At first, it was out of financial necessity. Then, as the reality of managing livestock year-round and establishing an ever-growing market garden began to shape my new way of life, the physical need for a gym membership evaporated with the morning dew.
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No stranger to sweating with my neighbor, I have run thousands of miles on gym treadmills. Yet I have logged even more on the footpaths and side roads around town as I trained for 5Ks and a half marathon. My lungs always ached for the cool crisp morning air. Without earbuds or a phone to distract me, I loved losing myself to my thoughts. I never dreamed there would be a day that I would retire my running shoes and replace them with steal-toed work boots. Then, one day, it happened….and it became my new life.​

Emerald Acres Farm once belonged to another time and another name. Gnarled and vine laden apple, cherry and apricot trees still stand on parts of the old orchard. These relics, mostly diseased and well beyond their fruiting prime, cast aching shadows on dilapidated, tetanus-filled outhouses. Not only do they shelter us from the peninsular winds but they also remind us of working generations past. Sometimes, if we’re lucky during a wet, warm spring, we find a few morels (shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!) and wild asparagus emerging through the detritus and decaying limbs. 

​We landed at Emerald Acres Farm in the fall of 2012 and potential surrounded us as thick as the poison ivy. There was room for a swing set, a large garden, possibly some laying hens, and an area to cross country ski in the winter. We could walk, explore, and look to the stars.  We arrived without a clear plan yet full to the brim with ideas and dreams for our new home and property.

​A working orchard is not set up like a farm for housing livestock or growing a large garden. Our outbuildings, equipped for large machinery and fruit sorting, stood erect and lifeless. The orchard, choked by wild grapevines and pock-marked by tree stumps of fruit-tree past, seemed to barricade any potential for tomatoes and spring greens. 

We worked tirelessly to breathe new life into the property. We brought with us a love of the outdoors, animals, healthy food, and for our community. We included our daughter, and eventually our son, into every part of it. It’s a family life.

​Some would call us crazy. Some have told us we work too hard. But I ask you, “What work is too hard when it feeds your body and fuels your soul?”

Upon emergence from our first winter torpor, we dug into farm life. If you follow Mother Earth News, GRIT Magazine, or any number of other homesteading-ish media, you would recognize that we committed nearly every sin known to new farmers and homesteaders. We took on more than we could chew. We poured our savings into our new life. We exhausted our energy. We tried to do it all.

​That first year (2013), we plowed almost an acre of retired orchard with the intention of planting a garden. Farmer Dave (my hardcore other half) spent over 18 hours straight tilling the sod under, yet it wasn’t enough. His arms and hands felt numb; he felt certain he had nerve damage. Then, we borrowed a tractor from a good friend and co-worker which had a two-bottom plow. Big clumps of sod, still too big to plant, propelled us to scour the property for other long-ago discarded and forgotten tools. We discovered an old disc, buried in the aspen stand at the back of the property, overgrown with poison ivy. After digging it out, Farmer Dave MacGyvered it together with a few cement blocks, hitched it to the back of the tractor and attempted, yet again, to break up the sod. The old antique disc, held together by rotted wood bushings, flung pieces of tetanus as we pulled it across the field. Somehow, it accomplished the task and we followed with more tilling…We won some of the battles with the weeds, but they won the war that year. 

​We intended to order a dozen layer pullets (pullets are young laying hens) but accidentally ended up with a mix of 63 pullets and cockerels (boy chickens too young to be considered roosters). By late summer our birds started laying and we brought home our first goats, which we knew little about feeding, let alone milking!

​The summer of 2013 was fraught with struggles, exhaustion, and exhilaration! We remodeled a garden shed into a goat pen. Farm-Papa (my dad) turned a set of old salvaged wheels and a well pipe into the axel and frame for a mobile chicken coop (which eventually transformed into a goat house!). We set up electric fencing and only got zapped a few dozen times…. Most importantly, we learned how to fix it when something went wrong… We learned that keeping too many cockerels (young boy chickens) was not a good idea and figured out how to butcher our first chickens ‘on the fly.’ Thank goodness for how-to videos on You-Tube! After finding nibble marks in the top of all our broccoli plants, we realized that our toddler daughter (at the time) loved broccoli and took bites out of the top of each broccoli head!

​Somehow, we survived that first year on our new farm. For some crazy reason, we did NOT give up. In fact, we dug in even deeper the following year. During 2014, we re-plowed and expanded our garden! We had our son, born at home, on a beautiful summer day. We started to sell a few veggies at the local farmer’s market. We added more laying hens to our flock. We raised meat chickens. We got some more dairy goats, including a couple bucks for breeding. Our first goat kids were born on the farm. We reached out further into our community and started our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

With each passing year, we have worked hard to improve our farm. We build in efficiencies where and when we can. We learn better ways to raise our animals to improve and maintain their health as well as ways to improve pasture health. We spend hours reading, learning and planning throughout the winters to prepare for summer growing seasons. We seek mentors and attend workshops to learn more about farming.
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For us, the luxury of driving to the local grocery store to buy our eggs and milk is outmatched by our preference for the daily Easter Egg Hunt to retrieve fresh eggs and the 'splash-ping' sound of milk streaming into a metal milking bucket. Homemade yogurt and chevre from the freshest and sweetest milk cannot be beat. Veggies and fruit picked right off the vine and dug from the earth provide us the freshest and flavor-packed food available. The struggle to find life balance among family, friends, work, and the farm is real and ongoing; however, this lifestyle that I am describing to you is ours by choice. We are so thankful to have the opportunity To Grow a Farm!

​As I looked out my kitchen window while washing dishes tonight I felt overwhelmed with a sense of awe.  Not 100 feet from my window stands our latest accomplishment, a real greenhouse! My hardcore other half, ever devoted to improving and growing our farm, spent countless hours during the past winter researching the best strategies and materials for erecting a small greenhouse that will meet the needs of our farm. With the help of family and great friends (Dale, Megan and Ben—we appreciate your hardwork and support so much!!), our new greenhouse, which now stands sturdy and HOT, staked with rebar and fitted with high-end light penetrating plastic, is ready to grow food! 

