I absolutely love the milder temperatures. It’s been great for our heating bills.  The sheer volume of rain, though, has been exhausting.  Our goats spend days on end in their shelters, because they hate rain and mud.  The mules, cows and donkeys are weary and grumpy from all the sloshing and slogging. The chickens and rabbits are soggy and discontented. The turkeys are too stupid to come in out of the rain, so they don’t count.  Only the pigs are enjoying the moisture.  They dig and root and tear up great patches of pasture, creating ponds and craters wherever they can, then race back to the barn and bury themselves in the straw to warm up and dry off.

Even the dogs are tired of the rain.  They are too muddy to come in the house and it’s too wet for them to play outside for long periods of time, so they mostly lounge around in their covered porch, alternately snoozing and barking at school children headed for or away from bus stops.

Yesterday, I got the truck stuck in the mule pasture while I was delivering hay.  I knew it would be tough sledding, but it was nearly my undoing. Fortunately, our 4 wheel drive got us out of the mire, but there are some pretty impressive wheel ruts left behind as a memorial to the adventure. Oh well, we were going to have to reseed anyway.

Speaking of seeds, that brings me to the high point, it’s seed starting season. I love this time of year, when we go through the catalogs, order our seeds and start the ones that need to be planted indoors and transferred outside in spring.  This year, we have all the usual suspects, but we’re adding a new heirloom tomato, German Green, and discontinuing our Early Girl tomatoes. The Early Girls never do as well as we hope, so we are planting more cherry tomatoes which always do well, and are adding these green tomatoes, which should be fun.

I couldn’t find my Ghost Pepper seeds, so I’ve had to order some new ones. I need to save some seeds this year as the prices are really rising. We have planted a few extra ‘gigante’ jalapeno peppers because everyone loves them for making poppers.  For the heat lovers, our ‘Biker Billy’ jalapenos are back this year. They have habanero level heat with all the normal jalapeno flavor. They make outstanding salsa and are fantastic when grilled and put on burgers and hot dogs or diced into sloppy joes and spaghetti sauce.

The other new product will be blue hubbard squash.  Winter squash is hard for us, because of the long growing season required, the space needed and the squash bugs that love Georgia clay so much.  I think I’m going to try and grow a lot of squash aquaponically, since squash bugs don’t like water. I’m also going to try to grow them vertically.  B has some trellis ideas that we can experiment with.

I still have to start our cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower seeds, but I ran out of starter cups.  Fear not, I know how to get to home depot, and there are plenty of rainy days in the forecast to keep me locked inside, so the seeds WILL be planted.

Such is the story of our winter in the burb. Now, though, I have to get this updated. I have some restless dogs and rabbits and the Tilapia need a water exchange. Father time stands still for no man.

Dairy cows have pretty much gone the same route, with Milking Shorthorns, Brown Swiss and Guernseys having their day. Those who are big on butterfat, swear by Jerseys. For sheer volume, nothing beats a Holstein.

Across the country, there are dozens of other breeds who have a following; Brahman, Longhorn, Pineywoods, Murray Grey, Belted Galloway and many more have found a place in the pastures and barnyards of America.

There is one breed though, that stands head and shoulders above the crowd as the ideal family cow.  The Irish Dexter has functioned for centuries as a beef, dairy and draft animal for small farmers, crofters and homesteaders in its native Ireland. For nearly a century and a half, the Dexter has served a similar purpose here in the USA.

Saying Dexters stand head and shoulders above other cattle, is a bit of a stretch as they are the smallest Heritage breed of cattle, standing only 36 to 44 inches or so tall.  A mature female will top out at 600 – 800 lbs, while a bull might tip the scales at 1000 lbs.

Dexters are outstanding foragers and can thrive on the best or even the most marginal of pastures. They are a great choice for those who want to supply their families grass fed beef, but have only a few acres of pasture available. It is fairly easy to keep two Dexters plus their calves on a good acre of grass.

High producing Dexter dairy cows will give up to 2 gallons a day in sweet, rich milk. A 100% grass fed cow will provide ½ to 1 gallon a day; more than enough for most families to drink and to have extra for butter and cheese.  The leftover whey and buttermilk will be a fantastic supplement for chickens or a feeder pig.

