Here it is two months gone by already! A new year, and already the weather has made itself the headline. We were right in the middle of the worst of The Ice Storm. We were less affected than many as we have wood heat and the cooking stove is run on propane. We have a spring that we get our water from, but it is moved to the house with an electric pump. Can’t have everything. Certainly makes solar and wind power look appealing…
We ended up buying a generator to keep the freezers running at the farm, thanks to the cold temperatures outside all of them stayed well below the critical point before we got the generator hooked up. The day or so after that the power came back on at the farm (it is close to a main line), however, the generator was brought to the house and very warmly welcomed, 5 days without any power was plenty! It was 12 days total before we got power again at the house, not too long compared to some of the people we know.
The ice was absolutely beautiful, but the destruction as it continued to come down and overload trees and power lines was incredible. It looked like the aftermath of a tornado, only with not one path but many. While some areas had minimal damage, others were completely devestated. We lost a lot of trees, but all the buildings and animals were spared, and most of the vehicles. My dad’s work truck had a large limb come down on it doing quite a bit of damage. Still drive-able though! We will be cleaning up limbs and trees for the rest of the year, and the pastures will have more light than before. No shortage of firewood.
With the gorgeous spring weather of the past week we began construction on a new brooder to accommodate a larger number of chicks for this year! 5100 are ordered and will begin arriving in batches of 600 the first week of April. We have been cleaning up fencerows, and purchasing fence supplies, to improve our facilities for handling an increase in cattle; 10-15 will arrive mid-April to join the two we overwintered. The two we have currently will train the new stockers to the electric fence, finish fattening on the spring flush of grass, and be ready to process end of May/beginning of June. Some of the beef is already spoken for, so if you are interested let me know so I can add you to the list! We’ve had positive reports on the two we sold in the fall, and expect these to be delicious as well. They are 100% grass-fed and finished. We had a little marbling in the fall beef, and hope to increase that with the two in the spring. It is a learning process! More cattle this year has meant finding some more land to lease, about 20 acres of our next-door neighbor’s beautiful pasture.
One exciting bit of news; we are looking forward to having our first intern this summer. Gabe, a student from Hendrix College will be joining us from May through August. We are greatly looking forward to his enthusiastic and eager-to-learn energy! He will tentatively be doing a project of adding ducks to the Falling Sky Farm pastured animals mosaic as well as learning all aspects of the operation, from routine chores to processing and marketing.
We are also looking forward to working with some nearby friends, Elizabeth Alexandar and Ben Goodwin, on marketing. They are raising heirloom veggies and beautiful flowers near the Buffalo River (BuffaloMoonFarm.com). We plan to do some joint marketing in Conway, Little Rock and Hot Springs. We are working with Ben, Elizabeth, and several groups in Conway to get a weekly Saturday farmers’ market going, ideally downtown. Details are yet to come, but stay tuned!
We plan to continue marketing at the Argenta Farmer’s market (hopefully at least three weeks a month!) and the Hot Springs Market (probably once a month) when they start this spring. We will also continue to attend the Hot Springs Village Carmona Center market (our products will also be available in the store opening in March!) once or twice a month. You can also continue to find our products at Littlerock.locallygrown.net and Conway.locallygrown.net.
However, I am getting ahead of myself. As today has proven, it is still winter and the full-swing marketing season is a ways off yet. After our week of lovely warm weather we woke up to snow flurries which have continued to fall all day. It is gorgeous, and a lovely excuse to stay by the fire!
In general things have been pretty laid-back. We have still been doing regular deliveries, but that is only twice a month for now. The freezers are quickly emptying, ready to be filled mid-May with our first processing. The laying hens continue to lay their beautiful eggs. We may be getting some more laying chicks this spring. The demand for eggs hasn’t dwindled like their decrease in laying with the colder weather! However, we are still getting 60-80 eggs a day, not too shabby!
We are getting some much needed work done on our house. We have learned a lot over the past month, probably more than we ever wanted to know (!), about mixing, laying, and finishing adobe floors. We are putting one down in our kitchen, which, needless to say, has not been itself for the past month! It will be really nice when it’s done though. Getting close…
We took time for a drive down to Florida to visit my grandparents and uncle in West Palm Beach. Cody, Dale (my dad) and I had a lovely trip, a very nice little break! Luckily we went and were back by the time the ice storm arrived as Susan (my mom) was generously watching the laying hens, cows, horses, dogs and cat for us! She was most appreciative not to have to deal with the frozen ground, water, escaped cows, down fences, and all the other excitement that goes with having animals in bad weather! Yes, the cows went adventuring and visiting for a few days as trees/branches fell on the two gates separating them from the neighbor’s herd (they walked right over the electric wire which was so laden with ice it was on the ground!). I finally got to utilize the horses for farm-work. Cody and I spent three days in the saddle locating and attempting to separate our cows from our neighbor’s VERY wild herd in a pasture with very bad perimeter fences, losing them, finding them again, and FINALLY getting them home safely. The horses were wonderful. Pepper got ample chances to let his cutting pedigree shine, and Taff and Dude did a wonderful job of safely navigating the thorn tree and briar patches that predominate in our neighbor’s field. It was a relief to all (including our cows!) when everyone was safely back where they are supposed to be!
The first daffodils are blooming, and now being covered in snow. Spring isn’t here quite yet! Wishing you all the best, and I will try to be a little better about making my updates more frequent. We look forward to seeing many of you this spring and summer. As always, thank you for your continued support, and we always welcome your feedback! We are still getting comments on the Thanksgiving turkeys, which appear to have been quite a hit! We plan on doing more this year, and hopefully getting them a little later so as to have birds that are actually 20 pounds max.! However, life is always full of surprises, so we shall see.
To a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2009!
Andrea
p.s. I finally ordered a book on wordpress, and will hopefully figure out how to get a photo-gallery up very soon, with photos large enough to see. If anyone is a wordpress expert I would love some lessons!