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.

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'

Learning From The Pros......Piedmont Farm Tour 2014

This past weekend we decided to send the kids to the grandparents and head towards the eastern part of the state and take part in the largest farm tour in the United States. It's sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. I've learned quickly that these folks have a wealth of knowledge and really want to help up and coming beginner farmers. We spent two days visiting a total of 6 farms (there were a total of 36 farms to pick from).

On Saturday, we took part in a special bus tour that was only for beginner farmers. We were able to take notes, ask questions, and really get up and personal with the owners and workers at each location. Our first stop was to Perry-winkle Farm. They have sustainably grown vegetables, and cut flowers. They have a crop rotation system to insure a healthy environment. They had two chicken tractors with two different types of meat birds. We also got to see their Hebel Block passive-solar greenhouse. They also have an onsite brick bread oven. The smells coming from that thing were mouth watering!


Next stop was to Granite Springs Farm whose future plan is an interesting concept. They grow vegetables and have pastured laying hens. But the very cool thing was their 95 foot long hoop house where they grow vegetables and oyster mushrooms that are grown on straw in bags and suspended in the air. It looked very complicated to me! They also practice vermicompost using earthworms. This is a 140 acre farm and their eventual plan is to create an intentional agrarian community where all of the homes will be together on the property and everyone farms and works together.

Our last stop on Saturday was to Cozi farm where they raise Jersey dairy cows, sheep, and meat chickens. They also had some beautiful Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs.

On Sunday, we got to choose the three farms that we most wanted to see, so we really tried to pinpoint places that were of interest to us as far as similarities in produce and livestock.

First stop was to Chapel Hill Creamery. Here they turn soil, sunlight, and grass into delicious farmhouse cheeses. They had a beautiful herd of Jersey cows. We got to ride a wagon pulled by draft horses. We saw some pigs who eat the whey left over from making the cheese and we got to see their team of oxen that they use to plow the fields on the property. Of course, I bought some cheese. No way could I pass that up!

Our second stop was to Fickle Creek Farm. They had egg mobiles where you got to pick your own fresh eggs. They also raise sheep and lambs, steers, pastured pigs, ducks, and Freedom Ranger broiler chickens. They also have a market garden. I came away with some fresh country sausage!

Our last stop was to Minka Farm where I got to love on some meat and dairy goat babies. They also raise pigs and beef cattle. I met a new donkey friend as well.

 We came away with lots of new ideas and things we'd like to try and implement at Ellis Farms. Wish us luck!

Til next time,

Audra

Planning for Spring

We're making our way through Winter and are slowly seeing those first signs of warmer weather, which means things are about to kick into gear here on the farm. It will be potato planting time in two weeks! One of our projects that we're almost finished with is a greenhouse. This will enable us to start our seeds and plants earlier to keep them healthy and ready to be put in the ground at planting time. The hubby has done a great job on it.

We have been in talks with a local restaurant, Farmer Baker Sausage Maker, that is set to open up in March here in Lincolnton. They have been using our molasses in their food hub and other places while their restaurant is being finished. They are discussing with the hubby about growing onions and potatoes, among other things, to use in the restaurant. We are very excited about this venture with them.
In addition to the veggies, we are anxiously awaiting the birth of new Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. We are fairly positive our primary milker, Cocoa, is pregnant. You can take a guess by her picture. :) I'm crossing my fingers for a set of twins.

 And last but not least, we have a newcomer to the farm. We adopted Miss Emmee, a 5-year-old tortoiseshell cat, who will join Miss Sassy in the house. She's still getting acclimated to the house, the other pets, and us. We will keep you posted on how she's doing. Til next time, The Ellis'

Keeping The Family Tradition Alive

Wow! That's all I can say! We have had a whirlwind of a week at the farm (in addition to school starting back and the stress of having a middle schooler and a kindergartener in the mix). This week marked the start of molasses season at Ellis Farms. Harvest time came two weeks early due to all the rain we've had so by the end of last week, it was time to begin harvesting our sorghum cane. On Friday, we had the pleasure of a visit by a reporter and a photographer from The Lincoln Times News, our local newspaper. They wanted to do a story on our molasses and the history of the farm. They took some great pictures and wrote an absolutely wonderful story about the Ellis family farm. You can read it here. We aren't finished cooking yet. Our first batch yielded just over 16 gallons. We are cooking the second batch this coming Saturday and will likely have two more batches after that. We love visitors, so if you want to come see this process, feel free to come on by. You can have some molasses of your very own for $8 a quart. Just stop by the farm.

Another very cool thing that's happened is that we were contact yesterday by a Chef who currently operates a restaurant in Charlotte, NC. They are in the process of starting a new restaurant in Lincolnton that will feature locally grown goods on their menu. They want to purchase molasses from us! Check out their Facebook page Farmer Baker Sausage Maker. We are so excited about the possibility of our molasses being used in a local restaurant. Who knows where this could lead! I'm game for just about anything! Til next time.....

It's Still Blazing Hot....But We're Planning For Fall!