A family raising two cows can plan their breeding so that one of the cows calves early in the year and one late in the year so that milk is available year round.  The calves can be raised as beeves or sold for extra cash.

Did I mention that I don’t think any breed of cattle comes close to matching the Dexter for temperament?  They are easily trained to halter and rope. They enjoy being petted and handled. Ours will follow us anywhere as long as there is a treat at the end of the journey.

We are slowly building our herd of Dexters. For a while, we’ll still be buying feeder steers from the auction, but within a couple of years, we expect all our beef and dairy to come from Dexters.  Whether you have just a couple acres and want to raise a cow, or have hundreds of acres and want to be an honest to goodness rancher, you should give Irish Dexters a serious look.

If you want to learn more, you might want to check out this website.

1. We are expanding the garden considerably by adding three aquaponics systems.  In order to handle the extra vegetable volume, we are offering a few CSA shares.  The details and pricing will be made available at the end of this month in a newsletter to our mailing list.

2. The aquaponics gardens will also allow us to add fish to our other meat and poultry offerings.  Fish will have limited availability starting this fall, but will expand throughout the winter and into next year.

3. We will be adding pastured pork to our offerings. Again, this will be on a specific, limited, pre order basis. Our mini porkers will be available in whole or half pig portions. Details in the coming newsletter.

4. Pastured beef. Yes, you herd right (sorry, couldn’t resist a little homonym humor), pastured beef.  We will be taking pre orders in February for a few partners to join us in raising some of the best beef in North Georgia. You guessed it, details coming in the January newsletter.

5. This will be our first year to offer Cabrito/Chevon from our newly acquired Kiko herd. Our does were bred to a Boer herd sire and are due in early Spring. By the end of June any males born will be ready for market.  We may also have a few Alpines available as well, though our great hope is a crop of does to strengthen our dairy herd.

6. Speaking of Dairy, Britttan will be milking 3 Alpines and three Nigerians this year, which means more milk and more yogurt for you.  In addition to the usual a la carte offerings, we will make goat shares available so that you can be guaranteed a regular supply. Thank you, btw, for the emails and phone calls raving about the milk and yogurt from last year.  We love it that you’ve enjoyed your experience.  Just a couple months more waiting.

7. Let’s not forget pastured turkeys.  Feed prices are rising like everything else, so turkey prices will have to go up a bit this year. However, we’ll make it worth your while by having larger birds.  Those of you who have been out to the farm to see Mr. Tom, will know exactly what I’m talking about.

8. We are eggspanding our flock of chickens to provide more breakfast and baking goodness for everyone who’s been begging for more eggs.  Assuming we can keep the hawks at bay, we will dramatically increase egg availability starting this spring. We are also giving share opportunities for those who want a consistent, regular supply.

9. Pastured chicken production will be greatly reduced. We will have the occasional stewing hen available, but we will no longer be marketing broilers.  Stewing hens have better flavor anyway. So if you want to be notified when stewers  coming up, you’ll need to get on the mailing list.

See, I told you this is going to be a huge year for us. We are excited and a little awestruck by the task, but farming is our passion and providing you with the freshest, tastiest meat, dairy and produce in North Georgia is our goal.  As alluded to several times, we have a newsletter going out either the last week of January or the first week of February.  We have a list of everyone who have written to us or purchased from us in the past.  If you want to be on that list, or are not sure if you are on it, you can email us by using the contact page on our website or simply by emailing sam@eastofedenfarms.  Happy New Year, everyone.

