Spring Farm Day 2023: Saturday May 27
Spring Farm Day 2023: Saturday May 27
Plus: pickin' up steam at the Hickory Farmers' Market; goats-for-sale; DIY lard rendering; an old secret cemetery discovery; and a bucolic start to rotational grazing
Our packaged pork and lamb products have our farm label now!
Mark your calendar for Farm Day!
Our Spring ‘23 farm open house will be on Saturday May 27 from 10 am to 4 PM.
This is a fun informal event we do twice a year to connect with friends, family, neighbors, customers, patrons, well-wishers, skeptics, detractors, corn hole enthusiasts, lovable eccentrics, folks who took a wrong turn and ended up down at our end of the road, and general good-time-havers.
We’ll have refreshments on hand along with some some home-grown grilled delectables to sample. Feel free to bring libations and side dishes to share!
Write or call to let us know if you’re coming, if you need directions, and whatever other questions you may have.
Other dates to note…
We are at the downtown Hickory Farmers’ Market every Wednesday from 10 AM to 2 PM.
We’re also there one Saturday a month (8 AM to 1 PM). We’ll be there Saturday May 13 and on Saturday June 10 - which is the market’s annual Lavender Festival.
Goats For Sale!
We are looking to re-home a mating pair of registered miniature silky fainting goats. They're both proven to breed (though each with other partners previously).
The three-year-old buck (Possum, brown and white) is genetically polled (without horns, and his babies won't have horns).
The two-year-old doe (Miranda, black and white) raised a healthy singleton this year from another father, her first breeding.
Since they're both registered (breed genetics and family tree have been officially documented) their babies can also be registered and will sell for a premium.
Their breeding season is late summer (August/September), and kidding will happen in mid-to-late January.
They have had all their vaccinations, de-worming when needed (rarely), and recently had hoof trim and wellness check.
Their nutrition is excellent and they have been raised on pasture during the warm season April through December, moving to fresh grass every 3-5 days. They are fully trained to stay within moveable electrified sheep and goat netting.
They are both very tame and friendly. We have not had any mischief from them that is common in some goats (e.g., escaping from pastures, climbing on and damaging things, etc.). The fainting genetics makes them easy to catch - startle them and they freeze for several seconds and possibly fall over. Possum was a bottle baby and so is extremely tame and nonaggressive.
If you are looking for a starter set of easy-to-handle goats you cannot do better than these two.
$400/pair, and we can negotiate delivery or pickup.
DIY Lard Rendering
ICYMI, we posted a brief tutorial on how we make our awesome leaf lard. Great for cooking, baking, stir-frying, and care-and-maintenance of cast iron cookware.
We will have pint jars of lard for sale at Farm Day! Get ‘em while they last.
Old secret cemetery discovery
Our aged neighbor came by recently to see if we had any spare windows recovered from the trailer demo he could take for his workshop. We of course obliged.
While he was over I showed him our method for rotating pigs through forest paddocks. He asked if I had come across the old cemetery.
[The old cemetery!??!?!?! What old cemetery!?!?!?]
He showed me a very, very old grave site just below where we have been running our pigs in forest paddocks.
There are four very old tombstones there that you would hardly distinguish from usual rocks sticking out of the ground. But once you recognize them as gravesites they are unmistakable!
Our neighbor grew up on our property and told us his dad was born in the original homesite here in 1901. He thinks these graves are of his family members who predate his father by at least 100 years (making this grave site over 200 years old) and may not even have borne his family name.
No writing is obvious on these stones but a tombstone expert might be able to get some info from them! If you are or know of such an expert please get in touch!
We are so grateful to be in this place to raise our son and help him get to know some of the history here!
A bucolic start to rotational grazing season
After shearing the sheep and conducting a herd health check for everyone at the end of April, we sent the gang out on rotational grazing.
Using movable electric fencing they get circulated onto a fresh paddock ever three to five days from now until around Christmas time. These are some spoiled critters lemme tell ya!