TBF 007 :: Sheep vs. Cattle, a Rainy Week, and Mud Lessons

Before moving to the farm I had a lot of ideas about what I wanted my farm to look like. As you can tell from the previous episode I read a lot of books, and after reading all of those books I thought I knew just want I wanted for the farm and how everything would work. I had done a bit of market research for the area, I had studied various breeds, and I had even began to purchase cattle before I even had to call my own! Now that I am almost five years of running the farm though I have found out that my initial plans are really what suits the farm or the farmer the best. All of that means that now I am headed a different direction than I had planned and that I’ve learned the need to continually evaluate things.

Dexter cattle where what really made me interested in farming. We had researched grassfed beef after finding out about my high cholesterol and I thought instead of just buying the beef I might as well raise my own (at my dad’s place to begin with and then eventually an acreage of my own). What began as an idea to raise a cow and her calf eventually blossomed in my mind into a full-blown farm. After reading books like Salad Bar Beef by Joel Salatin and Grass-Fed Cattle by Julius Ruechel I was convinced that cattle could and should be the centerpiece of my future farming operation.

Now my tune has changed ... I’m beginning to realize the real limitation of only owning about 20 acres of pasture even if my cows are smaller in stature and I’m also finding out about the intense competition for rental grazing ground. There is one other thing I am learning though that is encouraging ... my Katahdin lamb is a very popular thing at the farmers’ market and there are a lot of people interested in purchasing whole lambs.

With all of that and more on my mind I sat down for todays show and shared some of my “thinking out loud” thoughts on changing the pasture focus for my farm. It has also been raining a lot on the farm lately meaning the big projects have come to a stand still and the mud has appeared just like it does every spring! Which leads me to my hard lesson learned for the week ... learning to defeat mud!

I also wanted to thank you so much for everyone who has taken the time to listen and leave a review on iTunes. I am learning and growing as a “podcast producer” with each episode and I hope that there are little nuggets that you can learn from in each show because one thing I love to do is share my passion for farming!

• Crooked Gap Farm

• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook

• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

As always, I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

TBF Show 007 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

TBF 006 :: 10 Books for the Beginning Farmer, Farm Updates, and a Hard Lesson Learned

Over the years I've received quite a few e-mails from people wanting to pick my pea-sized farming brain. Usually when that happens I have two thoughts run through my mind ... #1 :: Have they ever read any of my blog posts, I even know what I'm doing half the time! #2 :: Don't farm ... it's not worth it! Thought number one is true no matter what ... and thought number two is something I only half mean. It's not that I want to discourage people from farming, but rather I think it is important to spend a lot of time considering what it really means to be a farmer. With all of that being said, I do love hearing from people that stumble on to the blog and want to ask a question.

On today's show I take some time to answer an e-mail from Patrick who asked one of the questions that I receive most often, "What books and websites would you suggest reading?" As an avid reader this is an easy question for me to answer. The biggest problem that I have when I think about this answer is whittling the list down a little bit to a manageable size. So, what I've done is come up with my "10 Books a Beginning Farmer Should Read". It should be noted that these books are coming from my livestock based background.

In no particular order here are my 10 favorites ... for the moment. I have also included links for each book if you are interested in purchasing them. These links are affiliate links, so if you are interested in one of the books and enjoy the show it does support the show a little.

• You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise by Joel Salatin (The very first farming book that I read ... and I've since read it more than once) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about Joel Salatin

• All Flesh is Grass: Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming by Gene Logsdon (A passionate call to pasture based agriculture) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "All Flesh is Grass"

• The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon (The yeoman farmer does not have to be a thing of the past) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about Gene Logsdon

• The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry (A great book for the person interested in the "culture" of agriculture) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about Wendell Berry

• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (Maybe controversial depending on your views, but I did take a lot away from it) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "The Omnivore's Dilemma"

• Making Your Small Farm Profitable by Ron Macher (The nuts and bolts of beginning a farm) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "Making Your Small Farm Profitable"

• Comeback Farms by Greg Judy (One book that I wish I would have read before I began farming) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "Comeback Farms"

• Dirt Hog by Kelly Klober (Lots of knowledge ... maybe read this one after the next one on the list) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "Dirt Hog"

• Small-Scale Pig Raising by Dirk Van Loon (Recommended by Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm, that is enough of a reason to read it if you ask me) -The Beginning Farmer blogs about "Small-Scale Pig Raising"

• A Bountiful Harvest: The Midwestern Farm Photographs of Pete Wettach, 1925-1965 by Leslie A. Loveless (A book that I pick up when I need to be encouraged in my farming ventures)

Finally, this weeks "Hard Lesson Learned" has to do with that old adage ... "Don't always believe what you read." I'm not saying that all of those great authors I mentioned are wrong, but what I am saying is that all things don't work in all places and it probably would have been better if I would have tried to get some real world experience rather than just armchair experience!

