Things are finally settling back into a state of normalcy, but as it turns out, that state is crazy busy at the moment. This is the first time I've felt overwhelmed by the amount of farm work that needs to be done and the first time I've though having an employee would be helpful. The main culprit is the garlic prepping and planting, but I'll get to that below. First, let's take a look around the farm.
This is the future spot of the fancy composting system I'll be installing. As I speak, ecology blocks are being unloaded into our driveway from a delivery truck and I'll be hiring my neighbor to place them with his mini-excavator. The composting system supports the first research goal of the Institute, and it is going to be a major improvement to the farm. After all, animal farming is all about efficiently moving materials, and manure and compost are of the main materials we produce.
I had 250 bales of hay delivered a few weeks ago, which should be more than enough to get me through the winter with three young calves and 7 breeder pigs. I won't need to use as much as I normally use for pig bedding because I ordered 50 yards of wood chips, which you'll see below. The hay stacks nicely on the north side where it's protected from the majority of wind and rain. I could probably fit 2000 bales in this space if necessary.
We purchased two 3-4 day old bull calves from our neighbor farm Samish Bay Cheese down the road. These guys are getting bottle fed twice a day, which is a new experience for us. I'm not giving them any grain to supplement, just hay and water, so they are going to take a fair amount of time to wean off the bottle. I'm finding bottle feeding to be a bit of a pain, as it requires me to keep a firm feeding schedule and it makes it necessary to always be home in the evenings. Jen will help on the nights when I can't make it home in time, which is essential to having a second job while doing this. One thing is for sure: if I need to be home to bottle feed 2 calves, I may as well be feeding 10 calves.
We also got a 6 month old bull steer from Samish Bay and he is doing well. It is certainly a lot less of a time commitment to feed an already weaned animal. As of this morning, all three calves are together and forming their own little herd. All three will be slaughtered in one year's time. Of note is the high expense of these animals: the young calves cost me $300 a piece and the older steer was $750. In the recent past, newborn calves were going for $25 or less. I chose to fork over the money for these dudes because (1) of want to continue to build the demand for our grass-fed beef and (2) since I'm transparent with all my costs, it's simple for my to adjust my beef prices next year to reflect the increased cost. The only major downside is losing one of these animals to sickness. Death happens, and is risky to invest so much money into something that could die any day with no way of prevention.
The pigs are all doing well. We currently have all 4 sows, 1 gilt, and 2 boars living together. There have been lots of squeals lately as the ladies get bred. As you can see in the picture, the pigs are hanging out in the lean-to shelter on the east side of the barn and I spread the 50 yards of wood chips out to form the base of the winter bedding. The chips costs me about $700 delivered, which is about $700 more than what I wanted to pay, but the days of getting chips for free from arborists went away when we moved out of the city. Hay is about $46/yard at $6/bale while the chips were $12/yard. Even when adjust for the higher surface area and density of hay, it's considerably cheaper to use the wood chips as bedding and to save the hay as primarily feed and for bedding farrowing pens.
I took this picture of these two steers the day before they went to slaughter. I bought them last year when they were about the same size as the older steer I bought this year, and they hung at 548 and 562 pound a piece without any supplemental grain. They will bring in about $1000 in profit a piece, which makes me happy. The carcasses also looked great: nice amounts of yellow fat.
Above are two picture of the raised beds I made for the garlic this year. I'll be posting information on the yield soon, but I first need to get through the planting. I have about 7 times more seed this year than last year, and it's going to take me 100-150 hours to get all the heads split apart, sorted, and planted. Making the beds was actually the easy and fast part, as I just made two passes with the middle buster plow of the tractor to make the furrows, then ran the walk behind tiller over each bed three times to smooth out the beds and make a good seed bed. I'm still struggling with perennial grasses and their roots, but I have some strategies that I'll be detailing in upcoming blogs that I'm testing out. For now, I just need to slog through the planting and hope I can finish it before the rains come en masse.
Overall, things are going well for us at the moment. It's been a crazy year, but the drama is now over and it's back to the hard work or trying to make this farm business work. I'll be posting some more information soon on the final cost of the barn and the replacement contents to bookend the promise I made earlier this year, and I'll give just a single farm financial statement at the end of the year, instead of my normal quarterly or semi-annual statements, as I missed the boat back in July. Now, back to planting!
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