Checking in!

This post was originally posted to Fresh From The Market – my food, farm, cooking blog.

We are still here!  It’s been busy around here so let’s see…

With the snow letting up and spring quickly rushing in we’ve been working hard to get our land to where we want it to be.  Due to some happy circumstances we’ve also gotten further down the path of having our own farm than we had anticipated.

During correspondences with another company employee regarding where and when to purchase chickens, I stumbled upon the opportunity to “borrow” a dairy goat.  The fellow “hobby” farmer has a 100 acre 100 year old farm  nearby and primarily raises organic, pastured cattle for beef, but also boards and owns horses.  I say “hobby” in quotes because he works a full time job in technology, but his farm is certainly not hobby in nature.  It takes a lot of people to make the system work and is quite impressive.  His wife has joked they should call the farm The Stray Dog which seems rather apt.  They certainly have a soft spot for animals and have a variety including several goats that are primarily kept has pets.  They had recently adopted several goats, that needed a home, from a family member which included a dairy grade Oberhasli.  They weren’t sure what they were were going to do with them, but primarily intended to keep them on as pets. There was suspicions that the Oberhasli may be pregnant, but if so she was due to kid at any time.  We quickly decided among ourselves that we would “borrow” the goat in the hopes she would soon kid and we would have a dairy goat.  All along the farmer has insisted we could return her if we didn’t like the dairy work or found her unsuitable, but as soon as we met her we knew we really were adopting her, not borrowing her.  So, a goat necessitates some sort of goat housing now doesn’t it?  We quickly scouted out an appropriate location, drew up a rough plan and purchased a  moderate amount of lumber.  In two weekends we erected an 8′ by 16′ goat shed and partially fenced an approximate 25 sqft yard off of it.  We brought Molly home on the third weekend and she’s been with us for a couple weeks now.  She’s incredibly sweet but as time goes on we are much less confident that she is actually pregnant.  Goats are not solitary animals so this means we will likely be adopting a second goat as a companion for her in the coming weeks.  We’ll worry about the dairy aspects this fall and next spring.

We had already intended to purchase chickens this year and decided on  approximately a dozen.  The majority of which are meat birds and won’t see the fall.  We do have several explicitly laying birds to keep on for that purpose.  At this moment there are 13 baby chickens residing in a box in our guest bathroom enjoying the lush life and growing quickly.  The first set of 6 are almost two weeks old and the second set of 7 are nearly a week old.  We’ll keep them in the house under the warming light until 4 weeks or so and then move them out to the garage for 4 more weeks.  At the point at which they are ready to brave the weather we’ll move them out of doors.  So, chickens necessitate some sort of chicken housing… we are still working on building that!

We’ve also added a purely companion animal in Mars, a black lab australian shepherd mix.  He was approximately 4 months old when we adopted him (also from a rescue) and weighing in at 35lbs.  He’s very energetic and we know we will have our hands full training him to respect the livestock.  Gui (my feral rescue cat) has already put Mars in his place, but Mars’ energy knows no bounds.  Molly isn’t too keen on him yet and I’m concerned about his natural instincts when the chickens are outside.  We’ll work on it with him though.

Additionally I’ve begun sowing the seeds of our own vegetable garden for the season.  We still don’t have a farmer’s market running yet.  The one here in town starts in another month or so and is only in it’s second year.  I hope to get involved with the administrative aspects in the future.  We are using a local CSA that supplements from outside the area to get us through the winter this year.  We hope to move away from that sort of thing in the future, but relocating in December requires some compromises.  I’ve been pleased with both the quality, quantity, and value they’ve provided regardless.  You can learn more about them at: Full Circle Farm.

I’ll also start a post on the Seattle Eastside area Farmer’s Markets as I learn more myself.  As for what’s in season right now?  It’s mostly cold framed, cold storage, or cold tolerable items (see a theme?): potatoes, carrots, apples, and the like.  I’m not sure it warrants a post of it’s own, but I’ll work on getting up to speed on the area as we are quickly coming in to the growing season.

It’s been absolutely wonderful to see the fields around us begin filling in with neat little rows, hoop houses, and all sorts of livestock.  I can’t say I regret having actual seasons again in any way.

Oh, and Outstanding In The Field will be publishing their 2008 schedule later this week.  Keep your eyes out for locations near you.  We will definitely be attending at least a couple events in the Pacific Northwest this year.

I’ll throw out some links for you to take a look at if you haven’t seen them before:

• Earth Day Footprint Quiz – calculate your carbon footprint and learn how to reduce it.
• You Grow Girl – a hip site focusing on d.i.y. gardening, organics, and reveling in a closer bond between people and the earth.
• Eat Well Guide – a guide to finding local, sustainable, and organic restaurants, stores, suppliers in your area.
• Local Harvest – a guide to local suppliers from farmers and CSAs to restaurants and events.
• Slow Food – an organization focused on the relationship between plate and planet, look up your local convivium and start participating in dinners and events both locally and internationally.
• Locavores – home to one of the pioneering communities focused on eating locally.

That should leave you a little to browse until I have more news.  It’s almost to the point where I can count the time in weeks until the Farmer’s Markets start opening up and I get to fully explore and appreciate our new location.