Finally, a Harvest!

My wife gives me a hard time because the last half dozen or so times I've gone hunting I've done exactly that hunting with no killing involved. So it felt great to come home with 137.4 pounds of meat today.

As I told the butcher, all my hesitations about raising Cornish Crosses evaporated when I saw how beautiful they looked naked... :-) I mean that honestly, the Cornish were not good looking birds when they were alive. About a third of them hadn't finished feathering out yet. We'll see how they taste.

Here's the breakdown on costs:

30 Cornish Cross Ideal nursery day old hatchlings delivered to our door: $48 (Caught a good sale.)

Feed: 14 bags at $18 per 50 pound bag, $252 (This is an area we can do better on next time.)

Butcher, vacuum seal, label, etc. $84

Total cost: $384. Price per pound $2.79. 

Takeaways: The snake losses, 3 birds, 2 chickens had wounds found by the butcher and condemned there, and the 4 birds that just died of no apparent reasons really hurt the overall price per pound. Assuming we could have kept 4 more alive and made average weight, it would have cut the price per pound by right at $0.50 per pound. That's a big deal.

The moving Salatin tractor is a must. The chickens didn't do a good job of keeping themselves clean. I've never seen chickens content to never scratch, eat laying down, drink laying down. I think being forced to move onto new grass will help considerably. 

Practice better predator control, the tractors are going to be built with hardware cloth, and we'll focus on snake proofing them each day until they're out of the danger zone.

I've got to do a better job next time breaking down feed costs. This time if anything I way overestimated our costs. Still we have to get our costs under $2.00 a pound if we want to be competitive. 

Feed costs themselves. I bought all of our feed this go round at Tractor Supply. I didn't know how much we'd need. I know there is a farm in Waxahachie milling their own non-GMO, non-soy feed for $14 a bag when you buy in bulk.

If we're going to do this it makes sense to do some geese and turkeys at the same time, then separate them as they get bigger. I think we might do a half dozen turkey's next year as well and see if we can create a market for those as well. 

Homesteading is hard.

Yes, you heard that right. Homesteading is hard. Mother nature is a cold hearted wench. She, along with nature, will conspire to kill you, your family members, your livestock, your crops, tear down your fences, and wreck your equipment.

My heart breaks with each animal we lose, be they family pets or humble chickens. No matter how many hours I spend after work or on the weekends working on the homestead, there always seems to be another dozen projects that needed to get done. I get up at 4:15 the days I work so I can feed before I go to work. I feed again after I get home, and set up to speed up my work the next morning.

So why do we keep doing it?

Because it's real.

Because we know exactly how our food is raised.

Because there's no better way to raise your children than on a farm. Especially if you want them to make their own way in the world. A farm is a PhD level course in problem solving, empathy, and effort.

Because for Millennia, our forefathers had this struggle, they made it and that same blood flows through our veins.

We've accepted the challenge. I'll do my best to share our triumphs, tragedies, lessons learned, to hopefully make your journey a little easier.

2016 Goals

Tito the Belted Galloway.

I turned 40 not too long ago, and to politely paraphrase Coach Gundy at Oklahoma State University, "I'm 40, I'm a man." Self-reflection, honest self-reflection at least, comes easier with age and I'm on the wrong side of 40 now.

I feel pretty good. After a lot of years of trying to squeeze more from my body than I had any right to ask, I take stock and overall I've been really lucky aside from a few broken bones, a couple of foot surgeries, and the occasional morning where I awake trying to remember which biker bar I'd engaged in human cock fighting the night before I'm doing well. For my health I'm extremely thankful.

My wife is just the sweetest woman alive. What she sees in me is beyond me most days. For said birthday she strong armed a bunch of friends into writing their favorite stories. I suspect she's just getting ready for the impending funeral due to my advanced age, but I digress. So in the mail a few days before the big Four Oh, this scrapbook of memories show up. I'm so thankful and blessed that she loves me the way she does.

Each and every day I wake up knowing I'm a lucky bastard. I've basically gotten to live the New Age Forrest Gump movie as my life, minus the whole Jenny the Coke Whore with the Hiv deal.

I've been lucky enough to coach some amazing kids at the collegiate level. I've got to do and see things in the Service that most kids never could dream of when grinding away for Big Blue. I've been blessed to never have been afraid to jump, and lived all over the world because of that. With a lot of work, focus on killing debt, and more than a little luck I can now call myself a Farmer. 

More than any of this, I've been lucky enough to make unbelievable friendships everywhere I've gone. Charlie, Manny, and Max in RI, Shawn, Bill, Gabe, Ruffin, and Jeff in Texas. More than I can count in Idaho, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico, and California. Keith, Dennis, and Michelle in Florida, and I'm sure in trying to pound out this post that I've forgotten some amazing folks. To Libby and Adam, thanks for always being there for me, I'll never be able to express my gratitude to you all.

The goals for the farm this year are pretty straight forward:

1. Tractor and implements.

2. Galloway bull.

3. Gutters and water cisterns set up on the house and barns.

4. Chicken coop occupied by chickens, ducks, geese, and quail.

5. 4 raised garden beds 

6. Plant around 4,000 locusts and apple trees in a Missouri Valley Gravel Bed system.

7. Ponds, swales, and shooting berm installed.

There's at least another 100 or so smaller projects that either need done, or that I'm hoping to be able to sneak in. I need to plant another 70 or so fruit, nut, grape vines, and blackberry vines.

We'll see what the next 363 days bring.