Catching Up

It's been a busy couple of months since moving onto our farm and this is just a quick overview of what we've been up to as we're trying to get settled in.  The farm we bought had been vacant for a few years, and neglected even longer because the older owners weren't able to take care of the place as I'm sure they would have liked to.  It wasn't an easy transaction, in fact, we placed five offers on this place over the coarse of a year dealing with a family trust, and the final accepted offer didn't have any contingencies allowing us time to sell our old house.  It was an all or nothing deal to sell our old home on Suburban Ave and close the farm within a couple of months, very scary considering the condition of the farm house.

Obviously we've made it past the fear and stress of selling and buying and are now dealing with the conditions of the property to make it livable and put the land to use.  The first week was like camping, the farm house was filthy and without any floor coverings.  The population of spiders and other 'residents' (aka rodents) gave it that classic haunted movie scene appearance and the property was seriously overgrown with blackberry bushes so thick and tall there very well could have been a graveyard of abandoned cars hidden within.  The work began though and lots of cleaning for everyone, even the cats did their part clearing the house of the resident mice.  The cats are still busy to this day patrolling the barns and fields and occasionally leaving a 'gift' of dead mouse near the front door.

Moving all the household belongings and farm house cleaning kept us really sore and made the outside work even more difficult.  Thankfully we planned on buying some help as part of our farm purchase and at our first opportunity took some time to run into town to buy a tractor.  It made quick work of blackberry removal and comes in handy with all the farm work.  In fact, I just scheduled it's first break-in service because we've already gotten 50 hours of use on it.  But that's not all we've been up to.

New Holland Workmaster 33

       

Within a couple weeks of getting the tractor we started right in on getting the farm into use and purchased four gilts.  We decided on getting a heritage breed hog and chose Gloucestershire Old Spot, a nice pasture pig and noted for their winter heartiness and best tasting pork.  We still haven't decided if we're going to breed for a new litter, but we are seriously considering it.  Pigs aren't the only animals we'll have on the farm, we also recently picked up a couple dozen egg layers, aka chickens, and may possibly be loading up some cows this weekend to bring to our pastures.

Gloucestershire Old Spot gilts

It doesn't look like there was any gardening happening on the property so we anticipate a busy Spring and Fall as we plant a large garden and hopefully have a nice harvest next fall.  I'm sure the local deer population is excited by that news because they've been visiting the existing apples trees in the yard near every night.  This Winter we'll keep busy working on the garden plan, farm house remodeling, and other chores like fencing repairs.  There will be a lot of self-educating for small farm success happening as we continue learning to care for our livestock and plan our gardening.  Stay tuned for more!