First Year Farming

When asked about who we are or what we do, Josh and I have just recently begun to consider ourselves farmers. We preface that by saying "first year farmers." As in - we have no idea what we're doing, but we live on a farm, a very small one at that. When asked what we farm, I almost always say, "uh..." before remembering, poultry (meat and eggs) and vegetables, for now - and not for profit.

Josh is a dreamer as he is full of energy and ideas. I am generally the naysayer, toning down our plans and questioning what might go wrong. Although a few conflicts have come from this, it works for us.

We hope to eventually have a couple of goats, calves, and pigs. This summer we are planting a couple of raised beds (more on that tomorrow), and maybe some blackberry bushes. Next year we plan on expanding the vegetables and berries and adding fruit trees, someday leading to an orchard. We also want to make the pond much larger, finish the fencing around the south pasture, build a much larger barn, and make our house self-sufficient (solar panels / wind turbine).

With no plans of moving, we can take one step at a time and maybe reach all of these goals.

Where we are at today - two of the three ducks were eaten one evening by our resident fox. We have since bought three more ducklings, including an adorable black one. A few of the chickens died during our power outage from the storm and we don't have a current count. It is now visible which are hens and which are roosters and I am concerned with the seemingly high proportion of roosters. All are out in the coup and the ducks forage in the run but few of the chickens have chosen to leave the coup just yet. We keep a heat light on when we close them all up in the coup at night for now. They are all 2-5 weeks old and would probably be fine without the lamps, but it may help deter predators and they all seem to like it, so it's staying on for a little longer. We didn't end up re-running the old electricity to the coup. We are using an extension cord instead. Next summer we may use a small solar charger instead.

The raised beds are in progress. We are combining lasagna beds, square foot gardening, and companion planting - all based on Josh's extensive research and our stacks of library books on the matter. We will hopefully have the first one planted tomorrow with pictures.

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Ben took a great nap allowing us to get so much done this afternoon.