Friday, February 4, 2011

Latest from the farm...

I guess it's been almost a month since I last posted. January was a busy month- my mom came from Wisconsin to visit us for two weeks and we had a blast. She got a crash course in sheep and chicken care for sure. Mostly we did a lot of eating, talking, and laughing. Other than her visit, I've been spending a lot of time working on getting some business basics down for our farm. Designing a new business card, defining our core farm values, considering an actual website, and continuing to look for grazing pasture near our home for the sheep. We formally ended our Urban Sheep Project partnership with Alex and Charmaine, so we're off and running on our own- it feels pretty freeing!

We have all the registered Icelandics on a beautiful pasture near Renton and it's working out well. The space is about an acre in size so we are able to implement rotational grazing very easily with portable electric fencing and a solar charger. I recently found another pasture that is a total of three acres and we've moved the sheep that were in our yard onto it. The arrangement feels rather temporary, however, and as such my neverending search for land continues.

We are also in the process of planning our gardens. Seed catalogues have begun to arrive in the mail and we've all been madly highlighting which type of peppers, lettuce, peas etc. we'd like to grow. I'll order seeds in the next week or so and start them on the porch with the help of some nice big trays and heating mats. Jared is going to build three more raised beds, once the seeds are ready for the outdoors, then it's off to Hy-Grass Dairy for some super rich compost in which to fill those beds.

In the meantime, the weather is changing a little. For the time being there's a little more sun and a little less rain. The days are getting slightly longer- the chickens are now waiting to head for the coop until after 5:30. We've even turned off the light in the coop and they are still laying a fair amount of eggs each day.

Lastly, my Urban Farm Hub blog post about our Urban Sheep Project was so popular that I've been asked to contribute ongoing posts about what's up with keeping sheep in the city and all it entails... no pun intended. So look for twice monthly postings about sheep in the city from me!

Lydia

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