Kidding Time

It’s been a busy couple weeks on the farm. About 80 CSA farmers and other people involved with CSAs from around the country in town for the EcoFarm conference came by last week for a tour of our farm. It was great to meet all these folks who are doing some version of what we’re doing and to swap stories about pests, weather, packing boxes, and all things CSA-related. Steve also attended some meetings about organic strawberry growing.

We continue work on the new greenhouse which is nearly finished. We’ve been planting seeds in the first greenhouse like crazy, so we’ll need that extra space soon! Meanwhile the field hoophouses at our Lewis Rd. farm are working out great. The yummy radishes and the mizuna mustard and tatsoi in the greens mix we’re putting in the winter CSA boxes are coming out of those houses.

The most exciting news is that two of our goats gave birth, giving us three cute little white goats—they look a lot like their father(s) Buddy and/or Wattles, who are the sweet, if pesty, Saanen bucks we acquired last summer. None looks at all like their Boer mothers. Sadly, we lost one of the new mothers (Big Red) in the birthing. Unfortunately, momma Gusto would not take the orphan in as her own when she had her own kids, so we are bottle feeding sweet little Orpheus. At least he has his cousins Zephyr and Zeus to romp around the pen with. We expect one more kidding to happen any day now from our last Boer doe. The new goats join our small existing herd in helping us to manage our habitat restoration area. They take their job of weed-eating seriously.

With all the goat activity, Steve’s supposed winter down-time has evaporated in fixing fences, playing momma goat to Orpheus, and his other winter project of fixing up the house. (I’m sure any of you who have an old house are familiar with this pattern–prep the kid’s room for a new coat of paint only to find extensive mold between the existing paint layers, and end up tearing the whole wall out to insulate and re-drywall.)