Oh how life changes things...

So much has happened since the last time I posted anything, it would be a total bore and way too long to read in a short period of time.

In February, Kami and I took a class to get our concealed carry license and went on a couples retreat.
In March, we went to Illinois for a long weekend.
In April, my son Eben was born and once again life changed dramatically.
In May, I went to Missouri for a few days to visit a fellow cabinetmaker.
June brought my oldest daughter up to the three year old hash-mark.

And now it's July and things continue to change as life moves along.

I have been fairly busy with work, new customers calling and I have also had a recent spike in return customers which is always nice.

Through the course of events that has transpired over the past two or three months, my desire to farm has been strangely revived and charged. As many people know, I have for a while now had chickens and have been raising them for eggs. I have been selling eggs to a number of regular customers and have always enjoyed it. Recently, I have been introduced to a new concept. Grass farming. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but really, it's not. The whole concept centers around farming in such a way that we are stewards of the bottom of the food chain.

Most farmers nowadays when you ask them will say "I'm a dairy farmer," or "a chicken farmer," "pig farmer," etc. This is all well and good and that statement is true because that is truly what they are. The paradigm shift comes when a farmer stops thinking about his source of income, the pig, the cow, the chicken, or whatever as his object of stewardship and focuses more on what sustains his source of income. What most people don't understand or believe is that given a chance most animals can care for themselves. They simply need management in order to produce to their optimum potential.

This is where the idea of grass farming comes in. To put it in a nutshell, the whole idea is that you can, by intensive and intentional management practices, use farm animals to grow grass to feed all the animals on your farm, greatly reducing the intake of purchased feeds and greatly increasing the health value of the animals and people eating them. And as a byproduct, actually create a decent cash flow in doing so.

So over the course of the next few weeks, months and possibly even years, I will be putting my hand to the plow, so to speak (but not literally - a big no-no in grass farming). I am going to start my venture with broiler chickens and, Lord willing, move onward and upward from there.