Happenings on the Ranch

I am happy to announce we have two new baby goats on the farm.  Our youngest doe, Bambi, gave birth to her first kids on Thursday; one boy, one girl.  They are both doing well, although the little girl has needed a little help.  Our older doe, Onyx, is due any day now.  I just love having babies on the farm!  I’ll try to post pictures of the new little ones this week.

The mud I was commenting on last week has now frozen due to the drop in temperature this week.  I would much rather have frozen mud than the boggy mess that was out there before and now the sun is out so some of it should dry up soon (fingers crossed).   And, surprisingly, our chickens decided to start laying again last week so we have several dozen eggs available if anyone is interested.  Which is good for us, since I refuse to eat store bought eggs and was going through a bit of a withdrawal on anything made with eggs!!

Of course, the sun coming out reminds me that spring is just around the corner!  I am so excited and all geared up to start planting.  I have to pace myself, though, so I don’t get seedlings started too early and not have the right weather when they are ready to go outside!  If you haven’t signed up for our 2010 CSA program yet, you still have time.  Get your share of the harvest each week for 24 weeks from May through October.  It really is a good deal and your early payment really helps with our farm budget in the off-season.

Speaking of off-season, I’ve begun freelance writing again for some additional income.  I write articles for clients who need advertising or informational articles for their blogs or websites.  I also edit, update and search engine optimize web content.  I decided to put together a quick website and blog specific to my writing; the site is www.karinvelez.info.  During some of my research time for a recent project, I came across a pretty good article site called TreeHugger.  The authors and articles all focus toward Sustainable Living which we, of course, are a proponent of.  There is a pretty wide variety of subjects on this site, but most of them pertain to green living, sustainable lifestyle and alternative energy and can be a pretty good quick read.

Until next time!  ~ Karin

As a farmer, it becomes second nature to pay attention to the weather and its patterns.  Current weather conditions are usually a predictor of conditions to come.  I kept saying all summer and fall that we were going to have a wet, nasty winter.  Considering we are in the fifth snow storm in three weeks and it has been bitterly cold, it looks like I may have been right.

Mind you, I love the snow.  It’s beautiful and usually gives a little bit of an insulating layer for the animal shelters.  This winter so far, though, has turned out to be one of the coldest we’ve ever had.  The high during this time of the year is usually right around freezing or just slightly above.  Today the high will be around 19 degrees (which is an improvement over the past few days) with a cold blast coming in that will make the high on Friday around, gulp, ZERO.  And nevermind the overnight lows that are frequently below zero, not including the wind chill.  Yipes.

In most instances the shelters we have built for the animals are adequate for winter weather.  In temperatures like these, though, we’ve had to make some adjustments.

First things first, the rabbits have all been moved from the Bunny Barn into the basement.  Although the cages we have them in now are a bit more cramped than they are used to, they are all staying toasty warm by the word burning stove in the newly christened Chateau de Rabbit.

Secondly we’ve added extra wind blocks for the hogs, goats and chickens.  Especially since the potbellies have newborns and two goats will be giving birth soon, we want to make sure they don’t get chilled.  Chester, our boar, has been moved to a pen with a much larger shelter where he can dig and make his nest area to his hearts content.  The poultry and pheasant houses have extra tarps added to block the wind and most of them are very happy to just stay inside all day at this point.  In fact, they look at us like we’re crazy when we open the doors in the morning to let them out.  The only ones who seem to be acting like it’s no big deal are the geese, who wander around in the snow the same way they do in the rain.  Of course, since they are all white it’s often hard to see them sometimes unless you catch a glimpse of an orange beak.

The horses don’t need any additions to their shelters but I feel for them because they seem truly bored.  Horses naturally spend 90% of their time slowly grazing.  Of course with the snow cover on the ground we are feeding them a daily ration, but that doesn’t last them very long.  With nothing to occupy their time,  they’ve taken to pulling dead branches off the barren trees on the property.  They even chase each other around with them in an equine version of keep away.  Occasionally one of our dogs, who often plays chase with them during nice weather, will head out their direction and they happily participate in a game of cat and mouse for a short time; but it’s too cold to do that for very long and the dog gives up and heads in the house.  When the weather breaks, I’ll have to give the girls a well deserved trot around the property – as long as the ice is melted.

As you can imagine, nothing is growing.  Actually we do, surprisingly, have some surviving spinach under the a-framed raised beds but not much to write home about; I doubt it will survive much longer.  Not to mention it’s just too darn cold to go out there and dig it up.  Seriously, I’m not craving spinach salad that badly.

Unfortunately we haven’t been attending our winter market in the last few weeks due to a combination of illness and lack of items to sell.  We do still have whole free-range chickens available if anyone is interested.  They are $3.85 per pound and average around 3.5 pounds.  Once these are gone, we won’t have any more available until late spring.

CSA sign ups are still going strong.  I have managed to fix the website link to our CSA contract so anyone who hasn’t signed up yet can now download with no problem.  Of course, if you have any questions you can always feel free to email us.

Until next time, stay warm!

~Karin

Spring is definitely in the air … the 40mph air!  The wind has been absolutely howling the past two days.  I really don’t mind the wind, although the geese seem to be a it annoyed with it.  What I find extraordinary is the little amount of precipitation we’ve had throughout the winter and I’m hoping it doesn’t continue into the spring as well.

Our farm is in it’s own little miroclimate.  Those of you that garden, and many of you that don’t, are aware that the U.S. is broken up into planting zones.  Each zone has it’s own climate and set of factors that are taken into account when planning what to plant, when, and where.  Zones 9 and 10 are more tropical climates that can sustain many different types of vegetation that can’t be grown in the much colder northern zones of 1 and 2.  Generally, Missouri is considered zone 5.  However, if you look at the zone maps you’ll see a tiny little pocket that’s considered zone 6.  Our farm is smack dab in the middle of it.  That’s usually a pretty good thing for us.  We can plant some things a bit earlier than the rest of the state and grow them later in the season.  But, so far it seems our little microclimate has been working against us.  All to the north of us and down to the south of us they have seen good amounts of precipitation.  But every time there is snow or rain forecasted for the KC Metro area we get nothing.  We’ve had only two measurable snow falls all winter and what we did get didn’t amount to much.  We’ve had one little smattering of rain.  I’m really hoping some things change a little bit or our microclimate will be in a micro drought!

On the plus side, all the seedlings that we started several weeks ago are going strong.  Many of the tomato varieties have been thinned down to the strongest plants and, lo and behold, the eggplant seedlings are doing well (keep your fingers crossed).  Next week we’ll start planting the early crops directly into the newly prepared soil.  These will include kale, several varieties of swiss chard, many types of lettuce, spinach, peas, beans, green onions, leeks and more.

If the old saying holds true and March goes out like a lamb, our crops will be off to a great start!