Winter:

* Construct run-in shelters in winter pastures

* Tear down old chicken tractors

* Clean up winter pastures and get them ready for re-seeding

* Fencing, fencing, fencing…

* Instal guttering and set up rain barrels for water collection

* Set up a buck goat pasture for the dairy goats

* Butcher summer pigs

* Finalize CSA structure for spring, summer, and fall garden

* Construct baby goat pens and begin milking the dairy goats as they kid

* Clear all burn and debris piles from new pasture sites

Spring:

* Re-seed all the winter pastures

* Begin intensive rotational pastures

* Set up a designated pig pasture

* Fencing, fencing, fencing…

* Set up a buck pasture for the meat goats

* Build additional laying hen houses

* Plant spring garden and begin CSA drop-offs

* Construct and cycle aquaponics tanks

Summer:

* Process spring roosters

* Construct run-in shelters in summer pastures

* Fencing, fencing, fencing…(did I say that already?!)

* Plant summer garden and continue CSA drop-offs

* Set up a market stand at the Farmer’s Market

* Process spring goats

* Construct a brooder house and begin incubating eggs for 2013 spring layers

Fall:

* Construct greenhouses

* Prep winter pastures

* Store initial load of winter hay

* Move aquaponics units into greenhouses

* Harvest tilapia

* Plant winter green’s garden

* Finish out CSA shares for the year

* Process spring pigs and feeder cattle

Whew!  Just typing all this out has exhausted me!  But a farmer’s work is never done!  Good thing I’ll have Sam’s help with a lot of this.  And you too can get involved – we’re always looking for volunteers and interns.  2012 is going to be an amazing year here on the farm, I can’t wait to get started!

The onions and shallots are over wintering nicely, despite an invasion from the dogs, who took full advantage of my failing to secure the gate one afternoon.

Our inside garden is doing ok, too. The snap peas are not going to produce. The plants are nearly 5 feet tall, but apparently we don’t have sufficient nutrient density to get them to bloom.

The cherry tomatoes are a bit stretched, but are otherwise fine.  We’ll get a few winter fruit from them by the end of January, maybe sooner.

We have some salad greens and herbs growing in an aquaponics bed that is fed from our goldfish tank. Before the week is over we will plant a grow bed over our Tilapia tank in the basement. We have some grow lights and I want to see how they work. The possibility of fresh veggies all year round is pretty awesome.

Still don’t have the greenhouse started.  When we bought our trio of Kiko goats, that pretty much scalped the money tree.  What the heck, it’s too muddy out to build anyway.

We are less than a month away from starting all of our peppers and tomatoes for the spring garden. I can hardly believe that. Seed starting is one of my favorite mid winter projects. Only napping rates higher.

The Tilapia are positively thriving.  They are eating like little pigs and I believe some of them have actually grown, already.  We will get a grow bed attached to their tank very shortly. I couldn’t be happier with them.  They dart around like little under water jet skis. I adore them.

The Red Claw Crawfish are another tale altogether.  I have only two of the original 18 left.  One male and one female.  I’m trying desperately to save them.  If I can keep them both alive, then all will be well and we’ll have plenty of new ones in a few months.

I am at a total loss to figure out what went wrong.  It’s a genuine mystery.

I set up a new, smaller tank for them this morning.  I’ll let it cycle for a bit before putting the crawfish inside.  Top ups will be done with rainwater from our rain barrel to see if they like that better than de-chlorinated inside water.  I’ll have to warm it up before adding it, but that’s only a minor inconvenience.

I will use an aquarium bio filter and a home made one at least until we can get a growbed on their tank, as well.  I might not even put a bed on theirs and simply use the nutrient dense water on traditional plant containers when I do water changes.  We’ll see which seems to make the most sense.

B and I haven’t had much time to think about Christmas yet. Oh, we’ve mailed some cards and sent some gifts, but right now, we have no time to ‘settle down for a long winter’s nap’. Between our bad timing and Mother Nature’s little temper tantrums, we have a lot of work to do.

First, the bad timing. We have pregnant goats everywhere. Except for the two that have already given birth, that is. We wanted to arrange for all our goats to freshen in Feb/March, and several will. In one of life’s little twists, because of a fence problem requiring us to move our billy goats earlier than we had hoped, we have several who are already in the maternity pen.  So, we have to keep a watchful eye.

We’ve had no problem with goats and breeding this year. Rabbits, on the other hand, have all gone celibate on us. It’s the end of December and we haven’t had a single litter yet. Weird. The calendar says we do need, though, to put nest boxes in with the girls, as it’s getting close to time for them to give birth, if in fact the breedings we think are in place, have taken.  No one looks pregnant, that’s for sure.

