Saturday, January 28, 2012

This week: More kids!

Proud mom with her twins just minutes old.

The very last kid was born right after I returned home from the market today and went out to check on the goats. Blondie had two little twins to bring the total number of healthy babies to 21! Huge thanks to one of our 4-H friends for volunteering to take the one goat which would need bottle fed. After those triplets, the rest of the newborns were either singles or twins.

Great day to laze around in the sun.
We ended up with 14 girls and 6 boys, which is great. This brings our heard up to 38 goats, 32 who are females. We have set a goal of 30 steady breeding does for the time being, so we have exceeded that goal and have successfully built our heard to a comfortable level. All of the kids are beautiful and healthy and will be a great addition to the herd. Our next goal for the goats is to have an electrician come to get our electric fencing in working order so we can start a decent rotational grazing system. They had plenty of forage room for the first full year they were here, but consistently rotating them onto new land helps prevent disease and minimizes (hopefully eliminates) the need to medicate them. We will keep them contained to a few acres and hay them while the babies are growing, but as Spring moves in we want to make sure they have more than enough room to roam free and graze as they wish while taking them off of the pastures they grazed last year.

The walk-behind tractor we use for soil work.
Everything else is well and moving forward on Two Bridges Farm. We finished putting up a high tunnel for seedlings this week, and started some cabbage seed. This week begins the first round of real seed starting. The working of the land to be cultivated is on schedule and set to be done with irrigation laid and ready to plant in two weeks. This process is more tedious and strenuous for us because we do not have a conventional tractor to work the land. For now we only use a walking tractor with a rotary plow implement for deep tillage (important to break up soil compaction and for aeration) and rotary tiller for shallow tillage (to thoroughly mix in manure, compost, and amendments in the soil while smoothing out the surface). The slope of our land makes using this machine even more difficult, but if divide the work into manageable bits and stay on schedule, it works great for our needs. We are lucky a machine like this exists as a conventional tractor is outside of our budget and there are no friendly farmers or rental places near us to borrow from.

Western Wake Farmers' Market today was bustling and the weather was beautiful. I'm inspired every week by the loyalty of customers and the sense of community. It makes a week of hard work worth it.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

This week: Kids!

Apologies, I'm a bit late with the weekly update this week because we've been busy scrambling around taking care of momma goats and their newborn kids. Yup, kidding season started with a bang this week! It seems like every time we look outside, there are more newborn kids with a proud mom standing nearby. Not much else exciting happened this week so I'll talk a bit about what this entails for us and the new moms.

Heart and her kid born overnight.
All the births have gone smoothly so far. Since we can't keep a constant eye on all of the goats intervention would be difficult, so it's a good thing we haven't needed to yet. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to intervene after the birth either, but things have not exactly gone perfectly there. Sometimes in domesticated animals, or animals in general, the maternal instinct doesn't always kick in right away (or at all). Luckily we have not had any does completely abandon their babies yet, but we have had to encourage some. If the doe has twins or triplets, they may take responsibility of one and neglect the rest. If the doe is not used to suckling newborns, she may not let the babies underneath her to feed. This is especially true in new moms.

After the babies are born we give the moms enough time to clean them and recover a bit, and then we take them to our kidding barn to protect the babies from the elements and keep the other goats from causing any trouble. If the mom is not taking to a baby or not letting them suckle, we will hold her still while we show the baby where to feed...once the baby and mom get used to it, they begin to click and take over from there. We have only had a bit of trouble so far and most of the moms have done very well taking care of their kids.

The napping corner.
Boer goats can have between 1-3 kids. Having three kids might seem like a blessing, but in reality a doe is only equipped to nurture two kids. Normally all the triplets are a bit smaller than normal, and at least one is even more of a runt. The chances that all three will survive the first day aren't guaranteed. If all three end up strong enough to live then it's in the best interest of the mom to take one away and bottle-feed it. Luckily we have been involved in the local 4H programs and have children who are willing to take a goat and bottle-feed it. Bottle-feeding is very time-consuming and produced very dependent and needy goats who have a very hard time being integrated back in with the herd. Giving the extra kid away to a responsible family is the best case scenario.

