Resource Management Blog Entries
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 on-farm resource management. They may cover any one or more of the following topics:
waste management
energy management
forestry management
water management
soil management
Or they may simply be essays about some general aspect of resource management. 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!
Good Dirt
March 18, 2011
Preview of this blog entry:
"We’ve been doing a tremendous amount of planting and transplanting in the greenhouse lately - peppers, rosemary, thyme, tomatoes, sage, oregano. So much transplanting that it seems I’ve never had hands or clothes without soil stains on them. So it might seem odd that I would come home, wash up, and then turn around and write about soil. Yet, soil is at the core of everything we do. There’s the saying that if we don’t have our health, we have nothing at all. It could just as easily be said that if we don’t have good soil, we can’t have good health. Why is that?"
Click here to read the rest of the blog entry.
Mud
February 28, 2011
Preview of this blog entry:
"Mud is a reality on most of the farms I’ve ever visited, including ours. Whether that’s seasonally or year-round, in some spots or everywhere, ankle-deep or axle-deep, mud is a factor to be considered in virtually everyone’s farm planning at some point. We’re no different here. Mud has been, and continues to be, one of the realities for on-farm design, management, health care and chore efficiency. The bad news is, mud can appear in the most amazing places, and some would argue its presence is inevitable. The good news is, mud can be predicted, studied and minimized. If we take the time and make the effort to do so..."
Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.
The Fine Art Of Creating Real Wealth
January 10, 2011
Preview of this blog entry:
"We spent the day today manufacturing money.
Ok, not literally. We don't have a counterfeit printing operation. Rather, we spent today creating material wealth, which is functionally the same thing as creating money. Specifically, some friends had offered us a truckload of firewood which had been sitting at their place for several years. They had harvested it but never needed it, and they didn't want it to go to waste. So for the cost of a relatively short drive and 45 minutes of effort, they helped us load enough wood to heat our house for several months. We saved money twice - we didn’t buy in wood, and we won't have to fire up the baseboard heaters. And the best part, we got to socialize while working. In fact you could hardly call it working..."
Click here to view the rest of the blog entry.
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
January 7, 2011
Preview of this blog entry:
"I spent the day digging in cow poo.
Well, to be more specific, I spent the day cleaning out one of our cow's deep-bedded stalls. It's an exercise I need to do on a regular basis anyway. Lately I'd been pretty busy and had let that task go in favor of other bigger fires. The result was our cow-vaulting attempt two days ago. Clear signal to me that I needed to attend to that task..."
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!