Farm Goals 2013...

Goals are important, they give you direction, focus, and a way to measure progress.  Last year, the goal was simple, earn enough money from the "farm" to remain in tax deferral status.  We were able to do that easily with the hay crop.  This year, we wanted to take it a little further and expand to be able to raise a few animals and enlarge the garden for more production as well.  Here is a little more info about our goals as it stands right now, we might end up tweaking some things around if we find we were a little too idealistic (or more accurately if I was too idealistic).

The following is a summary of our income categories this year: 

Pigs~  We have 3 pigs currently that will be ready to butcher in about a month or so.  Then we plan to purchase 3-4 more to raise over summer and butcher late fall.  We will keep one for ourselves and sell the rest.

Meat Chickens~  We plan to raise about 300 this year.  We plan to sell most and keep about 40-60 for our meat supply this winter.

Laying Hens~  We keep 9 hens to provide eggs for our family and maybe sell a few dozen a month to help reduce the cost of feed for our own egg supply.

Garden~  This is mostly for our winter supply of food.  We do a lot of canning and freezing of produce and fruit each summer/fall and this will be where the bulk of the veggies come from.  When we have surplus or we are just too busy to can that week we will be selling the veggies and fruits from the garden as well as donating some.  The reject foods or spoiled foods will go to the pigs.

Horses~  Since we aren't financially ready for horse ownership ourselves just yet, and we love seeing horses out the window, we decided to board a couple on the property. We feed and care for the horses, and the owner provides hay to feed them.  It is a great complimentary thing with our hay production because it saves both us and the horses' owner time (her in finding and hauling hay and us in coordinating outside sales and loading up a trailer.  Having horses here helps to bring in $ for covering farm improvement expenses and it helps pay the property taxes as well.  I am really glad we decided to do this instead of diving into horse ownership right away.  This brings in a steady income flow to help float other farm projects until their harvest time comes.  This income acts a little like grease in a wheel for the whole operation. We appreciate our boarder because she cares for her horses well, and is prompt with payments too.  Good boarders are a huge blessing!

Hay~  We have about 3.5 acres of hay production this year.  Last year we had about 4.25 acres and we got 9+ ton off of it in 3 cuttings.  This year we are hoping to yield about 6 ton in 2 cuttings. We'd like to leave some taller grass and forage for fall and winter grazing to help reduce the horses hay needs over winter to help the boarder's hay budget too.  It might make a little difference, we shall see.

Rabbits~ We don't have them currently (we loaned out the operation out for a while), but there is a possibility they will come back into the mix sometime this year.  The goal with them will be for them to cover their own feed costs and to provide some food for the freezer.

Berries~  It is possible we will have a fall yield of berries from our ever bearing strawberry variety this year.  This it he first year of production and we are trimming off all blooms for the first couple months but later in the year we should be able to let a few ripen and I am hoping for a few flats of strawberries off 200+ plants.  We also have raspberries that are newly planted this year but we are unsure if they will produce the first year.

So those are all the areas we are focusing on this year.  Which feels like plenty let me tell you!

Without further delay, here are the farm goals....

#1  Bless others.  By Sharing experiences and time, making memories with people, and sharing the bounty in various ways.  We'd like to donate to our local food pantry, and to give some of the bounty to family and friends.  We'd also like to incorporate a form of ministry into our efforts: fellowship, discipleship and giving.:)  Value of this goal= Priceless.

#2  Put food in the freezer/pantry at low or no cost.  Pork, chicken, green beans, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, salsa, pickles, canned pumpkin, ground zucchini, frozen corn, frozen broccoli, plus fresh produce over summer too.  Value of this goal= $1,700+

#3  Earn enough from farm to pay property taxes and home owner's insurance. This would also allow us to maintain our farm deferral status for the property taxes.  Value of this goal= $2,600

#4  Have enough $ in the farm account from all of 2013 farm projects to cover the start-up of 2014 farm projects.  This prevents us from dipping into the normal monthly budget to start up the farm projects.  We will need roughly $900 to start up the meat chickens next year (to cover feed, chick costs etc for the first 1.5 batches) until we can sell some to pay the expenses.  For pigs, we will need approximately $725 to purchase the feed and piglets for the year.  Garden, we'd need $200 to cover supplies, seeds etc.  For the hay, we need minimum of $300 to have the 1st cutting of hay custom cut.  Laying hens we'd need $300+ to cover the cost of the chicks and feed to get them to laying age if we want to go into more egg production with a few more hens next year.  As you can see these projects really add up and put a tremendous strain on the budget as we go along in the spring.  It would be nice to not have that strain on the finances as we are getting started for the year.   Value of this goal= $2,700++.

