Since I leave fairly early on Saturday mornings to make our deliveries, I do my best to get to bed early on Friday nights. On such a night in mid-December I fell asleep extra early, while getting our son Arthur to bed, only to be awoken shortly thereafter by our daughter Emilie. "Dad, dad!" she … Continue reading A hug before you get sprayed
Category: Pasture based farming
When it comes to winter, I always tell people that there is two phases: novelty winter and drudgery winter. Novelty winter lasts until a little after New Years. Snow is still "new" and hasn't become a nuisance yet, and any spells of intense cold are softened by the excitement and anticipation of the holidays and … Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions
I did something this summer that I've never been able to do on our farm before. I wore my boots completely into the ground. I wore this pair until multiple holes in both heels finally connected and my feet were barely encapsulated in the rubber residue that were formerly functional footwear. Why was this summer … Continue reading Knockin’ Boots
Although I was born in Wisconsin, I spent my formative years growing up in Northfield, a town about 30 miles south of the cities that boasts of "Cows, Colleges and Contentment". And sure enough, lived just down the street from Carleton College, on the appropriately named College Street. Northfield is similar to many beautiful Minnesota … Continue reading Bones from the sky?
Yet again, while away from the farm, I got another phone call. I was in the middle of my Twin Cities delivery route, in the uptown area, when Morgan called and told me there was a newborn calf in the pasture.While we don't calve this time of year (we time our calves to arrive in … Continue reading A pleasant phone call
Every time I'm gone from the farm, my blood pressure spikes if my phone rings and the caller ID says its one of the neighboring farms. My worry of course is that they are calling me to tell me I have animals loose, and from time to time this is true. Last February (pre-pandemic) we … Continue reading The dreaded phone call
Four days into 2019 things on the farm are much the same as they were at this time last year. There's ample snow, a myriad of daily highs and lows thus far (today set a record high for Jan. 4 in Minnesota, reaching the mid-40s in the metro area while last Saturday hit -18 below) … Continue reading The Skeleton Crew
For the past 36 hours, we're happy to be back on the upswing of daylight. Yesterday we gained about 5 seconds of daylight and that number will only increase daily from here. We are big believers in following nature's patterns. In the summer, the farm is bustling, spreading it's wings and encompassing large areas of … Continue reading Hibernation- winter on a pasture-based farm
This last week of heavy rain and cool temperatures has thoroughly saturated the ground and let in its wake a lot of mud and.... waiting. We were in the process of plowing, discing and (eventually) drilling pasture seed in to our south 10 acre crop field. It has been in soy/corn rotation for probably 50-60 … Continue reading Flexibility: the most important tool in the toolkit