It’s a good day for a new blog.
If you’ve been following us for a little while, you might remember our old blog—neglected and rarely updated, the last post was from January 1st, 2012.
So on the one year anniversary of our old blog’s farewell, here we are, starting fresh. We’re hoping to give this one a little more attention, hoping to keep in better touch with all of you reading out there by bringing you the latest farm news. Call it a new year’s resolution.
The question I am most frequently asked this time of year is, “So what are you actually doing on the farm right now?” The past weeks have brought us loads of snow, and if there is anything green growing in the world, I haven’t found it. So what is there to be doing on a farm in the middle of winter?
The answer, of course, is lots. Our dairy cows are still milked twice daily and are giving us very respectable amounts of milk. Our beef cows and our pigs need to be fed every day, and with temperatures staying solidly below freezing, bringing them water can be a challenging task. Our laying hens are still laying, so we have eggs to wash regularly. Sam slaughtered a steer today, Brooke is rendering lard, and since our CSA distribution and Farmstand are open year round, setting out our storage vegetables and selling them is Rochelle’s weekly gig.
Beyond routine, winter is a time to tinker, mend, and refine. I know that Tim has at least one cultivator to refurbish, and finding a fix for the two broken points on Matt’s plow would be nice. During the growing season, you can always hear a farmer saying, “Well, that’s a winter project.” In these snowy months, we start on those things that we were too busy to tackle in season.
My favorite part of this season is the dreaming. We’re a young farm, still in the making, so possibilities are boundless—a reality that is exciting and overwhelming. I’ve been spending time doing the seed order, which is just the concrete end of some wild hopes and decisions about what the farm will look like in the coming year and years. I’ve been staring at maps of the farm and thinking about where our perennial plantings will set their roots and the best ways to irrigate our vegetable plantings. It’s a heady feeling, spending time figuring out the intersection between my desires and the farm’s potential.
Keep your eyes posted to the blog—more heady feelings, cute animal photos, and a whole lot of unknowns in the coming year.
Gillian
If you’ve been following us for a little while, you might remember our old blog—neglected and rarely updated, the last post was from January 1st, 2012.
So on the one year anniversary of our old blog’s farewell, here we are, starting fresh. We’re hoping to give this one a little more attention, hoping to keep in better touch with all of you reading out there by bringing you the latest farm news. Call it a new year’s resolution.
The question I am most frequently asked this time of year is, “So what are you actually doing on the farm right now?” The past weeks have brought us loads of snow, and if there is anything green growing in the world, I haven’t found it. So what is there to be doing on a farm in the middle of winter?
The answer, of course, is lots. Our dairy cows are still milked twice daily and are giving us very respectable amounts of milk. Our beef cows and our pigs need to be fed every day, and with temperatures staying solidly below freezing, bringing them water can be a challenging task. Our laying hens are still laying, so we have eggs to wash regularly. Sam slaughtered a steer today, Brooke is rendering lard, and since our CSA distribution and Farmstand are open year round, setting out our storage vegetables and selling them is Rochelle’s weekly gig.
Beyond routine, winter is a time to tinker, mend, and refine. I know that Tim has at least one cultivator to refurbish, and finding a fix for the two broken points on Matt’s plow would be nice. During the growing season, you can always hear a farmer saying, “Well, that’s a winter project.” In these snowy months, we start on those things that we were too busy to tackle in season.
My favorite part of this season is the dreaming. We’re a young farm, still in the making, so possibilities are boundless—a reality that is exciting and overwhelming. I’ve been spending time doing the seed order, which is just the concrete end of some wild hopes and decisions about what the farm will look like in the coming year and years. I’ve been staring at maps of the farm and thinking about where our perennial plantings will set their roots and the best ways to irrigate our vegetable plantings. It’s a heady feeling, spending time figuring out the intersection between my desires and the farm’s potential.
Keep your eyes posted to the blog—more heady feelings, cute animal photos, and a whole lot of unknowns in the coming year.
Gillian
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