February News

I’ve been delinquent in updating the website over the winter so here goes, in no particular order.

Our Tamworth sow farrowed a litter of 6 baby pigs 2 weeks ago ( luckily enough I had her in the barn already, although I suspect she would have done fine in the field), and all of the baby pigs are doing great.

Our first lamb of the year was born 9 days ago- a ewe lamb, from one of our Border Leicesters- mama and baby are doing beautifully.

The batch of 5 feeder pigs are up to about 175 pounds and will hopefully be ready to process in around 2 months- they are Tamworth/Berkshire crosses, never in confinement, never medicated (the old saying healthy as a horse is inaccurate- pigs, given adequate space, clean water and food are the most robust animal on my farm).  We are taking orders for quarter, half, and whole hogs- please e-mail jhurley@atsu.edu.

We are hosting another WWOOFer (http://www.wwoofusa.org/), Nick- all the way from Alaska- he’s been here about a week and is wonderful help.

On February 22,  we will be hosting the empty bowls supper for New Pioneers for a Sustainable Future.  I would encourage all of you to look at their webiste and see what wonderful things Sister Claire and the rest of the organization are doing:  http://newpioneersfsf.org/. 

Then on March 30th, Sustainable Kentucky is hosting the Kentucky Green Living fair in Somerset- http://www.kygreenlivingfair.com/.  We’ll be giving informal talks on our system of pastured rabbit, showing off one of our rabbit tractors, and giving away some free samples of grilled rabbit.  Notice I said giving away- right now, after calling a few dozen abbatoirs across the state, I cannot find a single USDA inspected facility that will process a rabbit.  And since Kentucky is one of the states which does not allow the 1000 animal exemption for home processing, I can’t legally sell anyone any of my rabbits.  This will change after I go through the certification process at Kentucky State’s mobile processing facility. 

Most of the high tunnel is already planted, and the remainder will be finished this week.

We will be selling produce and meat at the Springfield Farmer’s market this spring and will likely be signing folks up for a late summer and/or fall CSA, if there is enough interest.

The crocus have been blooming for a week.

I’m sure there are things I am omitting, but I will try to post again shortly.

Jonas