Hello friends, it's been awhile!

long time, no post....you know, summertime, we live on a farm - gets kind of busy! excuses, excuses, but here we go

Yesterday's sunrise was oddly beautiful. It doesn't break light these days until nearly 8am, and the sky went straight to bright blue between the spotted clouds - it looked almost like a giraffe's spots, only in feathery white and blue. The sky to the south was dark and promised rain, and it looked COLD.

It seemed a good idea to wake my nearly 3 year old daughter so she could have breakfast and we could do chores in time before it might rain. She and my nearly 1 year old son go along and we feed our goats, our livestock guardian dogs, my horse, and our little bottle calves. Our boy rides in the stroller, and our daughter's big enough now that she walks alongside and gets to help feed the goats and pour the feed to the dog.

My father-in-law was outside also, he starts his chores in the dark because he's not afraid of a little cold (my excuse is it's difficult to keep the kids warm, so we wait until the sun shines a bit!) and he told me it had been drizzling rain south of us, but it wasn't going to come as far north as us. Too bad...we could really use the rain! Our county and several counties around us are experiencing EXTREME drought.

This has been an unusual farming year, the lilacs bloomed in April this year instead of the first week of May like usual. And the pattern continued, it was warmer than usual almost every month - July like temperatures in June, July, and August, September was as hot as August, October more like September. With the heat and lack of rainfall, the crops were ready to run in September, and we were finished by the first week of October. This was a first for our farm to my knowledge - which meant we got a lot of warm fall days this year to catch up on other work.

If we would have just gotten significantly more rainfall, crop yields would have been great. Drought and high yields just don't go together, though. But it could have been much worse, while our yields were down significantly in corn, they were about the same in soybeans, and the prices are looking great, which really helps!

Already this year's calves have been weaned, the corn and beans are in the bin, we've moved that goats around, the silo is filled, a new field has been cleared for hay and planted, wheat has been planted.....surely I'm missing some things. I'll try to post more frequently to catch things as they happen, and maybe I'll post some short re-caps over the winter.

Introduction

It's high time I begun this blog, and started writing posts for it. After all, it is a big part of why I began blogging in the first place!

At the 2008 Indiana Farm Bureau Young Farmer conference last January, one of the speakers talked about how farmers can best stand up for their right to farm the land, raise livestock, and feed America. These rights are being challenged more and more by a variety of groups, and agriculture is at risk.

One of the ways was to get into the "blogosphere" by posting comments and blogging about the things we do on our farms and getting onto the animal rights and environmentalists blogs and leaving challenging (yet polite) comments to try to educate others about what we really do and why it is the right thing to do.

So, this is my hope for this blog:

• Talk about our farm operation and why we do the things the way we do them


• Explain why it's morally acceptable to eat meat and raise livestock


• Share information that may help others who also farm or who are interested in learning more about it

Specific things we raise that may be discussed on this web log:

• Charolais/Angus Beef - We have a 60 cow/calf operation, and finish the calves born as well as buying and finishing feeder calves




• Meat Goats - We have a small herd of boer cross meat goats, with about 10 mature does.




• Livestock Guardian Dogs - To protect our investment in the goats, we have a Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog. LGD's are bred to protect small livestock from predators (coyotes, birds of prey, etc.)




• Rotational/Management Intensive Grazing - A good way to increase pastureland productivity




• Corn




• Soybeans




• Hay - Both for sale off the farm and to feed our animals




• Wheat/Straw - Most of this is raised to bed down our animals




• Corn Silage - Chopped by our neighbor, used to feed our cattle and goats in the winter months




• Vegetable Garden - My family's personal garden, we grow sweet corn, potatoes, onions, green beans, strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, garlic....and are always interested in trying new things. Most of this produce is stored for our family's use by freezing and home-canning. We also eat a lot of it as it's picked!