So there you have it, our farm goals 2013!  We are excited to see how far down the list we can accomplish this year.  We'd be pretty pleased if we could attain through goals #3.  We've broken these general goals down a little more as a family and talked a lot about how we can accomplish them in various ways, but that would make for a VERY long post so I won't bore you with the details.

At the end of the year I will try to remember to post how we did with all these goals and where we ended up financially.  So far we are astounded at how much it costs to raise animals, so we are praying that we end up in the positive at the end of the year.:)  It's all in God's hands ultimately.

Boys Will Be Boys....

I admit our boys have a unique childhood.  They are allowed to spend large portions of their childhood days filthy dirty, digging in the dirt, building forts, and of course working hard. 

I can't even imagine the fortitude it took to dig a hole this large and not be totally exhausted afterwards!  

Then there are times they aren't just dirty but real mud balls! 

Always important to have a girl supervisor to make sure things are going according to plan.  Notice the "forms" for their concrete operation?  They were building the foundation for a fort, they had it perfectly smooth and then they decided to just dive in, I guess they just couldn't take it they had to get muddy!

Boys this dirty get hosed off outside, see how much you learn as a country kid?

Then there are times that play gives way to hard work.  Tobers is chopping thistles here.

Whippersnapper raking gravel. 

Then back to play for a while.

Don't worry, we make them reinforce the sides of all tunnels with 2x4 lumber and keep a close eye on their operation.

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into the boys growing up activities!  You can only imagine my laundry pile now can't you?

We Are Tired...

We've been working hard around here for weeks, well months really.  Yesterday we took it easy and tried to really rest.  It was then that I realized just HOW tired I am (how tired we all are).  I am dancing a fine line between tired for a day or two and that feeling of being overwhelmed.

This week I am going to step back a little and just focus on maintaining all we've done so far.  We got most of the cooler crop seeds planted in the garden on Saturday and we did a lot of odds and ends projects.  That progress feels great, but I think we pushed ourselves a little too hard because we are all exhausted.

So I've set a few goals this week:

Feed/Water/Care for all animals we have.
Keep everything watered that we've planted in the garden and keep grasses green.
Do school with the kids in the mornings.
Spend 30 mins to 1 hour each day and maintain housework/laundry so we don't fall behind..
In afternoons take naps, relax more, get to bed by 8:30 p.m. and try not to take on anything new this week!

This is going to be a difficult task because I know I will feel pressure to get projects done but I have to focus on keeping everyone rested so we can keep going long term.  I have to keep the bigger picture in mind.

So here is to a week of maintenance, extra rest, and balance.

A Little Cock-eyed...

The 3rd batch of meat chicks arrived early this morning.  We ordered 100 chicks for this batch. We've slowly worked our numbers up as we have been more comfortable.  

Hard to believe 100 chicks can fit into a box this size, it is about 24"x16".  They sent 104 chicks, but one arrived dead.  So we ended up with 103 so far, hopefully we won't have too many losses.  Our last batch we lost 2 out of 60, which is a 3% loss rate down from about 11% on the first batch!  Yeah, for improvements!

Then we had this little oddity in the mix. I must admit I am fascinated by oddities. Something is misaligned here.

Poor little guy, his beak doesn't line up right.

We marked his head with a green permanent marker so we can keep a better eye on him in the crowd of 100 to be sure he is getting enough to eat and thriving ok.  If he begins to suffer we will have to put him down so we won't prolong his suffering.