Becoming a farmer wasn’t exactly in my original plans when I moved away from home and went to college. I went to graduate school to become a wildlife biologist, a snake biologist to be precise. A knack for catching snakes, lizards and frogs and a heart devoted to their conservation propelled me into a nearly 7-year career working for the state of Arizona.

​As I poured my heart and soul into my work, I traveled extensively across our southern border state. I hiked into remote canyons in the Huachuca Mountains, throughout the San Rafael Valley along the border with Mexico, traversed the Sonora Desert, camped under the stars, and monitored snakes along the Verde River.  In my position, I met with ranchers to discuss conservation options for frogs and snakes. I worked with professors at universities to establish refuges for endangered frogs. 

While I lived in a small, 1 room Phoenix apartment, working and ‘living the dream,’ I grew a small container garden of heat stunted patio tomatoes, the full extent of my desert gardening. I think I managed to harvest 3 tiny tomatoes, the rest of which inadvertently became ‘sun dried’ during an extended work trip. When I eventually married my hardcore other half and we moved into our home in a Phoenix suburb with a 1/8 acre gravel covered backyard, he managed to extend our garden into larger containers, which oftentimes better served spring nesting Gambel’s Quails than our wilted zucchini and tomato plants. Back then, he used to threaten me that eventually we would have goats…. 

​“Haha,”I would laugh, casually brushing off his absurd assertions. I couldn’t imagine having livestock other than a couple of laying hens. “Who in the world wants goats?”…………

When our (then) small family of 3 made a difficult decision to depart careers and the desert southwest to move north toward 4 seasons, returning to our native roots along with woodticks and mosquitoes, I had not imagined that we would pursue a farming life. We landed on our northeastern Wisconsin peninsula during a record breaking warm spring.

​Without a plan, we submitted offers on two separate houses. Each outbid, we felt defeated. Then one day, during late summer, we walked across an old overgrown orchard where an old farmhouse, accompanied by its own retired outhouse, was encrusted with dirt and second-hand smoke and in dire need of a complete paint-job and flooring replacement, when my hardcore other half said, “You know, I could be REALLY happy here!”

​​In Phoenix, we had purchased a foreclosed home in need of deep cleaning and serious TLC. We knew we could do well with this property, if given a chance.

This northeastern WI home wasn’t huge. It wasn’t perfect. It was close to town. It had real POSSIBILITIES!!!

As we waited anxiously for news about our offer, I ran a 5K race in my hometown in central WI. We received a phone call of acceptance to our offer as I neared the finish line. I tossed my water bottle in excitement, and managed to club an old high school friend right in the head with my upward swing. Huge Ooops!!  My sincerest apologies were immediately followed with much celebration and excitement.

For those of you who have followed us since the beginning know that we started relatively small. We established a flock of laying hens. We put in a garden too large to manage initially. I became pregnant with our second child and the weeds won the battle. Our first goats arrived at the farm and by the second year, the herd grew and they grasped my heart in ways I never imagined. I will never NOT have goats again!!

​There is much more to tell you about how our farm grew to what it is today and what we dream for it to become in the future. There is much more to tell you about why we decided not only to feed our family but yours as well.

Today, as I look out at our greenhouse, which fried a few of our first seedlings as we figured out how best to manage its warmth and filtered sunshine, I see the potential of feeding our friends, of providing exercise to those who wish to help us with this endeavor, and, most importantly, of growing a dream.

I will never stop marveling at the first snake emerging from hibernation each spring, nor will I stop enjoying the call of the chorus frogs and spring peepers, marking warmer spring days. As my family has grown, and after moving from the desert southwest to the lush, green upper Midwest, I embrace the changing tides in my life.

As our farm grows and matures to feed our family and yours, I welcome you to join us. Join us through membership in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) options, or visit us at the Sturgeon Bay Farmer’s Market this summer, or come by to see baby goats.

​Just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too, it takes a community to build and support a small family farm. We aren’t perfect. We will make mistakes. But we value good food and community. Not only do we stand by what we are doing, but we are trying to grow the best for YOU! Please, join us this summer with your support!

Lastly, our farm grown meals have included a lot of eggs lately! Our hens are laying a lot and there is no shortage! If you find yourself in need of farm fresh, free-ranged eggs, give us a call!

As we enter our 5th spring on this Northeastern Wisconsin peninsula, our 4th at the farm, Mother Nature has sent us several reminders that spring is a season not to be reckoned with. It is unpredictable and extremely variable.

This year, it seems that spring, angry and resentful of the mild, even-tempered and recently departed winter, has ‘roared like a lion’ ferociously and much more often than it has ‘baaa-ed like a lamb.’ Our ill-tempered, angry spring has gusted frigid winds and covered us in snow, only to give us short reprieves with a bit of sun and unsustained warmth. Our goats started blowing their winter coats (i.e., shedding) only to have to curl up in warm beds of straw during cold subfreezing nights.

​Spring, whether it arrives with the ferocity of a lion or the calmness of a fuzzy lamb, is accompanied with endless projects to work on across the farmyard. The farmkids have helped with moving compost and mixing soil for planting seeds. Weather may dictate whether we work indoors or out, but it will not stop our forward momentum of getting ready for the coming growing season!

In nature and the farmyard, spring is marked by love. Our male Bourbon Red turkey (a heritage breed turkey), Junior, displays love for our single turkey hen, Penny, through beautiful dancing, strutting and wing ruffles. He dances for the chicken hens too, though they pay him little notice.

​Spring break arrived a day early for Farmgirl as a spring blizzard descended on the peninsula and our farm. The recently departed 70 degree weekend evaporated into memory as predictions of 8-12 inches of wet, heavy snow scrolled across the screen. Snow fell and we were forced to pull out the ‘snow plow’ one last time. 