Mother Nature is also keeping us way too busy right now. We’ve had some torrential rains that have left the pastures a mess.  There is a ton of clean up. We have to move some shelters because the rains were so bad water ran under and the animals are standing in ankle deep mud.

With the cold weather coming behind this storm front, we need to make sure the mules have an escape path, since everyone else does, so we’re putting up a portable shelter today and will build a nice run in shed in Mid January.

Oh, and goat hormones are forcing us to move another shelter. It seems our randy little Nigerian buck, Meshak, can’t stay away from our new Kiko girls, Venus and Serena.  He climbs up on the shelter in his pasture, which is up against a fence, and hops over it onto the pig shelter in the other pasture, then down onto the ground.  It’s pretty creative, except Achilles, our Kiko herd sire, isn’t interested in suitors coming to court his ladies. He out weighs Meshak by 15 or 20 lbs (soon it will be by about 200) and has horns. It’s no contest.  Their last testosterone spike left Meshak with some pretty good scrapes and cuts. For several days, he pouted and nursed his obvious headache, while B tended to his wounds.

He’s healed and love is in the air. B found him back in the other pasture again yesterday.  He’s doing his best to woo Serena (who should be pregnant, anyway). Achilles, ever the vigilant, jealous protector, is not letting Meshak get close enough to do any mischief.

The torrential rains, forced them all into the barn. When we went to check on them last night, Achilles had his girls and two of the pregnant Nigerians in the large stall, while Meshak was relegated to a smaller one which he shared with a dozen laying hens.  He tried several times to make his way into the big stall, but Achilles was having none of it. Meshak, not being totally blinded by lust, wants no part of those Kiko horns, so he would slink back to his stall and wait for an opportunity to try again. I give him credit, he’s no quitter.

Anyway, we have to move Meshak’s climbing frame, aka, shelter, away from the fence so he can’t use it as a launching pad for romance and warfare. That can only end poorly for him.  Eventually, we will make one pasture for Meshak and Jasper (our Alpine buck) and one for Achilles and his Kiko harem. Until then, we must make do.

Sometime this weekend I must, I do mean must, shovel mule manure. But it’s too muddy for me to get the truck down to the compost heap without tearing up the hillside.  So it must wait and remain an eyesore.

It’s time now for me to hit the publish key and actually do the work rather than just talking about it. Oh, did I mention we need hay and straw as well. Of course, I love the feed store so that’s not even a problem. Just more time away from the chestnuts and the open fire.

Talk to you later. If I don’t get back here before Sunday, Peace on Earth, friends. Jesus really is the reason for the season even if He has become politically incorrect.

We want to build a couple of run in shelters for them, but we could use some extra hands, so we’re hoping to have an old fashioned barn raising (sounds better than run in shed raising) on Saturday, January 14. We’ll start about 9:30 a.m.  If we get a good enough group we’ll build two.  We have a couple of pastures we want to put sheds in.

All you need to do is show up and be willing to work. If you have tools, like hammer, saw, screw drivers, wrenches and pliers, feel free to bring them. They’ll come in handy. The event is gender and age neutral. If you can work and like to have fun, you’re welcome to join in.

We’ll have coffee and bottled water available. After the work, if it’s a nice day, we’ll all come back to the house for a cookout. We’ll have burgers made from our own grass fed beef.  If it’s not nice, as in January bone chilling cold, we’ll have some warming beef stew. In the case of rain, we’ll reschedule.

If you’d like to join us for some fun on the farm, just let us know.  And, thanks in advance for the help. Oh, don’t forget to tell a friend and bring a friend. The more the merrier.

The pigs are very efficient, turning every possible food scrap into usable meat or fertilizer. They are amazing recycling machines.  Our cows do what everyone knows cows do. Our rabbits produce the most amazing fertilizer of all.  And or mules and donkeys produces mountains and acres of the stuff. Even the fish are nutrient factories. It is indescribable.

