This is officially our third year of providing eggs, produce, meat, and dairy to the good people of the Yampa Valley. We finally decided that things have settled in enough to take a few moments to share a little of our operation and family to give a glimpse of our quest in sustainable farming/ranching.
We bought our small slice of heaven in May of 2012. We were living in Georgia as Nissa completed her commitment to the Army. The cabin had been unoccupied (except raccoons and various critters) for approximately 20 years...as best we can tell. I began total house renovation in an attempt to land a place to live when Nissa was done protecting our nation.
We were able to move in May of 2013 with just a bath tub, a sink in our mud room, and a toilet. I recall one of the first egg customers we ever had asking Nissa if we had running water! Our goal setting out was to feed ourselves. If that worked out perhaps we could sell some surplus. We bought two dairy goats (Blanca and Ernesta), 50 laying hens, 10 ducks, and planted a half acre garden. We were going to grow into this...reclaiming the abandoned land while inhabiting a once abandoned house.
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| Nissa waters the garden as the sun comes over the ridge |
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| Young Violet engages in her favorite activity: mauling goats |
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The ducklings about to move to the creek |
We survived year 1 a lot smarter than when we started. Here are a few of the lessons learned: the raccoons/weasels/foxes were not used to something higher on the food chain living in and around their house...they sure enjoyed being fed fresh pullet chickens for a few evenings (the dog and I got the last laugh), farming/gardening at 7,000' can be very unkind to your sprouts in the garden (frosted on June 19th), we need fences bad bad bad!!!! 2013 ended strange...more on that later.
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