Farm news for March

Here we are in March already!

The days are starting to get longer, but we are still deep in winter here on the farm. Our Christmas tree finally came down. Farmhand 4 woke me very early yesterday morning asking “How many more days until summer?” He was not pleased with my answer. He’s our only child that never experienced the year around summer that came with living in Southern California, so I would think he’d be the most adjusted to winter. But in fact he’s not a fan of it at all. Maybe it’s all the extra time to get ready to go outside in the winter that he does not want to spend. 

I’ve been struggling to write recently. I find the newsletters and updates come easy when farming is easier. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s never truly easy nor did we ever expect it to be, but the last couple months have been especially hard. Early on in our farming we read books by Joel Salatin that talked about how winter was really the time he used to recharge and study between summer seasons. We have yet to experience a winter like that. This winter has been especially harsh not only in weather but in freezing water lines, leaking roofs, livestock issues we have not experienced before, and so on. Since end of November we have had at least one animal in our ‘infirmary’ being treated for illness or injury. We had sudden loss of an almost finished steer on New Years Day and had a young heifer get sick the same day. We tried for a week to nurse her back to health with no luck. We lost a whole litter of pigs that were farrowed to be 4-H pigs for Farmhand 1 and 2. The sow had complications during labor and postpartum and the piglets didn’t survive. In our new flock of laying hens we have some that are experiencing curly toe, which is most likely a nutrition deficiency, even though we are using the same feeding protocol we’ve always used to raise a pullet flock. To name a few of the hardships the last couple months. All these challenges provide us with much learning and valuable experience, but also take a toll on our physical, emotional and financial wellbeing. I am confident we will make it through this challenging season stronger and more prepared for the new adventures coming our way.

I write about the struggles because I feel it’s very important to share them along with the good we are experiencing in farming. I feel all too often what’s shared on farming websites, blogs and social media highlights the ups but not the downs. I do understand that it’s hard to be open about the times its feels like we are falling short of our goals. Through it all, the good, bad and ugly, I try to focus on our why. We chose to start this life to preserve land to agriculture and farming, have our kids learn these skills and provide quality local food options to our community. In the process we help grow our soils, build a network of others with a similar mission and disrupt the industrial food system. 

Now that I’ve shared some of the struggles we have faced over the last little bit, I want to share some of the new and exciting things we have happening. The new flock of hens has started to lay and we’ve gone from a handful of eggs a day to 120 yesterday! Right now they are mostly small or “2 day eggs” (a long narrow egg that should have been two). We will be offering pullet eggs for a few weeks until the girls get it all figured out and are laying large eggs. Allspice (one of our sows) had a litter of piglets that is doing well, looks like Farmhand 1 & 2 will each have 3 nice pigs for their 4-H project. As always the bright spot for me in this grand adventure is watching our kids grow though these challenges and persevere to accomplish their goals. 

Thank you for being part of our community! 

Wishing you all the best,

Aila