Folks are still taking summer vacations and enjoying the warm weather, but at our place.....we are planning and planting....for our first Fall crop. We hope to have red cabbage, green cabbage, broccoli, kale, lettuce, spinach, and turnips.We are expanding into our upper field and hope to have 200-300 plants going of each variety. We have begun working on seed trays this week and we are crossing our fingers that all goes well to start these plants.

Our newest hen, a Dark Brahma that our daughter named Bootsie, has been at the farm almost two weeks. She is making herself at home and getting to know her new flock family.

The next "big" family project coming up at the end of the month is harvesting the sorghum cane and continuing on with the Ellis family tradition of making molasses. The family has made molasses in Lincoln County for over 75 years. Last year, they made over 60 gallons. The family tradition and ways of harvesting and cooking have been passed down from generation to generation. It's an interesting process to see in person. We will be cutting around the end of the month. If you're in for a road trip and want to see the molasses being made, we'd love to have you.

Rainy Days On The Homestead

I'd never have thought I'd ever say this...but I'm ready for a drought. This extremely rainy summer has caused a fiasco here on the farm and in my hometown in general. My goats are ticked because they hate the rain, which forces them into the barn most days....making a very stinky place in a quick way. The chickens tend to hang in there with them so the stink factor multiplies. All this means more frequent cleanouts of the shavings in the barn so that everyone stays healthy. Another result of this overabundance of rain is a decrease in egg production. I'm hearing from some of my chicken friends that they are seeing this as well. Sadly, our garden has also been affected by the rain and our output has been much less than we originally planned for. I guess you live and learn. But we are fortunate for what we've been able to do this first year.

This month has been nothing short of nuts. It's the only way to describe it. I performed my first surgery on an injured chicken. Ruby, one of our Red Cuckoo Orpingtons, developed Bumblefoot. All I can say is THANK GOD for the Livestock Production class I've been taking and this wonderful blog I follow The Chicken Chick. If it weren't for the step-by-step instructions, we'd never have been able to do this. My kitchen island looked like a murder scene but we did it. Miss Ruby is back to the coop with her buddies and healing well.

Sadly, we lost one of our favorites recently. I came home from work to find Big Bertha dead between the coop and the barn. We know she was an older bird. She had been in good health and we hadn't noticed anything odd with her. She was one of our favorites who loved to eat peanuts from your hand. We will will miss her dearly.

This past weekend, the western end of Lincoln County that I call home, suffered a major flash flood. Several roads were under water, livestock was washed away, and homes and basements were flooded. It was truly devastating to our small town. Thankfully, Ellis Farm was unscathed in the mess. We do have a creek that runs adjacent to the area where the chickens and goats are. I checked on them periodically all weekend. We were blessed to have no damages when so many others can't say that. They continue to be in our prayers.

On a brighter note, we are bringing a new chicken home this afternoon. She's a year old Dark Brahma. A "big 'ol girl" as we say. We have a juvenile Buff Brahma that we recently brought to the farm and I've fallen in love with the breed. We are excited to have her. Peace, Love, and Hugs......Til next time......

Livestock Production 101

This summer I've been doing something I swore was done and over with in 2003 when I finished my Masters degree. I went back to school. But this time it's much more fun! Early in the Spring, I discovered that Western Piedmont Community College in Morganton, NC was offering a short course on Livestock Production. The cost of the class was relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of things. The course consists of 4 Saturdays, spread throughout the Summer where they teach you all you need to know about the three common "small farm" livestock options and how to use these animals to live off the land. The last Saturday is dedicated to teaching you basic veterinary care. We decided that it would be good to invest $120 to take this class so that I could soak up as much info as possible. A friend of mine is taking the class also. I've had one class so far...SHEEP 101...which was pretty interesting. We don't have sheep on our farm, but I learned that sheep and goats are pretty similar in terms of their care.

Western Piedmont has its own small self-sustaining farm on campus, which I found to be very cool. They sheer the sheep and process the wool and sell it. The money goes back to the campus. The goats are Nubian dairy goats, which have beautiful faces and awesome floppy ears. The goats on the campus farm are very friendly and love to be petted. They have a wonderful set up and I am learning a great deal already. This coming Saturday is GOAT 101 followed by CHICKEN 101 in a couple of weeks. The vet care day is in August. I'm glad that I decided to go back to school for some learnin' that is actually fun and will benefit us on our family farm. Speaking of dairy goats, By this week, I had accumulated enough goat milk- a little over 5 quarts to be exact and I made my first run of goat cheese. We decided to start with an easy recipe for making chevre' which is a mild and creamy cheese, almost like what most know as cream cheese. Once the cheese is made, you can add flavors or spices to make it whatever you wish. It can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks or, if left plain, you can freeze it for up to 6 months. When you decide to use it, you just thaw it out and add your spices then. Each batch makes about two lbs. of goat cheese.

