This year we were one of the very grateful recipients of the Lakewinds Organic Field Fund (LOFF). This is one of the only grants available to farmers. Other co-ops have grants available to non-profits and organizations but it is so rare to find an opportunity geared to farmers. Jill Holter of the program was absolutely amazing! She understood where we were coming from as young farmers trying to set up systems with limited income.

Our passion is animals–it always has been, but they require a completely different set up then vegetables. But thanks to LOFF we were able to set up fencing for our animals that will provide them with a safe, healthy home where they can enjoy our land as well.

Check out the video of this years recipients at Lakewinds Organic Field Fund. We are the 2nd farm on the video.

This spring sheep joined our farm. Avril has been wanting sheep for awhile and I have wanted a fiber animal as well. Years ago we went to the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival and the Lincoln Longwool sheep caught my eye. So when we were ready to add sheep to our farm we searched high and low for our preferred sheep and 4 little (not so little) ewe lambs joined our farm. They are all January or early February lambs and when the weather started turning really warm they already had quite a coat on them.

We knew it was time to shear them, though finding someone to come out for 4 sheep proved a little difficult. We also enjoy doing things ourselves and so ordered a shearer and planned to do the job ourselves.

We were warned that the hardest part was not learning the proper strokes to produce a high quality fleece in one piece but the hardest part was controlling the sheep. We were not warned about how sharp even the electronic clippers were. I have wounds to match the sheep but I am actually glad to have such a ready reminder to be careful. I also have a great gauge as to how they should be healing up.

After fumbling through 2 sheep we asked a friend from 4H to come out and help. Jane does her own sheep though she does them standing up which is decidedly safer and more comfortable for everyone but doesn’t give the preferred one piece fleece. Oh well, we will learn. And the sheep are much more comfortable.

Bringing the sheep home. We thought they would be much smaller and since we were going a long distance we did not bring the trailer. So it was pretty crowded in our suburban. 4 sheep, 6 children and 2 adults. The sheep were the quietest.

Jane shearing. Notice how beautiful the under fleece is.

All done. Some of the shearing jobs were rougher then others. The sheep are not used to the process either.

I have sent the fleeces off the the mill. I wasn’t sure how usable they would be but they think we can at least get a sport weight yarn out of it. At the very least we should get some roving. I am very excited to see the finished product.

I love history. It was my love of history that brought me to my first job at www.historicfortsnelling.org. It was here that I learned to love natural fibers, wooden toys, and creating things. I am not survivalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I love challenging myself and I love creating things from home cooked meals to hand knit sweaters and hopefully soon furniture and other wooden items.

Camping and being outdoors is a bit of a new experience for me. I am still not completely sold on the whole experience but I do love the peace and quiet.

Recently an experience popped up. Rush City has been put on the map. Larry Roberts, a local man is currently on the History Channel’s reality TV show “Alone.” We watched the show and it is so cool to see the name of our city on the screen.

He is home now and wanted to share his love of the outdoors with his community and taught a basic survival skills class at the local High School. Originally Proeun and Two were going to go, but it was hay making time this weekend and Proeun needed to get the baling done, so I went with Two. It was such a cool experience!

We learned about the 5 C’s of Survival
1. Container
2. Cutting Tool
3. Cover
4. Cordage
5. Combustion Tool

He shared his favorites in each of these categories and showed how to combine cordage and cover to make a simple shelter.

One tip was to carve little toggles out of wood to more evenly spread out the pressure on the grommets from your cover.

Here Roberts shows a safer way to chop kindling–by keeping your hands away from the ax.

He demonstrated how to make char cloth to use with a flint and steel.

It was so fun to spend the afternoon learning with my boy. We are all excited to try some of this at home and continue learning. Many of the things that Larry taught in the class he demonstrates on youtube.

This weekend we had another first here at Crazy Boy Farm. I have said before while I much prefer eating vegetables I get much more enjoyment and personal fulfillment from caring for the animals and so we have seen the number and variety of our animals grow over the years. We started with chickens while living in our little city lot. After moving to our farm we added fainting goats, then nigerian dwarf goats. We have had a few ponies. Then two years ago we added berkshire hogs and last year we add galloway cattle.

We purchased a 3 year old cow that had been bred and was pregnant and a spring heifer. This last Friday our cow, Zelen gave us a beautiful little baby.

Zelen is a great mother. She not so subtly puts herself between us and her baby every time we try to get a close look at it. So it took us awhile to figure out exactly what we had. That was until we saw this little girl pee. Then we knew for sure that we had our own spring heifer.

