So, this is our first blogging session for our farm. We figured this would work well for record keeping and just basic historical reference. If you are so inclined to read the boring shit we put down here then great, have fun. We hope you can excuse the crude humor if you are offended, otherwise laugh on brothers.
We purchased our 32 Acre farm in July of 2010, today is November 5th, 2010 so that's what? 5 months? sounds good to me, so lets just go from there.
When we purchased the property it had a nice sized barn that had been converted into a church. Drywall was up and the moisture had not done well there. I really don't know why the hell someone would do that in a barn that was obviously not water sealed. Maybe they thought Jesus would keep them dry?
We also have a half done greenhouse, it also has drywall (yea) and is insulated..... I will post pictures to explain later. It's about 1000-1200sf.... it's nice, could be nicer. We will work on it. It works well for now, we have a few good things coming up now and should be done in a few weeks. We are rotating vegetables every few weeks and we are slowly getting a schedule together, but shit, we are new to all of this.
The house is great, it has it's issues though. It was built in 1910 and has had two additions. It's about 2100sf with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
Back to the farm itself.
The property is 32 acres, mostly forest land. We have 2 pastures, one is about 7 Acres that we plan on pasturing cattle in. That plan is about 2 years away though. Our other pasture is about 3 acres, this is our primary area. It is located next to the barn and the greenhouse.
when we arrived here in July the property had been unmaintained for about 18 months, the grass in the pastures had grown to about 5 ft. and still growing. Our first order of business was getting the grass down, we had a guy come out and cut the grass for a day, we were now ready to see what we had to work with.
Our next order of business was the barn, FUCK! This was not a project that you want to get into. It was piled with shit from the last owners... to include paystubs. really? paystubs? They also glued carpet to the beautiful concrete floors. Let me remind you, this barn is not weather proof by any means. We decided that this project was not for us to do alone, so we had a party (actually, just an excuse to get free labor). 2 days later, the carpet was up and the walls were free of drywall.
I was lucky enough to have a shop available in the barn area. I bought a few tools and saws, got some stuff for free and I was set to do some work.
First big project was the goat pen. I had no idea what I was doing so I just made a gated structure and a feeding rack. it turned out well, I learned a lot from building it, and I am sure future projects will go better.
We deeded to work on the land a little to make it work well for us, so I purchased a tractor. A Kubota with a front scoop and a brush hog. I was able rework the ground with the scoop and now it was time to fence the pasture.
We have a friend that is giving us a Mule to have on the property, we are hoping to use him as security to keep the coyotes out. Maybe with some training we can get him to help out on the farm. We also have a pair of goats that are coming to us bread and ready to milk, so we also setup a large area for them on the back side of the pasture. We also setup an area for chickens and our garden area in the center of the pasture.
I went all electric with the fencing, also I used polywire. The reason I chose this is due to the high wind (Tape was out) and the ability to adjust the wire easily (I may want to move some areas around). It was a bit more expensive and the longevity is decreased by a bit, I think it was the best choice for us. We set wood posts at every corner and "T" we had in the fencing. We dug down 24" at each post and set them in concrete. We let these set for about a week, then it was time to run the fencing. We went with a 5 line fence that is 48" tall, I left room to go to 5 ft. with a 6th wire if needed though. We ran about 2 miles of fencing in the pasture and set it up with a few new gates, and an electric rope gate for the mule. I only address this project in a paragraph, but holy shit! This was a big project, it took a lot of time and a lot of land grooming... cutting blackberries all day for 3 days. It was hard. That's it.
I now had to get a daytime pen setup for the goats, I decided to house them in a nice covered area that is just off the barn. I also built a heavy duty gate and fencing out of Fur, I weather sealed it as well.
I'm now in the process of making a milking area for the goats, they should arrive here within the next few weeks. We are ready for our mule after I build a little dry area for him.... That should be easy, right? We will see.
This last week while it was dry we tilled and planted cover crop for the winter. What a job, the tiller kicked my ass. I used a rental from ACE Hardware. It did the job fine, but my body didn't like it too much.
So that's what I have for now, Megan will also post up here with things.... maybe cheese making stuff, garden stuff, or other stuff. Who knows.
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