Tag: family farm

Today, In Le Farmville

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The cows calmly walked to ” soccer pitch. ”  A paddock named for form and function, or potential function.  They are behind that giant oak.  Very happy and very munchy.

Brent is moving the hay in, one ball at a time.   These are the balls to come in from ” Adventure Playground.” I feel a Lotto coming on…

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Lucy wore spectacular pants today.  Thankfully my fashion statement has carried on through my daughters.  No need to get fancy now.  I’ll just pop these jeans on again and swipe some mascara on.  Sit back and enjoy the progeny.

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We Sold Some Beef!

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recovery
A very exciting piece of the puzzle was placed yesterday.  After all the farm searching, cow breed research, cow herd merging, fencing, pen building, pasture building, tractor buying, French system learning, heifer finishing and all the bits and pieces that helped us get better at making great beef … we sold some meat.  It was a great day.  It was great to see how this part of the business runs.  Oh there were hiccups.  The butcher was a bit late.  Brent was a bit late.  Beef buyers were waiting.  The kids did their best to entertain.  Brownies were served. Michael was there to mingle and look after people.  It all came together.  This is our first iteration of making great tasting beef.
we sold meat!
In geek speak, we shipped our 1.0.  In dancer, it was our opening night.  All the work that goes into shipping or opening a show follows with an all-day low.  There’s still so much work to do.  So many improvements to list and act on.  But for a few hours, we’re taking a big “sigh” ready to get rolling with the next set of beef boxes.  In the meantime, we have money going into our project.  Money that will help us improve our product.  Money that helped cover costs.  But more importantly, we fed people.  We fed people grass fed, grass finished beef that is tasty.  Beef that is healthy.  We feel pretty great about that.  I’m looking forward to our next beef offering hoping each one will be better than the last.

What A Great Friday

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Hay!
Nothing perks up the soul like a warm, sunny day in December (well except maybe hot chocolate by the fire after a long day working in the cold).  Today was dry so Brent and the gentleman helping us with the barn roofing could move swiftly fixing the crazy holes and damage incurred during the mean, bad wind storm (tempête) of 2009.  It’s always a toss up with the roof.  If you don’t fix it, the roof will eventually fall in.  There are countless examples of ruins of this kind around the countryside.  If you fix that little hole, the house or barn will stay put for ages even generations.  But, do we need a roof for the cattle pens?  In the case where it’s one small beam and five roof tiles, well yes, why not?  But what about a lot of rotten beams and a whole lotta roof tiles?  Brent’s original design was in the open air.  There wasn’t a roof to be built.  We’re here in the old pens and barns that all have a roof of some description and in some sort of condition needing some sort of repair.  Do we fix it or tear it down.  The answer so far has been fix some, tear down the crap.  But more importantly, how can we use the digger?  It turns out, the digger is great for lifting things and/or people to get to roofy bits.  It’s also great for ripping out old, cement pole stuff that’s no longer needed.  Not only a beautiful sunny day today, but a day the tractopelle got to eat gazole, lift crap and rip stuff down

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old barn, big hole

a can on a cold ciment roof

Tosca looking small

Tosca and Legend made sure the house was safe by laying by the warm stone walls.  Tosca with her grand belly is looking a bit miniature as Legend grows to his full size.  She’s a ripe age of eight years and he is eight months today.