A friend made a Facebook comment a while back that got me thinking. It actually stirred up about 3 or 4 blog posts that I know we need to make, but I really wanted to address the reason why I take as many pictures as I do of my animals. He mentioned that when he was growing up on farms, there were not a lot of pictures being taken. Then my brain starting wondering about the statement. Of course, we can attribute much of it to so many people having a camera in their back pocket these days. I think I probably use my cell phone more for the camera than I do for talking. Back “in the day” cameras were a luxury and you had to send the film off for developing. Today it's instant and immediate. I am one of those people who sees something and wants to put it out there for all world to see. Snap that shot and upload it to Instagram and Facebook accounts simultaneously – yup, that’s me folks. When we were in the talking stages about buying property Mark did the technical, scientific, and scholarly research. I read blogs and message boards. We compared notes about what the other learned, and decided that when we had our farm we would start a blog. The main purpose of our blog is a journal for us. With our family and friends spread all over the world, what better way to share our triumphs, tribulations and the occasional outright failure than to put it all out there. I still continue to read and learn so much from blogs – the folks who have been there, done that. I want to share our journey so that hopefully some young couple 5 or 10 years from now will stumble upon our blog and know that it’s possible for anyone to live their dream. I take the hundreds of photos that I do for a couple of reasons. First and most important is to document where we have been and what we are doing. Another reason why I started was to change the view of our livestock. When we told people we were going to raise goats there were some comments that were not favorable. Many people have ill-conceived notions about goats, and I wanted to change that view. I like to think I have converted a few. To some people there is a downside, but for us, this is our business plan and the future of Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. We are raising meat goats. We are raising livestock. We are not raising pets. Oh sure, if we win the Powerball then I can afford to keep every goat as a special pet, but currently that’s just not possible. Some of the goats that we are caring for will not spend their entire lives on our farm. Some might. Many of the goats will wind up being sent to an auction, sold to someone who is looking for meat to feed his family or for a special occasion, bought for a pet, or sent to the slaughterhouse so that we can sell the meat off of our farm. Another reason we chose the name Must Bee Kiddin’ as our farm name is because in order to meet those market demands and make a profit, we will always need those new kids. I think back to the small town where I grew up. On the outskirts were a lot of farms, some small, some large. I loved the big red, weathered looking barns and silos. I loved the rolling green hills dotted by dairy cows with swollen udders or big fat meat cows that would grace a dinner table and fill many freezers one day. I can still hear and smell the farms in my mind many, many years later. The animals were well cared for, but were a source of income and food for the family who raised them. I wish I could find the exact quote, but I cannot. There is a farmer in Virginia named Joe Salatin who was talking about how he cares for his livestock. He said something like, he gives them great lives, treats them very well, and they have one bad day – that would be the day of their slaughter. What would our lives as human beings be if we only had one bad day?
I will not lie and say that it’s going to be easy the day my bottle baby goat leaves the farm – however she goes and whatever her purpose will be. I never one time thought that just because she had this special treatment, that that would somehow change her fate. I was just that person who raised her, and helped her to fulfill her goat purpose in her life. We are currently discussing selling her soon, along with her twin sister. They are very friendly goats, but they do not fit the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm program goals. To put it in sports terms, there isn’t enough room on the roster and they have to be cut from the team. Have you ever thought about where your food comes from? I would like for you each to do one thing for me. Next time you bake that chicken or fry that pork chop or slap that bacon next to those eggs – think about where all that food comes from. Think about what kinds of lives those animals live and what conditions they endured every day. Think about how they were treated and what they were fed to simply keep them alive. All the antibiotics and steroids that were being injected or fed to them. Now, ask yourself if you would rather eat something that you know lives a better and cleaner life? So, I guess what my ultimate purpose in taking those hundreds of pictures that I do of my livestock is that I can show potential customers how their food lives. I am not ashamed of their conditions, and am proud of how I treat my animals. I will continue to post photos and share what we do at Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. Why? Because we want people to know where their food comes from. //tr If you are interested in more photos, you can always follow me on Instagram: @tuesdayriegen
