We had a busy long weekend here at Gold Forest Farms. I have taken 5 Fridays off instead of just taking a week off work. The Friday off of work combined with the Canada Day holiday Monday made a very long weekend. That was good because there was plenty to do. Friday we loaded our two Classic Llamas and made about an hour trip west of our farm to drop them off and pick up our new cow! Her name is Henriette. She is a sweety and is due any day now although the farmer is unsure exactly when. Her bag is full and she looks very loose in her back end. The watch is on.
Henriette is a Galloway/Highlands cross. She is quite small and extremely docile which is good. The meat from these heritage breeds is top quality and while it is lean, it is moist and tender. This is our first cow, and we are excited about the new addition to our farm...the beginning of our herd!
"...5 Fridays off...", does this imply you are working full-time 'on the side' of your organic farming work?? Just curious if it's possible for someone to make a full-time living off a small-scale organic farm. Is this your long-term goal?
ReplyDeleteYes, I do work full-time off-farm. Is it possible to make a full-time living off a small scale organic farm? Yes! Sure it is. I have farmed my whole life with my Dad and I did not want to take over the big conventional operation so he sold it. Some time after that I wanted to start farming again but I had a big mortgage, two kids, a wife and a career and I needed equipment to farm with no matter what the scale. For the past 5 years I have been farming on an almost full-time basis after hours of my full-time off-farm job. This has helped me to acquire the equipment and land that I need to be able to farm full-time...yes, that is the goal. We have utilized a lot of the farm operations to simply find out what it is that we wanted to farm...sheep, pigs, chickens, cattle, grain. We have settled on grain, but we also have found a good market for our meat.
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