life... on the farm: Spring Cleaning

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Spring Cleaning

During the last week we have had warmer than typical temperatures. We took advantage of this spring like weather to clean up the farm a bit. J spent most of Friday cleaning out the boy's barn. He started before I had a chance to get a before picture. And somehow I managed to forget to take an after picture. What I do have a picture of is the pile of junk (a mix of hay, straw and poop) that he hauled out of the barn:

He lost track of how many trips he took to get all the junk out of the barn. The boy's barn is so nice now!

I did a slower project, everyday scooping up more and more of the poop piles in the girl's pastures. As the mounds in the pastures thawed a bit each day, I cleaned up whatever I could scrap free. During my usual daily routine, I take one sled or wheel barrow trip. This week there were days I took 6! There was a lot of extra stuff to clean up. But I'm happy to say I've made a lot of progress. Unfortunately we are supposed to get another storm of snow and ice starting tomorrow.

1 comment:

WonderWhyGal said...: We spent all day yesterday cleaning. I had to work all week so I didn't get to take advantage of the true warmer weather but...having the snow and nice melt along with the wind to dry everything up make our jobs much easier.

I got all the nasty wet hay that they throw to the ground, all of the poo and by the time I was done...you could eat off the ground. Ok, an Alpaca could eat off the ground ;-)

Now...I am ready for whatever weather comes. I am looking forward to being able to truly do my barn chores every day and not having this deep cleaning mess. Come on, Spring, we are ready for you.; February 20, 2011 at 8:09 AM

Post a Comment

The Adventure of a Lifetime

Our farming adventure began with the purchase of 3 alpacas in the fall of 2007. This eventually grew to an alpaca farm that birthed 23 cria. While we averaged 20 alpacas on a farm at any given time, we hit a peek of over 30 alpacas. We were involved in every aspect of alpaca farming: from breeding decisions, birthing, to attending alpaca shows, and shearing our own alpacas along with making product from their luscious fiber (hand spinning yarn and knitting product). We participated in 24 alpaca shows, and became very involved in the alpaca community.

In 2013 we added hair sheep to our farm.

Throughout this process we continued to tweak and revise our business plan. Our business plan evolved over time, and in 2013 it became clear that our goal was to raise grass fed animals for human consumption. While the initial plan was for this to go along side of alpaca farming, we slowly came to the conclusion our adventure was going to take us somewhere else.

In 2013 we began to sell off our alpaca herd to begin our new adventure with grass fed sheep and cattle.

Our adventure is still unfolding, so please, join us in our adventure of a lifetime as our journey unfolds.