Futhark Farm: Mini Farming By the Brave But Uninformed: May 2009

Welcome to our personal petting zoo

Call us crazy (it's been done before), but we're making the most of our property. I've always wanted many animals and a big yard to play in. Here we have both.

Petting zoo is perhaps a misnomer. Sure, it started out that way, but the more we learn about our food, the more we want to know where it comes from. We also believe the closer people are to their own food, the healthier they become. We started with two goats, several chickens that provide us with eggs, three horses, five dogs, a rabbit, a guinea pig, a few mice, three snakes, three cats, and two potbellied pigs. We've grown.

Now that we've acquired experience, we're raising our own meat. We want to see our animals well cared for and as happy as possible. When the time comes for processing,w e want to know their lives were taken quickly and humanely.

We now have the animals mentioned above, but we've added kunekune crosses, rabbits, Alpine and Nigerian dwarf goats for milk and cheese and honey bees for honey, wax and pollination.

The husband who never had anything more than a cat now helps with cleaning paddocks, building fences, tending bees, feeding animals and putting together cages. All this to keep me happy as well as to facilitate the many hours of mileage from telling people we have a personal petting zoo. Since most of the people we know are suburbanites and city dwellers, this always rewards him with cocked heads and even dropped jaws. Gotta love it.

Come on in and enjoy the show. It never stops around here.

Futhark Farm: Mini Farming By the Brave But Uninformed

Monday, May 11, 2009

The floor

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