So far we have had five moms with two sets of triplets, two twins, and one single kid. We've lost one of the triplet babies, but all other kids and their moms are healthy and thriving. They especially enjoyed the sunny warm day we had today. We expect the kidding to go on for a few more weeks, and we hope the rest are as beautiful and healthy as these first few.

Not much else has been going on around the farm. The winter produce is still recovering from the different setbacks, so we only had chicken and eggs at the market last weekend. Enough has recovered to have a full selection this coming Saturday. The early tomato and pepper seedlings are doing great and growing faster than expected. We may have tomatoes earlier than we had planned, possibly in April. The first batch of Spring crops has also been started, and the last batch of over-wintered seedlings are going in the ground in the next few days. These will tide us over in March going into April. Spring can't come fast enough!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

This week: Animal Welfare, winds, and bye bye Billy

Another busy week has passed us by with weather a bit more consistently winter-y than we've had so far. The forecast says that the week ahead we'll be back to bouncing back and forth from freezing to near spring-like conditions. Nature's being wacky. Here's what we've been up to this week:

At the annual CFSA Sustainable Agriculture Conference in November, we had started our journey to becoming certified by the Animal Welfare Approved agency. It is always something we had intended to do, and since they had a convenient booth set up at the conference and an incredibly helpful attendant there to guide us through the initial application, the timing was perfect. Getting Animal Welfare Approved is appealing to us for a few reasons: they offer different grants and discounts for certain products to members, it helps motivate us to maintain our record-keeping and transparency as food producers, and it puts consumers' minds at ease knowing that the treatment of our animals is an inspected process held to high standards. After accepting our application, there was a phone interview, which was followed by a visit from an inspector on Tuesday this week. He was very friendly and cordial as we showed him around the farm (which is something we always enjoy doing). He took careful notes of many different aspects of our operation pertaining to their standards, from roost space and nesting boxes available to chickens to the sizes of the birthing areas for the goats. After the tour he took us through a very thorough (and tedious) audit of our practices and record-keeping. All went well and we should expect to hear about the next step of our journey in a few weeks. Once we know more, I will share a more detailed account of what the process and what similar farms should expect if seeking to become Animal Welfare Approved.

Friday brought some outrageously strong winds through these parts which unfortunately destroyed one of our winter high tunnels. This news is not as bad as it seems though. We had tried three different designs for our high tunnels, and this was our least favorite. There were many little issues, inherent in the design as well as mistakes made during assembly. Much of the preliminary work had been done before I had a chance to visit friends at In Good Heart Farm to help them set up their own tunnels and learn much in the process (thanks again Ben and Patricia!). Rebuilding will be a quick job and shouldn't even take a full afternoon.

The buck in the center, lazing around with the ladies.
Today we said goodbye to a cherished guest on the farm, the loyal billy goat which our good friends at Meadow Lane Farm had lent us. He was the same billy we used for our first round of breeding, so it's time to change up the blood-lines.  He's moving on to a herd of beautiful girls, so he should be happy.  We're very grateful to Meadow Lane as well as the billy for the beautiful kids he gave us last year as well as the kids we are expecting to arrive any day now. The mamas look like they're ready to pop and we're very excited to have lively little kids running around the pastures again. We're crossing our fingers that we'll have good news regarding that prospect by next weeks update!

Everything else is good and well on Two Bridges Farm. We're seeing a slow but steady increase in egg production, we're still in the learning process for winter veggie production, Saturday at Western Wake Farmers' Market was lively and sales were good despite the cold weather, and every day that spring creeps closer we're getting more and more excited about the new season and the future of the farm in general. 2012 here we come!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

This week: Fickle weather...blessing or curse?