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Previously, I posted about the importance of knowing the basic topographical features of the land and prevailing weather patterns. I sketched out a nice little topo/weather map of the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm property. On this map I outlined the major wind patterns according to season. It’s now spring in our part of Central Florida and Mother Nature takes this to heart. Throwing interesting weather combos our way better than a major league change-up is something she does best. Most everyone knows the saying, “March; in like a lion and out like a lamb”. Well, March’s roar came early this year. Just before the close of February a cold front swept through our part of Central Florida dropping overnight lows into the mid twenties. Behind this cold, deep-sweeping northern front was a warm Caribbean blast. This warm, tropical weather movement developed quickly. Pushing through like an experienced marauder under the cover of darkness on high winds, it wreaked havoc on some of the taller sand pines around Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. The stormy weather rolled through off the Gulf of Mexico and put a hurtin’ on some of the farm’s meager assets. Challenge and farming go together like a hand in glove--one of the things I love about it (yeah, I’ve got some gamble in me). But, anytime there’s a piece of knowledge, wisdom or technology that tips the odds to our favor and gives us an edge...hells yeah! I'd like to especially thank my farm neighbor Mike. On a moments notice he grabbed his chainsaw and helped out, saving me the fifty mile round trip back to the house. Note to self; load chainsaw in truck after a storm blows through. Hurricane season is around the corner and I'm forecasting much chainsaw singing around Must Bee Kiddin' Farm. //mr
February is a transition month here in Central Florida. We usually experience all four seasons during this very short month. This year was no different. We had beautiful fall and spring weather, one winter morning of 25ish degrees and the final two days of the month were hot and muggy like summer. While you may often hear us complain about morning temps. in the 30’s and 40’s, the weather really isn't horrible. Just get used to dressing in layers with a warm hat and you're good to go. February was also a transition month for us at Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. Things are really starting to take shape with the farm and we have finally mastered the net fencing and the moving of the goats every 7 days, 14 if we really want an area cleared. Although February is a short month, the list of accomplishments wasn't:
Complimentary butterscotch flavored selenium samples Goats were informed as to their ages by teeth structure analysis Body conditioning score (BCS) Free FAMACHA scores with worming where indicated March is going to be another month of firsts for us at Must Bee Kiddin' Farm - stay tuned!!!
But, Before We BeginThe last kids of the kidding season are on the ground so now it’s time to turn our attention back to land development and planning. We’re now in March and the time to get the annual plantings in the ground is at hand. In order to maximize our efforts and yields we’ve got to move from sketching to cementing out ideas as far as the overall farm layout is concerned. Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm is just over ten acres. Right now only one person works it full-time and a second joins in to help bear the workload on weekends. Ten acres may not sound like a very big spread, but when you consider that it’s undeveloped and densely wooded, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The best way to get past those feelings of overload is simply to just get working. Energy begets energy. Momentum over meditation! With that in mind, it’s important to have some solid action plans fleshed out. At this stage of the game major mistakes are pretty hard to make since we’re still pretty much in sandbox mode. As we’ve stated before, we’ve adopted the basic tenets and guiding principles of Permaculture in the development of Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. At the center of Permaculture is a design plan that utilizes is zonal development. Permaculture design makes use of a five zone system and this drives the development and layout of the property. The zonal layout scheme Permaculture emphasizes helps with focus and keeps the thinking centered on the big picture. But, before even delving into any Permaculture zone planning we must pull back one frame of focus and look at the big picture. Before laying out any zones it’s best to chart the land concentrating on land features and the major weather patterns at play on the land. This picture illustrates the prevailing weather patterns by season as well as highlights the main topographical features on the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. This property picture is from 2013 and is accurate up to the time of purchase. Nothing had been done to the property or adjoining properties until the time of our purchase. The first, main feature of the farm is the fact that it’s pretty much a square. It aligns with the compass as the top property line is north, the right is east, the left west and the bottom property line is south. Thus the track of the sun is from right to left. As I’m writing this, today’s (3/1/2015) temperature was pushing eighty degrees (F). That being said, we just had an overnight low temperature in the low twenties less than four days ago. Subtropical means contending with hard freezes just about every year. This is why this weather and land feature map is important. In not only paying specific attention, but mapping the prevailing seasonal weather patterns and land features, extremes can be mitigated. In other words, if we pay close enough attention to the lay of the land and which way the winds blow we can use this to our advantage when it comes to land development. Microclimate identification and exploitation become critical for extending growing and increasing yields. The hilltop situated in the northeast corner of the property is the highest point on the farm. The section marked saddle is a ridge that runs to the southwest and joins with another hilltop that is situated on the neighbor’s property to the south. The elevation of that saddle is about ten feet with low spots in the southeast and, to a lesser extent northwest and southwest corners of the property. With cold winds blowing in from the northwest, the saddle acts as windbreak. Cold northwest winds are mitigated by that saddle and the southeast corner of the property becomes favorable for more tropical plantings such as bananas. The weather map also becomes important when deciding where forest stands need to be kept, thinned or bolstered. If cold winds sweep in through the northwest corner, that’s a good place to consider a plantation of longleaf timber pines to stand guard against Jack Frost’s devious