Happy Winter Solstice

The Winter solstice is upon us, thankfully we have longer days to look forward to.  So far this has been a much dryer winter than last year, which doesn't help the steelhead fishing much.  We need some big rains to push those fish up river!

It's been really dark these past few mornings while feeding the animals.  I could hear the cows running at me but couldn't see them until they were right on me with their nose in the feed bucket before I could pour it into the feeder.

The shorter days makes it difficult to get things done around the farm as well.  After coming home from work in the dark it's not easy to get motivated to do things in the dark.  Looking forward to having more time to get things done, because there's a lot of things needing done!

We have finished a few things in the house, this past weekend we got some shelves up to store all of our food processing supplies.  We're still adjusting things on these shelves and in the pantry.  Having these shelves is a huge help and will make getting some of our processing done much easier since we won't have to dig through piles of boxes or run out to the shop where some of it was being stored.  We've got plenty of room alongside of the shelves too for hoarding totes!  We need more hoarding totes.

Yesterday Tori and Zach sanitized all the beer bottles we have and filled up a couple bottom shelves, now we're ready to bottle the hard cider we had fermenting and a batch of root beer.  I'm also being pressured to make caramels since it's that time of year and it has become a tradition, can't break tradition so I'll probably need to make some caramels.

Thankfully I have a four day weekend, which gives me an extra day before Christmas gets here to finish up my last minute shopping.  We're having a Christmas eve turkey dinner since the hams won't be ready until January.  We bought an extra turkey at Thanksgiving because they're discounted and deep fried turkey is amazing.

Hopefully I'll be able to get all the other things needing to be finished.  We have more flooring for the bedrooms, trees that need to be pruned, gravel that needs to be hauled in and spread, a barn that needs stalls for horses built, fencing repaired and a pasture divided for more rotation space, garden space prepped with some lime and mulch, general clean up, shop organized, fishing gear prepped, fishing trips taken, and all sorts of things that just need done!

Not that exciting of a post, I haven't been motivated lately to write and have a lot on my mind.  These longer nights probably haven't helped with the mood or attitude, nor have the politics.  I'm just looking forward to getting things ready for our horses and bringing them home!

Happy Winter Solstice to you all, hope you all have an exciting new year and best wishes!

Our BFF Farm Stay in Your Future?

Last night when I got home from work and turned on the local news (yes we have TV on the farm, we receive three channels from our roof antenna) I watched a brief segment about a couple that decided to give up the city life and move to a farm.  They had little farming experience but were looking for a change.  Ultimately they established a Farm Stay to keep their farm alive and provide themselves with an income.  Thier story kind of felt close to home since Theresa and I are doing basically the same thing, although, we didn't start this farm life out with the intention of it being our sole source of income.  Actually, I don't believe we ever considered farming for income, rather, we wanted to live on a farm to get out of the city and to enjoy raising animals and growing food for ourselves.

Getting here has been a long road.  We literally had shopped and were making offers on farm properties for 10 years, and went through three different realtors before finally making a deal.  During that time our hopes got crushed more than once to the point we thought it would never happen, but we didn't give up.  It's really not easy borrowing money to buy rural property because the lending industry considers it a higher risk market, and the homes available in our price range were either houses built 100 years ago or poorly constructed older manufactured *mobile* homes plopped down on a property and being sold for the price of a quality house built on-site.  Basically, places that lenders wouldn't touch.  For those close to us this is a 'broken record', replaying once again.

Now that we've succeeded in getting here, we're acutely aware that it wasn't cheap.  It hasn't been without worry or fear for our future either.  We know it's going to take hard work to keep our dream alive and we'll need to use this farm to supplement our income to sustain.  Watching that story about the couple turning their farm into a Farm Stay gave me hope for our future that we'll continue to live our own dream.  I doubt that we'll ever start our own Farm Stay as a source of income, our Farm Stay is really already open for free to family and friends, but we will do our best to produce food and crafts that will help support us.  It's nice to know though that we may have other options in the future if needed.  I've heard of dude ranches, but didn't realize Farm Stays are something that's becoming more popular.

We could use a bit of help around the farm, there's always lots of work, and getting people to pay us for their help for some 'education' in return would be even better.  I'd definitely smile more and even make you a farmer's pancake breakfast!

Related content you might be interested in:

1. From city streets to rural lanes: The story of starting Leaping Lamb Farm from scratch, KVAL, Dec 2017.

The True Cost of Cheap Meat & Produce

I realize all of us 'normal' folk live off limited income, usually taking at least two bread winners to keep a small family out of poverty.  Personally I've lived my entire life in that range of poor to lower middle class, and understand when grocery shopping you want to get the most food for your money.  Also, having grown up farming I'm aware of the work it takes to produce food and I know it's not an easy life.  I remember back in the 80s when family farms began disappearing faster than the International Harvesters could finish harvesting the fields. Entire family farm estates and equipment were being auctioned off to settle farm debts.  The losses weren't a factor of weather or crop failure, it was 'Big Ag' controlling market prices for crops, exploiting government subsidies, and the capital equipment sector charging exorbitant prices for farming equipment manufactured in poorer quality.  These circumstances gave advantage to those with wealth over those without, small family farms couldn't earn enough to keep ahead of costs.