This week was a perfect example of the wacky weather we've been having this Winter: from a low near 15 degrees to a high near 70 within a couple days! We heard a weatherperson on TV blame these warm Winter temperatures on La Nina, saying we should expect a mild temperatures all the way through to Spring. While the farmer side of us would be perfectly fine not having to deal with snow, our inner children may miss it a bit if it doesn't make an appearance. Ground and soil temperatures are staying high as well, meaning preparation for Spring planting will be easy and early. A lot of this prep would normally be done in the Fall before temperatures drop, but we've been playing catchup for a while now, so we welcome this mild Winter graciously.

Since we are still learning about winter crop production, we did experience a bit of loss during the colder nights this week. We had expected this would happen, since no matter how much you can learn before-hand, nothing will beat experience. Our main issue this particular round would seem to be our use of floating row covers (a light cloth layer of protection for plants) within the high tunnels. Some literature we have seen suggested simply using the plant canopy as support, since these covers are so light. We believe this was too much stress for some of the plants as they seemed to have dead tissue where the cloth was touching the plants. It would have been wiser to construct mini-tunnels within the tunnel for the covers, keeping them raised off of the plants but still offering the same protection. This will go on the to-do list this week.

A rather predictable issue with the Winter crops was our poor choice of frost-hardy plants. Not all of the breeds we chose have frost tolerance, and even with two layers of protection, they just can't handle a night in the teens. I discuss how we prepare for cold weather more in depth in the first Questionand Answer post.

Staying sane as a new farmer requires a mind-set of acceptance. It wouldn't make sense for us to get upset over these mistakes. They've happened whether they were avoidable or not, and all we can do is learn from them moving forward. We dove into winter production knowing it was an experiment and what we're learning is as valuable as what we produce. The damage wasn't total, though it wasn't minimal, and we're not out of the winter produce game yet. We expect a bounce-back of everything affected.

Ranell and Ryan cleaning processed chickens.
Questions on this process?  Ask us!
We were blessed with a visit from the fourth Bridges this week, Ryan (as if it weren't confusing enough that there are three “Bridges” active on Two Bridges Farm). He is a lieutenant (O-3) in the US Navy (we're very proud of him) and is being re-stationed from San Diego to Washington DC. Him and his wife Erin stopped by on their way to DC while we were processing our weekly batch of chickens, so we had them throw some gloves on and put them to work! He is always urging us to grow hops, since his personal dream is to one day open a brewery. We might play with the idea. Home brewing is a rapidly growing hobby, especially here in North Carolina, and there might be a market for some locally grown hops. It was nice to show him around the farm, and as usual, he was gone as quickly as he appeared.

In the coming week, we're excitedly expecting a visit from an Animal Welfare Approved inspector. Animal welfare is something we care deeply about, and we hope that organizations like Animal Welfare Approved will help us maintain transparency for customers who may not have the chance to visit the farm and see for themselves how we treat our livestock. Even if we obtain the Animal Welfare Approved label, we will still invite and encourage all of our customers to visit the farm and get as involved with the food production process as they are comfortable.

Other than that, things are all normal and well on Two Bridges Farm. We're still expecting kids any time soon from the goats, the egg production is starting to pick up a bit, and updates to our digital face continue.  Crop preparation for the Spring and Summer growing seasons is moving smoothly and I nervously started seed for our early peppers and tomatoes this week.  This makes me nervous because this puts us at a transplanting time-frame around the beginning of March, after which we could still experience a hard freeze which could kill off the little seedlings, even under extra protection inside of the high tunnels.  While there is a risk, there's also a reward.  Early tomatoes and peppers will be a treat at the market!  We're keeping our fingers crossed hoping this weather will maintain for the next couple of months, but we keep in the forefront of our minds that Mother Nature is our boss, and she can make some unpredictable choices.

