My Favorite Interns 8/12/16

The 10 inches of rain we got here will really cheer things up after a fairly dry summer. I guess you could say we got completely caught up in lack of rainfall in just a few days.

Change is a constant thing in life and so in the interest of being completely transparent we need to say that we now feed a little soaked barley to our milking goats. This is a slight change but a change never the less. Other than that we do not feed grain to our ruminant animals here. In our defense I will say that goats are hard to do here in our humid, hot, parasite rich environment and VERY few people do goats here without chemical wormer. The grain is needed for energy for the milking goats and we hope it will help us continue something that we seem to not be able to do enough of. Our customers really WANT the goat milk and yes we are expanding it.

Another change: we had an awesome intern just leave and several applicants were lined up to choose from when it hit me, I have some of the best interns right here in my house. I do not need to get help from city folk this time, as my daughters, Caroline and Stella are my new interns! The one challenge with this is who will do the work when we go on vacation, as we are not yet ready to leave one behind? So, I asked a former intern and she said she would be delighted to return and another will too IF she can… ………ahh……….now that may work. I am starting to really enjoy this young energy but there is a time for everything under heaven. Right now, it’s time for me to work with my daughters and I am loving that too.

Mowing with horses is working as I have not hooked up the bush hog, yet, but it is not an easy road. At least Lily is getting her horsy fix and learning what it is like to be in over your head sometimes. And yes it is abundantly obvious why people are not still using a 1945 sickle bar mower, much. Time will tell if this becomes a complimentary tool here or a nonexistent one. My dad could not wait to get away from horses when he was growing up; my daughter however loves working with them.

Lily also LOVES the goats, for this I have more of an explanation; it is in her Genes but not mine. Alicia’s maiden name is Kilgore which in ancient Scottish means “keeper of the goats”. Several times I have joked with Lily about getting rid of those “troublesome, silly, old goats” and she just cannot imagine life without them. Certainly we carry a LOT in our genes, it’s who we are! Who knows what dietary patterns lie within or what foods our particular gene pool will do better on than others. Our bodies can adapt for sure, but what is optimum? I believe it is good to look at our past and consider it some. My mom’s dad was a butcher; my grandpa on my dad’s side milked jersey cows and sold the milk to city folk. That is what I enjoy, building that connection with folks who cannot have their very own cow. I have also struggled for years with my own health and restored it by eating the food we produce here, I LOVE sharing that and improving upon it, continually.

Our butcher, that made beef jerky for us, quit a year ago and it never was that great. So, we have been searching for a product like this and have found it --wonderful beef jerky from PA and sugar free bologna and beef snack sticks. Also we now have fresh Camembert cheese and blue cheese that is amazing and not salty like before. Lamb is back and incredible as we have already tasted it. I have to say that we could not buy lambs that had not already been wormed with chemicals but that was months ago and they were not wormed after we bought them. With rotational grazing on nutrient dense pasture and allowing them access to free choice minerals, worming is not needed. Last year we did 16 lambs and our neighbor butchered them, this year we did a few more and are having them done by a butcher with better tools, you will LOVE the packaging and different cuts.

FCF Classifieds: Puppies for sale. Lily has several livestock guardian puppies for sale, $250/each. 

Yoga at FCF is going strong. If you have physical structural issues or want to prevent them, Jashree is very passionate about helping you with that. She has a personal story of how it helped her and is equipped and knowledegable.
Friends of ours are moving and have several family milk cows for sale as well as a bull. Also available is a good beef breeding bull. E-mail us if interested in any of the above: thisisdennis@windstream.net.
Thank you for voting with your pocket book and supporting a local small farm,
Dennis and Alicia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWXuaMXfbJA agree or disagree, let me know by clicking reply