Now On To 2015!

I haven't posted a blog in over 3 months but that should give you some indication of just how busy things have been for us. We moved into a solid fall/winter farming season with winter greens and other goodies for market. We made over 100 gallons of molasses and those have been selling like hotcakes!

We processed our first set of pasture raised chickens and the response has been wonderful from our buyers. We participated in our very first Cat Square Christmas Parade and had an absolute blast!

 

In November, we transported the goat girlies, Cocoa and Tillie, to FLG Farms in Taylorsville where they stayed with their boyfriend for two weeks. We are crossing our fingers for Spring babies. Over the holidays, we discovered a wonderful use for Christmas trees after folks were finished with them....goats LOVE them! It's a wonderful and nutritious treat. What a great way to recycle and give it back to nature.

Right now, things on the farm are moving pretty slow. It gives us time to rest and recoup. But we are gearing up for the next growing season. Rick has been working to ready the greenhouse for planting spring seeds. A wood stove has been installed to keep it nice and toasty to help them grow on these cold winter days. Our pigs are ready to be processed. Our butcher appointment is set for mid-February so we are excited to be able to add pasture raised pork for our customers.

We continue to be blessed beyond measure at the support that we have received from the community as we have pushed our family farm to the next level. It's not all been perfect. There have been successes and failures, highs and lows. We continue to learn new things on a daily basis. All in all, 2014 was good to us. Looking forward to 2015!

Til next time,
Audra
Head Chicken Mama at Ellis Farms

Business Is Booming!

This post may be short and sweet but that's the nature of the game when you're running a farm and still working a full time job and a part time job at the same time. People say to me all the time, "I don't know how you do it." Truthfully, I don't either but it just gets done and that's the main thing. We have been super busy which means we are super blessed. Harvest Moon Grille is now open in our home town with well known Chef Cassie Parsons at the helm. Her menu features complete farm to table awesomeness and it has brought something completely new and fresh to the area. Reviews have been great and this means greatness for us because we've been supplying produce to the restaurant on a weekly basis. Cassie and her staff have been awesome to work with. We couldn't be happier. You can check our their website and menu HERE.

Our Farmer's Market sales have really done well. We were very nervous about stepping in to that unknown territory and the other vendors have been extremely welcoming. We are in the midst of transitioning from Spring crops to Fall so we have lots of things in various stages of growth. We are getting ready to butcher the pigs and we have added Freedom Ranger meat chickens to the menu. We hope to be licensed to be able to sell pasture raised chicken, with no hormones and no antibiotics, as well as pasture raised pork to the public. We are extremely excited about this addition to what we can offer to the community.

And, of course, September at Ellis Farms means it's molasses season, so cooking begins this weekend. We have enough planted to probably be cooking for the next 4 or 5 weekends. We will be selling quarts and pints. We will have enough to sell from the farm, at the market, and also to the restaurant who has been using our molasses in some of their menu items.

The other exciting thing happening this month is that we were invited to be a part of this year's Charlotte Area Farm Tour. It takes place the weekend of the 27th and 28th and includes 15 farms. From 12pm until 6pm each day, folks can visit as many of the participating farms as they can fit in. Each farm offers different activities and things to learn, as well as items to purchase directly from the farmer. We are extremely excited to be a part of the tour this year. We'll be doing a hay ride tour of the farm, a molasses making demonstration, and meeting all of our animals. We will also have a produce stand set up with molasses and other goodies for sale. If you'd like to learn more or to purchase a ticket, click HERE.

Last but not least, we have a new family member. We traveled to Trade, Tennessee a brought home a new puppy. The kids have decided to name him Cotton. He is a Great Pyrenees and is a livestock guardian dog and will live with the chickens and goats as their protector. We are busy getting him adjusted to his new home and learning the "rules" regarding the animals that he's to take care of. The kids absolutely love him and his fluffy soft white fur. He is going to be a big boy and we are happy to have him.

Til next time,
Audra

Busy and Blessed

It's almost August and things are still hopping on the homestead. We have had a wonderful first month at the Lincoln County Farmer's Market. Everyone has been extremely welcoming to us and we've been very successful each Saturday that we've been there. Even though we are in the midst of the summer season, we have already begun planting produce for the fall. I've had lots of fun looking at different varieties of things that we can try to grow.

We've brought 7 new chickens to the farm (3 Australorps, 2 Rhode Island Reds, a French Black Copper Maran, and a Black Jersey Giant). We are looking forward to the additional eggs that they will provide for us. Our four pigs are growing and getting fatter each day. They are enjoying our fresh produce also! They are so funny to watch and so very smart! If they hear us coming, there is a good chance we have something for them to eat and boy do they come running as fast as they can. We are hoping to be able to sell our pork at the farmers market this Fall. We are also doing some research into the possibility of adding free range meat chickens to our farm and then selling those at the market as well.

Our produce has done so well and we've taken care of sharing that with the community, but we've saved some for us too. We've put up bell peppers, corn, and tomatoes for this coming winter so we can have fresh, healthy veggies on those cold winter days.

