. The tomatoes aren't doing as well as I'd like.

Now that I have all of these seedlings pretty well established, I can move them away from the north-facing window and start some more seeds. Greg and I picked up a couple packages of hot pepper mixed seeds last weekend. I'd like to get those started soon. We're out of salsa and his cousin, Lisa, this week to put in a request for more for her family too. Greg and Mike make some seriously fabulous salsa. I went through two jars in about a month! Yummo! We're definitely going to need hot peppers for all the salsa they need to make.

All this greenness... it's incredibly hilarious to me since I can't keep a house plant a live to save my life! People used to give me plants to keep on my desk at work and they would always die. How I'm managing to nurture all these sprouts is beyond my comprehension. So far, the only things I've been able to keep alive are my two kids!

Hello, Food

2011-04-02T15:40:00.002-04:00

“I don’t want chickens in backyards because they’re dirty, and I don’t want to be that personally acquainted with my food,” said council member Jan Robison.

In many urban and suburban communities, residents are starting to take an interest in owning chickens; backyard chicken ownership is on the upswing. People are recognizing how easy it is to care for them, the benefits of fresh eggs, free fertilizer and automatic garden de-bugging (is that a word? I say it is.).

Henrico County, near Richmond, VA, has a huge grass-roots movement to legalize backyard chickens. CHICKUNZ has been gathering supporters and petitioning for looser restrictions on backyard chicken ownership. "The group wants localities to adopt looser rules for chicken ownership so that people can keep as many as a half-dozen birds in backyards in residential areas." (Richmond Magazine) They aren't asking for flocks of a hundred or even to own noisy roosters. Just simply want to have some unobtrusive hens who will happily cluck and occasionally squawk when they lay an egg.

And now Laurel, MD residents, at least one in particular, are petitioning to legalize backyard chickens in their area. What astounded me was the response from council member Jan Robison that she didn't want to be personally acquainted with her food. To each their own, but I kinda like knowing where my food is coming from. Maybe it's because I watched Food, Inc. or read Joel Salatin's book "Pastured Poultry Profits" which describes how industrial chicken plants process the poultry; but I like knowing where my food came from.

I grew up spending my summers on my grandparent's farm in southern Illinois. Every summer, we would finish off a steer and our families would divide up the butchered meat. Half the cow fed my own family of five for an entire year. The other half was split between my grandparents and my aunt and her family of three. A whole cow fed three entire families for a year! Our cows were given names like Hamburger and T-bone. Once, a hog fattened for a 4th of July pig roast was named Bacon. We fed the animals daily and took care of them as livestock, not as pets. When it came time to take the cattle to the butcher, my brother, who was about 5 years old when we butchered Hamburger, didn't really understand where Hamburger went. Nor did he correlate Hamburger's absence with our grilled burgers and steaks. But he did know on some level, as all of us children knew, that these animals were our sustenance. They were the food on our tables.

Not everyone needs to be that up close and personal with their meals. But I think there's a vast difference between eating your livestock and eating the eggs from the chickens in your backyard. Fortunately for Jan Robison, she doesn't have to be personally acquainted with meat on her dinner plate. She can continue to purchase her food from the grocery store. But do her personal desires to distance herself from the reality of how that food arrives on her plate give her the right to ban others from the same?

Me thinks someone won't be re-elected next term.

The USDA People's Garden Initiative

2011-04-01T13:58:00.004-04:00

To me, the USDA has always seemed to be this big, scary entity of bureaucracy. In my mind, they regulated thing like allowing high fructose corn syrup into as many foods as possible, approving "enriched" food items such as flour, and generally putting a stamp of approval on processed foods that are unhealthy and addictive.

But I must give credit where credit is due. The People's Garden initiative is a good thing. Encouraging communities to create gardens using sustainable practices - you have my attention!

Right now, the USDA is offering this series of training sessions on a wide variety of horticultural and garden related topics. There is no charge for registration and all sessions are open to the public.

"The USDA People's Garden Initiative promotes growing healthy food, people and communities. It encourages USDA employees and communities to plant gardens because we believe the simple act of planting a garden can make real and lasting change to improve food access and healthy lifestyles."

