January Newsletter - Judah's First Steps

posted on

January 30, 2018

Judah took his first steps!!! Our little farmer-in-training has been standing up on things for months. For the past several months, we have thought Judah would be “walking next week.” But, our little guy was in no hurry to take the next step (no pun intended).

That all changed early this month when Judah turned, let go of the sink in our bathroom and calmly walked to Mariah who was standing across the room. We were stunned! It had finally happened! Since then Judah has continued to refine his skills: walking between toys, using objects as ladders to climb onto tall chairs, waving objects above his head while walking, and most recently mud throwing.

Check out the photo below for digital evidence, Judah had his first experience with mud. Needless to say, he loved it! Warm temperatures on a calm Sunday afternoon combined with his new found mobility turned into a great time for the whole family.After Judah shoved a handful of dirt into his mouth, my mind was drawn back to an experience we had several months before at a neighbor’s house. We were visiting on a warm afternoon when Judah had first learned to crawl. Standing in the neighbor’s driveway, Mariah went to set Judah down to play. Realizing what Mariah was doing the neighbor quickly explained that they had just sprayed their driveway and it wasn’t safe for Judah to be near.

I was stunned. Was there no safe place left for kids to play? Being restoration agriculturalists, we don’t use harsh chemicals or herbicides on the farm or at home. But just next door, not even the driveway was safe.That moment really highlighted for Mariah and I why we do what we do. Modern industrial agriculture has sold the culture on chemicals. Everything is sprayed with toxic chemicals: pastures are sprayed to  ”keep out the weeds”, crop fields are sprayed multiple times a year for weeds, bugs, harvest, and seemingly because the chemical company ran a sale, and fruits and vegetables receive nearly the same treatment.

The results of this system are devastating- soil is sterilized, beneficial insects are wiped out, water resources are tainted, and farmers become more and more reliant on industrial chemical companies. Even worse, the food produced from these sterile, chemical bathed soils is nutrient barren and has often been directly sprayed. In our country today, most families are not starving for calories they are starving for nutrients. One need only consider the myriad of health issues that are assaulting families today as evidence of the consequences of industrial agriculture and nutrient barren food.

Our farm is different. Our mission is to provide nutrient rich food that promotes healthy thriving families while restoring the health and vitality of the land. We want the best for our family, and we want the best for you too. By mimicking biological systems and utilizing animals in their strengths to promote the health of the soil and pasture we eliminate the need for chemicals, GMO’s, poisons, antibiotics, herbicides and insecticides. When our soil is healthy and alive the food we produce is packed with nutrients.We won’t produce anything we don’t think would nourish Judah or use anything that we believe might harm him. That includes many “organic” chemicals.  The result: peace of mind. When we feed Judah from the farm's bounty, we are confident it is nutrient rich, free from chemicals, and safe. We call it family friendly food.

Do you want family friendly food? You will be able to taste the difference in your food, see the difference in your family, and experience for yourself the peace of mind that comes from watching your family thrive.

To your thriving family

Your Farmers,
-David, Mariah, and Baby Judah

unnamed.jpg

More from the blog

Our Hens Today

What did you think?One of my favorite things about the hens is just how friendly they are. They run up just to see what's new and haha to see if I scared up any bugs. It's not just great for the hens and the land though its also great for the families who enjoy our eggs. The result of this truly pasture raised regenerative model for raising hens is some incredibly nutrient rich eggs! Our growing family eats eggs for breakfast nearly every day but in spite of our 5 children's ravenous appetites for our eggs right now we have a seasonal abundance (it happens almost every Spring) and so we are offering  Free Eggs For A FriendThey are completely free.All we ask is that you don't use them for yourself, but instead give them away to family or friends that are really interested in nourishing their family well. It's a win win. They get to enjoy the best nutrient rich eggs available and get a connection to their very own farmer!Give Free Eggs For A Friend ==>NOTE (If you are currently utilizing our home delivery option for getting our pasture raised eggs since you can't order them singly, if you give one to bless another family just email myfarmers@fedfromthefarm.com and we can credit your account for you :)Thank you for supporting and sharing about our pasture based farm. It is an honor to serve you from our farm's bounty!

Our New Lake

On the farm, we plan out our regenerative grazing well ahead of time to ensure that the soil, plants, and livestock all benefit from the sybiotic relationships that exist from temporary peridic grazing between all three.Sometimes though the weather has other plans and we have to adapt. Haha case in point about two weeks ago we got just under 9 inches of rain in 36 hours. Now on our farm a majority of the rain still just soaked into the ground through healthy root channels and pore spaces from years of planned regenerative grazing. For farms for miles around us though most of that water quickly ran off and into creeks and rivers. This caused a creek on the back of our farm to flood well outside of its banks. When I went down that morning to check on the sheep I was quite surprised to see that we had a new lake on the farm!You see we have a 60 acre area of bottom ground (low elevation ground with deep soil near to a creek or river). When I got there about 25 acres was underwater!!! This was just part of it but you wan see the sheep's watering trough is underwater - haha they certainly weren't thirsty!Thankfully as the water rose the sheep just slowly meandered to the north to higher ground.  They do not like water at all and will not willingly ford even a shallow stream so I was quite glad they had not gotten cut off on one of the now islands of land that had just the day before been the higher areas of the low bottom fields!Later that afternoon, Judah and Ephraim went to look at our new lake and reported that they could not see the watering tank. I thought that was kind of strange but figured they just missed seeing it as it hadn't rained at all that day. As I pondered it for a few more hours though I got to thinking that they are actually very reliable little scouts and they know what it looks like. On a hunch I went back down there only to discover that upriver flooding had continued to pour more water into our bottom and we now had a 55 acre lake!!!!Everything in that video and pictures  that had been still land was now underwater and the sheep were at the very top of the field. A gate was promptly opened and they were let out of the low bottom fields completely onto the much drier upland fields. Thankfully everything was fine and stunningly the next day all the water had receded and our lake was gone. A new layer of top soil had been deposited on our thickly vegetated bottom fields as well which will be nice for long term fertility but in the short term made the forage quite muddy so even though we had originally planned for the sheep to graze those bottom fields for about two weeks (split into several 3-4 day subdivisions) they in fact only spent two days there. Well on the farm sometimes you just have to adapt and that's just what we did. We made a new grazing plan, skipped the rest of the bottoms for a few weeks until some rain could wash the dirt off of the grass and things could dry up a bit. Haha basically adapt and improvise. Thankfully the bottom does not flood very often (this is the first time in about 8 years) but when it does we can get a very large lake overnight + ducks :)I hope things aren't too wet your way.