As always, thank you so much to all of you who have taken the time to subscribe and listen to the show each week. I hope that I'm growing as a podcast producer and that as time goes along the show just gets better and better. If you do enjoy the show don't forget that you can subscribe on iTunes (by clicking this link or the image on the left) or on the Stitcher App on your smartphone. For those of you that have taken the time to leave a review on iTunes ... thank you, thank you, thank you! It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!

I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

TBF Show 006 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

TBF 005 :: Making Major Farm Purchases, Rain is Coming, and What Not To Buy

Making major purchases on your farm is always a necessary part of beginning a farm and expanding your farm in the future. But, they are not always easy decisions to make! Before you go out and drop your hard earned cash on that next great piece of equipment or structure you need to examine whether or not you even need this "next great thing" and where you are going to purchase this item. Just because you have a need for something doesn't mean that you need it. It may mean that you need to borrow one, rent one, or hire someone to do the job for you. There are times though when a purchase just needs to be made to move the farm along or make your work more efficient. If that is the case then you need to consider where you are going to make that purchase.

What Do I Really Need?

• It will vary from farm to farm, but ask yourself what you need to get started and what can wait for a little while.
• Are there other ways that you can use something that you feel like you need? Borrow, rent, trade work, hire, etc.
• Ask yourself if you are better off spending some time and sweat instead of your cash?

Where Do I Get What I Really Need?

• New is an option, but not really the best option most of the time.
• Check the farm auctions out if you have time to spare, but make sure you don't get caught up in the "fun" of an auction.
• Craigslist is a pretty good choice and I know most farmers already check it often, but don't forget about posting "wanted to buy" ads. You'd be amazed at how many farmers have what you want sitting in the back of their shed.

Remember, the bottom line is that it doesn't need to look perfect ... it just needs to work perfectly (or close enough to perfect)!

Lately things have been very active on the farm and a bit of rain in the forecast made things ramp up this week as we tried to get things ready for what I hope is a bit of spring mud. That meant finishing up some projects to get ready for our next back of chicks and doing as much tractor work as I can so I don't have to use the tractor when it's muddy. And, as always I take some time this week to share one of my hard lessons learned ... this one was a little costly and I hope you don't have to learn this lesson the hard way.

Some stuff mentioned in this episode ...

• The Beginning Farmer Show Episode 003 (What happened to the first tractor?)
• Craigslist App for Android (I'm sure there is an iOS counterpart somewhere)

Finally, I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

TBF Show 005 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

The Little Satisfactions ...

Chick Brooder #2

I will be the first to admit that it is very easy for me to become the "Danny Downer" of farming. Sometimes it feels like the farm is only overwhelming, only discouraging, and only failing. But, then there are moments ... and these moments probably happen more than I allow myself to see ... moments when I just feel a huge sense of satisfaction from farming. There is just something extremely satisfying about building, raising, growing, harvesting, sharing, and consuming! Yesterday was one of those days that was full of satisfaction.

• A friend at church had continually been asking to try some Crooked Gap Farm beef jerky and pork. This was the week when I finally remembered to bring it and they were very excited to take it home with them. Satisfying!
• I needed to load four pigs and a lamb to take to the locker for processing this afternoon, so I hooked up the hog cart (which I recently bought, broke, and fixed) and headed out to sort and load pigs. Things went very smoothly (as they have been with loading recently) and I was done much sooner than I had anticipated. Satisfying!
• There are another batch of 125 chicks coming this week (and rain is in the forecast as well), so I needed to finish up my second brooder (pictured above). Even though I had a few broken tool issues I was able to accomplish this tiny construction project and with a little more work today I'll be ready for chicks. Satisfying!
• Speaking of chicks, the first batch that came in a couple of weeks ago are doing great. Growing and staying very snug and healthy in their brooder. They'll be ready for pasture before I know it. Satisfying!
• Even though the grass hasn't really taken off yet it seems like the animals are just enjoying the spring days that have been popping up more often today. It may seem weird to say this, but as I was doing chores today all the livestock just seemed to be more chipper. Satisfying!
• As I mentioned I needed to load four pigs and a lamb for processing. I dropped them off at the locker last night and the unload went on without a hitch. Plus, I just love dropping off pigs (and a lamb) that have been raised only on this farm. Satisfying!
• I love direct marketing the fruits of the farm. To know that customers we know and call friends will be enjoying our pork, lamb, beef, eggs, and chicken ... well that is just awesome. Satisfying!
• And then as I was making the last pass to collect a few eggs around the shed I peeked into the hut occupied by our latest litter of Hereford pigs. A very cool sight. Satisfying!