Click on over, get the details and see how you can benefit from this initiative. Sessions have already begun and run through the end of May. Be sure to sign up -- it's free!

Plant an extra row for your community

2011-03-31T13:47:00.000-04:00

I love growing my own food. I don't particularly care for working in the heat, weeding or dealing with bugs. But in the end, I have food for my family that didn't come from a supermarket, wasn't picked prematurely and then ripened with chemicals, didn't travel thousands of miles wasting gas, and definitely wasn't grown without ethics and sustainability in mind.

There's a tremendous amount of pride and satisfaction I feel when I serve up spaghetti knowing that I made that marinara entirely from my garden. I know exactly how healthy it is. I know for sure that it's healthier than the stuff you buy in the store because I tend to sneak extra veggies into the sauce (like pureed sweet potatoes and carrots)! When I see my children gobbling up homemade pizza with my sauce and sliced basil from my garden, I get so tickled! I love opening a jar of green beans knowing that I planted those seeds, watched the plants grow, picked the harvest and then canned them. Pride and satisfaction... definitely the strongest emotions I feel when I feed my family from my garden.

I'm also a firm believer in helping others less fortunate than you. There have been plenty of times that I've been on the receiving end of the kindness of others. And even when it's not been easy, I do my best to reach out to others and help them. This summer, I plan to donate some of the garden to AmpleHarvest.org. I have a plethora of seeds started so why not designate a portion of those plants to help others in need?

As you plan out your garden this spring, plant an extra row or two or five with your community in mind. Check out the Ample Harvest website and find a donation location near you. It feels good to know you're providing your own family with healthy food. How much more amazing will it feel to help others with that same bounty.

My name is Sharon and I'm a liberal hearted, wanna-be hippy. But you can be as conservative as you want in your politics and still liberally share with your community.

"Although times are tough, you can still help your community by reaching into your backyard instead of your back pocket."

Spring planting has begun!

2011-03-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

My cousin, Mike, and I finished prepping the gardens and finally started planting tonight. We were able to put down two rows of sugar snap peas, two rows of regular peas and two rows of yellow onions. It's a start.

Probably won't be able to get anything else in the ground this week. Rumor has it that we're going to get a bit more wintery stuff tomorrow and rain and sleet for most of the rest of the week.

Sharon's table-top starter-garden is looking pretty good. At her house, she has started sunflowers, cantaloupe, green onions and heirloom tomatoes. She's running out of room in front of her only north-facing window to start many more seeds.

It's going to be a busy - and productive - spring and summer here on the farm, that's for sure!

Scrambled Eggs

2011-03-29T10:36:00.000-04:00

The Cornucopia Institute has done an amazing job of providing organic scorecards on products such as organic eggs, milk and soy. Their research is in-depth and comprehensive. They are a watch-dog group you can trust.

The Cornucopia Institute will engage in educational activities supporting the ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and investigations on agricultural issues, The Cornucopia Institute will provide needed information to consumers, family farmers, and the media.

I recently stumbled across their Scrambled Eggs video discussing just how "organic" many of the grocery store organic egg companies really are. The video is less than five minutes long, but is packed full of information consumers need.

To me, organic is more than just the type of feed you give your livestock. It's a well known and discussed fact that chickens who are allowed to free-range, the way nature intends for them to live, produce healthier, more nutritious eggs. And they taste significantly better than store bought, factory eggs. While we're not 100% free-range yet, we will be by June and that is exciting.

Make some money. Spend some money.

2011-03-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

All but one of the calves have been sold. The new owners seem very pleased with their calves and I wish them all the best.

Spent a very cold, very windy morning at the farm equipment auction this past Saturday. Lots of large equipment for sale but not much that I needed. Prices were going high and I didn't bid on anything.

Bought plastic deer barriers to protect the gardens. My cousin got a great deal on fence posts for them. We need to better protect the gardens this year. Last summer, the deer had a salad bar buffet every night in my corn field. Not a single ear of corn made it to my dinner plate.

