2023 first quarter newsletter

kidding/lambing season, farm projects, meat sales

It’s the end of March and Spring is blowing into Magpie Hollow! With the exception of a hard cold snap around Christmas we had a pretty mild winter. No snow this year.

A mid-January evening.

Lambing/kidding season

We had five goat kids born in January - two boys and three girls.

First, Alabama gave birth to two girls.

Then, about a week later Clarice had a boy and a girl.

Dad Finnegan (right) comes over to check on his new kids.

Then a few days later Miranda had this little boy.

We’ve had four lambs born so far during February and March - three boys and a girl. We’re still waiting on one ewe to see if she gives birth.

Another ram lamb born on the same day just before the one shown in the video above.

Ewe lamb born mid-March.

Winter projects

Our big project this winter (other than trying to figure out how to be new parents) was to demolish the junky old trailer in our backyard. Eventually we’ll build a workshop and covered storage shed on this site.

We invited some friends over for a work party one Saturday in February and got the trailer tore down to wall studs and the roof.

We filled several dumpsters with demo waste but also recovered a lot of usable building materials.

I was going to demo the thing all the way down to the concrete block foundation, but realized that I have the makings of several sheds here. I just need to close in sections of the desired dimensions, then cut the sections free and move them to where we want them on the farm. I’ll probably start by turning an approximately 14’ x 10’ section into a mobile sheep and goat shelter.

I used some of the materials reclaimed from the trailer demo to build this small prototype “rabbit tractor” (mobile rabbit hutch) that fits right on top of our raised beds.

Meat sales

We’re excited to announce that, beginning April 19th, we will be selling our pasture raised pork and lamb at the Downtown Hickory Farmers’ Market (on Wednesdays and the occasional Saturday)!

We also sell directly from the farm to visitors. You can find our price list here.

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Family news

Granny passed away this February. She was 95 and lived a very full life. She grew up on a farm back in the holler in WV during the depression. She got to visit our farm twice over the past three years and was very excited about all we’re doing here. And she got to meet and hold her great-grandson a few weeks before she died. We miss her very much.

Elijah turned four months old on March 25th and is doing great!

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