Living the Farm Life

True to my roots, I am very interested in farming.

Unfortunately, we don't live on a farm. We live on a little postage stamp size lot with a TINY front yard (if you can even call it that) and a small backyard. Obviously, we aren't going to be doing any large scale animal farming. Rather than whine until we get a place that I can have goats and a milk cow, I have decided to make the most of what I have.

We live in a very rural area, so I have found someone who has some land who would be willing to keep a goat with their herd. Having a goat like this will allow me to milk a doe and have a fresh supply of raw milk and a way to make cheese for our family. If I get a cream separator, I can run the cream out of the milk and make butter and anything else that would require cream. This is very exciting for me.

In our backyard, I am going to set up a place for some chickens. I will get a few for eggs, and I am going to look into getting some just for our own purposes to eat. I will probably have to have them processed at a farm down the road because I do not know how to process them myself, nor do I have any equipment to do so. I still have to see if someone would be willing to help me process some chickens. Either way, I am going to keep 3-4 laying hens to get eggs. I need to start raising the chicks soon because it takes a while for them to grow up and start laying.

I am also going to start a vegetable garden. I am going to make 4-5 raised beds that are 6' by 6' by 1'. I am then going to head to the local dump where they compost people's yard debris, and I am going to by a unit 7.5 cubic yards of 50/50 compost and sandy loam. I don't have a better place to get this right now. I am going to get it to my house and fill my raised beds. Then I am going to plant some vegetables. I am excited. I just need to decide what I want to plant, and where. I think I will line the beds up in my back yard. I am making them each 6' by 6' so that I can reach the interior without really having to stand in them. Our yard is fenced, with a 6' fence, so it should not be too hard to keep animals out, which is really nice.

In this way, I will do some farming and produce some food for our family. I am going to help Daphne learn to be more self sufficient, and I will get to spend some time outside. I am excited.

We have VERY few tools to do this, and I don't plan to buy any more really except maybe a hand saw, so I will be doing a lot of the work by hand. :)