They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
Everything is homeschool. Even a muddy former driveway that the pigs rooted through for a couple of months. This becomes a vehicle for talking about healthy and unhealthy soil with the kids. Think of it as a "before" picture. The "after" picture won't be for a couple of years, but ideally that same former driveway… Continue reading Spring Buds
Got to the farm for chores about 5 AM on Monday, and a little surprise was waiting. Eunice had her lambs! That's right lambs. Twins. There is a little black ewe lamb and a little white ewe lamb. And Eunice is being a great mom, nuzzling and licking and feeding and herding them here and… Continue reading Eunice’s Twins
Everything on the farm is interconnected, whether we like it or not. Because we want to be able to give our customers an accurate live-weight assessment for the pigs they bought, we need a scale. Because the scale needs to be on a flat, firm surface, under cover, accessible to all the livestock, it needed… Continue reading Gates around the scale, and Hog Live Weights
The weather is not cooperating with our hopes and dreams, these days. We had originally been planning on butchering our big Meishan barrow ("Bacon") this coming weekend, but the weather is going to be over 40 degrees all night, several nights in a row. In fact, last weekend was likely our last night below 40… Continue reading Salt Cured Lamb, Continued
It's getting that time of year again! Time to plant the garden. We planted a dozen or so rutabaga last week, and this week we are starting the peas. On the crop rotation plan (yes, there is one) they are going to be in row four this year, so the first task was: Cleanup on… Continue reading Cleanup on Row Four
We have decided to move our compost bin from it current location at the back of the garden, to a new location in the chicken yard. The current location is convenient to the garden, for moving finished compost, but it is not convenient for building the stack with raw materials, or soaking it, because there… Continue reading New Compost Bin
The lamb legs that were set down in salt last Saturday and the Saturday before (that is, February 21 and 28) were supposed to be rinsed and either hung or re-salted on March 7, but, alas, the National Guard continues to ruin everything. It was a drill weekend. So we didn't get to that project… Continue reading Salt Cured Lamb, continued.
Last week during lamb butchering I did something a little different. I harvested both kidneys with their fat caps. Not sure why, other than everything was going so smoothly, it seemed a pity to waste anything. (Don't worry, we still haven't attempted making haggis). But then, as often happens around here, we found ourselves with… Continue reading Steak and Kidney Pie
Little Farm in the Big City 