Where has the summer gone!

Wow.  I can't believe our last post was way back in July.  I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the summer or the fall for that matter.  Time really does fly these days.   Here's a few pics from the rest of the summer. 

Spraying organic fertilizer on a few fields.

Hundreds more loaves of bread baked.

Successfully finished our first season as a CSA with beautiful shares.

Made the first braids of our soft neck garlic.

Pulled out the old grain cleaner and cleaned all our combined Rye (about 130 bushels) with the help of Pierre Peters and Brooke Soucie.

Canned many more jams and salsa to hold us through winter.

Sheared the goats (as you can see the newbies - Jet, and Jeena- have grown a lot since their arrival in June).

Acquired some new critters on the farm: ~16 chickens and 5 ducks.

Said goodbye to one of our Rams - Zipper - as he heads of to be bred on a farm in Michigan,

Successfully planted our next crop of garlic...with 3 new varieties. 

and welcomed the hatching of two little ducklings courtesy of our broody silky hen.

We were also able to combine all our corn and beans, plant our wheat, and plant half of the Rye cover crop seed.  Unfortunately the rain has kept us off the fields and unable to plant the rest.  

Please think about visiting us on December 2nd 2017 at Brukner Nature Center for their annual Craft Fair.  There will be plenty of nature inspired  homemade goods of all kinds .  And we hope to also be set up at the Santa's Market Craft Fair at the Fort Loramie High School December 3rd. Here's a few pics of the types of Items we will have. (bird and bat houses, homemade soap, wool ball garland, wool acorn ornaments, homemade cranberry hot pepper jam and gingery cranberry chutney)

Great Garlic Harvest of 2017

The Great Garlic Harvest of 2017 has finished. We ended up with approximately 285 heads of hardneck garlic (Music, White German, and Chinese Purple), and 272 heads of softneck garlic (Nootka Rose). ~82 Seed heads have been put aside as we hope to keep growing the size of our garlic patch! Let the drying commence.

New kids on the farm and happy bees...what else could a girl want!

We picked up our newest goat kids last week, from Gun Plains Pygoras.  Nan and family were nice enough to meet us in Fort Wayne for the pick up.  They are settling in well and starting to warm up to us a bit, though they are definitely not as friendly as Fred and George were.  Meet Jet and Jeena.

And look at the beautiful pollinator habitat strip that we put in last year to buffer us from our neighbors.  It is beautiful and the bees and other pollinators are all over the yellow flowers and clover. 

Fred and George are happily down in their new home tonight with this amazing family. I guarantee they will be the most spoiled goats ever, and so loved by Amanda, David, and the three kids! We hope we are always so lucky with our animal placements!

Video of the kids when they were just days old...learning how to bounce.

The rolling has commenced

Not only will we be heading to the first farmers market of the season, sending off our first CSA shares, and having a bittersweet farewell with our two beautiful pygora kids, but this is also the week of planting the fields.  The rye is being rolled and the soybeans are being no till drilled in the same pass.  Not only does this cut down the compaction caused by driving over the fields multiple times each season but it also adds organic matter to the depleted soil and works as a weed barrier for the crop.  Fingers crossed we have good luck with it (last year was the first time we used this method and we faired pretty well). 

The kids are growing like weeds!

And we're happy to announce that the boys will have a loving home just outside of Cincinnati.  They will be joining a young family whom I'm sure will spoil them.  And lucky for them they will get to stay together...as you can see they are nearly inseparable.  They will be leaving by the first week of June so if any of our friends out there have yet to meet the duo please feel free to stop by.  They could not get any friendlier!

Sad week on the farm...

Its with heavy hearts that we inform the world that our 'cover man' goat, Norris, passed away.  Though one of the youngest, he is the first of our flock to die.   Though we tried to find answers, the necropsy was inconclusive so we most likely will never know why.   Everyone else is healthy and happy and we are keeping a close eye on them all.  I feel terrible that I am now hoping the prison break last month (when the boys escaped and freed the girls for the night) will result in a couple more Norris kids.  One last pic of the cover boy himself...