What do you find satisfying about your farm (no matter how little or big that farm is)?

TBF 004 :: Spring Farm Updates, Buying vs. Renting Land, and Lessons Learned

On this weeks episode of "The Beginning Farmer Show" we dig into one of the most popular topics ever from The Beginning Farmer Blog ... Land! More specifically I talk about the posts ... "How Much Land Do You Need?" ... "Working On The Farm Layout" ... and even all a little about the post titled "Buying a Farm is Like Buying a House". Basically, when it comes down to it, access to land is one of the biggest obstacles that many beginning farmers have to overcome. Unless they are joining the family farm or working with a current farmer the only solution is to purchase land or rent land. There are just as many positives as there are negatives for renting vs. buying depending on what the goal and vision of your farm is. When it comes down to it I believe it is a decision that needs to be made on a case by case basis ... but, that doesn't keep me from sharing my thoughts on the subject!

As always I will take some time to share some farm updates and delve into my hard lesson learned for the week. This weeks lesson has to do with bumps, bruises, and trying to over power pigs with brute force ... hint ... it doesn't turn out very well!

If you are interested in working on rented land, especially when it comes to livestock, I whole-heartedly suggest Greg Judy's books ::

• Comeback Farms (Here is a link to a series of chapter reviews I posted on the blog)
• No Risk Ranching: Rejuvenating Soils, Pastures and Profits with Livestock Grazing Management

Finally, I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

TBF Show 004 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

Dick Thompson :: Research Farmer!

"In harnessing land, Iowa farmer preserves it" ... that is the title of an article from a little over three months ago that somehow I missed. If you are like me and missed it too I very highly recommend this article from the Star Tribune about Boone, IA farmer (and Practical Farmers of Iowa founder) Dick Thompson. If you are not familiar with Mr. Thompson let me just give you a brief history ... he is an 81-year-old farmer who does a lot of things differently than his neighbors and he makes a living doing it ... I believe that pretty much sums it up. Really though ... even though I've never met him I do owe him a lot for my own farming journey for they way in which he helped the Practical Farmers of Iowa organization get off the ground.

This little chunk from the article was one of the great takeaways for me :: 

"That's the way my dad farmed in the 1950s and '60s," said Robert Plathe, a corn and soybean farmer west of Mason City. "If I have a market, that makes sense," he said. It would also help revive agricultural communities because farms would be smaller and more families could live off the land. 

But, he pointed out, it's a lot harder, and few people want to farm like that anymore. Animals require daily care, winter and summer. 

"Farmers like their free time in the winter," he said. 

I think the article, and Mr. Thompson, raise some very good points that farmers and farm consumers (everyone) should take some time to think about. So, I think you should check out the article for yourself and I would love to hear what really hit home with you!

Finally ... if you aren't very familiar with the work of Mr. Thompson this link will take you to a great resource that I've actually been making my way through.

Choosing Chickens

If you follow along with the blog you will remember my frantic call for help a few weeks back as I was in search of chickens ... meat chickens to be precise ... actually meat chicks to be more accurately precise. My original plan wasn't going to work out anymore so I needed to come up with another plan somewhat quickly. Thankfully there were tons of helpful comments posted on the blog, e-mailed, and messaged through Facebook. Now ... we have chicks on the farm and they seem to be doing great.

So ... what did I end up doing? I came up with a solution ... that's what I did! It's not my ideal solution, but I believe it will allow me to accomplish some of my goals this year and then prepare for the future (the future being next year). In fact since I was somewhat late to the game when it comes to ordering I couldn't even really get exactly the chicks I wanted. Here is what I ended up doing ...