Farmkids and dogs, immune to the unpredictable nature of spring, delighted in the new snow and tossed snowballs and built the last snowy stately structures of winter-past. Inside, Farmgirl and I enjoyed an afternoon of egg dying for Easter while Farmboy napped one afternoon. We proved that farm eggs, variable in every shade of brown, white and green can be artificially colored. There was no need for us to run to the store to purchase white eggs from factory raised, caged hens!

As winter continued to roar outside, new farm tools arrived by mail. The latest and greatest to arrive, a Wheeled Hoe, was received with enthusiasm and a mad dash for the nearest screw driver! Our Farm-mechanics in training worked alongside Farmdad to put the new gadget together. In all its shining glory, it stands for all that we aspire to on our farm—little to no dependence on oil and gas to till our garden. 

While gardening and planting plans move forward into the growing season, so too are preparations for goat kidding season. Over the next couple of weeks, our goats will begin to have babies. We wait anxiously each season for new babies to arrive and we hope that all will run smoothly. We are putting together our ‘kidding kit,’ a box of necessities like dry towels, iodine, plastic gloves, etc., to have ready if and when the need might arrive to assist a goat mom with her new baby(ies).

​Following their stressful arrival amidst an angry spring storm of high winds and chilling temperatures, our chicks are growing and feathering out into chick-adolescence. Though they no longer look like the adorable little fluffballs, their feathers are coming in and they are maturing into little chickens. As they start to test their wings, they jump up onto their water holders and they race around their warm brooder. In just a few more weeks, they will move to a new pen where they can start to venture out onto pasture to capture bugs and pick at new green shoots. 

As our farm is growing and maturing and we are venturing into our first season offering memberships in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), our needs for erecting a greenhouse/hoophouse are meeting with success. Last week, with the help of a good friend, Dale, and supporter of our farm, we began construction. Framework was cut, pounded and fastened together. Soon, plastic will be attached and we will prepare to move our first seedlings of 2016 outside! This has been a long time in coming, or so it feels. So much of what we have already accomplished as well as what we hope to achieve here on our farm would not be possible without the love, help and support of our family and our closest, new friends.

While so much goes on around the farmyard, it is hard to believe there might be time for anything else. However, when snow flies and temperatures remain cold, I find it fulfilling to cross a few things from my ‘homesteading to-do list,’ like making homemade lotion bars. Though I have to order the (mostly organic) ingredients, I put everything together right on my stove-top. These homemade lotion bars, consisting of Cacao Butter/Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Beeswax nourish and moisten our dry, heavily worked hands/skin throughout the year. I also make sunscreen bars, a variation on these, for use during the summer to protect our skin from the sun. This year, I also ventured out and made our own chapstick. It’s a lot of fun, doesn’t take a lot of time and feels great on the skin. 

​I don’t know how many families out there still cook and sit down together each night for dinner, but it is something our family values and does most nights of the week. We continue to pull from our freezer and root cellar, the remaining of the 2015 bounty. As our supplies are starting to dwindle, I am getting anxious for the coming season, and I am hopeful I can remain patient for spring to release its lioness grip on us.

​The transition from winter to spring on the farm is marked by oodles of time spent outdoors. The robins have returned, as have the sandhill cranes. We venture outside en masse, decked out in fewer layers; we pick up where we left off late last fall. We adjust fences, remove brush piles, reorganize the barn and outbuildings, clean pens, and prepare the garden for planting. The work is truly endless, yet enjoyable. The farmkids delight in mud-play and stick stacking. 

​Just as tiny sprouts of green erupt through the thawing soil outside, our little indoor seedlings are thriving and growing into a medusa-like tangle of green. Farmboy checks on their progress multiple times a day, lest he miss any growing action. 

On Wednesday, the Post Office called at 5:30 am to inform us that our chicks had arrived! It was Farmboy’s first experience with receiving new chicks and he welcomed them with squeals of ‘Ooh! And Ahhh!!’ 

Farming is fraught with unexpected little emergencies in need of immediate attention; a goat’s head stuck in a feed trough, a chicken caught between straw bales, a fence knocked down and escaped goats, an eruption of potato bugs, a leak in a roof. Most situations are not unmanageable, and often a bit of ingenuity and rapid response fixes most problems. 

The day our little chirping fluffballs arrived, the very future of our laying hen flock, Mother Nature sent us ‘The Perfect Storm.’ Freezing cold winds blasted out of the southwest, penetrating every crack and seam on the south side of the barn and drafted the chick brooder. The situation was dire and we could have lost the whole batch of baby chicks if we didn’t act IMMEDIATELY.
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We rapidly MacGyvered make-shift walls around the brooder to block the drafts and added another heat lamp. We retrieved some blue tarps from a pile nearby and stapled them to the interior barn walls. As the chicks huddled together and absorbed warmth from the extra heat lamps, now protected from drafts, they began to settle.  It was with great sadness that we lost a few chicks; however, we were immensely relieved that we saved all the rest and they are doing well and growing like chicks do. 

​With the recent crisis managed and averted, farm life continues. Goats are truly browsers, not grazers like sheep. They prefer to eat broad leaves from trees and herbaceous woody plants. They graze on grass secondarily. While the broad leaves of spring are still a few weeks away, the goats enjoy crunching on fresh cuttings trimmed from the orchard.

​Our family often enjoys late afternoon chores together. Farmgirl excels in tracking down all the eggs and carefully placing them in the egg racks, this is a new system for egg collecting that will reduce cracking and facilitate packaging. Farmboy enjoys just being outside and marvels at watching all the different animals. Our Rosie De is always present wherever there is action in the farmyard too. 

​Last week, we cooked up an old favorite to warm us from within: hearty vegetable lentil soup. We dug through and found some frozen peppers, tomatoes, carrots and parsley from the garden as well as some storage garlic and potatoes. We added a side of home baked drop biscuits made from our goat milk kifer; our version of buttermilk biscuits.  

