Home Groan: My Adventures in Agriculture

I'm adjusting to my new lifestyle; the early mornings, loooong work days, and overall physical demands have kept me pretty tired. This week, however,  I'm not nearly as exhausted, in fact, I feel great. My body is finally catching up.  I like being up before it's light out (where I drink my coffee next to the pigs) and working a hard but super productive day. I sleep great.   I've declared week three my Whitmore Watershed.  I did a little research and according to google, dogs should adjust to their new homes within a few days. I'm not sure what this says about me, seeing as it's taken me a few  weeks to adjust, but I'm glad to know that everyone needs a minute to get their bearings.  My arms and legs (and somehow even my midsection) are still covered in scratches, bites, and bruises but I like to think this gives me a sort of farm street cred.  The farm is out in the sticks, as you might imagine, and surrounded by other farms.  We buy almos...

Monday morning six rabbits were butchered - luckily I was busy while this was going on.  Rabbits are the only animals we butcher at the farm; the pigs, sheep, and goats all go to a USDA approved processing facility.  Whew.  Unfortunately I wasn't saved from dealing with dead animals that morning.  One of our farm dogs, Joy, killed seven chickens. Those seven plus the other two I found (that seemed to have died from natural chicken causes) make it a total of nine dead chickens.  I buried them in the compost after lecturing Joy and saying a little chicken prayer. There have been a couple litters of piglets born since I got here and when they're about a week old it's time to vaccinate, castrate, and notch their ears. If they're any older they're too strong and it's nearly impossible to keep them still.  Tuesday morning we rounded up the piglets and Kent, one of the farm owners, trained me to vaccinate, castrate, and notch their little ears.  The ear not...

I've spent my entire life living in cities/suburbia, so besides helping my mom with a summer garden I have ZERO farming experience. The most exotic pet we ever had was a greyhound. After my cross country bicycle trip last summer I've been completely, and almost obsessively, focussed on doing things the old way. It started out simple, like baking bread and making yogurt. Before I knew it I was reading instruction manuals on shoe making. I just really  wanted to be more knowledgeable.  After reading, researching, and asking a million questions I decided to take the "full immersion" approach. I want to work on a farm.  I chose Whitmore farm for lots of reasons but the main reason was that they do things the old way. All of their animals are pasture raised, grass fed, happy, roaming, and curious. The animals get to be animals. More on this later. Week one: I naively thought that they would ease me into things, demonstrate everything first, maybe we'll review the ...