The eye on the right side doesn't open and he seems deformed in some way, but he is vigorous so far and drinking well.  We haven't introduced dry feed yet because I like to make sure they are well hydrated before adding the dry feeds.  That delay in the first feed seems to be helping our survival rates.  We are going to let this little guy have a chance to live to be a big meaty bird (don't worry he won't be one for sale, we will gladly take him if he makes it to butcher weight.)

I feel like I am cheering for the underdog or something.  We have nicknamed him Cock-eye.

Hang in there Cock-eye!

Turkey Hatching Eggs...

One bright yellow sticker on a rather ordinary box elicits excitement and feelings of giddiness all through the house.

"Fragile Hatching Eggs"

This is the box we've been waiting for.  It's the 24 turkey hatching eggs we ordered a few weeks ago.

The box is open!  The first layer is dense foam, the 2nd layer is 13 eggs, the 3rd layer is foam with deep holes, the 4th layer is another layer of dense foam, then 13 more eggs in holey foam, and more dense foam on the bottom.  The packaging was impressive but we still had 2 broken eggs in the package.  We ordered 24, they sent 26 so we still ended up with the amount we ordered.

They sent some hatching instructions, which is helpful.

They are large and speckled and a little bumpy too.   

Whippersnapper is excited because this is his project.  He gets to help with the incubation process by turning eggs 3x daily for 28 days.  He gets to make sure the water reservoirs are full each day for proper humidity in the incubator and he gets to help make sure the temperature stays just right all the time!

Here they are settled into the incubator.  Warm, toasty, and moist.

27 more days until we hopefully have some hatching action. 

You might remember the surprise order of turkeys we got several weeks early a few weeks ago and how all but one died after much TLC.  Butterball the turkey is doing well and we are pretty taken with him.  He is pretty cute, and personable too.  He's been moved from inside the house to the brooder outside with the 2nd batch of broiler chicks.  He is the only one who comes to see what is going on instead of spooking to the back of the brooder when we open the door to feed them.  He comes over to say hello and tilts his head to the side to see what we are up to.  He seems to be fitting in alright.  I think he really wants some company of his own kind though.  He can be their fearless leader, big brother, and protector.  Butterball has a big role to fill around here in just a few weeks when these hatch.  Hope he is up for the challenge!

Can you find Butterball?

"Here I am!"

He is feathering out nicely, he is also 2X the size of the broiler chicks.

Way to grow Butterball, you are quite enjoyable to have around.  Hold on buddy, your new brothers and sisters are on their way in 27 days!

Plant Progress...

I am really enjoying my new hobby of starting plants indoors.  I have been really pleased with how they've all grown.  I've had very few failures this year in the seed starting realm.

I am especially impressed with tomatoes, peppers, marigolds and petunias.  I think I may have started the tomatoes and peppers a little too early because they are already pretty large.  We still have 3 more weeks until the earliest I'd feel safe planting them outside without protection.

Also, I *might* have a problem, I feel like I should say something along the lines of "Hello, my name is Julie and I am a seed-starting addict."  I have 85 tomato plants and 65 peppers (that is just two kinds of plants, not counting the other 15 things I've planted in smaller quantities.  I just kept planting a dozen of each variety that sounded good thinking some wouldn't come up, but they all did and they all thrived.  So I will have a few to sell and lots to give away.  It would be nice if I could cover the costs of the seeds and potting soil by selling a few of the extras.

I edited and rotated these next 2 pictures and they appear fine in my files, but they won't upload right so you might have to tilt your head! lol  If anyone has a clue on how I can change this issue I'd love a comment about it.:) I've tried rotating it in my files every which way and uploading every version of it and it still presents this way when it gets uploaded.  Sheesh!

This pepper is about 10" tall from the top of the soil level to the top of the plant!

This tomato is about 14" from the top of soil level to the top of plant!  They are stocky and strong stems so far and I hope they continue to grow well for a few more weeks in pots.

This one ended up about 18" tall from top of soil level to top of plant!  We've been pinching off blooms for 2 weeks now hoping they hold off on the fruiting process until they are established in the ground.