Step #1 :: Order 125 Freedom/Red Rangers

• These are the chicks that I have already received and they are doing great
• I was interested in trying them because I had talked with a farmer who raised them at the processor last year and he loved them
• They grow a bit faster than the Naked Necks so hopefully they will be ready earlier than expected

Step #2 :: Order 125 Naked Necks

• I have been very pleased with these birds for the past two years, but I am a little gun shy about ordering from a hatchery instead of a farmer I know
• They are slow growing birds so they will be ready sometime in July hopefully ... perfect for the market

Step #3 :: Order another 125 Freedom/Red Rangers

• This batch is coming from a different hatchery in order to try something different, and because I can add it to an order at the farm store in town (where I used to work) to save on shipping
• Hopefully I can get the scheduling right and then I'll be able to take these into the processor at the same time as the Naked Necks

Step #4 :: Evaluate and Place Following Orders

• While these three sets of chicks are growing I need to decide what to do for the rest of the season
• Hopefully I'll be ordering two more batches of chicks

Step #5 :: Get Ready for 2014

• Thanks to all of the great comments about various heritage breed chickens I have lots to think about
• One thing I'm very interested in is incubating chicks here on the farm ... so lots to research there
• The Mottled Java ... that is one of the breeds that was mentioned and I think I'm going to check them out

It seems like a good plan doesn't it? If it is a good plan I'll let you know how it works out ... and if it's a bad plan ... well, I'll let you know about that as well.

TBF 003 :: It's Chick Week, The 3 D's of Farming, and a Hard Lesson Learned

On this weeks episode of The Beginning Farmer Show I delve into the challenges associated with the "Three D's" of farming. Sometimes it seems like all I do on the farm is deal with distractions, disappointment, and dollars! I'd like to think that I do a fairly good job dealing with these "Three D's", but the reality is that I often have to struggle my way through dealing with each of these and at one point or another they have caused me to think that I can't actually make the farm work. The truth is though that there is no way to hide from distractions or disappointments or dollars on the farm, so you (and I) need to learn to persevere and come out stronger on the other side.

Distractions
Over 50% of todays farmers have employment off the farm ... and families ... and lives away from the farm ... so dealing with things (or distractions) pulling you in a variety of directions is a challenge that many farmers face. Learning to balance faith and family (which aren't really distractions ... because they are way more important than the farm) with the farm and town job makes things stressful, but not impossible. Recognizing your priorities and sticking to your values and goals is the key.

Disappointments
Livestock get out of the fence, crops fail, weather doesn't cooperate, things break, animals die, customers get angry, animals get angry, and a million other things that you don't (or do) have control over happen all of the time on the farm. Sometimes it's not a big deal, but other times you question everything you are doing on the farm. It is important to learn the lesson from your disappointments ... make the changes that need to be made ... and move on because if you dwell on the disappointments your farm will wither under your worry.

Dollars
I have always hated when people say that the best way to make a million dollars as a farmer is to start with two million dollars. The idea that farmers can't or won't make any money just frustrates me, but that doesn't mean that the "dollars" of your farm operation aren't important. You need to know where your money is going ... where it's coming from ... how much each enterprise uses ... and how you keep track of everything throughout the year. Running out of "dollars" will ruin your farm in an instant, but if you don't keep a handle on your "dollars" your stress about them will ruin the farm just as quickly.

My hard lesson this week ... it's an embarrassing one ... deals with that one time that I totally killed the tractor. I mean killed it to the point where it would never drive on my farm again. It was one of those disappointments that almost killed my farm. I'll share a little bit about why it didn't and what I learned from the whole ordeal.

I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

TBF Show 003 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download
(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

The Book Family Farm :: Circa 1940's

In the early 1940's my Grandpa and Grandma Book were farming on 320 acres of Boone County, Iowa land. My family is lucky because we have a pretty good pictorial history of the family and the farms ... in fact this picture of my grandparents, at what is possibly that Boone County farm, is my computer background. After the passing of my Grandma my uncle was going through lots of different files and found a handful of farming documents that he thought I would find interesting. I'm glad he passed them on to me because they are a cool part of the family history and even encouraging to me as I try my hand at farming.

Click the Image for
a Larger View

One of the coolest things that he found were some "Crop-Acreage Plats" from the years 1941 and 1942. The plats show the 320 acre farm and the crop layout planned (or actual plan used) for that year. What I find so fascinating is the diversity of crops (and livestock) that were being raised on that 320 acre farm. And ... not only was it a diverse amount of crops/livestock, but also as you can see from the picture it looks like they did their best to place crops where the land was best suited for row crops. You can see from the picture that they had just over 250 acres of crops that year.

The 1942 "Crop-Acreage Plat" has the following items listed ...