Every year the galloway association assigns a letter to the year and all animals born in that year have the letter in the identification number. This year the letter is D. So you can figure out when Zelen and Claire were born. It works out well since our boy really wanted to have a Daisy on the farm. So meet Daisy.

Early this spring I was at the parent’s group for our homeschool co-op. We are talking about weekends and schedules and Mondays, etc. I realized then how vastly different my life is from the one I expected to live. I wistfully told Proeun that evening, “I remember when we used to think, ‘What should be do this weekend?'” We don’t think that anymore. Honestly I don’t think I would want to go back to that all the time, maybe just once a year or something.

Anyway, even though we had plenty to do this weekend we had a pretty awesome weekend and we get to do it together so that makes it even more fun. Here is a quite snap shot of the fun we are having around here.

Saturday morning we woke up to these cuties. They were still wet at the time and we had the opportunity to dry them off and get them under a heat lamp. They are twin does, such cuties. Their mother is Miracle, the goat that survived being born on the coldest night of the year and later lived in our house for awhile.

The weather is wonderful and it is actually fun to be outside. Avril made her little sister a crown to celebrate spring.

We were blessed beyond belief to be one of the recipients of the Lakewinds Organic Field Fund grants this year. This grant will allow us to set up permanent, high quality fencing for our animals. It will give them much more space and allow us to utilize our land for rotational grazing and hay production. So nearly every morning and weekend we are working on fencing. Here is the main corral for the cattle.

Me and Lith relaxing while we wait for the men to bring back another load of wood.

Crazy Boy himself all grown up and proud of his work. He is really loving the farm and taking ownership of it.

Crazy Boy Part 2 aka Pray helping clear trash out of the woods. Unfortunately we had a few unpleasant discoveries but it wasn’t too bad. Lucky to have such a big helper.

This spring these little ladies joined the farm. They are Lincoln Longwool sheep. Avril will take a couple of them to the fair this year and she hopes to have a sheep business one day. This week we will be working on fencing for them. The main area is already finished for the hogs and cattle.

Proeun working hard with the auger setting posts. The children making the trees wave.

The highlight of the weekend was the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival in Lake Elmo. This is the first place we found out about Lincoln Longwools. We went probably 6 years ago, when farming was just a dream. We have been trying to get back there ever since but it seems like every year something happens. This year was no different, but we weren’t going to let a dead battery stop us. Here Pray holds a little Lincoln/leicester mix lamb.

Avril was in awe of the whole experience. The first time around she wasn’t really interested in it, but now she wanted to see and try everything and learn more about her own sheep. Here she learns how to use a drop spindle.

So even though our weekends are full, they are also full of joy and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh my, it has been a long time since I have written. But I read an interested post on facebook lately about, “the myth of self care” by Bruce Thao. It was geared towards those working in non-profits but totally applies to moms and farmers and mom/farmers. It talked about working 12 hour days (as a mom more like 24 hours) and then going home cooking dinner and taking care of everyone else before you feel like you can take care of yourself. Thao went on to say that this idea of everyone first produces some harmful “self help strategies,” like binge eating late at night and drinking a bottle of wine all by yourself. While I don’t drink, hello, binge eating, yep been there.

It has been a super busy month with the weather warming, the projects have been increasing. We have all those babies to take care of, planting for our CSA, and replacing a roof, not to mention finishing up a school year, household chores, etc.

I have been dragging alot lately, my hair is more gray and I am feeling the extra baby weight. But I realized these are all signs I am not taking care of myself. So I have been working on that. This afternoon we had a girls day in the kitchen,  beauty treatments were our projects.

For some reason my pictures are not working but we used this book. It is my absolute favorite. Most of the ingredients are easy to find, most are real food items. I get alot of my other items at brambleberry. Of course my interests have changed with my age. Projects I wanted to work on were, greek cold cream, super eye cream, gentle eye makeup remover and jojoba cuticle oil.

The girls had their own ideas. Avril wanted the Olive oil shampoo. Mavis wanted the beauty queen face mask: that was a cool recipe based on her grandmother from the 1920s. Effie wanted to make lip gloss.

I have plans for a facial and mini manicure but that will have to wait till after a meeting tonight. Still working at the schedule a bit, but now I realize that if I am able to make time for myself throughout our busiest part of the year then I will be much happier. It might also give me the energy I need to work on my book. Yep I said book. More details coming soon.