Picked up some paint for the new chicken houses. Ended up getting three 5-gallon buckets on clearance for the price of one regularly-priced 5-gallon bucket. I do love a good deal!

We got one of the cattle stalls mucked out and put out fresh straw. Need more straw so we can clean out the other cattle stall.


Back row: Regular size egg, Double-yolk egg, Ameracauna egg

Sharon's Ameracauna chickens have started laying finally. The eggs are smaller than a normal size egg, but they'll get bigger the more often the chickens lay. We're getting an egg almost every day from them right now. They started nesting on their own in the pine shaving litter on the floor of the coop so we're keeping them locked up for a few days to force them to the nesting boxes. So far, no blue egg though.

We also got another one of the double-yolk eggs. When you compare its size to the itty-bitty Ameracauna eggs, it's hilarious to look at. We chuckled about it all weekend long. Sharon took the half-dozen eggs in the picture to her mother. She said she had the double-yolk egg for breakfast this morning and is eager for more. Hooray for a "delicious" review!

My chickens put out eight eggs on Saturday. I have enough now that I can send my daughter over to the neighbor's house with a dozen eggs to sell.

More calves

2011-03-22T10:06:00.000-04:00

Six more calves came in last night. These are all for sale. I'm hoping to have them sold in a couple days. Again, more of the Jersey bull calves. These boys range from 3 to 7 weeks old. They're all still on the bottle, of course, but are figuring out grass, grain and hay as well. The Dairy Bar feeder is working well with these new calves too.

One more toy

2011-03-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

Slap some paint on it and call it done

Chicken Fever

2011-03-14T19:23:00.000-04:00

Roosting house structure

The hens are now laying between five and seven eggs a day. That adds up fast! To provide a better quality product and increase egg sales, I've been working on a new, semi-portable chicken house that will allow the chickens to free-range. I'm also looking into all natural, non-GMO or organic feed. Organic feed tends to be cost prohibitive but I've found an all natural, non-GMO feed that isn't too much more expensive that what I'm using right now.

In order to get the chickens out in the pasture, I'm building a roosting house and a nesting house. These will be placed in the pasture along with water and feed receptacles. The food and water will be about 50 feet away from the houses to encourage the chickens to range and forage. They ranging area will be enclosed with electric wire to keep the chickens from ending up in the subdivision behind the farm and to keep the predators out.

I've been talking about my chickens to everyone I meet. It's amazing how many people are actively looking for farm-fresh, free-range eggs. I'm heading to the livestock sale this weekend in hopes of buying some hens that are already laying so I can expand the flock. This fall, we'll be hatching our own eggs and letting the chicks mature over the winter so they're ready to start laying this time next year.

DIY Seed Starters

2011-03-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Materials:
Empty toilet paper rolls
Scissors
Potting soil
Water
Seeds
Holding container

Cut the toilet paper rolls in half. Prepare your potting soil with water, mix until the dirt is good and wet. Place the toilet paper roll halves in a container that will catch the draining water. Fill each roll halfway with wet potting soil, add seeds, then top off with more soil. Cover with plastic wrap and set the whole thing near a window for warmth and sunshine. One the seeds sprout, you can remove the plastic wrap. Don't forget to water!

Two brown eggs!

2011-03-04T10:02:00.000-05:00

My hens stopped laying eggs last summer. No idea why. They just stopped. It's been incredibly frustrating because they eat like there's no tomorrow. And while some people like having chickens as a hobby, I need my chickens to earn their keep. Sharon has been encouraging me for months to get rid of my money-pit chickens. But last weekend, she decided to try something. She put fake eggs in the nesting boxes.

Most people will use golf balls or buy porcelain eggs.

Not us! Sharon and Josie filled some plastic Easter eggs with dirt and rocks to give them weight and wrapped them in silver duct tape to keep them closed. Yah, it's pretty redneck, but they worked!

This morning, I found two brown eggs in a nesting box! Don't know how many days the eggs were there because I wasn't in the habit of checking regularly. But it looks like the hens have bought themselves some more time here on Skyview Acres. Hopefully these redneck, duct tape eggs will get the rest of the hens on board and they'll all start laying again!

