Blog
Our Own Fixer Upper
As you might remember from some previous newsletters, the little yellow house we live in is 175 years old. Like other older homes you've probably seen, this one has had a lot of add-ons over the years and it's left us with some interesting features. Some features...
Our “Grass Is Always Greener” Moment
When young people like us decide they want to become farmers, one of the biggest challenges is finding land. There are just sooooo many elements to making this decision, especially for organic farmers. We shared a little bit about what this process...
Uncharted Territory
We never used to think of ourselves as the type of people who would feel comfortable being in front of a crowd. Despite what you might think, we're both naturally introverted which means that we've spent most of our lives trying to NOT be the center of attention. It's...
Learning to love the thing I’ve always been scared of
I have a confession to make. I've always been a little (maybe more than a little) scared of fat. Since marrying someone who became a livestock farmer and becoming a farmer myself, I've been curious about where this fear really comes from. Growing up, I was extremely...
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
People often ask us about predators on the farm. Especially when they realize we don't keep our animals in barns and they see our piglets roaming the pastures and the laying hens searching for bugs beneath the snow. The truth is, I'm not exactly sure how we do it,...
Big results from our tiny home office…
We had a business planning meeting right before New Years Eve and it sorta rocked our world. We started with a deep dive into all of the numbers... We learned that in 2018, we sold over 70 pigs and scaled up our pig breeding program. We sold 1000 chickens/turkeys and...
Taming the Beast
We jumped the gun this year and made our New Years resolution back in early December. We've been working at it for the past several weeks and you know what? It's already been a game changer for us. This was our problem and I'm betting you can relate: We look at our...
Best of 2018
It's a lot of work for us to write this newsletter on a weekly basis. But despite the time commitment, we love sharing stories and our thoughts from the week here. It's fun, it's cathartic and it's helping our business grow. But we had a realization a couple of months...
Finally, the exhale.
There is this shift that happens every year, sometime in early December and we are juusstt abbouuttt there! For most of the year, my weekly calendar is chock full of tasks that involve moving animals and maintaining our pastures. We move the laying hens, the pigs,...
Yep, we have a fairy godmother…
You know what might just be the trickiest part of raising livestock over the winter? Water. Imagine us here at our farm with our flock of laying hens and 4 different herds of pigs out in the fields. It's relatively easy for us to bring organic grain to the animals...
The Kitchen Dance (plus another great free guide for you!)
As you've probably noticed by now, we write a lot! We write these fun newsletters every week where we share about what it's really like to be organic livestock farmers here in Rochester, with the highs and the lows and a seasonal recipe to inspire you in the kitchen....
Are your dogs barking, too?
The weeks around Thanksgiving are without a doubt, one of the busiest times on the farm. All the planning and prepping for Thanksgiving turkey distribution feels sort of like coordinating a wedding...though we might not be the best people to make this analogy since...
The BFM and Why We’re In Love With It
Were you at the Brighton Farmer's Market last weekend? Did you notice that Greg was solo at our stand? I took the weekend off, which is a rare occurrence these days...but when I got home the sweetest thing happened. Greg had SO much to catch me up on! He ran through...
3 Biggest Mistakes in Our First Year of Business
When we started our business back in 2014, we had tons of heart and Greg had plenty of farming experience...but between the two of us we had absolutely NO business experience. As a result, we made some serious rookie mistakes in our first year of business. Here are...
The D Word
When you're a livestock farmer, you get pretty comfortable with life and death. The life part is almost always a ton of fun. It doesn't get more exciting than watching a litter of piglets be born or seeing a new batch of day-old chicks arrive in the mail. They are...