​Much to my dismay, the farmkids’ CRUD was contagious…. It settled into my head and lungs just as the kids regained energy and lung capacity. Before my own energy waned, we all took advantage of a warm, spring-like weekend and enjoyed lots of fresh air. The farmkids excitedly helped us clean up the polebarn. Farmboy, new on his feet since last season, is a master of the broom in the house and discovered similar pleasure and skill in raking outside. Farmgirl assisted with filling the trailer with wheelbarrow loads of spent hay and straw. Practical and thoughtful as she is, Farmgirl updated her birthday/Christmas list with a request for a ‘real wheelbarrow.’ According to her, the small, plastic kid ones give her backaches! 

​Spring fever, not solely a human affliction, strikes animals too! With each passing day, unseasonably warm for early March, the snow melted away, and the chickens ‘flew the coop’ with unrestrained exuberance. The girls exercised their legs and filled their lungs with fresh air as they expanded their foraging range across the farmyard in search of bugs, grubs and other delectable treats. They scavenged through the fallen apples in the orchard and scratched in the field behind the house. Relative calmness and contentment emanated from the coop as the girls resettled on their roosts each night.

​The does and bucks enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air as they lounged in their permanent winter pens. Just as we tire of eating winter stored foods from last season, so too are the goats tiring of dry winter hay. They anxiously await the emergence of fresh green on the pasture. The broad green leaves of spring surely cannot come soon enough! 

​Our indoor seedlings are ‘growing like weeds!’ A veritable jungle of leek and onion stems overflows the trays in brilliant summer green. The herbs and celery daintily reach for the light and soak in the humid warmth. As our plans for the garden grow, so too did our need for more seedling starting space. With the help of a good friend, we constructed another sturdy plant stand, fitted it with new growing lights and situated it in the far corner of our mudroom. The increased capacity to start and grow more plants from seed falls in line with our goal of producing high quality food for our family and the local community.

​As winter is drawing to an end, so too is our supply of farm raised food. We still pull what we can from the deep freeze (largely frozen peppers, corn and meat) and our root cellar (potatoes and garlic). The taste of spring and summer are just around the corner! 

​Farmgirl’s hard work of last week paid off as we watched the first green shoots of 2016 emerge through the warm, moist soil-filled flats in our mudroom. The new shoots stretched upward against the weight of the remaining seed husks. We will provide supplemental light for the little plants until they grow stronger and we prepare to transition them for life outdoors in several weeks.

One morning last week I walked outside with Little Rosie De and found the entire farm adorned in beautiful ice crystals. It looked like fog, frozen in mid-vapor descent. It was, in fact, a frozen fog, for which I didn’t realize there is actually a word--hoar frost. This phenomenon happens when the air is still and frozen water vapor deposits dainty ice crystals across plants, fences, etc. It is akin to a fresh beautiful snowfall, but more delicate in nature.

The ice and deep snowy drifts of early, bitterly cold February melted precipitously into Mud Season by the middle of the month. The accompanying gusting winds blew in severe cases of spring fever across the farm. Farmgirl played in mud after school. The chickens extended their foraging range in search of seeds and other tasty morsels. I sensed an urgency to launch ‘spring cleaning’ in the polebarn. 

Typically, we aim to start cleaning out livestock pens in late March and April, NOT February, once the congealed bedding has thawed after a cold, deep-freezing winter. It is impossible to move bedding before the thaw. However, a winter marked with atypical weather patterns did not allow the bedding to freeze up this year as usual. With temperatures rising, so too were the moisture levels in the polebarn.

Muscles and ambitious work ethics, accompanied by new friendships and community connections, arrived at our farm to assist with farmwork. What could have taken my hard-core other half and I several days to achieve was accomplished in relatively short order. Pens were cleaned and refreshed, compost was moved (some of it at least!) and lots of fresh air and sunlight danced through the big open polebarn doors. It was a notable accomplishment!
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Just as farmwork was progressing, the CRUD entered our house and took hold of the farmkids. As the week progressed, so did their colds and coughing, our farmboy apparently predisposed to developing croup.  There is never a good time for sickness to enter a home, though I have found it sometimes seems even worse now that we are running a small farm. As farmers, we cannot call in sick; someone has to feed and water the animals and check on things, everyday. During such times, my hard-core other half and I work together as a team, alternately comforting the farmkids and tending to the livestock. The days feel long but the week passes surprisingly quickly.

​With the onset of illness in the house, we fell short in cooking many farm-grown meals this week. Frozen leftovers and a few items from the grocery store carried us through. We enjoyed one particularly nice meal of banana pepper relleno casserole, pulled together from frozen and fresh ingredients. With this dish, we first roasted our peppers (from last summer’s bounty), then baked it in a dish of farm-fresh free-ranged eggs and cheese. When topped off with homemade salsa, it was quite delicious! 

​Expressions of love come in so many forms, gifts, cards, flowers, romantic gestures.  LOVE is creating memories and growing good food to fuel our bodies and feed our souls. LOVE is a connection with the land and animals (wild or domestic).

​Last week’s cranky and seemingly unrelenting arctic airmass begrudgingly released its icy grasp on us late in the week. Still in cozy winter torpor, I was enjoying the long, dark winter nights and cooking rich, core-warming winter foods. It came as a bit of surprise, as it does each February, that my ‘hard-core other half’ insisted that we needed to start planting for the coming growing season.

“Already?!” I exclaimed. “But it’s only the middle of February, ...in Wisconsin! It is 5 degrees below zero! Are you sure?”

“Yes! Look at the calendar!!! We have to get the leeks, onions, and celery started. Maybe even a few of the herbs,” he responded in exasperation. “In fact, we might even be a week late!”

While the mercury parked itself below zero and winds blasted chills into the frost biting zone, it seemed like the summer growing season was eons away. However, still weeks before the first green shoots will emerge from the sun warmed soil, the 2016 growing season got underway at Emerald Acres Farm. Our laundry room metamorphosed into a mud room. . . 