Sprouts abound!

2011-03-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

The Romas have started sprouting!

I now have fourteen -- yes, fourteen -- seed starter trays scattered around my house. And somehow, Sharon also snuck in two cut-down milk jugs filled with sweet basil seeds. She's already asking for a greenhouse for next spring.

We need a lot of tomatoes for all the salsa and marinara we want to can this summer. It's exciting to see all the seeds sprouting already. Spring needs to hurry up and get with the program so we can start planting these seedlings!

Busy weekend

2011-03-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

The weekend started with the loss of calf number 12. He seemed a bit off from the beginning but seemed to rally until Friday night. When my cousin and I went out to feed, #12 wouldn't get up and seemed very cold. We brought him into the garage to try to warm him up. I kept a space heater on him as well as a heat lamp.

Once we got the calf in the garage and started warming it, I had to take my daughter to her 4H play rehearsal. Sharon and her kids were here and came along to join in on the ~~chaos~~ fun. The skit was about a man-eating chicken. Or was it about a man, eating chicken? We may never know. The kids had a great time though and that's what matters.

Number 12 died during the night. The kids pretty much expected it and weren't heartbroken. It was frustrating to lose another calf, especially since we had no clear idea what was wrong with this one.

The rest of the weekend involved daily feedings, planting seeds, building a fence to help keep the youngest calves and older calves separated, taking stuff to the dump, 4-wheeling, letting the Ameracauna chickens out to free-range and making some nesting eggs to help encourage the hens to start laying. It looks like a short list but don't be fooled. There's always work to do on the farm and this past weekend was no exception.

Grow, little seeds!

2011-02-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

It's time to start preparing for spring. We have seeds everywhere - planted and still in the bags. Sharon and I started a tray of beefsteak tomatoes and a tray of green bell peppers over Valentines weekend. That's farm romance for you!

This past weekend, we bought more of those Jiffy trays, some potting soil, and, yes, more seeds. Sharon spent some time planting the seeds with her daughter while her son and I road the 4-wheeler out to the woods to bring wood up to the house for the fireplace.

Right now, we have seeds started for Sugar Baby watermelons as well as two other varieties, squash, beefsteak and roma tomatoes, and green peppers. I'm sure we'll start more seeds this weekend too. Whatever grows that we can't use, we'll sell.

More calves

2011-02-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

Welcome calves number twelve through seventeen!

This past weekend, we took delivery of thirteen calves - twelve bulls and one heifer. They were all about 3 or 4 weeks old, but I suspect one was only a week or two old because his umbilical cord hasn't dropped off yet. We sold six of the bulls and the heifer to my cousins the same day they came to us. That leaves us with six new calves on the farm!

With six new calves, all needing to be bottle fed, I needed a better feeding solution than a bottle for each calf. One sure way to be personally violated by calves is to walk into the herd with only one or two bottles. They immediately start salivating and look for something to suck... my elbow, my knee, my boot, my wrist, each others ears... I think you get the idea. Feeding them one or two at a time was also going to be a very slow task every morning. Sharon found a Dairy Bar multi-nurser online and suggested that I could make something like that. After investigating, it was a lot easier and probably just as inexpensive to simply order the Dairy Bar. I found a pretty good price on it at Valley Vet. It arrived Friday, giving me a bit of time to check it out and read over the instructions before the calves arrived Saturday morning.

The nipples are designed to be slow-flow. This encourages proper salivation and makes sure the milk doesn't bypass a stomach - two things that can lead to scours. Since this only feeds five calves and we have six, I've been bottle feeding a different calf at each feeding so they all get a chance to nurse better at the Dairy Bar. I'm hoping this helps reduce the occurrence of scours in these young calves.

The dairy farmer we're buying the calves from is dropping calves pretty much daily. We're hoping to get more every weekend and turn around and re-sell them within a day or two.

The big move

2011-01-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

Three things about our Ameracauna chicks: All of the Ameracauna chicks have been in the barn stall for a while now. They will be old enough to start laying in about a month or so. My crazy girlfriend wants to free range them out in the pasture with the cattle and has been in a tizzy about moving the chicks out of the barn. Keep these facts in mind as I explain...