• Soybeans
• Alfalfa
• Potatoes
• Hog Pasture 
• Corn
• Oats
• (And the unlabeled areas were pastures and farmyards)

While living at the Boone County farm (the would soon move to Story County) I believe my grandparents raised cattle, a large laying flock, hogs, and of course the crops. That sounds like a farm that would be fun to visit! Just a little piece of farming history for your Friday morning ...

TBF 002 :: Farm Updates, Farm Do-Overs, and Hard Lessons Learned

TBF Show 002 :: Play in a New Window | Right Click to Download I don't know what your playground days were like, but at Orchard Hill Elementary School we played a lot of kick-ball, basketball, and football during recess. If you were as skilled at those sports as I was you probably have called for a do-over or two or ten in your day! There have been plenty of times in my short farming life that I would have liked to be able call a do-over on. Unfortunately I'm not able to redo some of the mistakes I have made on the farm, but hopefully you can learn from them and not make the same ones I did! Specifically I want to share three things that I would do differently if I would have known then what I know now.

1. Where's the Beef ... err ... I Mean No Beef Please!
2. A Little More Learning Would be Nice.
3. Develop a Marketing Mind!

My "Hard Lesson Learned" this week deals with one word ... "NO". That is a word that wasn't really in my vocabulary when I started the farm and because of that I caused lots of problems for myself and for my family. In my excitement to get up and going to the level of my dreams I tried to do too many things too quickly instead of going slow and saying no when I needed to say no. Saying "no" in the beginning is one of my most offered pieces of advice to other beginning farmers and it is something I wish I would have said a lot more! If you enjoy the show and are an iTunes user you can always subscribe to The Beginning Farmer Show by following the link. And ... if you really enjoy the show I would very much appreciate a rating or comment in the iTunes Store. (FYI ... I am working on submitting the show to other podcast services).
I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

(if you are interested in the music in this episode check out my brother's record label, Historic Records)

Podcasting Frenzy!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be interviewed by John Suscovich from the Growing Farms Podcast (this is a direct link to the episode I was a part of). I have become a large consumer of podcasts lately while doing my workouts at the Rec Center, and I am always excited to workout on Tuesdays because that is when the Growing Farms Podcast is released. The cool thing about Mr. Suscovich's show is that he has taken time to interview farmers from a very diverse background about how they farm, market, and balance life in general on the farm.

If you haven't listened to the Growing Farms Podcast I encourage you to check it out! You can subscribe through iTunes and find out more information about Mr. Suscovich by checking out Farm Marketing Solutions. If you enjoy the show let him know that The Beginning Farmer sent you!

Muddy Boots ...

Sometimes a picture says more about my thoughts on the farm than I could ever hope to express through my writing (or now through The Beginning Farmer Show ... shameless plug). One of those times is right now. I'm not going to complain about the mud this year ... because mud means moisture ... but, it is a good picture of how I'm feeling right now.

In the winter there are fewer pigs, chickens, steers, and lambs leaving the farm in the way of sales and much, much, much more feed coming to the farm in the way of money leaving the bank account. Plus, in the spring, summer, and fall I get used to interacting with customers each week ... and I love doing that!

One thing I know though ... despite the snow that surprised me this morning when I went out to do chores spring is right around the corner and with it will come cattle and sheep on the pastures, pigs in the woods, chickens roaming around, and lots of opportunities to talk with our farm friends. Plus ... there will be things for sale again ... which is nice ...

TBF 001 :: Farm Updates, Heritage Breeds, and Hard Lessons Learned

The Very First Episode of The Beginning Farmer Show!

This is something that I have wanted to do for over a year now, but never had the guts to go out and accomplish it. I thought about it ... planned for it ... gathered the equipment to do it ... and finally just as I did with farming ... I had to just get out there and do it! With all of that being said, I'm not completely pleased with this very first episode and realize that I need to work on my audio quality, iTunes integration, feeds, and so much more. I am glad to have at least one episode out there though ...

On this very first episode of The Beginning Farmer Show I share a quick update on how the farm (and myself) has handled the winter so far. It has been a winter that hasn't gone exactly as planned and I'm sure I'll be playing catch up because of that this spring. After the quick Crooked Gap Farm update I dive right into a discussion of Heritage Breed Livestock and why I believe they work for my farm, but how they may not be exactly right for your farm ... that is a decision that you will have to make.

Finally, there are many lessons that I have learned since we began the farm almost five years ago and I want to share some of those lessons with everyone in hopes that they don't make the same mistakes. This weeks "Hard Lesson Learned" actually goes hand in hand with my main topic of Heritage Breed Livestock as I talk about some of the mistakes I made in purchasing some of the initial stock for the farm.

