farm
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Tag archives for farm
We’re Staying
Posted by Sharon Astyk on August 2, 2010 We almost did it. We really did. We went so far as to get mortgage pre-approval, meet with a builder about the costs of repairing the barn and the house, and make an appointment to make a written offer. And we decided to stay here. There were several reasons for doing so. The first was…
Putting Me in My Place
Posted by Sharon Astyk on July 19, 2010 The first thing you need to know about my farm is that it is huge. I mean enormous – by world standards. The vast majority of the world’s farms – more than 80%, are very small farms, of less than 2 hectares (about 5 acres), and they produce the majority of the world’s staple crops…
Tales from the Barnyard: The Sharks and the Jets
Posted by Sharon Astyk on June 15, 2010 The Sharks and the Jets are fighting over by the compost pile. Well, ok, maybe not quite, but it has that feel to it. You see, we have two street-gangs of ducks. The first ones, Pekins and one ratty looking Rouen who is shooting for the “oldest living duck record” have been around for a…
From One Thing and Another, Nine Years Passed…
Posted by Sharon Astyk on June 1, 2010 Nine years ago today we moved to our farm. We brought with us some boxes of stuff, some furniture, four cats, our then 15-month old son (Eli, now 10 and 5′ tall), Simon, packed conveniently in my pregnant belly, and my Mom (who went home after a day or two of helping us with the…
On (and In) Crawdad Creek
Posted by Sharon Astyk on May 25, 2010 When we bought the property, the creek was frozen over, and from the property survey, we weren’t entirely certain that it would belong to us. We never realized that the pretty little body of water that passed along the north side of the house would become the center of four worlds. For the first few…
Who Will Grow Your Food? Part I: The Coming Demographic Crisis in Agriculture
Posted by Sharon Astyk on January 4, 2010 Note: This is the beginning of a multi-part series on agricultural education, the farming demographic crisis and the question of who will grow our food – what the problems are, how we will find new farmers, how they will be trained. To me, this is one of the most urgent questions of our time. A…
Once You’ve Got the Chickens, You’ll Hardly Notice the Yaks: Re-Inventing the Diversified Small Farm
Posted by Sharon Astyk on December 29, 2009 Over at ye olde blogge, on one of my Independence Days updates, a reader commented on something that I’d posted. I’d mentioned that we are having trouble with goat parasites – most specifically, meningeal worm. Meningeal worm is a parasite is hosted by snails and transmitted by the feces of white tailed deer. It is…