2018 Growing Season of Change

You step out side and pull in a deep breath of air, filled with a whirling mix of aromas only found on a farm. You gaze up and search the sky. Another cloudy day. Your mind can't help but start to wander to all of the different things that need to be done today. The never ending list that seems to wrap tightly around you. Sometimes it brings comfort, but some days you feel like your being squeezed a bit too hard, you start to sweat a little and it becomes hard to breath. You can't move and you don't even know were to start. Close your eyes, quiet your mind and pray for the peace that only God can give. Wiggle free just a little and pick one thing on the list to begin your day. 

The 2018 growing season has brought so many days like this for me. There has been a wind of change blowing gently across the homestead. I can't put my finger on what has been so different this year but I've just had an off feeling for some time now. Our season was off to a slow start with a lot of unforeseeable complications. Nothing major just enough of a complication to move things along at a slower pace than we would prefer and set things just a bit behind schedule. We started the season with some big goals. Some of them included building a small cabin for volunteers, finishing our fencing project and building a much larger barn. Time has gotten away from us and these projects haven't made it very far and some have been abandoned all together. The strange and almost tangible feeling of uncertainty has swept into every part of everything that we do. 

Farm VS Homestead

We started this journey with a certain picture in mind. We wanted to homestead. To live a subsistence lifestyle and supplement it by growing crops and raising goats and chickens for milk and eggs. The idea was simple and small. Things slowly seemed to change for us until suddenly we realize we're no longer much of a homestead we're turning into a small family farm. Adding more and more livestock and bigger and bigger gardens. It's not a bad thing. If we had the dream of being farmers we would be on the right track, but that was never our dream. Livestock chores and constant upgrades don't leave much room for things like fishing and hunting. Growing a ton of crops doesn't leave much time for harvesting wild edibles like mushrooms and berries. It's a trade off, with only so much time in a day. Over the past few weeks we've really become aware of the way that things have changed. We've started to re-evaluate what we really want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it.

So What Now?

Now we're looking at every little part of everything we do. Trying to decide what changes we can and should make. It's going to be a long slow process but we're putting a cap on our "farm" growth. It's time to work on making what we have more efficient so we have the time to do the other things that we want to do. We have to ask ourselves a lot of important questions like "Why again do we want to grow out a beef steer when we could get a moose (if we had time)?" A lot of this comes up because of where we live. If we lived down in the lower 48 growing the farm would most likely be the best way to go. It's not as easy to live a subsistence life style where hunting and fishing are more restricted and hunt permits are harder to get. Not that things can't change up here at some point. For now though why spend a small fortune raising a steer when there is a Moose out there eating a wild totally organic diet that we could potentially harvest. This is just an example of the many...many...many things we're thinking about and evaluating. I could write a whole book, I could call it "The Farm Trap" lol...

We still plan on finishing the fence to expand grazing area and building a small guest cabin. The Barn however will just be upgraded a bit, rather than torn down and re-built to 4 x the size like we were planning. That one change alone has taken a lot of pressure off. Not to mention most likely we would have eventually filled the extra stalls with more animals. There are many more things large and small that we have to re-evaluate. From daily activities, feed, and projects big and small.

I wish I could promise to update you all more often but that's always easier said than done. While it's easy to pop on for a few second with social media it's hard to find a half hour or more to stop, pause and write out a whole post. Remember you can always check in with us on Facebook were I drop photos and post updates more regularly.

We would appreciate some prayers that we make good choices with regard to changes in how we do things. What it all boils down to in the end is what's best for our children. They are after all our number one priority. I feel like their missing out on so much of what Alaska has to offer. They don't really remember the stuff that we did in the first few years because they were to little. They don't remember how we got to where we are now.

Wishing You All The Best

Daniel 2:21 And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: 

A New Kind Of Post

A new kind of post

I've never been any good at keeping a diary and so far my blog is no different. It's hard to find the time to sit down and write about what I've been doing because I'm always busy doing something else. So this post is going to be a little different. I want to talk a little about some of the things that I think about when I'm out working. Whether I'm milking or pulling weeds those quiet working moments are filled with so many thoughts about life, death, and everything in between. Here I'm going to share some of the things that have been through my mind recently.