If you are interested in learning more about Rare or Heritage Breed Livestock please check out The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

I would love to have you interact with the The Beginning Farmer Show. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions, questions, ideas, or even podcasting tips! You can also always reach The Beginning Farmer through e-mail.

P.S. If you know about podcasting, Feedburner feeds, and all of that good stuff I would love to hear from someone about why two posts that contain links to .pdf's are showing up in my subscription to the show. It is very frustrating to me!

We Need Help!

Today I was going to post a picture of my boots in the mud and talk about how things never go even close to or remotely as planned ... of course that assumes that I make a plan in the first place. I'm sure we'll get to that post eventually, but today what we really need is some help ... and kind of quickly! For the past two years we have raised our Naked Neck Poulet Rouge Chickens as our meat birds. They grow slowly, but do well on pasture foraging and taste great. Unfortunately the source where we purchased our chicks from will not be able to supply them this year so we are looking at other options. Which is where we need help ...

Ideally we want to stick with our heritage or rare breeds that do well foraging on pasture and reach a decent processing weight at 14-16 weeks. I think it is important that we stay away from hybrids because it would be nice to keep a few around and let them go broody so we can begin to raise chickens that work the best for our system. Oh yeah ... one more thing ... they have to be something we can get in the very near future ...

Here are some breeds that I've been reading about ... all of them had seemingly very mixed reviews and there wasn't a lot of information about the amount of time to processing weight.

• White Plymouth Rock
• Delaware
• Buckeye
• Dark Cornish
• Jersey Giant
• And many more ...

If you have any thoughts ... suggestions ... ideas ... helpful insight ... or even want to tell me I'm wrong I'd love to hear your comment. I'm open to all suggestions at this point ...

Reversing Desertification

Yesterday Crooked Gap Farm was slammed into the 21st Century when we hooked up somewhat high speed DSL (6 Mbps) internet. I commissioned the new internet connection by watching this TEDtalk with Allan Savory of Holistic Management fame (and much other work). I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who will come up with a list of reasons that everything Mr. Savory says is wrong, but as I saw the images showing the differences they are making with their planned grazing in desert areas I thought it was pretty cool. Plus, when he says "desertification" it sounds like "dessertification" to me and that just makes me hungry for sweets!

If you have twenty-two minutes and a fast enough internet connection ... I would suggest you check out this video. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Tools of the Trade :: The Hydraulic Hog Cart

I have one question for you ... Can you think of anything more cool than a six foot by fourteen foot hog pen on a platform that you can pull around with your tractor and make it lift from ground level up about four feet or so (commonly known in the agricultural world as a hydraulic hog cart)? Actually, now that I read that it really doesn't sound that cool, but it really something that I'm pretty excited about. In fact I would almost go as far as to say that it is a tool that I wouldn't farm without on a small woodlot based pig farm like mine.

For approximately the past nine months I have been "borrowing" a hog cart from a good friend ... if you can call having it for that long "borrowing"! I've actually spent some time searching for one of my own, but never found one that was in decent shape and still in my price range. Last Friday though I thought I would try another "wanted to buy" ad on Craigslist and this time I actually had over five responses that were all relatively close to the farm. I was VERY glad to find this one in good shape and I'm sure my friend is glad to have his back (it was very, very, very helpful of him to loan it to me).

This is such a helpful piece of equipment because I move and load pigs fairly often and most of the time  I'm loading them out of a large paddock of woods and pasture, so anything I can do it make it easier I do. The other reason these hydraulic carts are so great is that they drop all of the way to the ground ... in general pigs like to keep their nose to the ground and are not big fans of stepping up so having the cart on the ground makes it easy peasy!

It's just one of those things that makes life on the farm just that much more enjoyable ...

Farmer Fitness ...

In case you missed it ... this past July I completely shredded my achilles tendon while playing the manly game of co-ed slow pitch softball. The doctor said that it looked like two mop heads, but he put it all back together and after a few months of casts and a walking boot I was as good as new. I guess I should say that technically me tendon was as good as new, but my right leg muscles were pretty much worthless and my overall physical condition had suffered from all of the sitting that I had to do. I went to physical therapy as long as my friends at the medical insurance company would let me, and then I was on my own. For the most part I thought I had recovered. Sure my ankle was stiff when I would get up in the morning or if I had sat at my desk for an hour or so, but all in all I was getting things done on the farm relatively okay.