​Last Sunday, Valentine’s Day, our 5-year-old farmgirl worked alongside her daddy to build soil blocks and plant the first seeds of 2016. As I watched the two, I realized that there is no love quite like that which exists between a father and his daughter. As they squished and massaged the moist potting soil between their fingers and meticulously placed each of the seeds, no larger than a pencil tip, with a tweezers into the soil, I marveled at the memories they were creating together. As they were sowing seeds for the coming summer’s bounty, so too were they sowing lifelong memories of time spent together.

Our little farmboy accompanies me most mornings, dressed in his toddler-warmest and nestled close to my chest in our Ergo (baby carrier), to walk around the property. Farmboy, not yet much of a talker, hums in contented relaxation and chirrups excitedly at first sight of the goats. The pups join us on patrol. This week, the peninsular winds brushed the snowy slate clean across our field. As we clumsily walked through the snowy drifts, we encountered fresh tracks stamped across our path. . .

When I showed the photo to Farmgirl, she enthusiastically informed me that they were turkey tracks! Of course! Wild turkeys frequent our orchard where they scratch through the icy crust to retrieve last fall’s leftover apples.

More signs of wildlife of the miniature nature etched the snowscape, evidenced by an intricate network of snow tunnels
and decorated by pawprints. 

Farm Grown Meals of the Week: We continue to pull what we can from our deep freeze. My ‘hard-core other half’ excels in stuffing peppers of the Mexican/southwest flavor. His sweet peppers, topped with chili and cumin seasoned venison burger and organic black beans spread over a bed of warm brown rice, top our Farmboy’s list of favorite foods. A little (probably Americanized) Asian influence also graced our table last week with some homemade Chop Suey.  

According to various news reports from around the state, 3 different groundhogs did not see their shadow on Groundhog’s Day and independently predicted the arrival of an early spring. However, the latest polar airmass to descend on Emerald Acres during the 6th week of the year brought with it a stark reminder that winter will still be here for another 6 weeks...

​Following a beautiful weekend jam-packed with sledding and skiing around the property, candlelight hiking at Whitefish Dunes State Park and ice skating on the local outdoor rink, temperatures plunged once again and the mercury dropped below 0 F. Windchills blew into the eyelash freezing, nostril pinching, frost-biting zone. In the farmyard, water buckets froze, so we hauled more hot water. We kept hay (for the goats) and grain (for the chickens) feeders full. Eggs froze,then cracked.

​As we farm, we learn to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. We knew that the goats would not want to spend much time outdoors during the latest cold snap, so we decided to separate our junior does from their moms to help them fully wean.

We dam-raise (in other words, let the moms feed and raise their kids) goat babies born on our farm because we feel it affords the goat kids the best possible nutrition and lessons on how to ‘just be a goat.’ Goat moms usually start to naturally wean their kids, if not forced to do so earlier, when the kids are about 6 months old, give or take. Our junior does range in age from about 7-9 months and were nearly weaned already so it was not a difficult transition for them. The goat moms will be able to rest for a while before they give birth to new kids this year.
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A rather uneventful and extremely cold week afforded us time to work around the house and attend to some paperwork (ugh, taxes….). We also started to gear up for planting in the near future! Below are some rich dishes we cooked up this week to keep us warm.

Decked out in my, ahem, ‘fashionable’ Carhart overalls and hotpink Muck boots, I stepped through the doorway onto our porch. A blast of cold air slapped my cheeks and the bright winter sun forcibly contracted my pupils into near obscurity. My senses, trained and practiced, fired up as I directed my strides toward the farmyard.

Observation is the first step in assessing the health and safety of all those that reside on our farm.

SIGHT

My experienced eyes caught sight of the bucklings, cloaked in burly winter coats, playfully ‘bucking around’ in their fenced yard. It isn’t unusual to see them outside during the day, though it was surprising that they were outside during the start of a winter storm; I made a mental note. Chickens and our two turkeys basked in the fleeting sun shining through the doorway to the pole barn. The goat pen doors were secured, the does lounging lazily and chewing their cud. Everything looked as it should, at least at first glance…

SOUND

A loud squabble among the chickens, presumably a few hens vying for some prime morsel of food or the best spot on the roost, muffled the crunch of snow and ice beneath my feet as I entered the pole barn. The deep alto bleat, “Maaa-aaa” from Polka, one of our Oberhasli goats directed a greeting to me. Each of our goats has a unique ‘voice.’

“Polka! What are you chattering about today?” I call out, expectantly waiting for her to respond.

“Maaa-aaa, MA!!” she answered! I made a mental note to look at her more closely; it’s likely she was coming into heat and ready to breed with our buck. A peaceful atmosphere enveloped me; it was calm before the snow storm.

SMELL

As I hoisted my heavily booted legs into the bucklings’ house, the sweet smell of decaying hay and straw seeped through my nasal passages. While I assessed the hay feeders and glanced at the water bucket, my nose alerted me to a sharp scent characterized by earthy undertones overlain with ammonia. Though not entirely unpleasant, I noticed that the bucklings would not come into the house unless forcibly persuaded. Something wasn’t quite right.

TOUCH

While in the buckling house, I knelt down for a moment to ponder the information transmitted by my senses. In short order, I felt warmth sliding along my shin and moving upward through my knee. I removed my glove and shoved my hand into the bedding of tight packed straw, urine and goat berries. Heat, radiant and moist, enveloped my hand. It took a moment to realize what was going on. The strength and magic of creating compost was happening immediately below me! It was fascinating! And HOT! My hand did not burn, but it was considerably warmer than my own core temperature.

​DEEP LITTER

We use a management technique called ‘deep littering’ in our chicken and goat pens through the winter. As bedding gets damp or soiled, we add fresh layers of straw to keep pens dry and relatively clean. As layers pile up, alternating between clean straw or hay and animal waste, the natural process of decay, or compost action, kicks in. The heat produced from the chemical reactions of decomposition actually helps to keep the animals warm through the winter months. Bedding + animal waste (urine or poop) = compost = heat = MAGIC!