These are some of the largest ones but there are many more about the same size, most are much smaller because they were planted later than the above ones.  I am not worried about the smaller ones catching up and being productive because many times when buying plants from the store the smaller ones outgrow the bigger ones that have been in pots longer.  I have hope for the little guys.

I was so excited to see this little beauty when I was watering this morning!  My very first home-grown petunia plant that is blooming!  I planted a red, white, and blue mixture of wave type petunias and some traditional red petunias.  I am pretty sure this is the traditional kind.

I have to say petunia seeds are the most expensive seeds I've ever bought!  I think it was at least $4.50 for a packet of 15 itty-bitty, teensie-weensie seeds (like 1/4 the size of 1 poppy seed like you'd see in muffins).  They all came up really well and I will definitely grow petunias again next year except way more to fill up all the areas in the flowerbeds.  I might have to start saving $ now to afford them!  This is still a good savings over buying 6 packs of wave petunias locally.  If I remember right, last year I paid about $5 or more on sale per 6 pack or $2.50 per plant if bought in a 3" pot which would be about $.83 to $2.50  per plant.  I ended up with 13-14 plants from 15 seeds which means approx $.34 per plant.  I will pay attention the next time I go browsing plants for wave petunia prices to double check my numbers.  The regular petunias are much more affordable but they don't cover near the amount of ground like the wave ones do.

Here are all the wave petunias, they how grown considerably beings when they first spout we almost needed a magnifying glass to see them with the naked eye! 

I have to say though we are soooo ready for spring planting time and the last frost to pass because taking that many flats and pots of plants out each day for sun and in each night for frost protection is getting pretty old.  We will certainly be celebrating when that is done for the year and we can enjoy them outside doing their thing producing pretty flowers and delicious fruits and veggies.  

It will get a little worse before it gets better though.  We have to start all the squash, melons, and later crops for a couple week head start compared to direct seeding in a couple weeks.  We can do it, just a few more weeks of the plant parade in and out each day!

Thanks for coming along on the tour of how the plants are growing around here.

The Tester Chickens...

Well are you ready for the initial test chicken review?  Two brave chickens gave their lives to test a prototype of our mechanical chicken plucker that our friend Ray is building for us.  They had leg injuries and had been inside for a couple weeks in a brooder pen so I could keep a close eye on them, they were healthy, but they couldn't walk well enough to compete for feed with the batch of chickens outside.  They quickly became a little too messy to have in house, so they made excellent test subjects and told us what we needed to know about the chicken plucker adjustments that were needed.  They were about 4 weeks old when we processed them so they had another potential 4 weeks to grow.  They each dressed out at about 1.5-2 lbs.

They had been in the refrigerator for a couple days and I debated on whether to use the crock pot, roast them in the oven, or grill them.  In the end, we were in a hurry that night we decided to cut them up into pieces and cook them in the George Foreman Grill method.  We marinated them in Lawry's Sesame Ginger Marinade for 30 mins and cooked them on Med-Low for 15-20 mins in the grill.

They were done to perfection, they had a great flavor, and were tender but firm texture, and overall we were VERY excited and pleased they were so delicious!  Secretly, I've been hoping we have another one with a leg injury or something so we can have another to test out!  I think roasting one in the oven will be a better test of texture and flavor, so that will be the next test meal.

Obviously, I am not a food photographer.  You might just have to take my word for it, it was really tasty!

A Stitch in Time...

Today, we had a milestone, we had a family here to tour our meat chicken operation.  The milestone comes in that it was our first tour to a customer who wasn't already family or friends.  For some reason it felt note worthy this was our first official tour to show someone how their food is being raised here.  So today, while I was giving this tour I got a surprise!  Right in the middle of the tour, Whippersnapper came running out of the house with his face mostly covered in toilet paper and he was bleeding and crying hysterically.  Every mother's nightmare right there.

I lifted the tissue to see he was going to need some urgent care, and that I couldn't deal with it at home.  I felt so bad, the family that came for the tour had driven about 45 mins to get here.  So I put Sunshine in charge of the tour, and got Whippersnapper off to town for medical attention.