Those disadvantages are still in play to this day as corporate farming constantly wields its muscle to keep small family farms from succeeding or consuming them in their own growth of the BigAg machine.  That hasn't stopped people from trying, small organic farms and hobby farms are popping up all over around cities, and urban farming is now actually a thing.  Savvy consumers are fighting back against BigAg because more people are realizing they can't trust the industrialized food industry to provide healthy, safe foods.  The challenge with small farming is competing with supermarket pricing.  It's a difficult decision to make for consumers, the choice to pay more for meat or produce and sacrificing ones ability to purchase the latest smart phone or pay for its monthly billing.  Super Centers are convenient as well, get all of your shopping done in one place without running around.

The problem is there's actually a greater cost to the community with cheaper prices.  These giant value stores pay their labor less and purchase their meat and produce for less, which leads to mass production and lower quality.  The profits are reaped by a few, it's not the hard working people that benefit but the already wealthy CEOs.  This is how BigAg maintains control of the market and keeps the working class in its place. 

When you're shopping for groceries keep these things in mind.  Please buy from local farmers, purchasing in bulk and learn to preserve your own food.  Realize that when you purchase meat from a small farm that the cost of your price per pound is a better deal in the long run because you're supporting local farmers and your community.  When you see pork roast for just over $1 per pound understand that the bacon and chops from that hog are selling for $5-$6 per pound and making up the difference.  It's not really cheaper, there's a 'true cost' which is a little less tangible.

Some good related reading

1. The Rise of Small Farms: Oregon leads by example, By Lauren Morency DePhillips, Epoch Times, Aug 2013
2. Rise of mega farms: how the US model of intensive farming is invading the world; Fiona Harvey, Andrew Wasley, Madlen Davies and David Child, theguardian, Jul 2017
3. Rise of ‘hobby farms’ means more growers get maimed, killed, By Rick Callahan, AP Nov 2017

Weekend Update

It was the first weekend of December, wow the year has flown by...oh, yeah and we got a lot done this past weekend.  I found several more shrines, a few pieces of armor, and collected lots of korok seeds.  Oops, that's my gamer blog update for Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  Actually, I don't have a gamer blog and yes we do play video games on the farm when not working our asses off.  Well some of us work our asses off, or at least I do trying to finish all these side quests... :)

In typical Oregon fashion we enjoyed a wet weekend of rain and did some inside work, and a little outside work when we could.  I made the mistake of ordering a ceiling fan online a couple weeks ago, and last week when it arrived I had it installed before Theresa got home from one of her late nights with Zach at ballet.  Well, the fan didn't go over so well, and I actually didn't like it either.  The direction switch was inside the light dome cover!  That and it really looked ugly.  We decided to drive into town Saturday morning and find a couple ceiling fans at Jerry's and then take back the odd one I ordered to HomeDepot.  These pics don't do the fans justice, they actually look really nice in the house and the family room fan makes a huge difference moving heat from the pellet stove around the house.  Big win after a purchasing fail.

Family Room

Dining Room

Besides video games, the fans were about all the work done inside this weekend.  Oh, I'm sure we did other stuff but just not as important.  Outside I was gettings things ready for some of the planting we'll be doing in the spring.  I prepped sites for the fruit trees and some blueberry bushes by staking the locations and mulching.  I'm far from finished prepping for spring planting, but it's a good start.  We've got sites ready for the semi-dwarf cherry trees ( a bing and black tartarian), and the two royal plums, and two suncrest peaches.  We'll also be planting 12 blueberry bushes out front near the boarder fruit trees.  In addition there will be a new pear and probably a couple apricot trees (although, not sure how successful we'll be with the apricots).

Front Border Fruit Trees and Bushes Prep

After the mulching work Zach helped me clean out the pump house.  There were old kitchen cabinets that were left from a prior house remodel years ago and they were just a junk mess.  We pulled them out of the pump house and used the tractor to smash them down, then loaded them into the farm truck to haul to Lane Forest Products where they'll be ground down into mulch compost for future use by someone else.  After getting the pump house cleaned up I finished putting in posts to fence off the 'backyard' so the dogs have free range to come in and out of the house to do their business.  We have to have a fenced area so Dexter doesn't run off or the little dogs don't go wondering into the roadway.  Should finally have the backyard fence wrapped up by next weekend!

I don't always remember to get before and after photos of the work we do, I'm usually to busy focused on the tasks at hand to worry about taking pics, even though it is nice capturing those moments.  We still have plenty of projects to go and there's always things to do so hopefully I'll remember to get those pics before and after.  Here's one of the next projects that really needs to be taken care of.  The prior couple of weeks I worked on grading and adding gravel to the driveway and parking area next to the house, but in the process I took a lot of the accumulated debris and dragged it in front of the barn which made that mud pit look even worse.  The prior owners only put gravel down to the first stall, so in front of the last three it was mud.  In fact, the last stall they actually had a huge hole about 3' deep dug so they presumably could park a truck with a camper in it.  It would have been a small pond in the winter, not really sure what it was like but filling that hole was one of the first things I did.  Now we just need to put down a bunch of big gravel for the base and some 3/4" on top.

Mud Pit in Front of Shop

Mud Pit out to Pasture

Look for an update soon on the progress of the mud pits.  I'll be hauling in lots of gravel to make improvements here!  There's also still lots of clean up left from the previous owners, piles of wood and pvc pipe that need to be either hauled off or cleaned up, organized and stored.  It's never ending...