Weblog Archives:
Farm Ethics, Farm Policies and Farm Politics
We have created this blog categorization system as a way to organize and preserve the daily blogs written about our farming life. We hope you find this categorization system helpful.
The following blog entries are all related in some way to the topic of farm ethics, policies and/or politics. They may cover any one or more of the following topics:
animal welfare
farm policy impact
farmland preservation
agricultural politics
farm business ethics
Or they may simply be essays about some other aspect of farm ethics, policies and politics. We hope you find something useful here, or at least some pleasant reading.
If there is some way we can improve our archiving system, please Contact Us and we'll take your recommendations into consideration.
Enjoy!
Kill Days
January 29, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"There are many tasks on the farm that I enjoy, such as planting. There are even more tasks on the farm that I don't particularly enjoy, but which need doing, such as mucking out stalls. Then there are just a small number of tasks on the farm which I absolutely hate, but which are necessary for the life we lead and the products we sell. Top of that list are the so-called kill days, when I need to kill animals for whatever reason. Some folks refer to it as culling. Some call it butchering. Some call it harvesting. Whatever folks call it, it's a hard task and I dread those days. Today was one of them."
Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.
New Life For An Old Barn
January 24, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"The farm where we buy our hay is what I would call a traditional farm, with all the familiar outbuildings we generally associate with American agricultural landscapes. The larger barn in particular is a gambrel-roofed beauty, made popular in the early 1900's on dairy farms around the country. These grand dames of agricultural architecture could house tremendous amounts of feed and shelter the herds from whatever vagaries the four seasons might bring. They were, and are, an endearing symbol of what some would call the Golden Age of American agriculture..."
Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.
A Man's A Man For A' That
January 15, 2011
Preview for this blog entry:
"Today was one of those rare days when we took off the work clothes, put on the town clothes, and spent the evening at a purely social event, a Robert Burns Dinner. Robert Burns was a poet, born in Scotland in the 1700’s, and taken before his time at the tender age of 37. During that brief life, he wrote over 600 poems, many of them about the working life of the poor, the disenfranchised, the common man of his native land. Burns’ poems, written in the dialect of Scotland’s commoner, celebrated that cultural identity even as it brought that culture into the parlors and towers of the day’s rich and elite. Thanks to his work, Scots could look upon their nation’s history, culture and arts with fondness and pride, regardless of what their social standing was in the world at that time. Even 200 years later, his poetry speaks to anyone who works with their hands, scratching a living amongst elite who don’t seem to care. His work celebrates the unique language, cuisine, and stoic humor of a culture which otherwise may simply have been ignored long enough to finally be forgotten. Tonight’s meal, the bagpipes, the poetry and even the haggis, were all a celebration of that life’s work."
Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.
Our Successful Farming and Ranching Books
We released our very first self-published book. The Chicken Coop Manual in 2014. It is a full color guide to conventional and alternative poultry housing options, including 8 conventional stud construction plans, 12 alternative housing methods, and almost 20 different design features. This book is available on Amazon.com and as a PDF download. Please visit The Chicken Coop Manual page for more information.
Rabbit Colonies: Lessons Learned
We started with rabbits in 2002, and we've been experimenting with colony management ever since. Fast forward to 2017, when I decided to write another book, this time about colony management. The book is chock-full of practical information, and is available from both Amazon and as a PDF download. Please visit the Rabbit Colonies page for more information.
The Pastured Pig Handbook
We are currently working on our next self-published book: The Pastured Pig Handbook. This particular book addresses a profitable, popular and successful hog management approach which sadly is not yet well documented. Our handbook, will cover all the various issues involved with pastured hog management, including case studies of numerous current pastured pig operations. If you have any questions about this book, please Contact Us.
Weblog Archives
We published a farm blog between January 2011 and April 2012. We reluctantly ceased writing them due to time constraints, and we hope to begin writing them again someday. In the meantime, we offer a Weblog Archive so that readers can access past blog articles at any time.
If and when we return to writing blogs, we'll post that news here. Until then, happy reading!