As I drove to town, I probed for more information on what he was doing, how he hit his head etc.  What I gathered, between sobs, was he and Tobers were playing around like they were bucking bulls and rough-housing and he hit his forehead on the sofa arm.  The sofa arm is pretty padded, but there are boards deep in there that do hurt if you hit it.  Anyway, he hit so hard it didn't so much cut it as it sorta tore it.

When we got him to urgent care they took him right in and accessed him and decided he needed a few stitches.  He did so AMAZING through the whole thing, he was tough, stayed completely still, and he was cooperative the whole time.  I am such a proud mama right now!  Would you believe he is our first child to have to have stitches?

 If you are squeamish you might not want to scroll down.

We had a field trip in the early afternoon and we were even able to make it just in time.  We got to learn about how cattle guards are made.  We enjoyed the field trip a lot, it was neat to see how useful things are fabricated.  Cattle guards are cool.  In case you don't know what a cattle guard is, it is a concrete based structure with a metal grate on top to let cars drive over it (they are embedded in the roadways) to discourage cows from crossing them.  They function like a fence you can drive right over, the cows are leery of them and won't cross, but the cars travel over them fine.  Here is a photo of one in case you explanation has left you baffled.

Photo Credit: www.barnworld.com

Overall, it was a good day, we started out in great moods today and got lots done and everything felt like it was moving right along.  This injury was only a minor detour from the day's plan and we were back home within about an hour's time.  

When we got home, I got a text from the family who came for the tour, and she said the kids did a great job finishing the tour.  Whew, glad all turned out OK in the end, and that the injury was nothing too major, for that we are very blessed!  God is so good to us.

  

What's In That Garden Anyway?

You might be wondering what we have planned for a garden that is about 10,000 square feet.  In case you were wondering, here is the breakdown of the plan so far.

Broccoli (3 varieties in a 28x24 area, approx 100 plants)
Cauliflower (2 varieties in a 18x16 area approx 40 plants with flower rows on 2 sides)
Carrots (2 varieties in 3 double rows that are 16' long and 2' wide)
Potatoes (2 varieties that are in a 12x24 area)
Lemon Cucumbers (in a 7x18 area)
Tomatoes (6 varieties in a 14x20 area 30 plants total)
Green Beans (a 20x30 area)
Zucchini, Crookneck, and winter squash ( in a 14x30 area)
Pickling cucumbers (in a 8x30 area)
Corn (3 similar se+ varieties in a 30x40 area~  An early, mid-season, and late ripening variety)
Strawberries (in a 40x30 area)
Kohlrabi (2 varieties in a 6x16 area)
Onions (in a 4x16 area)
Large pig feed plot planted with turnips, beets, canola etc (in a 40x60 area)
Melons (3 varieties planted in a 10x80 area~ cantaloupe, watermelon, crenshaw)
Peas, Lettuce, Spinach, Swiss chard and other shorter row crops will be mixed into smaller areas as well.

We have 2 large areas that are approximately 15x20 open to offer to friends and family to come plant their own crops if they'd like to.  Although, we also plan to share a lot of the bounty from our planned crops we'd also like to give people a place to plant their own if they'd like to.  We had some dear friends do that for us and we learned so much and enjoyed having a part in growing our food.  We wanted to do the same for others as well.

We purposefully plan to plant excess for a few reasons. #1 to be able to share the bounty with friends, family, and the local food pantry.  #2 we also plan to sell some of the excess to help defray the costs for all the seeds, the professional tilling fees, and the large amount of hours we will be tending to this garden (we know we won't be getting return on our time in this venture as that would be pretty difficult).  #3 we wanted to grow enough in quantities it would be easy to have enough to preserve batches in large quantities at a time as well as be able to sell enough in quantities to make it worth our time to coordinate a sale/delivery.  #4 to be able to feed to the pigs and chickens some garden produce to hopefully reduce the commercial feed bill.

We plan to use a lot of mulch to cover the areas of bare soil.  There are several reasons for this.  #1 mulch is healthy for the soil, as it breaks down we have richer soil. #2 It helps keep moisture in the ground longer. #3 It helps even out soil temperature from the extremes of air temperature at night and during the day. #4 It helps control weeds by smothering them.

