Friday the 13th....

Ruthie gave me two ewe lambs this afternoon.  She had them in the field at dusk.  No muss, no fuss, they are 7.5lbs and 8.5lbs.  One is black/gray the other looks to be solid black.  Ill be able to tell better tomorrow though once they're dry  and fluffed out.  I guess Friday the 13th isn't all bad luck :)

Lambing season is upon us again...

and not a moment too soon for my ewes.....

 Um....Ada?  I'm really hoping it's just that you have more than one lamb in there this year and not that you ate a tire...just saying.

 Annushka...you have a shelf thing going on...not sure what that is...perhaps your lamb(s) will be a mathematician who loves angles and geometric shapes.....just trying to make you feel better about your weird looking sides...

 Rita...every year I say to myself "oh...she's not pregnant, she doesn't look pregnant at ALL."  And you always give me twins.  This year you look like you swallowed a yoga ball....I'm scared.

 Ruthie....holy crap.  Enough said.

 I'll leave you with Ada...who is due today and is now sequestered in a lambing jug because..well..look at her...she's so fat she won't even attempt to escape the confines of the pasture.  That kind of worries me. Either I'll go out there and she'll have delivered a litter of lambies...or she will have eaten one too many thin mints and exploded all over the stall.  I'm still up in the air about which it's going to be.

The Plan: Step 2

The next thing we brainstormed was various venues to sell our "goods".  I researched area farmers markets and dug through a ton of rules and regulations on the VTDA site to figure out what we could legally sell (We can sell whole chickens that we slaughtered on our own farm IN state as long as we limit ourselves to 1000 birds a year.  Yeah...I'll have to limit myself...and here I was hoping I could do 1001 *sigh*.  :P).  We can also sell whole rabbits under the same regulations.  Pigs will have to be sold live as we have a HUGE shortage of USDA slaughterhouses up here. 

Other venues are things such as Etsy, Artfire, Zibbit etc....selling through our own website, using the local fairs to get out name out there.  We have tossed around the idea of a farm stand out at the end of the driveway.  We live on a road that has a state forest with campgrounds and hiking trails.  In the summer there are TONS of campers that travel by our house.  I think having a stand out there with eggs and whatever veggies are in season would do well.  Maybe even some bait worms and bundles of firewood. 

Of course we listed our local publications and thought about various bulletin boards that might get the word out to our targeted customer base. 

There are A LOT of venues out there now, many more than when I was a child.  It will be interesting to see what places get us the most business.  So far Craigslist has been pretty good to us, it's free and everyone seems to know about it...but, it's only ONE venue and there are so many more to try. 

The Plan: Step 1

The first thing the Major and I did was sit down together and make a list of all the things we could possibly sell.  It's a LONG list.  We used our imaginations, and listed things that we not only have on farm at present, but things that might come along later if we so choose.

We started off with the animals.  I spent the day researching (again) all of the rules and regulations that VT has regarding meat sales and it turns out that we can sell farm processed whole chickens and rabbits with no USDA inspection.  The pigs would have to go to a USDA inspected slaughter house if we chose to sell the meat, but we can sell the pigs to their owners live, and they would have to give the butcher the cutting instructions and that is OK.  Same with lamb.  I prefer on farm slaughter.  My ultimate goal with these animals is to give them the best/happiest life possible and a humane death.  Shoving them into a car and driving them 1/2 way across the state to somewhere strange that smells of blood and death is stressful and I'm sure it effects the quality of the meat.  We will be ordering meat chickens and making some chickens tractors so they can follow behind the sheep in pasture rotation, and I think for now we will be selling piglets live and not worrying about selling pork.  I think we'll do the same with the lamb.  They went quick enough last year that I'm not really worried about being able to sell them.   I'm still trying to justify having the steer.  They won't be making us any money and they eat...a LOT.  I thought that maybe getting them to haul the chicken tractors would be a good job for them.  Then we can work on getting them down in the woods hauling logs.  I just don't have the heart to eat them...the big doofuses. 

After animals we started thinking about garden stuff.  We live on a road that is used frequently in the summer by tourists going to stay or use the state forest that we live next to.  A farm stand next to the road might be a good source of extra income.  We always seem to have extra veggies in the garden, and if we get smart this year and plant the veggies a week or so apart we won't get just ONE big harvest..it will be spread out.  That might make it a lot less overwhelming for me.  Nothing like 50# of tomatoes being ripe all at once to push someone (me) over the edge of sanity!  We also plan on planting a few more apple trees so that in a few years we can have a decent sized orchard int he front yard.

We finished up our list with crafts and miscellaneous things.  Willy warmers might sell :P  And the Major can unload birdhouse gourds at his reenactments if we can ever figure out how to get them to dry without rotting.  We also added Miniature Aussies to the list...but that isn't a "now" item, that would have to be something in the future and if we found the right dog to breed and show.   We also listed baked and canned goods, after some research we can sell up to $125 worth of canned/baked things a week and not have to get a home catering license. 

Our list took us a few hours to finish.  We tried to  do as much research as possible into what kinds of rules and regulations were in place and what we might have to do to sell certain things, and that took the longest.  It's really good to know all of those things up front though so there are no nasty surprises later. 

I feel pretty good about what we accomplished with this list.  I am a total list maker though, and they keep me focused and motivated.  I finally feel like we have a plan in place though with ideas and goals. It's a good place to be.

Coming up with a plan

 When we moved into the house 2+ years ago, we had a vague idea of what we wanted to do.  That idea pretty much encompassed a little bit of everything hence the virtual cornucopia of animals that now reside at Thistle-Willow farm.  Left to our own devices, the Major and I are a little....um..flighty...and well..unfocused.   I have declared an end to all of that though...as of now, 2012, we are sitting down and getting organized and focused and actually coming up with a plan for how this farm can make money...instead of just eat it.