Before I leave you for today, I want to assure you that it's not all work and no play at our place. We were able to take a few days and head for the mountains of North Carolina and cool off for a pit. We had beautiful weather and the kids enjoyed catching crawdads in the creek.....which were quickly used for fishing purposes. :)

We hope everyone is enjoying their summer and being safe. Hopefully your own gardens have provided you with lots of goodies for your own families enjoyment.

Until next time,
Audra

Non-Stop Activity On The Homestead

What can I say? I've been slack about blogging but there is no slack happening on the farm. We have been busy busy busy. Cocoa and Mandy, our Nigerian Dwarf does, each had a set of twins in April. 3 boys and a girl. We have retained the female and named her Trixie. One of our boys went to a buyer in Charlotte, another went to a buyer just across the state line in South Carolina, and our third made a long trip to his new home in Florida. We are able to keep up with the two in South Carolina and Florida via Facebook and they are as happy as can be with their new families. Both will be herd sires when it is time to breed them. I'm so happy that we were able to find good homes for all three of these gorgeous boys! So since we moved 3 out, of course that means we had room to bring some in. :) We are happy to announce the additions of "Tillie" and "Opal".
Tillie is from FLG Farms in Taylorsville, NC. She was owned by my goat soap guru friend, Lee Ann Ferguson. She will be a year old in July and is the sweetest, most loving little girl.

Opal is from Past Ur Time Farm in Rutherford, NC. She is naturally polled and blue eyed so we are very excited to add those awesome genetics to our heard. Opal is still a baby, so we won't be breeding her until the Fall of 2015. She is a very vocal little girl and makes sure everyone around knows when she wants attention. We love her to death already!

It's pickin' time on Ellis Farms! So of course, evenings and weekends are spent in the field gathering what we are blessed to have sown this spring. We planted a total of 3500 veggies of various varieties and things are hoppin'.

I'm very proud of how beautiful our produce has turned out so far. We are set to make our first appearance at the Lincoln County Farmer's Market this coming weekend and we are also working with Devine Farms in Catawba County in a farm share opportunity to sell our produce at their farm stand. We also added four feeder piglets to the mix. We plan on raising them for meat for the family and possibly using one as a breed sow. Things are coming together and it is alot of work. We are still learning as we go, but we are enjoying it.

Til next time,
The Ellis'

Babies, Plants, and Everything In Between

It's been a crazy busy time at Ellis Farms in recent weeks (hence the reason I have not updated the blog in forever). Our new website has launched and we've had wonderful response. You can find it HERE. Plants in the greenhouse are popping everywhere and we are busy moving them to the ground. We can't wait to see what comes of the many varieties that we are adding to our lineup this year.

Last week, we also had some new additions come to the farm. Our goat babies are finally here! Mandy kidded with a gorgeous set of black and white twins (a doeling and a buckling) that we named Trixie and Domino. Trixie will be retained on the farm and Domino is available for sale after weaning the first week of June. Domino is naturally polled.

Cocoa, our registered dairy goat, also kidded with twin bucklings. We have named them Java and Butterscotch. They will also be available for sale the first week in June. Butterscotch is naturally polled and blue-eyed.

We have had the best time this past week watching these four navigate their new world. They are running, jumping, and playing all over the place!

Our next additions will be four piglets in May that we will be raising for meat for our own personal use. I'm doing lots of research and reading to plan. Pictures of the pig homestead will be posted soon.

Hopefully you all are planning and prepping your own gardens and enjoying what pleasures come from that. It's been a blessing to us for sure. We enjoy spending that time together as a family creating food that is healthy for our family.

Til next time,
The Ellis'

Hectic Holidays

I have been extremely slack in updating the blog since my last post. Between Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and now gearing up for Christmas......honestly, there just hasn't been time. I'm hoping that, after the first of the year, I will do better and have lots of good and exciting things to talk about.

As far as the farm, we recently took our two dairy goats to FLG Farms in Taylorsville to have them bred. Hopefully, we will have some sweet furry little baby Nigies in the early Spring. We are crossing our fingers! Speaking of FLG Farms, if you're into natural health and beauty products, you should definitely check out their website. Ms. Lee Ann makes the most wonderful goats milk products I have ever used. My latest addiction is her Peppermint Lip Balm. It's LUSCIOUS!!!! You can learn all about Lee Ann, her products, and her awesome farm HERE.

These cooler months and less daylight hours have done a number on our chicken girlies. They have been through a pretty rough molt and are finally getting their pretty feathers back in and they have been protesting lately and our egg production had pretty much come to a stand still. The hubby was having conversations with them about visits to KFC or a hot tub stint in the stew pot. We refuse to buy store bought eggs anymore! Ha Ha. All jokes aside....we added a light to the coop to increase their daylight exposure and.....VOILA....egg production is slowly increasing. All is right with the world. :)

I also want to share with you all our most recent family pictures that we had done for our family Christmas card. We hope you enjoy them. They were alot of fun to make. As always, thank you all for your support to our family, our blog, and our beginning farm venture. We are still learning and have a ways to go but it's been a wonderful experience. We wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rick, Audra, Drew, and Addi Ellis