There are some drawbacks to mulch, like possible hang out for pests like insects and slugs as well as mice.  We are hoping the cats will help us out with the 4 legged critters and we might have to run small chicken tractors to help control the bugs and slugs.

Our weed control plan consists of 4 children and 2 adults equipped with hoes, trowels, and shovels, a large stack of straw bales, and a consistent schedule of keeping up on the little weed offenders before they become large weed offenders.

You can see the large straw bales scattered here and there around, this is in preparation for spreading mulch as the soil gets warmed up and ready to plant.  We don't want to add the mulch too early when the soil is still cool because we might not get as good of germination rates because the mulch will insulate the ground some and the soils will be slower to warm up.

Here is the larger stack of straw bales.  This is about 1/3 the total amount of straw we were able to stockpile this winter in preparation for the garden.  We feel pretty fortunate to have found a free source of straw.  My heart goes pitter-patter when Mr. Wonderful pulls up with a big trailer full of something useful around the place!

So you can see we have a plan, and we've done some research to get us started.  It might be a little idealistic and that is OK with us if you think so.  The only way to learn what we are capable of as a family is to set goals, get started working towards the goals, and learn from it for future reference.

The Garden Project...

We have lofty plans this year.  We have planned a 10,000 square foot garden.  I know, crazy right?  Ya it is pretty overly confident of us isn't it?  It's OK if you tell us "I told you so." come September.  We want to try it anyway.

Here is the garden freshly tilled up!  

Of course when you are in deer country a tall fence is a must!  We are building a 6' high tensile wire fence that will have some strands electrified.  I secretly wonder if this is tall enough but Mr. Wonderful assures me it is high enough.  We are hoping this will detour the deer from our tasty vittles.  Here Mr. Wonderful is teaching Spud Man to make sure the post is straight.

 Time for another hole for another post.

Now they have to tamp gravel in around it to make it more secure in the ground.

A neat overhead, there will be a gate here that leads to the field.

So are you wondering what we are putting in the garden?  I thought so.  The next post I will cover that topic!  Until then, happy gardening!

Changing Pipe...

It's that time of year again, time to start up the irrigation system for the hay field.  We are both totally excited and a little apprehensive that another irrigation season has started.   It does mean early mornings, wet feet, and sometimes frustration when things don't go together quite right.  While it is a lot of work to change pipe daily, we choose to be very thankful we have the privilege to change those pipes.   Why should we be so thankful?  It means we have irrigation rights, and around this area, those are like gold!

Come along with us as we set them up for the first time in 2013!

After setting the pipes in the general position we wanted them, we had to flush them out by taking out the end cap section.  Here we let the water flow for a few minutes to clear out the major junk that could clog up the sprinkler heads. 

This helps to flush out wads of things like this, that the mice and critters pack in there during the off season.

Starting up the pipes for the first time isn't without it's challenges.  After we turned on the valve for the irrigation main line we discovered this rebellious riser needing to be tightened down a little more.  

Several pipes needed some adjustments to fit snugly together for a good connection.  Spud Man had that fixed in a jiffy with his wrench!

Then we had to haul out the supply line we use to attach the pipes to the riser.  Of course it is quite heavy and it was stored in the shed by the house so the lawn mower was needed for this chore.  Why not just pull the wagon while driving the lawn mower, apparently it makes perfect sense to 12 year old and 9 year old boys.  

Right after this, we talked about driving around the edges of the field from now on.  It does make for a neat picture but I'd rather not see tire marks through the field. 

Once all the pipes were set up, flushed out and ready to go, it was time to put the plug in the end and start building pressure. 

What do we have here?  Oh my, enough of that!  Moving on...

Eventually the pipes did get up to pressure, they set together tightly, and we walked away listening to the rhythmic ch-ch-ch of the sprinklers with a sense of satisfaction and a feeling of being deeply blessed for all God has provided us with.

 Thanks for joining us on this special milestone of our year, irrigation season at Summerfield Acres 2013 is underway!