Q and A #1: Cold Weather

We experienced the coldest night of the Winter so far this week, which makes this a great time to address the first frequently asked question:


How do you prepare for and protect everything in the freezing cold weather?

Keeping a close eye on weather forecasts is a normal part of any farmers routine. However, just watching forecasts isn't quite enough to know how your particular area is going to be hit. Farmers and growers must be conscious of their own “micro-climates,” which can vary even within one's own property due to a number of different variables which I have yet to wrap my head around. I have described our own micro-climate as “Siberian,” only partially joking. We can experience temperatures almost 10 degrees lower than surrounding areas, which can be a scary thought when the predicted low for a certain night is 18 degrees, like it was this week. However, as long as one is aware and prepared, these temperatures shouldn't pose too great of a threat.

The white material on the outside of the house is the insulation.
In the distant background is one of the goats' shelters.
For the animals, it's important to remember that these types of creatures survive in the wild already, some in even harsher climates. Heritage breed chickens, which make up a good percentage of our laying hen flock, are the hardiest. The goats grow thick winter coats to help protect them from freezing temperatures. Even considering this, we go an extra step to protect our animals from the cold weather. Our portable chicken coops are lined with an insulated foil material, blocking winds and helping the chickens conserve their body heat throughout the night. Watering cans left inside of these houses tend to stay thawed and not freeze, so we know the coops can protect a considerable amount and keep the chickens comfortable until the sun comes up. The goats have access to multiple shelters throughout the night and won't hesitate to seek them out in wet or harsh weather.

As far as the plants go, we're still in a learning process. Considering this is our first year growing crops for production, this is of course our first Winter as well. You've seen our high tunnels, which work in a few different ways to conserve heat for the crops. During the day, if we allow the houses to warm up, this will trap heat in the ground which will radiate throughout the night. The houses also protect from wind, eliminating the wind chill factor and protecting the plants from the stress of potentially destructive gusts. While the high tunnels also serve themselves as insulation, they do not stop freezing temperatures from creeping inside, especially on nights like we had this week. This is why it's necessary to take all steps possible, from choosing frost-hardy varieties to adding row cover protection inside the tunnels, to ensure the plants survive the coldest nights in the winter.

As we move forward, we expect to learn or invent new ways to help keep both animals and plants cozy and healthy throughout the winter, making local food an even bigger possibility during the off-season.

Do you have any questions about who we are or what we do?  Please ask us!  You can contact us on Facebook, email me at austin [at] twobridgesfarm [dot] net, or simply leave a comment with your question.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Ask us.

My original idea for this blog was to be a simple weekly update of the happenings on Two Bridges Farm, but I have always wanted to find better and easier ways to engage our customers and share the food production process with the community.  One of the best parts about directly marketing our product to customers through farmers' markets is the fact that people can ask us questions directly and hear about where their food comes from directly from the farmer.  This dynamic is exciting for us, because part of the reason we decided to get involved in agriculture is because of the disconnected state of the food industry.  We picked a good time to get involved in direct market farming because there is an increasing interest from people in where their food is coming from, how their veggies are grown, and how the animals are treated.

This blog seems like a perfect outlet for engaging even more people and helping them understand about what we do.  We're not experts by any means; we jumped into this endeavor headfirst with very little experience or knowledge on what it meant to be a sustainable farmer.  Our first year of production has been a crash course in every way possible and we're still learning more every day.  But what is the point of learning if not to share?  And if there's one thing I know for sure to be true is that sharing what you know with the world will inevitably guide you more knowledge.

So I would like to open up this blog to be not only weekly updates on farm life but also to address any questions anyone would like to ask us regarding any aspect of what we do as a farm.  If we cannot answer a question for whatever reason, we are privileged to be in a position where we have easy access to resources where we can find an answer easily.  I will try to address a question or two each week, either throughout the week or within the weekly farm update.  Until questions start coming in, or if this idea doesn't take off, I will simply address the most frequently asked questions from the markets (believe me, there are tons of those!)

