Self-taught farmers confidently raising chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs. Our focus is on practices that are environmentally harmonious and respectful to our livestock. We appreciate the beauty around us, clean eating, fermenting, and responsibly utilizing the bounty of the land. If you like thinking for yourself, continuous learning, and connecting with the homesteader lifestyle, check us out.
At times I wonder about the future of small-scale farming: with large farming operations buying up small farms and effectively putting smaller farmers out to pasture, why would someone voluntarily choose what is, at best, a hardscrabble lifestyle? It’s certainly not for the prestige, the ease, or the security (or the healthcare coverage)…but now that I’ve been a full-time farmer, I better understand why certain individuals still choose to farm.
Last fall, we found a very strange-looking object stuck to the trunk of a maple tree. It seriously looked like something man-made, it was so perfectly geometric. We later discovered that they were Wheel Bug egg cases!
This morning, we found a small nest hidden in the tall grass near the fenceline. It was meticulously woven into a cup shape, and four speckled eggs lay in it. At first, we puzzled over why the nest would have been built so close to the ground, where predators could easily have found it; then, we realized that the parent birds may have thought it well-concealed because we had allowed the pasture to grow long in that area.
Unfortunately, recent mowing may have frightened the parents away. As much as we try to work in harmony with Nature, cutting the grass was necessary – one reason is tick control: keeping grass short can help manage ticks. We left the nest, undisturbed, in the hope that the parents might return.
This gives a better sense of scale – it’s nestled right into the tall grass
Update: mama bird has been seen back on the nest, which now has 5 eggs! We put a barrier of wire fencing around the nest (a few feet out) to try to provide protection from predators like cats.
Do you know what kind of bird this nest belongs to? I think it may be a sparrow’s nest.
The peonies are blooming – such color! Such fragrance! As with much of Nature’s beauty, it must be enjoyed now, as they won’t last long. Stop and smell the…peonies. 😊
After some very weird weather – precipitous temperature drops, pounding rain, even snow yesterday – fog has arrived. It’s “thick as pea soup” fog, with little visibility. What lurks out there? Giant genetically-engineered insectile monsters, à la “The Mist”? Probably not, but it does engage the imagination!