I'm all for free ranging the hens and am willing to try her suggestions. She's been doing a lot of research and is impressed with the old-time successes of Robert Plamondon's poultry farm. He manages his flock with two houses - one strictly for roosting and one strictly for nesting. His flock is encouraged to range because the food and water is never in the coops but placed about 50 yards from both houses. He's had great success with his two-house strategy including increased egg production and decreased broken eggs and cannibalism.

We're not quite ready to put the flock out in the pasture but the chicks needed to be moved from the barn stall soon so they can get used to their new home in time to start laying. I wasn't ready to move them from the stall yet, but evidently my girlfriend was.

Not a chicken!

The chicken coop is divided in half on the inside. The front half has been used for storage and the back half houses the chickens. From time to time, we discussed cleaning out the front half and putting the Ameracaunas in there but never really came to a decision. I came home from quoting a job to find all the stored items had been moved out of the hen house and into the yard, ready to be moved "somewhere", not to mention a few hours worth of work waiting for me to get the coop ready. We fussed and fumed for a bit but got down to work. All the stuff was moved to storage, the dirt and old litter from the hens was cleaned out, her kids helped distribute new shavings on the concrete floor, she got the food and water ready, I built a roosting ladder.... and we moved the chicks into their new home.

The only thing missing? Nesting boxes! She says she has plans for some of the leftover cabinetry I have down in a shed. She's been toying with the idea of "colony" nests as described in item #2 by Robert Plamondon. One four-foot nesting box for 40-50 hens sounds unbelievable but we'll see if it works or not. There are a few cabinets down there that could be converted into conventional nesting boxes or nesting tunnels.

I'm waiting to see how she plans to free ranges the flock now that they're in the coop. There's no doubt she'll come up with something surprising that will make me ... well... smile.

Busy holidays

2011-01-07T12:51:00.000-05:00

We had a bit of snow...

... some holiday lights...

... moved the two youngest chicks out to the barn with the other chicks...

... got to use the dump truck a few times for plowing and hauling ...

... and did some New Years Eve fishing.

All in all, a wonderful holiday season spent with the people I love most... and a few unruly characters who make my life interesting. You can decide if those characters are the kids, the family or the friends!

We like it homemade

2010-12-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

Baked macaroni and cheese

Venison roast

Chicken and noodles with egg noodles made from scratch

Salsa made with peppers and other good veggies from the garden

Omelets and scrambled eggs from the hen house

And now plans are bouncing around in my head for some farm fresh bacon and sausage. Makes me lick my lips just thinking about it!

I need to pick a spot on the farm for a hog pen - not too far so I can get to it easily for chores but far enough away and downwind from the house most of the time. I'm sure the neighbors are going to love it when I have half a dozen pigs running around here.

#11

2010-12-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

No matter if your farm has 1,000 head of cattle or less than a dozen, every loss is felt.

Yesterday morning, we lost calf #11.

This calf has always seemed a bit "off." He's was smaller than the others and a bit runty. He wasn't an aggressive eater so we had to be sure he got his share of milk replacement. He had scours but I got him through that. He finally seemed to be gaining weight in his front half but his back half still seemed pretty scrawny.

I fed him the night before and he seemed okay but when I went in for the morning feeding, he was laying on the ground, flopping around like a fish. I'd get him standing up and he'd fall back down, roll onto his back and flop around some more. He was dead within hours.

My daughter was particularly attached to this one and called him Baby because he was the smallest.

Life and death are part of living on a farm. The births are celebrated and the deaths are felt equally as deeply.

An Ameracauna baker's dozen

2010-11-30T19:05:00.000-05:00

Two week old chicks. The light one has been
named Butterscotch by my girlfriend.

Thanksgiving week marked the arrival of a baker's dozen of Ameracauna chicks. Imported (yes, we're fancy) from Richmond, VA, the youngest chicks are enjoying a heat lamp in the garage while the older chicks are camped out in a stall in the barn.