notions and Old Man Winter’s bitter bite. On the flip side, thinning the southwest and southern lines becomes important. Being in coastal Florida means hurricane season is always a consideration. So there it is, Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm’s weather and basic topographical map. After mapping the basic landscape features and considering the prevailing weather patterns we’re now ready to get into the meat and potatoes land development plan. Developing this weather and land feature map was a pretty simple exercise, but definitely time well spent. In the next installment of the Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm development plan we’ll talk Permaculture zone development. //mr Live Natural Birth Caught in the Field When we bought our goats we knew three of them were pregnant. Happy to say we got a bonus kid! Yes, a fourth goat was pregnant. Good, but the problem in all of it was we had no clue when any of these does were going to give birth. The first two does had their kids on day 10 and 11 after introduction to the farm. We were totally unprepared. With the next two we wanted to make sure we were more prepared. We noticed their udders were getting larger and their right sides bigger, but you can read everything there is to read on the internet about goats and birthing, and unless to you know the approximate date they were bred--it's all just a crapshoot. The biggest thing we took away from everything we read, was to know your goats. This last doe we knew. She's a friendly goat, always right there at feeding time to get her ration and a snout scratch. Her demeanor is gentle. A regular sweetheart. On Sunday, February 8th, we noticed that this goat was not acting like herself. She seemed almost aloof and didn’t come around like she normally does. We knew she had to be close. Tuesday, February 10th rolled around and as usual, I asked Mark to text me an udder picture. He obliged. Her back-end looked really puffy and her udder was huge. Almost uncomfortable looking. Kidding was imminent! Mark went about his daily farm chores and decided to take some time and visit the neighbor up the road. I gave him a ring and he was back at the farm. We were chatting on the phone when he returned to the farm and he was passing the current goat pen setup. Whenever we arrive or pass the goats, they usually greet us looking for something to eat which gives us an opportunity for a quick head count. Well, one goat was missing. Yep, Mrs. Preggerz. Mark made his way into the goat pen depths and heard the short, soft murmurs of labor. Mark relayed all this in our conversation and I immediately left the office on lunch break. Mark grabbed the camera to capture what he could of the birth. Less than 10 minutes later, we had a bouncing baby buckling! I arrived in time to see him getting his first bath and learning how to walk on those wobbly legs. It was a textbook birth in the field - something we are strive for with our herd. Resilience and natural birthing at it’s finest. Disclaimer: The video below is the actual birth and the little guy’s arrival onto Must Bee Kiddn’ Farm. Viewer Discretion Advised LiterallyIt’s February, the month Cupid lets loose his love arrow for romantics and lovers. Well, in the bee yard its time for some lovin’ too. When it comes to the honey bee and queens it’s more unencumbered sex than romance. That’s right, this wouldn’t be a bona fide farm/agriculture blog if there weren’t some sex talk. Okay, call it mating if you want, but it's all comes down to sex in the end. As queen-rearing beekeepers this is the month we start capitalizing on all the early season bee work we did back at the winter solstice. All those nights in the garage, under the cover of darkness, diluting spare honey or hefting twenty-five pound sugar bags for late night sugar syrup making sessions. Now, it’s all going to pay off. All the planning, hive arranging and manipulating in the bee yard; it’s all going to pay off. But, how? Well, those glorious fat boy drones are popping up. This is the month when the brood comb starts to bulge with capped drone brood along the outside edges of the worker brood. The capped drone brood starts as a patch here and there at first. The capped drone brood looks like bullets when compared to the flatter and more expansive capped worker cells. As the month goes by those lovely little love bullets are now grouped into tight pattern. Valentine's Day week is the green light for queen-rearing. Brush the dust off that grafting kit--it's go time!
Every morning I nag Mark to send me pictures of the goats. Lately I have been asking him to send me udder pictures and descriptions because we have two does that are going to kid soon. Here are today's pictures. The first is a rear shot. Then the goat was doing some heavy foraging and standing on her hind legs, so he got a really good belly shot for the second picture. These were taken about 8:45 this morning. Mark had to run some errands, and didn't make it back to the farm until around 2:00. All the goats came over to the side of the fence for food, and he said he looked up and saw this. Meet the first kids of 2015! Two cute little does!! In just a matter of a few hours, the doe went from foraging hard to taking care of her two new girls. We didn't have our kit with us today, so weights will be taken tomorrow. Both kids were up, walking, talking, and nursing. The doe is a good Maa; she talks to her girls and keeps a close watch on them and got them nice and clean for the camera. The rest of the herd was very respectful. Our Herd Queen stood a little taller today and seemed proud of her growing herd. She head butted any goat that looked like she was going to cause trouble. Most of the older kids (now just over 90 days old) snuck over to have a sniff of the new kids on the farm. Our herd stands at 11 goats today at Must Bee Kiddin' Farm. Must Bee Kiddin'? Yes we are!! Here's a little video for you. 2015's first month is already history. So, what's happening down on Must Bee Kiddin' Farm? Happy to say that the momentum built in 2014 has carried through to 2015 without any hiccups. All the necessary scheduled tasks of 2014 were completed on time in 2014 so we started 2015 with a clean slate. So here's the list for January's activity.