I'm still learning, so this is a trial and error thing for me. This first batch I thought was too rubbery, but we salvaged it by running it through the blender and adding a little more milk to it, turning it into basically a spread. I split our batch into two 1 lb portions. I added spices and made a batch of garlic dill and a batch of spinach & herb.

Changes

Life at our house has been nothing short of crazed lately, which is why I haven't done much blogging. Our garden has exploded with veggies and I'm trying to can, pickle, or sell to make room for more.

Cocoa kidded on the 20th with a gorgeous buckling, who I think looks like a little cow.

In only a week, we have found a buyer for him. They specifically requested a bottle baby so at a week old, he is leaving us today to travel to his new home in the NC Mountains. We also sold all of the Silkie chicks that we hatched out for Miss Mudpie, brought in 3 more hens, one being a special needs crossbeaked Americauna. And tomorrow, we are adopting a special needs Manx kitty named Diamond, who will be our official farm cat. In the midst off all this, we managed to put in a new pool liner next door at my father-in-laws, just in time to help our youngest celebrate her 5th birthday. We are traveling to Black Mountain today to visit Round Mountain Creamery, NC's only Grade A Goat Dairy. I'm hoping to learn some tidbits of info to use with my dairy goats here. I'm off from my full time job all week and intend to relax a bit and spend time with my kiddos. Til next time.....

Trying To Catch My Breath

I'm trying to come up for air here but goodness it's hard!!! We've had so much going on at the farm and there is still so much to do. Some days I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew, but I'm hard-headed and determined. I refused to say that I can't do something. So....where to start? These past few weeks since my last post have been non-stop. On top of family and farm life, I've started a new part time job at a Crisis/Detox facility, which is very different from my world of working with juvenile delinquents. I'm still adjusting, learning, and finding my way. On the farm, we have continued tending to our garden, which has begun giving us gifts.I enjoy going out to the garden after work each day to see how things have changed in such a short amount of time.

We have cut and baled hay and gotten it loaded into the barn loft. We will have to do it again in the fall. This provides the main food source for the goats and the rabbit. Considering it's free, that's an awesome thing. The kids were a huge help in the process and our oldest learned to drive the tractor while we loaded up the trailer with the bales in the field. He's learning that getting older means more responsibilities on the farm.

Given the increased number of animals on our homestead, we've begun learning some basic veterinary care that we can do ourselves at home versus taking the animals somewhere or calling a vet out to the house. You Tube is a wonderful learning tool in that regard....ie. giving a goat a vaccine, The hubby did it like a pro. Last night was treating the rabbit for ear mites. A week ago, it was a chicken who got pecked in the eye by another chicken. It's a never ending saga when you have farm animals.

We are prepping for Cocoa to have her babies (I swear there has to be more than one in there as big as she is.) I am assembling a birthing/kidding kit based on what I've gathered reading online, books, and from other goat owners.

We are very excited to have our first dairy goats born on the farm. Yesterday I ordered a Cheesemaker's kit from Hoegger Supply Company. It has everything that I need to get started. I'm anxious to learn to make goat cheese in different ways.

Now...on top of everything else we have going on, we did manage to have a little fun on the farm these last few weeks. We hosted a local photographer who came out to do family photo sessions. We had hay bales, tractors, the barn, and a rustic bench that were used as backdrops for some really great shots. You can check these out here Family Photo Sessions At Ellis Farms. Here is one of my favorites of us. We are planning to do this again in the Fall. I'm hoping we can make it a regular event. Til next time!

Getting Trashy On The Farm

Recently at Ellis Farms, we "acquired" a Rubbermaid tote full of worms and worm dirt. I say "acquired" because it was essentially given to us from the local 4-H Office. I have been involved in the 4-H program here since I was 5 years old, first as a 4-H'er then as a volunteer. I currently serve on the 4-H Advisory Board. At the last board meeting, I was asked, "Hey! Do you want our worms?" And I was like, "Huh?" It was then I was quickly educated on the world of Vermiculture. According to Wikipedia, "Vermicompost is the product or process of composting using various worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast. Vermicast, also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by an earthworm.^[1] These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than do organic materials before vermicomposting.^[2] Containing water-soluble nutrients, vermicompost is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner.^[3] This process of producing vermicompost is called vermicomposting."

And so, this tote of worms made it's way to our upstairs office where, for the past few months, I have fed them veggie scraps and left them alone. Easiest pet you'll ever have! Haha

This past weekend, I decided the worms needed to make their way from the office to a REAL compost bin. So I did some quick research, finding a great helpful article Composing- A Guide To Making Compost At Home. Using scrap wood from the family sawmill, and in no more than an hour, our household compost bin was complete.

My plan, is to use the compost for planting flowers mainly, but I'm sure it will be used in the garden. It's a great way to make natural fertilizer from things that you'd normal throw out with the trash. The next thing I did was order a kitchen composter that will fit under the kitchen cabinet so I can collect the food scraps and then, when it's full, dump it into the outside bin. I found a cute one online for $19.00 plus free shipping at Hayneedle.