Discovering Life and Loss

Where do I begin? So much has happened over the past several months. I feel like we're going a thousand different directions. Sometimes you have to take a step back and realize that you can only do so much. You must prioritize and go from there. Another "live and learn" moment.

So where are we? Neck deep in pastured chicken and pork. THAT is for sure. The community has welcomed us with open arms as a local provider and meat is flying out of here faster than we can process it. We may have found our "nitch" in the world. We are so blessed that the reception has been good and we are working hard to continue improving on what we've built so far.

Dottie

Our two goat mamas gave us gorgeous babies. Cocoa, the pro, gave us a set of twin does, which we have named Dottie and Gidget. They are now 4 weeks old and doing very well.

Gidget

 Tillie, surprised us for sure on her first pregnancy. She gave us a gorgeous set of triplets, a doe and two bucklings. Our daughter named the little doe Chloe. We named the boys Oreo and Domino.

Domino and Chloe came into this world struggling from the get go. They ingested some of mom's birthing fluids and were treated for pneumonia and wore "sock sweaters" for over a week and slept under a heat lamp so that we could keep their temperatures up. They both seemed to be doing much better and then it appeared that Chloe wasn't getting as much to eat as her brothers. We began bottle feeding her but she never came out of it.

Chloe passed away this past Saturday. She was 3 weeks old. It is our first loss since we began raising Nigerian Dwarfs three years ago. My heart just broke and I felt like such a failure that I couldn't make her better. But I'm a realist. I know it comes with the territory when you decide to raise farm animals. Domino and Oreo continue to thrive and already have new homes waiting for them where they'll go in another 4 weeks. They are beautiful boys and will make wonderful herd sires.

Domino

Oreo

 We just brought 7 new piglets to the farm to add to our pastured pork program and we have 70 new Freedom Ranger chicks that were moved to the mobile chicken tractor in the field for the meat bird production.

Farmer's Market season has begun and we are busy every Saturday morning. I look forward to market every week and enjoy meeting new people and telling them about what we're doing at Ellis Farms. Things are going well and we continue to be blessed by our customers in our farming adventures. As always, thank you for supporting us. We couldn't do it without you.










Until next time,
Audra AKA Head Farm Mama at Ellis Farms.

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