It's been a fair while since we posted anything about the farm. Some folks were wondering if we made it through the pandemic. Did we quit our hobby farm? Are we still alive?
First things first, we got through the pandemic. We went a few round with it, but in the end we are all still here. Our hobby farm continues to grow, and with that comes new projects. Many. New. Projects. Oh, my, gosh. Sooooooo much to do around here. I don't know what or where to start with.... I guess a list of stuff we have planned out for this spring might do:
Green house needs a new canopy.
Rabbit barn needs to be cleaned out. (ya, an actual dedicated bunny barn now!)
Rabbit manure gets milled and bagged up for sale.
Lumber to mill out...lots....of...lumber. (like, spring through fall cut cut cut cut cut....)
Pigs to play with. (new on the farm as of last fall)
Fields to actually PLANT a crop into this year! (got some equipment to prep...)
Gardens are getting skipped this year to let the soils "rest"
Need to build out mobile tractor/pens for chickens and pigs.
Building an enclosed pavillion for our upcoming laying hens and grow-outs for the juvenile rabbits. (fields are getting worked up this year so the mobile rabbit pens are going to be in the way out there, if we were to use them)
And a couple of tractors to monkey around with. Misc farm equipment too.
I'm missing stuff on this list, I'm sure. But that's what comes to mind right now.
So what have we kept ourselves busy with the past couple years? Oh, we would need a bit of time to jot it all out. But the big stuff would be:
Bought a 72" 3point, PTO driven rototiller for the Farmall M. Probably my most favorite toy...er... tool for the tractor. Also refurbished an old seed drill for planting. Collected a couple of tillage pieces for the fields as well. This is the first year any of the fields have seen serious cultivation work in probably 45+ years. I expect to be breaking stuff on a regular basis for a while as I try to tame the grounds around here. (already have actually....ugh...)
I mentioned the Bunny barn. That was pretty neat. We bought a pair of 40' Conex shipping containers. One is set up to keep our feed stocks safe and dry, the other got cut up and built out to house our rabbits. Heh, rabbits. Emphasis on the SSSS there. In our last few posts so long ago, we were at about what...8 or 10 does and 2 or 3 bucks???? Well, demand for the hairballs and their fertilizer has pushed us into the upper 20's on does, and half a dozen or more bucks. We still maintain separate blood lines. And we are venturing into the pet market with a couple of dwarf/mini breeds this year. Last summer saw our first "house" rabbits. AKA, bunnies that live house as pets. My better half swore up and down that would NEVER happen. Eh, well...a litter emergency came up and well....we needed to hand feed a couple kits for a while. Bet you can see where that goes. Hahaha. One kit went the county fair and then to a new home. The other kit. Hmm. How do you say it? The other kit ... ... ... is not going to leave the farm. Ever. She is too big to keep in the house now, so she's out in the barn with the rest of em. She's special. I'll post some more about her later. She's a fun one.
I'm going to find some random pics of stuff around the farm that we have been busy with,
to share with y'all. Keep an eye out for more, soon.