For now, the Ameracaunas will be kept separate from the older RIRs I have in the chicken coop. Those chickens ... they have me confounded.

Some of them came to me at an unknown age, but some are chicks I raised. The problem is that none of them are laying, not even the youngest hens. A few simply keeled over and died and I don't know why.

So I have these hens and roosters I believe to be Rhode Island Reds or a mix of RIR. The older hens aren't laying at all anymore. The younger chicks never started laying. I have no idea what the problem is. Now winter is approaching and, unless I figure out a good lighting plan for the coop, I doubt there will be any eggs at all this winter. I'm faced with feeding non-producing chickens and that's an expensive prospect. A woman from the local 4H is interested in buying a few of the older hens, even if they have stopped laying. I'd like to give the youngest hens a chance to lay but is it worth feeding them all winter and hoping for a couple eggs?

The "older" chicks' first night. Kept them in the garage
for the first night so they could acclimate
to the stall during daylight

The Ameracaunas will be ready to start laying in late February or early March. I'll need to keep them separate from the RIR roosters for breeding purposes. My girlfriend wants to incubate some eggs and sell the chicks which will be a neat project. So where do I keep the Ameracaunas?

The coop is divided into two sections and the front section is used for storage. I suppose we could clean that part out and install some laying boxes. I'd have to cut out an animal door for the hens to get in and out of the coop -- and make sure it can be secured at night to keep the predators out. Letting the chickens free range during the day would be ideal but the last time we tried that, one of the chickens ended up in the subdivision that borders my property.

For now, the chicks are eating, scratching and having a good time exploring the barn stall. But between now and February, I have some decisions to make on what to do with all these chickens. My girlfriend keeps telling me to put the older chickens in the freezer for soup. We'll have to see which ones end up in the freezer and which ones are suddenly motivated to start laying again!

Chicken Count:
"Baby" chicks - 3 hens (we think)
Older chicks - 9 hens, 1 rooster (we're pretty sure about the sex of this batch of chickens)
RIR mixed breeds - 12 hens, 3 roosters

Tagging and banding

2010-11-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

Milk-feeding update: five of the six calves drank from a trough this morning! Only the smallest calf, Baby (#11 with the ear tags), is still on the bottle. He still has scours so he's also getting electrolytes in his bottle. Tonight, I'll be trying some of the scours/pneumonia medicated milk replacement for him and adding some of it into the regular milk replacement for the rest of the calves.

With eleven calves on the farm, it's becoming more and more difficult to keep track of which calf is which. When you are trying to keep them all healthy, it's especially important to be able to recognize which calf needs medication and which already received it.

So I bought an ear tag set.

My daughter, Sammy helped prepare the tag gun and sprayed the ears with iodine after I put the tags in. I showed her how to tag the ears, then helped her tag one calf. Most of the calves are still small enough that there wasn't much of a struggle to hold them for the piercing.

When tagging an ear, look at the inside of the ear for three lines of cartilage. I pierce between the 2nd and 3rd lines. After checking to be sure the backing is securely attached to the pin, Sammy gave the ear a squirt of iodine to help protect the wound.

After tagging all the calves, I decided to band the largest bull. He was already on the ground for the ear tag so we grabbed the bander and now he's walking a little funny.

My daughter understands that in a few days, he'll no longer be a bull but will be a steer although she isn't exactly sure about all the specifics. Even so, I'm proud to be raising a her on a farm and teaching her about animal care and hard work.

Not quite a dozen

2010-11-25T15:26:00.000-05:00

My secretary took a vacation from blogging for a while but things have been plugging away on the farm. The summer heat and lack of rain took a big toll on the garden and it basically flopped. Next summer will require some type of drip or watering system that isn't labor intensive. I was able to do some canning from the garden, but it was no where near what I was hoping for.

The biggest news on the farm is the appearance of calves! My cousin and I have been buying Jersey bull calves from a local farmer and seeing how they do. The goal is to get them to 800 lbs and sell them at auction. No idea how much they'll go for, but anything over $1/lb would be good.

