Been A While and Changes :(

So last time I posted, I said that the tractor was running and we were all set....NOPE!! We still don't have  a working tractor. It has been a real source of anger and frustration. So we have had to change our plans on what we are doing and it isn't the greatest right now. I'm trying to just remember that it is all a learning experience and it will all work out in the end.

The good news is we have more milk that we can use!! Suzi is an AWESOME cow!! I have a bunch of pictures I took to show you of milking and everything we do after...including making butter. That however, will have to wait for another time because I am exhausted today.

We have been getting fences built--we need to get our pigs out of the barn. We have our chickens separated into 2 coops. They are so much happier and the ducks are a riot!!

The goat and Sweetheart (Great Pyrenees) are great friends and are now in a stall/pen together. The calf joins them during the day and then goes back with Mama at night.

Suzi can finally get outside and graze on grass and she loves it and so do we!

We do have a bunch of plants in the ground--that Katie and I have done by hand--really big garden and we have more to do.

So those are my thoughts for today--not very put together--as I said I'm worn out. I just wanted to give an update and let you know that I have not disappeared.

Tractor fixed...time to plant

Shane finally got our tractor running last night. Yay!  Of course, it rained all day yesterday so everything is muddy today. Today he is rebuilding the cow's stanchion and the chicken coop. I'm starting some more seeds inside. The plan is to plow and start some planting tomorrow. I'll update after as to what actually happens.

Today's post is going to be mostly a list. These are the things that we have already started seeds indoors for or that we would like to plant this season. Basically, these are the seeds we bought and we shall see what actually ends up growing LOL. The number in parenthesis is how many varieties of each.


Strawberries          Celery          Asparagus          Gourds(3)         Corn(3)         Herbs(22)          Turnips          Radish (5)          Peas(3)          Carrots(3)          Beets(3)          Arugula          Spinach          Lettuce(4)          watermelon (5)          Onion(3)          Kale (5)          Cauliflower          Tomato(9)          Cabbage(4)          Broccoli(3)          Sunberry          Melon(3)          Cucumber (3)          Pumpkin(3)          Squash(6)          zucchini          Peppers(10)          Beans(10)          Sorghum (2)          wheat (10)          Barley(3)          Spelt(2)          flowers (19)

Plus some other wheat and stuff that Shane bought in bulk to feed the animals.  I'll let you know if anything grows....

Chickens (and Ducks too)

Shane went and picked up a variety of chickens and 4 ducks one day. They were so cute and fuzzy. I never thought much about chickens...the give you eggs...ok that will be good. I love free range eggs. There is more to chickens than meet the eye....they are fun to watch!!! The run around and peck at stuff and actually have personalities. They are also pretty easy to care for--food, water, clean the coop..that's about it.

But, there can be setbacks with chickens too :(

Our first one we started teasing Katie and calling her a chicken killer--we have some Bantams and they are really tiny chickens. After she cleaned the coop, we had a chicken missing. We are pretty sure that she swept it up and threw it away :( Poor thing.

Well, I can't tease her anymore. I am now a chicken killer too. We let the chickens run around in the barn during the day and when we feed them in the evening they follow the food right back into the coop and we lock them up for the night. The other day I fed them, shooed them all back into the coop, did my count to make sure they were all there-- tough sometimes because they don't stand still. About 20 minutes later, Shane went to give Suzi water and started yelling  "I thought you counted all the chickens!!" Yep, one of them got in the cow's water and drowned. :(

Don't worry Meghan got a good lesson from it! She had to pick it up, take it to the woods and clean it, wrap it up, bring it home, boil it and debone it. Then the next day the piggies got a yummy breakfast.

We just can kill anymore chickens until we actually want to eat one!!!! Or at least until they start laying eggs!

The Joy (and not so much joy) of Milking

Milking definitely has a learning curve. Before we milked Suzi the first time (who is a beginning milker herself by the way--first calf) we had watched a million videos on how to milk and figured "ok this shouldn't be too hard". We set out with a bucket of water with a rag,  2 hands, and a bucket for milk. The water and the rag are to wash the udder before milking so that we don't get any unnecessaries in the milk. That part we were doing right. The came trying to squeeze her teats to get the milk--harder than it looks folks!! Oh and Suzi's back 2 teats are really small--so that was making it extra tough. We would milk and milk for half and hour and have a quarter of a bucket and an upset cow. She liked to kick--a lot. 

