What can a Goat tell you? If you pay attention it can tell you to “Move On”. From a philosophical stand point and a literal one. One of our goats has taken to pushing me forward with it’s head squarely behind my knee. It’s a gentle push but she evidently is tired of listening to my farm tour blabber and seems to want to move ahead with the walk! The “Move On” message is what it is like here day to day. There is maintenance of course but it changes with the seasons. There are predators and mistakes. There is always someone with a suggestion of what to add to the farm (some of them are great ideas as long as the person suggesting it wants to do the work!).

In our 2 long years here we have built the basics and continue to improve our processes toward the perfect plan and it NEVER comes out that way, but it is close. Trying new ideas while keeping our core values in place i.e. Animal happiness first, then soil building, then humans and the rest we work hard on like trying to impress you with the bounty.

Moving on, improving practices is tricky. Sometimes what seems like a more efficient method thwarts the purpose of the original idea i.e. the meat chickens are in chicken tractors out on pasture but the hills in some areas of the farm make it difficult to move them each day so we are trying out a new idea today. Using a flexible fence to surround 5 of the tractors and allowing the meat chickens to graze outside of the tractors. It gives the older chickens, 5 to 10 weeks, free range opportunity and they are big enough to not get picked off by a hawk. I will let you know how that goes.

The fun part is that it is my farm and I get to try stuff. I like that. It is your farm too so feel free to come up with ideas and let me know. Like the front yard. The plan is to create a kid friendly garden. Lamb’s ear, pineapple sage, a brick path through it. If you have any ideas or want to work on it, let me know. Should be fun! Because I can!

Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Moo

The 3rd day we lived on the farm there was a cow here, from the previous owners, that was having twins. The vet was called because of the twins and sadly it is common for the female of the twins to be stillborn. It was true in this case but the male was healthy. Much to my chagrin the normal process for the male was to send him to be processed (he was a Holstein breed and as we now know that is primarily for milk, not meat. He wouldn’t produce enough meat to be considered worth raising). Of course that wasn’t acceptable so we asked if we could have him and they agreed. However, he would be sad to be alone so we were given another day- old calf from the neighbor (he would have gone to processing also. Not the neighbor, the calf).









The neighbor showed us how to feed the calves and care for them. It was easy and for the next 8 months we had so much fun with those little guys. We named them Spot and Sparky and all the visitors could bottle feed them. The kids loved it and the calves would follow us around on tours just like those now pesky goats.

One Sunday about 6 months in, we were graced with a visit from Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery. After the tour, Albert introduced himself, was kind enough to compliment our efforts. He then pulled me aside and said…”Tara, the calves are great but you do realize they are bulls, right?” “Yes” I replied looking all innocent…because I WAS. “Well”, he replied “they will want to “mount” something pretty quick here (I think I understood what he meant) and you don’t want it to be one of your guests. Probably after the 6 month point you should keep them in a fenced area verses going on tours with you and you can still allow the kids to bottle feed them” (at this age the calves were only getting water but they loved it and the kids did too).

He was right. Several days later the cattle were mounting each other and frankly, while it was an eye raiser, I could see his point. So, into the pasture, behind a fence and sadly no more calves on tour.

Then we got the baby goats. They are still fun to take on tour, safe with the kids albeit not safe for the grape vines or any other plant we want to keep. Still, we missed those little calves.

Guess what…we have a little calf and will have 2 by next week that we can take on tour again. One of the mama cows had a little brown male and for some reason she was not interested in raising him. So we began bottle feeding today. He is soooo cute. We need a name. Send in your ideas and next week we will pick and post to the newsletter.

More importantly, we invite you to come visit and feed them yourselves. Not to mention all the baby piglets and chicks…ducks on the pond and of course Roland the protector (sadly, and those of you that know him understand, he does need valium).

P.S. Just an FYI…I don’t want you to own any problems we have. It is not yours to deal with, but I do want you to know what we deal with in order for you to understand what farming is about, and when we are not willing to cut corners to make the bills. Eggs and chicken. We are short on eggs again. 600+ laying chickens was not enough and we are growing more and adding from other organic flocks that want to sell. Meat chickens are another matter. We upped the baby chick quantity from 400 to 500 every 2 weeks. That will handle growth for the next several months however we do have a shortage outside of membership. Membership has its privileges and this is one of the times your membership pays off.

Thanks for supporting us in our efforts. We know you want our success as much as we do.

Come visit, Mooooo…Your Farmer,
Tara Smith

Just got back from vacation. Can you believe it - I went on a 2 week vacation. The highlight of the vacation was “the incident” and it went like this…

We were in Greece on a boat anchored in a small cove off a little tiny island. On top of the island was a rock outcropping and I thought it would be fun to hike up and see the view. With my handy dandy team of 3 (two whiny woman and my son Joe), we ventured off.
We got to a small road that was lined with an eight foot rock wall on the side I needed to get to so I walked along looking for an opening and of course there was one. I was going to get to the top.

As I walked through the opening something grabbed my arm. I looked down as my arm was pulled back and what registered all happened in an instant.
The thing grabbing my arm looked just like a thick string of yarn. It was white.

My thoughts as they occurred:
“That is from a spider”
“It is really thick and huge webbing”
“That means the spider is huge and a monster”
“Screaming and jumping is in order”









Yes, yes, your charming farmer ripped off a blood curdling scream, jumped 5 feet into the air and started frantically flailing to get the monster off of me. There was web stuck all over me and the web was full of dead insects the size of quarters and I am sure there was a few large beasts like bears and mountain lions stuck in there. My whiner friends were laughing. The one that actually peed her pants shall go unnamed (Kim Galatolo)….and the other one who had said it was crazy to go climbing due to the venomous snakes we were warned about (being such a chicken she will go unnamed also, Dr. Kathy O’Connor), pointed out how many of the large beasts were all over which sent me into fits of jumping and screaming and more flailing.
Okay, so the beast itself…it was HUGE. It was spitting and hissing. It said my name. It said it would hunt me down with its brethren and eat me during the night. Its brethren echoed my name and said death to the organic woman that wants to climb the mountain. She will be good eating.

I continued to flail but manage to make my way back to boat without injuring myself or anyone else (as far as I know)…

I have recovered but on returning to the farm Elijah asked me to come to the garden to see what he had found…yes it was a tarantula. He had covered it with a glass cup and wanted to show me before he let it go. I won’t be working in the garden anytime soon.


Your wussy, rested Farmer,
Tara Smith