Farm Friday

Gratuitous photo of my girl Ginny

Things appear quiet on the farm, but we've been busy behind the scenes.  Even when nothing is growing on the farm, we still have the animals to tend to.  Of course, we continue to feed Squeaky, the orphaned kid.  We've had to buy addition hay to feed the rest of the herd as what little vegetation we have was buried under 10 inches of snow.  All of the mama goats who had rough deliveries are surviving and thriving.  We converted the center aisle of the barn into a kind of sick bay for a few of our weak goats.  The bigger ones bully the smaller ones so they don't always get the nutrition they need this time of year.  This morning, we turned out the last of the girls who had been staying in the sick bay as they were doing much better and really needed to join the rest of the herd.

We placed our seed orders and have gotten some of the shipments already.  A new item we'll be growing is sugar snaps.  This particular variety needs to be trellised so we ordered some trellis netting.  Most of our soil samples for the gardens were sent off to Virginia Tech this week to check the quality of our soil.

We applied for grants to build a hoop house (a type of unheated greenhouse) and to install drip irrigation in the hoop house.  If we get them, we'll be doing the installation in the fall and will be able to farm through all four seasons, allowing us to be more competitive with conventional agriculture.  It's tough to try to make a living farming sustainably while Big Ag gets huge tax subsidies.  

I just read on Salon that we're going to be hit with yet another polar vortex within the next week or so.  I sure hope we don't have any more kids born in those frigid temps.  It's hard on the mothers and the babies - and on the farmers!

Have a great weekend!