The first post!

I made this blog a year ago, or so, and promptly wrote nothing...

The idea is to write about my hobby, farming. I do have a day job that covers 99.9% of my income and farming covers the other .1%. Definitely a hobby. I like the gear, I like the animals, but mostly I enjoy eating good food and hearing how much people enjoy the food I raise.

So what do I raise? Among my friends and family we are mostly known for our pork. Once a year we raise a set of weaner pigs to raise to market weight and sell to friends and family. We keep half of one for ourselves. We get pigs in 10-12 pigs in August and keep them until January or February.  This schedule works well with my professional life as I am out of town often in the summer, but rarely leave town starting in September. We are in Western Washington State.

Let me give you a quick tour of our ranchette. Each picture will prompt a further blog entry!

The House (when getting a new roof earlier this summer)

The house, getting a new roof.

Late 70's ranch style. Been here 5 years and slowly updating.

The corn "field". 1/10th of an acre of Nothstine Dent. I am growing this to feed the pigs and see if it will supplement feed costs at all.


If it doesn't, it has been a good experience growing it!

The long view

 

Compared to a 6' ladder. This is from August 10.

Next up: The fleet

Tahoe and Trailer. The Tahoe is our substitute for a farm truck. It does a good job pulling this 16' trailer and whenever we need to haul the whole family and lots of gear. It used to be a daily driver, but now is hanging around for its specific tasks.



I built these removable sides for the trailer. Great for bulk materials or young pigs.

Trailer with sides, when new

The tractors:

The fleet

The Yanmar 2210d was bought used, years ago for brush hogging and general utility, The Farmall cub has been in my family since it was new in 1950. The lawnmower cuts grass... Also in this picture you see the grain bin and hoop house. More blogs in the future about all of the above. Lots of other little pieces of gear.

The pigs:

Picked up the latest batch of pigs today, which prompted a blog entry. Pick up from a local farmer who is super small scale as well, but WAY bigger than me.

New pigs in hoop house

The hoop house is new and look forward to see how I can make it work with my variation on deep litter bedding.

The pigs live in a fenced garden area. Great fertilizer!

Garden from early June

That's all for now. More details in the future with stories on how we have done this in the past and how we got where we are! I have lots of pictures saved up!