Working with a sick calf

It's been tough with the calves though. We have eleven right now but there were more who didn't survive - scours, pneumonia and just poor health got the better of about half a dozen. I have been expecting about 50% mortality so we're ahead of the curve for now.

All of the calves come to us needing to be bottle fed which can be interesting when I'm trying to feed them by myself. Right now, half of them are being weaned off milk replacement. The other six are being weaned off the bottles and being fed milk replacement in buckets or troughs. Last night was the first night of transitioning them from the bottles and it went really well. All except for one were pretty eagerly drinking from buckets this morning. That cuts feeding time down significantly.

One of the largest calves was coughing and had nasal discharge - the first signs of pneumonia. I gave him a shot of antibiotics and he seems to be rallying. The key seems to be hitting them with a dose of antibiotics as soon as the symptoms appear. The antibiotics I have on hand aren't strong enough to fight it off if I don't catch it right away.

I think a few of the newest calves have scours so I'll be marking them at tonight's feeding and giving them liquid electrolytes to combat dehydration.

Chewin' their cud like good little calves should

My goal is to have a dozen calves; just one shy of that goal. If I can keep a rotating door going on the farm with new calves coming in as older ones are weaned off the milk replacement, I'll keep adding to the herd.

Working the farm

2010-07-22T01:23:00.000-04:00

It was a very busy weekend here on the farm.

Right now, I have three gardens growing. With the almost complete lack of rain this summer, keeping the gardens watered has been incredibly difficult. Because of this, my cousin Mike and I jerry-rigged a waterer and tried it out. We hooked up a small electric pump and pump water out of the creek into a tank, then pump the water out of the tank and onto the gardens. It takes forever to fill up that 275 gallon tank so I have my eye out for a stronger pump.

The garden is producing green beans, tomatoes, Hungarian and jalapeno peppers, zuccini, yellow and white squash and cucumbers. A lot of the tomatoes have the blight. The watermelons and cantelopes seem to be coming along fine despite the dry weather. However, the carrots and corn aren't fairing as well.

Mike and I spent a good portion of the morning weeding and tieing up tomatoes. After picking hot peppers, we went inside and made a ton of hot dogs and hot peppers. In the end, we had 13 quarts canned. Not too bad for one day's work!

As far as our experimental commercial type garden which is about an acre or so, after the very little rain we got the hundreds of seeds we planted have started to come up. This includes watermelons, cucumbers, squash, three types of pumpkins, gourds, cantelopes and sweet corn. Even though the corn is finally growing, the deer are eating it as fast as it comes up. I don't expect that any will survive until harvest to be sold. My goal was to prove that I could plant a successful, large-scale garden for commercial sale. I've definitely proven that I'm capable but need to figure out how to tackle the deer problem and have a more efficient water plan for next year.

Sunday morning and once again we were hauling water from the creek and pumping it on the gardens. Added Miracle Grow to the two smaller, personal-use gardens.The rest of the day I worked on clearing brush along the one side of my driveway. I have a long driveway that is about a third of a mile long. One side is an old fence row that is overgrown with briars, locust, tulip popular, vines and such. I'm tired of driving off to one side to avoid all the limbs. The big snows we had this past winter laid those limbs across the driveway and made it twice as hard to plow the snow and with them up against the drive made it hard to have room to plow. So far I have hauled five trailer loads of brush and am only a quarter of the way done. But, wow, what a difference! In some places, I have gained four or five extra feet of width for the driveway so need to keep plugging along on it till it is done.

There's always something to do.

Canning - Peppers & Hot Dogs

2010-07-21T23:37:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday, I put up 13 quarts of hot dogs and hot peppers. Here's the recipe for ya.