So, what do you do with all that waste?  Where do you put it? How do you dispose of it?

First, it is not waste.  It is a miracle in progress.  As we pile up the poo, a variety of bacteria start to work in the middle and on the edges of the stack.  They break down the manure and gradually turn it into compost. It is a wonder to behold.

We have zero leftovers at our house.  Food that is turning or leftover goes to the chickens and pigs.  They make great use of it.  Greens and garden produce that is excess goes to rabbits, goats, cows, chickens, donkeys and mules.  They turn it into manure and the bacteria turn the manure into food for next years plants. The fish waste goes into aquaponics grow beds where the useful bacteria converts the waste into plant food and the gravel turns dirty water into clean.

We had one group of leftovers that didn’t fit into the cycle; coffee grounds and tea bags.  The answer to that conundrum was worms.  We save the coffee filters with leftover coffee and we save our used tea bags.  Every three or four days I take them out and put them in our worm bin.  The little red wigglers living in the tub, turn the grounds into nutrient rich castings and compost.  It’s a huge win.

I have heard that worms are a great option for dealing with dog waste as well.  This spring, I intend to test that hypothesis.

By March, my worm colony should be large enough to divide it into three sections. One will stay with the coffee and tea, one will be transplanted to the manure pile at the farm and one will be put in a tub with dog manure to see how that goes.  I’ve heard that worms can turn dog piles into outstanding fertilizer for flowers and trees.  We’ll find out.

Creation is phenomenal in its intricacies and interdependence.  When managed properly, nature cleans up after itself and feeds the next generation.  All the fertilizer and compost will grow next year’s veggies and fruits, which will feed the animals who will produce food for us, for the bacteria and for the worms and the cycle goes on.  I see order in the universe, the very fingerprints of God.

That pretty much describes yesterday.  It was a life and death struggle. It seemed to come out of nowhere.  When I got up yesterday morning the Red Claw Crawfish tank was unusually cloudy.  I told B we were going to have to do a partial water change and I asked her if she would make a solids filter for me.

A solids filter is just what it sounds like.  You take a bucket, drill a hole near the top to put a hose or pvc pipe. Then drill a hole at the base of the bucket and put a drain pipe.  Then you place some filter material in the bucket. In our case we use filter pads.  Set the bucket above the fish tank or plant grow bed so it can drain into one of them. Put a submersible pump in the bottom of the tank and run some hose or pipe into the bucket.

As the pump sucks up water from the tank, it collects some of the solids that are in the water and on the bottom of the tank.  As the water flows into the bucket, the filter material catches the solids but allows the water to flow back into the tank or grow bed. Simple, yes?

We were too late.  B sent me an urgent email yesterday afternoon saying that when she went to install the filter, there was already a dead red claw.   My first thought was ammonia spike.  She tested, but it was well within range, as was the pH.

Then she mentioned that some of the other Red Claw had white fuzzy stuff on their claws or on their heads.  Even as inexperienced as I am, I knew that was probably a bacterial infection.  I asked her to do a nitrite test.  Sure enough, it was way out of range.  So strange.  I had done a nitrite test 48 hours before and all was fine.  Now, we were killing fish.

That tank has an old style bio filter that was obviously designed for a lower stocking density and was not keeping up.  Fortunately, we had another tank we cycled and were preparing for Tilapia.  Brittan moved the Red Claw over there.

When I got home from work, I gave the fish a salt bath and will keep them in the hospital tank for a few days.  I spent the next three hours, with Brittan’s help, cleaning out the sick tank and refilling it.  We also replaced the bio filter with a better one.

This morning, both tanks tested well.  The Red Claw are happy and active.  They will get another salt bath this evening.  In addition to the new Bio filter, we will install a grow bed and put a grow light over it.  We’ll get some lettuce out of that and it will help keep the tank in balance.

It was very scary.  We could have lost a lot of crawfish.  Fortunately, Brittan was on the spot to do the tests and move the fish until I could get home.  These smaller tanks are volatile things. They must be monitored constantly.  For now, though, all is calm, all is bright. Sorry, couldn’t resist the seasonal reference.