Farm Blogs from Around the World: Hereford cattle

Showing posts with label Hereford cattle. Show all posts

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Cattle Call Farm Blog (WV, U.S.A.) Recommended

The family farm, where the cows are in charge. Managed by Kathy, the "Hereford Maid"

Kathy live in West Virginia, United States. She just started blogging about her life on her family farm. She's new to the Internet and blogging.

As she is pretty much on call 24/7's with the farm, she thought blogging might help her meet people with the same interest.

The farm belonged to her dad, and now it has been passed on to Kathy. She's found out she has some pretty big shoes to fill. Thankfully at 83 her dad is still living and helping Kathy and her two girls run the farm.

'It's a lot of work', she writes, 'but it has big rewards.The blog started as a hobby in the winter, but I have met some really interesting people with the same love of animals I have. We also share great ideas and a lot of tips about farming.'

Kathy, that's a big undertaking and I salute you, both for the farming and embracing the blogging. Good luck and if you want to meet people, Farm Blogs from Around the World is very much the place to do it, and one of the reasons I set this blog up in the first place; because the reality is, many farmers are pretty isolated and very busy and the Internet has transformed their connectivity to other like-minded souls.

Wednesday, 17 September 2008

Cedar Cove Farm (MI; 5 acres; Pastured poultry, beef, worms, rabbits, vegetables, dairy; Christian)

I'd like to thank Scott at Cedar Cove Farm for responding to my appeal to bloggers who have been recommended by other bloggers on Farm Blogs from Around the World, but who haven't yet contacted me with their own story and their favourite blogs.

Recommended bloggers go straight into the blog roll, but the idea is that I do one post on each of them, in the words of the recommended blogger, and then do another post on their own recommendations. Just as Scott has provided for me.

On the blog roll you can see which recommended bloggers have become recommenders themselves in return. If you're listed but haven't sent me your story and your recommendations, I'd really appreciate you dropping me a line.

And so it grows....

"Our story began about 10 years ago when we first moved to the rural lifestyle we now enjoy.

We started out trying to find ways to raise our own food, to provide for ourselves and become more self reliant.

We are a family of four, myself (the husband), my wife, and our two beautiful daughters ages 8 and 6. We are a Christian family that believes in the bible as the wholly, complete, inerrant, inspired, word of God. Jesus Christ is our Saviour from a life of sin and death. We believe in His death, burial, and resurrection-God's sacrifice once, forever.

We love the country life, and our girls refer to themselves as "country girls". We home school, teach them God's word from the bible and enjoy all that farm life has to teach.

We built our modest home on five acres in a "cove" of Cedar trees. We put solar panels on the roof to run some lights, started with a composting toilet but switched back to conventional methods. We even had a windmill to pump our water. That, too, we went conventional eventually. It's not that these thing wouldn't work, they did. We couldn't gather enough wind to keep the water tank full, and the toilet was set too high to work properly. In other words, we learned a lot during those beginning years.

During this time, we began reading a bunch and learning of old ways to farm. The ways prior to industrialised, corporate, agribusiness. The days when labor was provided by the farmer, not the machine. Staying small and providing food fit to eat, for us and, maybe, our community.

Our little farm began to grow, slowly, over the years, and continues to grow. We adhere to the principle of "Organic Growth", or growing from within, not with large debt or other outside influences. Slow it is, then, but that is OK. We have found several small ways to provide different "salaries" for ourselves. Of course, I still work a full time job, which is the major source of income.

We raise and sell "Pastured Poultry". This is a method of raising meat chickens on pasture, in their natural environment, without antibiotics or hormones of any kind. We were surprised at how much grass a chicken will eat! It is because of this that we began reading and studying grass fed meats and dairy products. To sum it up, grass is the key.

We are learning as we go, trying to raise healthy food for us and others. By no means do we have this thing figured out, but we're gaining on it.

We are looking forward to our first grass fed beef from our miniature Hereford bull calf.

We started raising worms for the garden and the compost they produce, with the possibility of sales to local fishermen.

We raise meat rabbits and sell them for pets.

We garden with raised beds made of concrete blocks (the only way to garden, in our opinion) because the ground, here, in southern Missouri is all rock and clay.

We have grown to the point, now, that we have several customers for our Pastured Poultry, free range eggs and fresh yogurt made from the family milk cow's milk.

Our ideas are many, but, we intend to stay small, serving our neighbors, and not add enterprises unless they complement one that already exists.

To learn even more about us and get an idea of where we are coming from read our blog at: www.cedarcovefarm.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by and let us know what you think. Or you may click the links and send us an e-mail. Enjoy."

N.B You may note that I label some posts Christian. This is not used in a prerogative sense, but simply to aid like minded people find each other more easily.

A Place in the Auvergne
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008

A future Thanksgiving turkey strutting his stuff

It's always great to receive occassional photos from bloggers on Farm Blogs from Around the World, especially seasonal ones so we can see what's going on around the world at different times.

So thanks to the Matron of Husbandry at Throwback at Trapper Creek for this one. (The Matron has lived on her 180 acre farm in the Pacific Northwest for all her life.)

It's a photo of "a future Thanksgiving turkey strutting his stuff!" writes the Matron.

"These are Broad Breasted White, a hybrid, but the most common turkey at Thanksgiving meals in the US. They are agressive grazers and a delight to raise, don't believe all the old stories about turkeys being dumb. These little guys really like to show off, and act like the big boys!"

Throwback at Trapper Creek
“I have always found what farmers and peasants thought about things much more intelligent than what scientists thought.” RUDOLPH STEINER

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/

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ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT IAN WALTHEW 2008

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Mud Ranch's Real Dirt

Mud Ranch's Real Dirt was recommended Raising Country Kids.

Thanks to Joan at Mud Ranch for the following email and pictures of some of their Jacob sheep

My blog is made up of daily posts on mostly our Jacob Sheep, Kiger Mustangs, Hereford Cattle and our Livestock Guard Dog Abby. My husband and I run our small 38 acre ranch where we raise our sheep for meat as well as a handful of Hereford Cattle. We have started from scratch, building fence, building a large six stall barn out of lumber milled from our own property, we're raising our one year old daughter and will be teaching her the ways of living in the country.

We are located in Northern California about an hour away from shopping which makes it nice to be further away from the citified way of thinking, though it is sometimes not far enough. The blog is a nice way to write about our life as it's happening as a way to diary and be able to look back on what we've done over the years. It is also a creative outlet for me and my photography, as I love to take photos and share through pictures things that are going on around here.

Being in the middle of summer, the things on the forefront of our minds is gathering wood for winter and getting tin on the lean-to's on our barn before rainfall. The lambs are almost full grown so will be shipping them off to their new owners this weekend and getting the butcher lambs ready for the freezer.

The flock in June 2008