1 gallon hot peppers ( I use Hungarian wax peppers)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups vinegar
2 30 oz bottles of catsup
7 packs of hot dogs (or more)
1 tbs salt

Cut peppers in rings. I leave the seeds in for extra spice but you can remove them if you don't want the extra heat
Cut the hotdogs into bite size pieces
Mix all ingredients, except peppers, in a large bowl
Cook at medium heat to a boil. Stir often to keep from sticking
Let boil for 5 or so minutes, then add peppers
Cook just long enough for peppers to start to wilt then fill your jars and seal
Usually the jars will seal on their own as they cool but you can do a hot water bath for about 20 minutes if you're concerned about the seal

Make hay while the sun shines

2010-07-19T11:26:00.000-04:00

Most of the farms in the area have had pretty thin hay this year. Fortunately, Skyview hay was thick, high and bountiful. All the hay was cut, dried and rolled within a week. My buddy who cuts the hay already has the rolls sold and the money from the sale will go right back into the farm to prepare for cattle.

Not long after the hay was rolled, I found a great deal on a hay spear. Instead of moving one roll at a time with the tractor, I can now cut my work in half and move two rolls at at time. Efficiency is key when you don't have farm hands to rely on.

And tractor toys are cool.

Quiche anyone?

2010-07-02T16:54:00.000-04:00

Ten eggs in one day. I'm expecting to have a dozen a day by the weekend.

Eggtastic

2010-06-30T21:56:00.000-04:00

These hens.

When I first got the chickens, they were laying a few eggs a day. A bit more than I really needed for myself but it was manageable.

Then, they stopped; completely stopped laying. Who knows why; it could have been because one of the roosters died or because they were in a new environment. Whatever the reason, they stopped. They sure kept eating though.

Now they're back to laying eggs daily. I was getting three to five eggs a day. All of a sudden, they kicked it up into high gear. Nine eggs ..... seven eggs.... I have over 40 eggs in my fridge!

I've posted them for sale on Craigslist and a few other sites but haven't had any calls yet.

In the mean time, have any good quiche recipes? We might be eating omletes and quiche for a while.

Good fences need good gates

2010-06-30T21:12:00.000-04:00

In order to bring cattle back onto this farm, I need to go back and start replacing all the gates that were previously sold. At a minimum, I need three or four more. To replace them all, I need a baker's dozen at least.

I picked up these two gates in a trade for services: they gave me the gates in exchange for helping put up a horse run-in. It's been a very hot month and those horses need a break from the sun. These gates may not look like much, but they clean up pretty nice!

Hello there, my little friend

2010-06-29T23:30:00.000-04:00

Planted the corn on June 20 and already have plants standing tall! Just need some rain to keep these guys growing.

Hay! Corn!

2010-06-19T10:28:00.001-04:00

Stacking square bale hay for a friend today.

Tomorrow is all about planting sweet corn.

There's a possibility of bringing some Holstein calves to the farm. How many? Dunno. When? Dunno. How much? Dunno. Have to wait on my friend to get back to me with details but if it works out, this will be a great deal. We'll have some cattle to fatten up and sell at auction in the fall.

My peeps

2010-06-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

Billy showed up this morning with a surprise for my daughter - five chicks. He also brought another rooster for me. We now have three roosters, too many hens to count and five little chicks.

Cleared out a stall in the barn for the chicks and they're happily pecking and scratching away. Sammy is responsible for keeping them fed and watered. There's no telling what she'll name them all.

About the farm

2010-06-13T22:53:00.000-04:00

This is our family farm. Seventy-six acres of gorgeous land in Winchester, VA. I'm living on the farm now, managing and working hard to bring the farm back to life.

My uncle started running this farm in the 80's as a calf-cow farm. After he passed away, I helped work the farm while my aunt lived here. Now the farm is under my daily management and I love it. This year, I've planted cantaloupe, pumpkin and sweet corn for sale along with my own garden. I also have a full hen house producting half a dozen or more eggs daily. And now that there's a barn stall with chicks scratching and chirping, this is really starting to look like a farm again.

From a business perspective, my goals are

1. Become a supplier of Virginia certified organic beef to commercial stock yards and the general public.
2. Reach the point of sustainable profitability.
3. Enjoy work while making a good living.

On a more personal level, I want to continue the tradition of our family farm, raise my daughter and live life to the fullest. I have always felt connected to the land and have enjoyed farm life, hunting, fishing and being outdoors for as long as I can remember.

This is my life; these are my loves. Hold on for the ride.

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