Our next step--we looked online at milkers and saw how expensive they are and said--you know what lets go a cheaper route. So I went to Walmart and got double breast pump--yep one for women--and we tried that out. It worked, but it wasn't much faster--easier on the hands though. And we were still only getting maybe a 1/2 bucket. Unfortunately, Shane, the one who does the majority of the milking, couldn't make it work. So that idea was out.

We talked and watched more videos and decided that with as much as we spend on dairy in the store, and how much we had invested into the cow, it would be worth our while to get an actual milker. Enter the Surge Pulsator.

not our cow

This had a learning curve as well. Getting Suzi to stand still and let us hook this machine to her teats was an adventure. Shane took the brunt of it and was kicked more times that I can imagine. We had many days where we wondered why we were milking her at all--we weren't getting much. Then as they got into a routine, things got better and now she mostly stands still and we get about 2-3 gallons a day!! Yes that is even with our calf and our goat nursing. 

Here is the routine to make that happen. Our farm is about a 5 min drive from our house. So, each morning Shane drops Dillan off at school and feeds all the animals. While he is doing this he puts Suzi outside and Jumper and Ribeye in a stall together (sometimes with our dog too :) ) They remain separated all day. Then in the evening--around 4, we milk Suzi. Once we are done, we put the 3 of them back together again where they stay together all night. It is really cute the way they immediately run to her to nurse when they are back together. And yes, even when we strip her, she fills right back up for those babies. Oh and they get the good stuff too. We only get about 1/2 the cream she produces because she doesn't fully let down for us. She saves it for them. When we eventually wean them, then we will get the full amount of cream. For now we get about 2-3 cups a day.

So that routine is going pretty well--the milker is a pain in the butt to wash, but no big deal. Then we put the milk in the freezer for a little while to cool it and then into the fridge where is sits until the next afternoon/evening when we skim the cream off. We use the cream for butter, ice cream, cream cheese (a new one I'm trying today), oh and just cream. We don't completely skim the milk--so we drink about 2% I would guess. I figure since we are eating all of it in some form it's ok if the milk isn't full fat. It's still creamy.

The Beginning of Stony Brook Pastures

I am using my old blog address, but I am going to change the makeup of the content a bit. I am going to use this to document the comings and goings of our farm adventure. I will do my best to keep up with it. I think it will be a good resource to us as we move forward to look back at everything we have done--mistakes and all.

So where did Stony Brook Pastures begin??? Well as many of you know Shane and I are both city kids. Farming was never something I ever in a million years thought we would do, and yet, here we are. About 4-5 years ago, Shane and I started researching where our food was coming from. We started slowly taking steps toward eating organic, whole food. Two years ago, just before moving to Korea, we decided to buy a hobby farm to take this a bit further. And when I say before moving to Korea, I mean 9 days before moving to Korea--because that makes sense right?!?!?!

The entire time we were over there, we were plotting and planning and deciding what we were going to do. Fast forward to March 2015.

Shane joined us back in the states and we were ready to take the plunge to get this farm started. We bought a ton of seed--I will let you know all those details in another post--and started planting in our house. Then I came home one day to chickens and ducks in my shower :)

We continued and bought 6 pigs--2 sows and 4 feeders, a goat (just a couple of months old), and a cow who has now had a calf. We also have a Great Pyrenees dog who will eventually be a guardian dog--she's still a pup right now and isn't quite ready. Oh and just this past weekend we got 10,000 bees!

We have been busy building fences, learning how to feed and care for the animals, milking, milking, and milking, and fixing many things that break. Right now Shane is trying to get his tractor fixed. We have a 1948 tractor that he is having to rebuild the engine on. All of these setbacks are changing our plan for this year a bit, but that is ok.

So what was our plan? And what is it now? Well, we began with wanting to just be self sustaining. Then we decided to go full scale and do Farmer's Markets. Now we are back again to the self sustaining idea for this year. We need more time and farming is something that doesn't necessarily allow for that. We are already behind on planting the wheat we wanted to be able to feed our animals over the winter, but without a tractor no wheat can be planted. Shane is hopeful that he will have it up and running tomorrow and then he will be able to plant--except it is supposed to rain the next few days. Ugh! I just hope he doesn't have to wait too much longer or it will be to late to get the wheat going....these are things I never thought I would worry about!!

Well that is the intro to our farm. I'll see if I can post a few pictures and in the coming days I will let you know about my kitchen adventures as I learn to use our raw milk.

Suzi and her calf Ribeye

The pigs--2 sows: Blackeye and Sam the Other One
1 boar: Spot  and 3 feeders --we call them all Wilbur

The tractor that was running for a bit

Meghan and her goat Jumper

Katie and her bees

Chickens a bit bigger

Chickens and ducks in the shower