Then I went to play basketball ... the first real physical activity since my injury ... and I found out that I wasn't really back to normal yet. It turns out that my right leg muscles were still a bit mushy and squishy! I guess it is something that I knew, but I just figured that by working on the farm and doing my daily chores I would get myself back into shape. After playing (sort of playing) basketball that night I realized that I needed to take my physical conditioning seriously and get ready physically ready for the heart of my farming season that will be here before I know it.

All of this has led me to the local Recreation Center where I have found myself doing all sorts of things that I didn't even do when I was a "race winning" cross country runner (it may or may not have been a junior varsity race). I've been running on the treadmill, going into the weight room to work on specific leg muscles, striding on these weird exercise machines, and huffing and puffing a lot! Besides realizing that I am out of shape I have also begun to think about the importance of fitness to a small-scale farmer like myself.

Trust me ... you get a workout on the farm no matter what kind of farm you have! But, when you are tromping through a three acre paddock trying to pick four pigs out of forty to load on the trailer it helps to have a little bit of physical fitness ... because it may or may not take you awhile (although I have improved my system over the years). I can easily see the benefits of continuing at least a modest "Farmer Fitness" routine ... even if it just means jogging a few days a week to get the heart rate up through running for fun instead of just running from that momma sow out in the woods! Plus, with my families blood pressure and heart issues it might not be a bad idea.

If you have anything that you do to keep your "Farmer Fitness" level up I'd love to hear about it!

Growing Pains :: Part Four ...

Farm growth is a funny thing ... it both does and doesn't happen overnight. For a person like me, with the patience of a 3-year-old, that is sometimes a very difficult thing and is part of what I call the "growing pains". I have already mentioned that I like to have things "now" which has gotten me in trouble before because I've brought enterprises to the farm before I was ready. Besides that though my desire to have things "now" also causes me frustration and "growing pains" when I see a marketing opportunity is available, but I'm not able to jump on it right away because some things just take time.

For example ... I believe we could sell more eggs, pork, lamb, and beef without any more marketing than we are already doing. In order to do that though we need to raise more chickens, pigs, sheep, and cattle. And ... in order to raise more we need to have more ... and in order to have more we need to have places for them ... and in order to have places for them we need to build them ... and in order for them to grow we need to feed them ... and in order for them to be fed we need to buy feed ... and in order to buy feed we need to have money ... and then after all of that is done there is still a nice long wait before we can "harvest"! I'm not complaining because I realize that this is just part of the growth of any business ... but, did I mention that I could be inpatient!

All of that is to say that 2013 will hopefully be a big year of changes for Crooked Gap Farm. In the coming weeks we are going to be meeting together to plan out what is going to change on the farm and how those changes are going to come about. It will be a tough meeting, but one that I think is important for the life of the farm. Of course I will share the outcomes from the farm meeting ...

The biggest challenge to me though is that with all of the changes I probably won't be able to see the benefits on the marketing end until 2014 ... oh patience ... I pray for patience!

Growing Pains :: Part Three ...

I believe the best way to describe the first two years of growth at the farm would be to use words such as: Chaotic, Uncontrolled, Stupid, Out of Control, Spastic, Dumb, and Survived. What I'm trying to say is that if I had it to do all over again there are one or two or ten thousand things I would do differently! We bought the farm, built the house, brought twenty cows and calves to the farm with no fencing, purchased pigs, bought tractors (they broke ... a lot), and much more! Oh yeah ... and we didn't know anything about farming except what I had read in a book!

Because of the blog and other opportunities that I have had to share my farming experiences I'm often asked what advice I would give to someone wanting to start a farm. I think my most shared piece of advice is that people shouldn't do it and I share with them why they shouldn't do it! My thinking is that if they take my advice they probably shouldn't have been farming in the first place, but if they go ahead and farm anyways then they probably have at least some of what it takes to make it past the first couple of years. I digress ... that was just public service announcement and not a discussion of the farms growth!

What I am trying to say is that for the first two years I was just excited to be farming and I wanted it all ... and I wanted it now! There were too many times where I would bring animals to the farm and then begin to build or look for a place to put them and because of that I had more problems than I can even count or recall. In my effort to have the farm of my dreams I sort of acted without thinking and in some ways that may have even set the farm back a little. One thing is for sure though, it caused more stress than I should have subjected on my family!

