Blog
What kept us moving forward
We're the type of people who love a good plan. Schedules, blue prints, road maps? That's our love language, right there. That's why we plan everything out for the farm a whole year in advance. We decide how many animals we're going to raise, plan out all the breeding...
She’s ready to pop
There's truly never a dull moment on our farm. This week, we're waiting on one of our sows to deliver her piglets. As I write this, her due date was a couple of days ago and usually our pigs are quite punctual in this regard. But she has surprised us this time. She...
This was definitely not in our master plan
We've been trying not to overload our brains with too many COVID updates. I've turned off the push-notifications on my phone. And we try to limit ourselves to a couple of news check-ins per day. But, there was a story that struck a chord with us this week: one of the...
It take a lot of love to look this stupid.
In her new memoir Good Husbandry (which I absolutely loved and would totally recommend to you as a COVID read by the way), the famous ADK farmer/writer Kristin Kimball says that nothing will make you look more stupid than chasing a chicken around. She's absolutely...
We did something we swore we’d never do…
When we first started the farm, we had one big goal. Every cut of pork, every dozen eggs, every "hand" of ginger, everything we grew wasn't just going to be good. It was going to be exceptional. As we figured out how to achieve this ourselves, we really couldn't...
The big question right now
On the farm, the day-to-day hasn't really changed too much in the past couple of weeks. The piglets are still running around, the chickens still need to be fed, and the spring-time projects are keeping us busy, as usual. And we're feeling fit as a fiddle. But, I want...
The farm made me do it!
We've adjusted to life on the farm in soooo many ways. Looking back, I think some of the adjustments were probably pretty predictable - like how we wake up early and don't travel much anymore. But there are other adjustments that are frankly...just plain weird. I've...
Not Quite Business As Usual
We figured this was going to happen. Enclosed space. Large gathering of people. A confirmed case of COVID-19 in Rochester.... That's right. In case you haven't heard it yet, the Brighton Market has been temporarily closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus....
This has been troubling me.
As much as I loved meeting up with my fellow farmers at a big annual organic farming conference this year, I noticed something really disheartening...farmers are really prone to falling into the trap of self-limiting beliefs. If you're not familiar with the term, a...
A Bad Habit
Do you ever start working on a project and get yourself 90% of the way done, finish everything essential, and then sit back and let that last 10% go on FOREVER? Unfortunately, that's been my (Farmer Greg) habit for the past couple of years. Maybe it was a coping...
Misadventures of a pig midwife
In addition to being a farmer, Jenney also works as a midwife. She's caught hundreds of babies in Rochester so as you might expect, all things birth-related are fascinating for her. I was really excited about pigs giving birth, but you can imagine how she felt leading...
Our 3 Most Powerful Habits
There are those seasons in life where you're deep in survival mode. You know what I'm talking about right? It's the full-body experience. It's consuming, exhausting, rewarding and exhilerating and it can go on like this for months or in our case a few years. Until...
I tried to weasel my way out of this.
A few months ago, the editor for a local magazine called Edible Finger Lakes asked me to write a piece for their winter publication. The invitation was pretty opened ended. The topic and writing style was left entirely up to me. The only boundaries were the word limit...
This is probably gonna sound strange
If you can believe it, we've had over 250 piglets born on the farm over the past few years! This means that Greg and I are fast becoming experts in all things pigs-related. Of all the interesting elements to this work, I realize it might sound a bit odd to write about...
Special delivery on the farm this week
If I were to boil down our farming philosophy into just one sentence it might be this... pasture is essential to raising healthy and happy animals and producing really extraordinary meat. In the warmer months, accomplishing this is pretty straightforward... we grow...