However, there is a fine line between being nice and toasty and too much moisture produced, which can cause sickness…pneumonia or other respiratory illnesses.  Without going into too much detail, we decided that while the bedding in the buckling pen was producing wonderful warmth, it was also emitting too much moisture and ammonia to be safe for our bucklings. Their house needed to be cleaned, immediately!

Standing knee-high in a thick mat of bedding, it was not an easy task. With gale winds blowing and snow piling in, my ‘hard-core other half’ and I alternated shifts between watching the farm-kiddos inside and cleaning out the buckling house during a snow storm. Steam billowed from the bedding as we moved it through the door, and falling snow melted on impact. Once cleared and a new layer of straw bedding spread down, the bucklings enthusiastically reentered the building.

AROUND THE FARM:

​The snow storm last week laid down a nice blanket of fresh snow, though accumulations didn’t quite reach levels originally predicted. Our furbabies played hard and continued to keep watch over the farm. 

​In the house we made fresh batches of goat milk yogurt and chevre. Our beautiful farmgirl came up with an idea of spreading fresh goat chevre inside a leaf of cabbage and rolling it to make cabbage-chevre roll-ups! They were delightful! We also made a tasty, core-warming chicken and bean chili using beautiful Calypso beans grown from our garden. We all played in the snow and in the sunshine ahead of the approaching cold-front.

​There, in full sight, stood a momma moose and her calf, munching happily on the last of the cabbage and broccoli. With tears seeping in from the corners of his eyes, an empty stomach rumbling in his ears, blood pressure rising in his veins, he reached down, picked up a rock and hurled it forward. With an intended aim for 3 feet in front of the duo, the momma moose perked her ears, snorted, turned, and led her young calf away, exiting through the opening in the uncompleted pallet fence. As my husband-to-be delicately stepped into the garden to assess the damage, he found only the mustard greens standing erect and undefeated, everything else had been devoured.

“They even ate the onions!” he likes to emphatically point out. “What kind of moose eats onions but leaves the mustard greens?!”  

The funny thing is, back then, he didn’t even like mustard greens.’~~~

Deer are not uncommon visitors to Emerald Acres, though they often arrive after sunset and stay only until the first light of dawn. Driven to survive, they thrust their hooves through the snow, digging fallen apples in the orchard. Oftentimes they bed down at the far reaches of our field, sheltered from the strong peninsular winds.


Last week, the temperatures ebbed into the single digits and eventually into the teens and 20s. We coaxed the goats outside to get a little sunshine and fresh air. The chickens basked in the fleeting sun that peeked through the barn doors, and our pups ran their hearts out, bounding through the snow and pouncing, looking for life beneath. A recent winter storm bedazzled the orchard and surrounding field with a sparkling, radiant blanket of fresh snow. Everything looked fresh and beautiful outside as we, on the inside, continue planning for spring.
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​Farm Grown Meals of the Week: We dug into the deep freeze this week and pulled out some frozen sliced eggplant, lightly breaded in flour and egg and fried last fall. After thawing and crisping under the broiler, I rolled each with a layer of seasoned fresh goat cheese (fresh garlic, parsley and oregano) and set them into a glass baking dish. Layered with homemade pasta sauce and a little shredded Parmesan cheese, these Eggplant Alouette Rolls were delightful when scooped over a bed of organic, whole wheat pasta and paired with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon (water for the kiddos!). We also enjoyed a venison burger meatloaf and side of roasted brussel sprouts, harvested from our winter garden. These fresh meals made with ingredients from our freezer provided for some great weeknight meals. If you’ve enjoyed hearing about the different meals we have cooked throughout the week using foods grown or raised right here on the farm, be sure to stay tuned. We are working on putting together recipes to share with you!

Winter Grace: The second notable arctic airmass of the year descended on Emerald Acres last week, with temperatures dropping below 0 F and windchills -20 to -30 F. Memories of the winter from two years ago (2014) blasted back into my mind and chilled me to the core, reminding me of when daily high temperatures remained below 0 F for nearly 50 days, shattering records and freezing old pipes across the state. In The Little House on the Prairie, the chapter book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder that I just finished reading to my daughter, the Ingalls family faced seemingly endless blizzards, extreme cold and near starvation during The Hard Winter in the late 1800s. While the winter of 2014 will never fully compare to that which the Ingalls faced well over a century ago in De Smet, South Dakota, it will forever remain The Hard Winter for our family here on this Wisconsin Peninsula. While food was not scarce, propane shortages, rationing and sky-rocketing prices forced us to lock our thermostat at an uncomfortable 58 F in our drafty, century-old farmhouse and to layer on the clothing in triplicate. Our elderly family dog at the time spent the greater majority of her time lying on heating pads to keep the arthritis in her bones at bay. A hot cup of tea remained a permanent fixture in our hands. While we suffered, not intolerably, in the house, it was our first year ever with livestock and most of our attention was focused outward. With warnings on the radio that told us to ‘stay in’, we ventured out. It was the least we could do for the animals that provided so much to us.

Without a source of water in the barn, twice a day, sometimes more, we trekked 5-gal buckets of hot water in a sled, across the snow, head-on into driving winds all the way to the barn—100 steps in normal weather, 200 painful, nostril freezing steps during a polar vortex. The goats never greeted us without the utmost gratitude as we refreshed frozen buckets with warm, steaming water. Goats slurp, and slurp and slurp, swishp, slishp slurp, and lick their lips, grasping at the warm droplets before a few fell into the straw below. I swear they smiled at us after they felt the warmth hit their bellies and warmed them from within. The girls shivered on the milk stand as each squirt of milk froze instantly in the bucket, but they graciously accepted the grain in their feed bucket, which helped warm their rumens. With fresh bales of hay in their feeders, deep straw for bedding, warm water in their buckets, the goats weathered the cold that year with impeccable strength and resilience.