1. West firebreak cut. The farm now has all main firebreak lines cut. The western line was the last area posing a major fire threat. Matter of fact, last summer a local resident ended up burning his own house down after starting an outside debris burn and leaving it unattended. That residence was less than two hundred yards from the farm's western line. 2. Middle Meadow brush piles reduced. While rotating the goats through the purple area on the above map many smaller, scrubby oaks and pines were thinned. These brush piles have been eliminated. 3. The goats started their foraging and 2015 brush clearing campaign in the southwest corner of the property. Braving weasels, er...bobcats and all, they performed well and are now to the midpoint of the south line, starting to head to the north. The plan is to move them through the middle of the property and let them aggressively clear the middle where the future farmstead site will be located. Six adult does and three kids can put a good dent on a half acre of thick Florida brush in a seven day period. 4. Timber blanks moved from the farm to the house for further milling. I know we haven't been too specific regarding our milling efforts to date, but have no fear details are coming. Long story short, lots of those trees being felled at Must Bee Kiddin' Farm are going to good use as lumber for future builds such as poultry coops and bee hives. 5. January also had us moving quite a bit of material from around our home out to the land. Over the past two years we've been building up an inventory of nursery stock that we've started from seed or grafts. The plan has always been to plant these trees and bushes into any property we purchased. By the end of January we moved 50 Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia Diversifolia) starts, almost 100 Moringa tree (Moringa Oleifera) seedlings, over 70 longleaf pine seedlings, a dozen black locust trees, four yellow tabebuia trees and a couple citrus tree grafts (Meyer lemon and Persian lime) along with two eucalyptus trees (Tasmanian blue gum and Red River gum) out to the land. The reasons and purpose for these plantings will be discussed as the planting and land development/cultivation progresses. Yep, 2015 is off to a busy start and we're enjoying the work. Things are really getting to the point where our efforts are starting to impact the lay of the land. If the rest of the year goes as January has, we're really going to be making some progress. Before we get too deep into 2015 I wanted to post the final look of the Fridge Line as it stood in the final days of 2014. If you recall, the Fridge Line is the central trail that bisects the farm into north and south. It terminates at the back of the property in the exact middle of the western line. The trail name, "Fridge Line" comes from the broken down and decaying fridge that sits beside the trail. The video highlights:
EVERYTHING!! If there’s anything universal when folks start thinking about farming, it’s, “what are we going to name our farm?” You know, the simple question is easy to bandy about and arriving at an appropriate name is even easier when the farm is still in the visionary phase. The second the ink dries on the deed, throw all those names aside, because not a one of them is going to make sense or ring with that same sweet melody it initially had when you are standing at the edge of your property and see what you have actually done to yourself. Yes there’s always the path of least resistance that has a long standing tradition, the old family name followed by ranch, farm, homestead, compound, etc, but let’s face it, that ain’t us. Come on people, easy just isn't the way we roll. Embodying the spirit of our farming philosophy as well as conveying our central business purpose were two essentials when it came to naming our property. The common driving factor at the core of our farming passion is fun. If we are not enjoying what we are doing, something is wrong. Now as far as the business side of things we both agree with the KISS philosophy all the way...keep it simple stupid.
So, one gloomy Saturday we were heading to the property and were passing the farm of the county’s hay baron when Mark muttered in jest, at first, a simple three word name that actually sounded plausible. We played around with it, using it in sentences: “Let’s get a dozen eggs from XXX XX XXXX Farm”. “Did you see that XXX XX XXXX Farm is selling honey and goat meat?” “Let’s drop by XXX XX XXXX Farm and see what’s in season.” Damn, it was actually working. Snatching up a scratch piece of paper and scrounging a pen from the depths of the glove box, Mark scribbled the name so all would not be lost before the pain of manual labor erased our memory banks. Rounding the final turn to the property, the overcast sky cracked. Collecting our tools from the trunk and mustering strength from the warm sunlight we trudged into the depths of the property, and I muttered to Mark, “we’ll see if it sticks.” Over the next few months, our property grew into a farm with the addition of our livestock - goats and honeybees. And believe it or not, it stuck. Yeah, sometimes under our breath we would mutter the name with a sarcastic note, but hey, it still worked. So, what’s in a name? Like we said before, everything. And that’s why we have decided to name our little farm and future farmstead, Must Bee Kiddin’ Farm. PS: Thank you to all of you who helped in the naming of our farm. We’ve heard that line out of the mouths of more than a few of you, and we’re sure even more have muttered it to yourselves after a casual conversation with us or reading a blog post. |
About UsIn 2014 a couple of 40-somethings decided to make a change. The purchase of 10 raw, pine scrub acres along Florida's Nature Coast started it all. This is that story. Archives
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