I would like to think that I have learned slightly from that though. The last two or three years things have grown much more slowly. I had to force myself to slow down and think a little before I acted. Because we slowed down a little bit we were able to focus in on some things that needed to be done as "catch-up" and focus on building a market (which is now the reason we want to scale up). We only added new ventures when we were mostly ready for them (I'm not perfect!) and there are some aspects of the farm infrastructure that work well now.

But, the biggest thing is that we didn't have to borrow anything to do any of this or cut back on our extra mortgage payments. We were able to stick to our financial values and because of that even though I made mistakes along the way there were just flesh wounds as opposed to farm killing things (if that makes any sense). Besides the financial values we were also able to stick with our other core values and even make improvements in some areas.

I guess if I could sum it all up I would say that growth on the farm has been difficult. It's really just like life ... there are times of easy growth and there are times when you learn very difficult lessons and have to learn from them ... and grow!

Growing Pains :: Part Two ...

A Few of our first Hereford Hogs on 

the farm back in 2009. Notice the 

fine structure I had built for them!

For the past week I have been formulating a follow-up post to last Mondays, "Growing Pains ..." post. There were many great ideas and issues brought up in the comments that caused me to think about the farms growth to this point and possible future growth. What I have found though is that I can't express all of those thoughts in one post ... so over the next few days I thought I would expand on the "Growing Pains" that the farm is experiencing and how I view them. I wanted to start out with a little deeper look (yet still not a complete look) at our farm values, then in the following days we'll dig a little deeper into other issues.

Farm Values

• Money ... Money ... Money :: Often times when people ask about the reasons behind our pasture based system I tell them that the driving principle is financial. Now that isn't completely true because we do value raising animals with their created strengths in mind, the stewardship of the land that we are entrusted with, and the transparency of our farm. But, when it comes down to it I wanted to start a farm and with no family land to jump on to a small unconventional farm was my only possibility. The only way to start a farm from scratch was to do something different than my 2,000 acre farming neighbors (and I don't begrudge them for being large farmers). Another big financial value that we have on the farm is that we try to stay away from debt! Unfortunately we do have a mortgage (no larger than if we had bought a modest house in town), but we are working to pay that down as quickly as possible. As for everything else on the farm (fences, breeding stock, feeder pigs, buildings, materials, etc.) it is a cash only deal for us. That is the only way that it will work for me.
• Animals Can Work :: Pigs love the woods and the pastures, cattle thrive on the buffet of grasses, sheep can have lambs on their own (even in the shed in February), chickens can handle themselves alright with a little protection from the elements and predators, and even the rabbits can rock the pasture pens! We are all about putting the animals to work and using their created abilities to grow and thrive.
• Genetics Matter :: In some cases there is nothing wrong with some of the "modernized" breeds of livestock that we have these days and in other cases they are completely missing some hugely important things like taste, the ability to survive outside, taste, intelligence, taste, taste, and taste. With that in mind it is important to us to keep some of those older and more rare genetics around. Plus ... some of these breeds are just way cool!
• Customers Are Friends :: I'm a people person and the idea of the people that enjoy my pork being nameless faceless cogs in the system just doesn't sit well with my talkative personality. Tonight we have a pork/lamb/chicken delivery in Des Moines and tomorrow in Knoxville and I will be able to talk directly with friends ... who are also customers. Even when it comes to our new "wholesale" friend it isn't a nameless faceless deal. I see their customers because we share customers ... and I love their tacos!
• The Lesser of Two Weevils :: I love the movie, "Master and Commander" (and the books), and there is a great line from it that goes something like this, "Don't you know that in the service you have to choose the lesser of two weevils" (it was part of a joke). The local community is important to our farm and we want to support them and work with them as much as possible. We have built great relationships with the farm store (of course I did work there), the local feed supplier, and our processor. All of those businesses that we interact with A LOT are no more than 20 miles from the farm. Not everything is perfect, but through the trust and relationships that we are building we are working together to provide the best possible relationship for everyone involved.
• We Can't Hate What We Do :: I don't love it all (mud, drought, sickness, struggles, etc.), but if we hate it then we're just not going to do it. That doesn't mean that there aren't going to be challenges that push us to our limits (remember this whole discussion comes from the growing pains), but it does mean that if we hate what we are doing and it is tearing us apart we are going to quit. To me that is the ultimate in sustainability!

What you have there are just a few of the values that drive Crooked Gap Farm ... in no particular order ... and said with much rambling! In the following days I will share how the farm has grown to this point, how I see it growing throughout 2013, and why growing slowly also needs a big jump every once in a while.

Those are my two cents ... I would love to hear yours!