Our flock of laying chickens also tolerated the extreme cold of the polar vortex (without fire-causing heat lamps!) so long as they had freedom from drafts and access to ample food and water. Our birds survived the confines of a long, hard winter and ranged far and wide as soon as winter gave way to spring.

As my belly grew through 4 to 6 months pregnancy (for our second child) during The Hard Winter, I was never so thankful as when winter ended and that I no longer had to ask my ‘hard-core other half’ to try to zip me into my Carhart overalls so I could head outside to do chores (don’t worry, he helped me with them!). By the end of winter, there was simply no more ‘sucking it in’! As The Hard Winter transitioned into a chilly, not entirely forgiving spring, I eased into my roomy fleece jackets and maternity pants and set about preparing for the coming months.

We learned through The Hard Winter that extreme cold adds a level of complexity to life that we had not known before embracing a farming lifestyle, especially one with livestock. We also learned that animals, and we as humans, are extremely strong and resilient, and that we can survive some of the harshest of conditions. This winter, 2016, has kindly graced us with intermittent reprieves in the weather and warmer temperatures, something unknown to us during The Hard Winter. Any sane person or family would probably have given up after such a hard year, especially when it was a first ever with livestock, but apparently this family has an affinity for adventure (or insanity!). Our goat herd and chicken flock have actually grown in size and with each passing season we have learned to better manage all the animals throughout the winter. It is still a tremendous amount of work each day, but what we receive in the way of food and companionship from our critters makes it worth every calorie we spend filling waterers and feeders throughout the long, dark days of winter. 

Farm Grown Meals of the Week: Last week, we enjoyed a rich stewed venison chili flavored with frozen sweet peppers, beans and dried thyme from the garden. We also slow roasted a freshly butchered cockerel (boy chicken less than a year old) and paired it with store bought sweet potatoes and garden grown corn from our freezer. We then used the remnants from our roasted chicken to make a large pot pie, a favorite in our house. We added storage potatoes and garlic, frozen peas, corn and green beans from our garden, and January picked carrots and leeks. We topped off our pot pie meal with a homemade cherry pie made from the tart cherries grown right on the farm! As usual, for breakfast and sometimes lunch, we enjoyed fresh yogurt made from our creamy Nigerian dwarf goat milk! When paired with fresh or frozen fruit, it is simply delectable! A week wouldn’t be complete without fresh chevre made from our goat milk. When added with salsa (compliments of Grandma Chris) to homemade soft flour tortillas, it makes a great lunch for the kids and me during the weekdays!

 The Polar Purge: As single digit temperatures and subarctic windchills finally descended upon Emerald Acres during the second week of the year, we dug in and started scooping out the junk and unneeded items that have settled into our home over the past year, or more….  At other times of the year, when the sun shines and warmth surrounds us, we rarely find the time needed to keep everything inline within the house; all of us prefer to be outside playing in the garden or with the animals than inside attending to the ‘inside stuff’! Papers and junkmail stack up, outgrown clothes and toys land in piles or lay strewn across the floor, and more than a respectable amount of dust settles in the corners and on the surfaces remaining just out of reach from our toddler! Spring is the time most people feel compelled to dig in and clean out (a.k.a. ‘spring cleaning’), but it is in winter, when outdoor chores are somewhat reduced and slightly less is going on around the farm that our family finds the time to deal with the ‘within’. It is not a fast process, and when coupled with an active and imaginative 5-year-old and 18-month old toddler AND a new puppy, it is a blessing that any forward progress is actually achieved. However, little by little, the piles are growing smaller and the bottoms of our socks are a tad less dirty!

Polar Planning: I recently posted a cartoon I found on Facebook about how it is that ‘S.A.D’(Seed Acquisition Disorder) time of year at the farm. While I can’t take credit for the cartoon’s originality and good humor, it’s actually pretty funny, and is almost entirely true for our family! The moment the first seed catalog arrives, usually sometime in December, thoughts about and plans for the upcoming growing season start sprouting in our minds. By the first week or two in January, we are nearly ready to place our seed order(s) to ensure that everything arrives in time to get our plants growing and ready for the next growing season. Deciding where to purchase seeds from is a careful, considerate and deliberate process; we are mindful of whether to trade from our closest friends that have seed-saved over the years or to purchase organic, non-GMO seeds. Many of our decisions are influenced by the flavors of the food to be produced as well as our goals for the year. As we work to define our plan for 2016 (stay tuned….it will be disclosed soon!), we choose as wisely as possible to ensure that our garden will grow to its potential and provide food of the highest quality. As my ‘hard-core other half’ prepares to hit the SUBMIT button on our seed order, I can hardly keep from salivating at the thought of juicy, flavorful summer tomatoes, fresh oven-roasted kale chips, homemade pesto, and much, much more! Spring and summer seem a long way off, but there is much to plan and prepare for and we can’t wait to hit the ground when the ice finally melts away in a few more months!

Farm Grown Meals of the Week: Warm, rich foods and flavors grown entirely or partially on the farm continued to fill our bellies this week. The precious freezer space we sacrificed late last summer to put away a small amount of whole sweet peppers rewarded us with a delectable meal of stuffed peppers this week. The sweet flavor of summer peppers stuffed with Italian seasoned venison burger, brown rice, summer tomatoes and black beans completely offset the slightly softened texture of the peppers. We also enjoyed another roasted chicken with garlic cloves and a side of roasted beets and storage garlic. Seriously, I’m not sure our family can ever consume too much garlic….. After deboning the leftover roasted chicken, we tossed the meat into the Crockpot with our lovely homemade salsa verde (green salsa made last summer from fresh tomatillos and green chilies from the garden) and let it stew for a few hours before adding some black beans and serving over a bed of brown rice. Making new meals from leftovers is a way to ensure nothing goes to waste and that our family never tires of the foods we enjoy. And of course my ‘hard-core other half’ wouldn’t pass up a chance to stir-fry any greens if they could be retrieved within 200 ft of the house, even if it meant chopping the tops off the brusselsprout plants still standing, frozen in knee-high sproutly statues within our snow covered, frozen garden.  