Goats VS Cows on the small scale farmstead

Up until last summer we only had goats. I love my goats. Ken on the other hand is less than impressed with them. To me they are sweet, curious, fun and clean. I was not prepared for how different a cow would be. To me they smell worse. Some other things I didn't really expect: they aren't as clean, they drool, they have tongues like sand paper, they have no problem laying in their own poop. My goats have always been pretty easy to care for. Their stalls needing a clean out every couple of weeks or so depending on how much time they spend inside. The cow stall MUST be mucked out EVERY day or she will wallow in her own poo. With the goats there was a nice little pad of dry hay that developed by the hay feeder and they had well worn trails around the yard. The heavy cow has turned the area around the feeder and those trails to a muddy mucky mess. The goats are much, much easier on the ground but much harder on your trees as they love to strip the bark off, especially in the spring and fall. The shear quantity of the cows wet poo and all her pee oh my gosh it is just crazy. The goat poop is dry and they don't pee nearly as much and will often leave the barn to pee rather than pee in their stalls. The one good thing is the cow seems to have picked one corner of her stall that she likes to pee in. If that were not the case I have no idea how I would keep any clean dry bedding in her stall. The two big advantages to having a cow will be the extra milk and cream that can be used in more ways than the goats milk. Also, dealing with a single calf that is meant to be beef as apposed to triplets and twins from each doe that will then have to be re-homed or butchered (not much meat). Our cow Peaches had her calf in January it was supposed to be sexed bull calf semen but instead she had a large heifer calf who we named Apples. We were hoping for an easy first calving for both our cow and ys but no such luck. The calf was huge and we had to help pull her. Milking has been a HUGE challenge with the cow, The goats were so simple. With the goats I would just take them from their stall to the milk stand one at a time. Then I could give them a little grain and get to milking. If they gave me trouble I could tie their legs. When they were done I could put them outside or back into the stall no big deal. With the cow because we don;t have a large enough milking area she has to be milked in her stall. That means mucking it out first. She is also a major kicker so I've been having to milk her one handed while holding the bucket in the other hand. I do one teat at a time and milk into a smaller bucket that I then dump into a bigger bucket. Not only does she kick with her back legs but she will use her front feet to kick up debre at me and into the bucket. She also smacks me in the face with her tail which is extra fun when it has poop on it. Oh, here's another one, it's a lot easier to lead train a goat and your less likely to be drug screaming through the woods. This hasn't happened yet but it's often in the back of my mind. She is a big girl and that size and strength has to be respected. I have to say though she is almost as sweet as the goats and the longer we have her the more we are forming bonds. Her baby Apples is supper sweet and the kids have decided they are going to train her to be a riding cow. Yes, they rode the goats but they are too heavy now for that. I should also mention that the cow consumes WAY more hay than the goats so if you have to haul your hay from a distance like we do this can be a big factor. 

In summary my personal recommendation for the small homestead, farmstead or off grid farm I would recommend goats as apposed to cattle. I would however suggest that you plan well for what you will do with all those extra goat kids. Buy good quality, clean tested registered stock if you plan to sell the kids. Be responsible when re-homing, many re-homed goats are used as bait for fighting dogs. If you want to eat them consider a boar or other meat type buck so that the kids will have more meat on them and be more worth your time to butcher. 

Taking a Life

This has always been a hard one for me and something that I think about very often. It is a sad reality of farming with any kind of Livestock. If you plan to have them for meat you will have to face the deed. Even when you don't plan on eating them there will still come a time at some point in your farming life that you will have to make the choice to put an animal down. Lets face it just like children you can't watch them all the time. Just like children you can't stop them from getting hurt or sick no matter how well you care for them things just happen. The more animals you have the higher the likely hood that something will happen. For an example my son's favorite laying hen. He went in to close the chickens up for the night and came out screaming for help. His hen was walking around with her guts hanging out of her vent. We can only guess that she most likely had a prolapse while laying an egg and the other hens pecked and pulled at it pulling her insides out. Needless to say their was nothing we could do but put her down. It was heart wrenching and my son mourned the loss of his friend. There are options if you have meat animals. If you leave near a slaughter house you may have the option of taking your animals to them to be processed. There are also mobile butchers in some areas that will come to your property and do the deed for you. Most often though folks choose to take care of this process themselves as we do. In our family Ken is usually in charge of slaughter and we all work together to clean and process. There have been many occasions however when Ken was not available and I have had to put an animal down myself. Luckily so far it has only been birds. I still find the act of taking a life to be very hard. However you do it don't ever loose site of the fact that these are living things. They feel stress and fear and don't want to die. It is important to not loose respect for their sacrifice and to treat them with compassion and dignity right up to the end. The process should be as stress free as possible, fast and humane. The approach may vary from animal to animal. Do your research on the best approach for the animal you will be dispatching. I highly recommend looking into The Farmstead Meatsmith for pigs. Also be away of your other animals and how they may react to what is going on. Some animals are more sensitive than others. 

In summary prepare, do your research, and treat your animals with respect and compassion. 

I hope my thoughts on these topics get your wheels spinning. If you are interested in my thoughts or experiences on some other aspect of small off grid farming let me know. We are learning as we go so these are just my thoughts, experiences and opinions. Please do your own research on topics of interest using these as a jumping off point. I'm just hoping they will give you something to consider, maybe spark an idea that you hadn't thought of yet. 

All the Best my friends,

Matthew 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:Matthew 13:32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.