So, feel free to leave a comment, shoot us a message on Facebook, or email me at austin [at] twobridgesfarm [dot] net.  I'm sure that this blogging platform has some functions which will streamline the Question and Answer process, but I will have to look into that later!  We look forward to being able to share what we do with the world and hope that we can foster an interaction which will hopefully serve to strengthen a sense of community.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Hello 2012!

Happy New Year! As 2012 rushes in, we say goodbye to the year which spawned the genesis of Two Bridges Farm. The year will be remembered fondly as a successful start to a life in which we followed our hearts and were delivered to circumstances which will allow us to continue living our life as a dream. We can't express enough gratitude to the support and friendship we have kindled within the various communities which farming inevitably guides you towards. While our success in our first full season exceeded our (rather vague) expectations, we are still growing and trying to figure out exactly where we will fall as a part of this growing and ever-changing community of local providers and supporters. 2012 should prove to be more full of activity and change than 2011 and we are meeting the new year with excitement and open minds.

As we move forward, here's a snapshot of where the farm stands now.

-We're maintaining a consistent cycle of our meat chickens to process every week so we can provide fresh chicken for our customers every week at the market, which has been a major success. We have landed on a breed which we are very happy with, variations of the acclaimed Freedom Rangers (pictured right). We also have a several-week old batch of heritage breed Silver Laced Wyandottes to continue with our idea of being able to provide a heritage breed option for chicken. The customers who got our original batch of White Rock really enjoyed it, so the outlook is good.

-Our original flock of laying hens is still in moult, the yearly process of losing and replacing their feathers, in which they stop laying completely. We weren't expecting nearly every chicken to moult at the same time, but their age along with the trigger of shorter days has caused an egg shortage and we have had to turn away many faithful customers because of this. Luckily, a new batch of 50 chickens just laid their first eggs a few days ago, so it can only go up from here. On top of those 50, there is another 100 which are growing and will be laying by the time Spring hits. Suffice it to say, there will be no more egg shortage as we begin the new market season this spring!

-We're expecting the goats to start birthing their kids in the next few days, going on into February. We have had a hold on our goat meat while we wait for this batch of kids, as we don't want to cull out perfect breeding goats while we build our herd to a comfortable size.  Expect a return of the goat meat sometime around May, after which we will hopefully have a consistent supply.

-We ambitiously decided to jump straight into winter veggie production right after our first season of in-season production. Having been lucky enough to pick up supplies for a number of high-tunnels (unheated greenhouses) from a local nursery going out of business, we put up 3 different tunnels with slightly varying designs and growing techniques to see what works best for us. Since local produce is always in high demand on the off-season, our customers have been happy with the results of our experiments and so have we. We're confident we've found a system to build off of for next winter season. In the meantime, the crop plan for the Spring has been finished, the land is being fertilized by chickens and worked as we get the chance (since this Winter's weather has treated us so well). We plan to increase or veggie production significantly going into the new market season and are very excited to implement new techniques and continue to create a sustainable system which integrates all of the farm life into a cohesive and vibrant ecosystem.

On top of all this, we'll be doing a little re-imaging heading towards Spring. I plan to update this blog on a weekly basis, to keep customers and friends informed and involved in the farming process. Expect detailed updates of farm life spattered with some opinions and personal news. I'll be working on creating a monthly Two Bridges newsletter. I'll be revamping twobridgesfarm.com (again) to make it more interactive, informative, fill in the incomplete gaps, and make it a more accurate reflection of the current state of things on the farm. We'll be working a bit on sprucing up our market tents, offering more literature and recipes, more logical and appealing set-ups, and working towards a fresh new look.

We look forward to what 2012 brings and hope all of you feel the same way. Huge thanks to everyone who we have met in our journey so far, and here's to another full year of wonderful community, friends, family, food, and nature.