When a good friend from Providence, RI asked when we were going to update the farm blog again, I realized it had been a while. I went back to look …. It’s been 3months! August, September, and now half of October have been a never ending-calendar full ….. farmers market busy-moving fence again-drying off Shadow schedule-visitors touring the farm-harvesting-cheese making-egg collecting-poultry processing- farm dog training …. it’s busy busy. Sometimes it feels like we’re just maintaining – every day we have chores that stay fairly regular – but we’re also working on putting in a licensed dairy (more on that later!), mapping out the animal, vegetable, (miracle?) plan for the next year, and meeting all sorts of new friends and customers who are interested in knowing where their food comes from. Everyone who comes to see us marvels at the view and it reminds us to stop and take a deep breath … even if Libby insists on grazing right on the other side of the fence, the dogs forget that they are NOT responsible for guarding the road, or the spiders are enormous but the fly population continues to be impressive. The view is breathtaking, we’re “living the dream”, AND we know exactly where our food comes from.

Our food comes from happy animals and happy gardens growing on land that we’re able to improve with the nitrogen from our pastured chickens directly on the pasture (no clean up for us, and lush green grass appears within weeks!), rooting pigs that are ridding us of weeds and moss and encouraging broader leafed grasses and clover, mowing cows that are encouraging thick re-growth where they have grazed.

The cool thing is that our community is part of this symbiotic relationship and we’re so thankful to be a local food source for that community. Hope, Shadow, Libby, Chance, Yorkey, and Jersey (the cows) happily graze on fresh grass in the pasture; the chickens (who are too numerous to name, although about 1/4 of them are named) enthusiastically seek out cow patties to dig out the grubs; Templeton, Floppy, Toppy, Cedar, Poplar, Aspen, and the piglets are thrilled to slurp any whey left over from cheese making; the turkeys and guineas are making themselves known as they find their voice and their grubs around the farm ….. And as farmers and community members in the Woven Meadows food circle, we’re enjoying chicken, duck, pork, eggs, some vegetables … and we’re looking forward to more of the same as well as dairy and beef!

We’ve had an incredible summer and fall and we’re so thankful for all of the support we’ve had thus farm from our new community. Please continue to come by, enjoy a tour, take in that view, and let us know how we can better meet your food needs!