We've spent a few hours sitting and talking about different ways we can get this farm to begin to provide for itself.  So far we have a pretty good list of possible product, and an ok list of possible venues.  We also sat down and made a list of what needed to be done around here, and the Major then turned that into a spreadsheet (GEEK!! :P) of what and when.  If we can manage to cross off even a 1/3 of that list I'll be happy.  

 Mostly I'm just happy that I no longer feel as though I'm sitting here spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.  I love being organized, I love having a plan (I am a total planner)...it gives me purpose and drive.  The next few blog posts will be about these lists and the plans we have, so keep an eye out!

  I feel as though this year is going to be an exciting year for Thistle-Willow Farm...the year we actually step out into the world and say "hello".  An exciting year indeed and I'm totally looking forward to it!

Oh look! I'm going off like Vesuvius again! Greeeaaat. Read at your own risk.

Some days I just hate logging onto Facebook.  Let me make this very clear right up front;  I don't care what your political agenda is.  I don't care if you have protested for or against OWS, I don't care if you boycott Walmart, I don't care if you are registered as a Democrat or a Republican.  All I really care about is that you can think for yourself in these matters and can express yourself as to why you support whatever it is that you support.  I don't want to hear a bunch of BS media tainted "facts" spewed back at me...I want your real thoughts on things...I want to know that you've dug in and done the research.  I don't think that is too much to expect....ha ha.  I know. 

When I log in ANYWHERE and see someone sharing or liking an article that says "Republicans are idiots and arguing with them is a waste of time".  It immediately pisses me off.  PISSES.ME.OFF people.  Really.  I know tons of people out there that arguing with is a waste of time....I may or may not be among them...*ahem*.  But...and this is a BIG BUT....I would never categorize them into a single group based on, let's see..race, age, gender, sexuality or..hm..political group...because...it would make me a bigot, wouldn't it??  The interesting thing about this "article"..is that it is slamming a republican because he is a bigot....and a few other things..I mean...if I believed everything the media writes I'd think this guy was evil to the core.  It's a good thing I guess that I have a brain in my head and can reason that a very left wing site published this article...therefore I'm very, very sure that it has been embellished at least on some level.  I'm not saying the guy isn't a top notch asshat, he very well may be.  What I'm saying is that going off the deep end over an article written by someone who is probably as big of an asshat as the articles subject, makes YOU look like a bigoted idiot as well.  Use your heads people.

Unfortunately these seem to be the same people that keep getting petitions signed and passing laws to protect us from ourselves.  They don't seem to understand that part of living your life is taking risks....and you can't save everyone.  Michigan is trying to pass a law that will make it illegal for any child under the age of 16 to work on a farm.  It does, of course, exclude "family farms".  If you live on the farm you are allowed to work there...there are no clauses though for multi generational farms where the grandparents or great grandparents live on the farm and the kids/grand kids live elsewhere and work there.  They are also trying to pass laws that you can't drive a tractor without an operators license.    Do you know how many farms that is going to hurt??  Does anyone realize that they're killing a way of life?  My mother's first paying job was at the age of 11...she walked neighborhood dogs.  When she got a little bit older...13/14 she would go and clean peoples houses.  She was picking bottles up on the side of the road when she was 6!  You don't see this now....too many laws "protect" our children from losing their childhood to work.  I believe children should be children....they should have the time to play and have fun while they are young...BUT not letting them work until they are 16 is creating a whole generation of slacker workers who expect things to be given to them.  They have no work ethic.  They just don't care and they have no issues about walking if the job gets too "hard".  Their parents have worked hard to give them all the fun stuff they wanted when they were young...and now they have that same attitude of "give me" going into the work force.  Or they're whining about how "unfair" it is....I'd love to see the whole lot of them plucked from their "unfair" life and dropped into the 1930's at the height of the depression.  Let them fend for themselves in  a world where people actually starved to death on the side of the road.  I bet that would rip the word "unfair" right out of their vocabulary.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of laws and programs that I think are valuable and important.  I just really think that the American people are bored and as much as they all like to label themselves as "peace loving' and 'non-confrontational"....they are all looking for a fight.  We are too comfortable and complacent in these lives that we've created.  Yes, we're not out beating each other over the head (well...not all of us anyway) with clubs...but we're certainly smacking each other with protests, and petitions and laws.  It is still all about thinking that our opinion is the right one and trying to bend everyone else to it.  It frustrates me to no end..and makes me want to go live like a hermit in the middle of nowhere.  In fact...I'm getting off my soapbox and going back to bury my head in the sand. 

Calendars

Last year I created and gave away Thistle-Willow farm calendars for the holidays. They went over so well that I decided to do it again this year, and just for fun I decided to create a "dear Kittay" calendar as well. For those of you that aren't friends with me on Facebook, I started writing letters to my two rescue kitty's awhile ago. They are almost identical and hard to tell apart, so when they run through the cat door at 100 mph with something dead/half dead or alive and screaming in their mouth, I tend to just say "KITTAY! NOOOOOOOOOO!"..because trying to figure out whether it is Needles or Nailes can be too time consuming when you're trying to grab whatever partially eviscerated animal's guts are being dragged across your rug.

Anyway....the calendars are for sale here...and here.

All proceeds go toward feeding the animals we have as feed prices have gone up....way up...this year. Between the drought in the mid west and the flooding here in New England that wrecked much of our hay crop, it's going to be tight on just one income. Keeping our fingers crossed that next year's weather is a little less extreme.