For the Animal Lovers………

Eggsicles: As luck would have it, the coldest temperatures of the winter descended upon us just as my ‘hard-core other half’ needed to travel out of town to attend a meeting for his day job for a couple of days. While we are fortunate enough to have reliable farm help during such times to ensure all the animals are well cared for, I wasn’t able to get outside often enough to check for and collect eggs before they chilled, froze and ultimately cracked. During the winter months, when egg laying is already at a low point, a few frozen eggs are a real drag. Not only does it reduce the numbers of eggs available for purchase to our loyal customers, but our family is also limited by what we have access to for baking and cooking. Thankfully, last week’s arctic airmass was relatively short-lived and it passed by and left slightly warmer temps in its wake. Our critters greatly enjoyed a slight warm-up later in the week and we all breathed a sigh of relief that a winter like 2 years ago remains a distant memory!

Our Furry Companions: Many may wonder about how or even whether our pups work in the cold and winter. Our snow dog, Tula, is only too happy to remain outside through the coldest of times. Her winter furt coat suits her well, it is truly magical the way it repels the snow and water and insulates her from the cold; however, she will occasionally enjoy a short visit in the house to eat a warm meal and grab her share of hugs, petting and daily grooming (brushing my big polar fur-baby is seriously a great therapy!) before she starts to overheat and wants to head back out onto the frozen farmland to do the work for which she was designed and loves to do—guarding her farm. We were excited to watch Tula this week as she seems to be developing an eye for aerial predators (e.g. hawks, crows, things that might try to catch or kill our chickens).  It is with great pride that we watch Tula through our kitchen window, overlooking the property as she races out back to bark at any potential predators and to let everyone within hearing distance know she is here. That is the way with Great Pyrenees dogs—first and foremost BARK. She will also happily keep company with our 5-year-old daughter for hours on end when she plays outside in the snow. Our Tula, truly a gentle giant, is forever loyal to our human kids, while also keeping an attentive eye on everyone and everything else around her. Our English Shepherd pup, Little Rosie De, is still mostly working on basic obedience, playing a ton to expend her endless energy, and starting to learn to watch the goat pen doors to help prevent any potential escapees as we go in and out to feed and water the goats. On-the-job training is super important for such intelligent dogs as these!

Our energetic little pup is growing fast. She plays a lot with our Great Pyrenees and our (human) kids, and is working to learn basic obedience. She has been great about observing and leaving the chickens alone and will even sit- stay- and watch when we work in the goat pens. She has a lot to learn yet about her roles on the farm but she is doing great in learning to fit into the family and we love her. Can't wait to see what she will be able to do as she moves through adolescence into adulthood!

Snow Garden: Digging fresh carrots and leeks on New Year’s Day is probably not something most people who live in the upper Midwest ever think about, let alone believe possible. However, my ‘hard-core other-half’ schemed a way to set up a small, temporary hoop-house (kind of like a small, plastic covered greenhouse) during the fall to enclose an area where we had some late season carrots growing. He dreamed of heading outside one day during winter, when the rest of the world, or at least our small peninsular county, was sitting under snow and ice, and digging some fresh veggies. An unseasonably warm fall and early winter along with our small hoop-house led to just such a success. When everyone else was probably sitting inside watching the Rosebowl, my ‘hard-core other half’ was out digging carrots in the hoop house and then leeks from under the straw mulch. They may not have been huge, but they were fresh and flavorful and they filled our week with freshness unknown to most in the first week of the New Year. And with that, we added more to our root cellar to carry us toward the next growing season.

Farm Grown Meals of the Week: This week we comforted ourselves with rich and savory meals, partially or entirely grown on the farm. On New Year’s Day, we indulged in nachos (OK, we used Organic tortilla chips from Costco) made from ground venison burger, storage onions, homemade salsa (compliments of Grandma!), organic black beans and shredded cheddar cheese(the last two, store bought). It’s a super easy meal and it made for a fun movie night! The highlight of the week was an oven roasted chicken (one of our pasture raised, organically fed broiler chickens) infused with a whole bulb of garden grown storage garlic and sprinkled with sea salt and pepper, with sides of oven roasted fresh picked winter carrots and leeks, and oven roasted sweet potatoes (store bought since we didn’t grow them last summer) and storage garlic. Using the remnants from our roasted chicken, we then made a homemade chicken noodle soup using storage onions and frozen parsley, celery (store bought) and fresh picked winter carrots. Our last big meal of the week included a new recipe, venison hamburger soup (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/hamburger-soup/, with modifications of course!). We added sweet peppers, green beans, and corn (frozen from our summer garden) along with storage onions, potatoes and garlic and fresh picked winter carrots. A fresh batch of chevre (goat cheese) made from milk from our Nigerian dwarf goats added a great touch to several of our lunches this week as well! We are always thankful for our fresh and continuous supply of milk and eggs on the farm!

For the animal lovers……..

The Grazers: The unseasonably warm fall and early winter allowed our beautiful goat herd to access pasture much later than normal for this time of year. Access to pasture allows our goats to get extra vitamin D from the sun and to exercise, all of which helps maintain a healthier herd in winter. Breeding season has been underway for several weeks and we are excitedly heading toward our 2016 kidding season (kids = baby goats!). We still have a few does (female goats) in milk that supply all our family’s needs for drinking milk, and yogurt and cheese making. We are so thankful for all that our does provide to us and we do all that we can to keep them in good health all year long.

Our Feathered Friends: Several of our egg-laying chickens (otherwise known as ‘layers’) have undergone an annual molt recently. Molt means that they lose most of their feathers and replace them with an entirely new set, beautiful and shiny. During this time, which also coincides with the shorter day-lengths of winter, the birds usually take a break from laying eggs. In small family flocks, all the birds may actually stop laying eggs at the same time, and this might last a month or more! Thankfully we have a pretty large flock here at Emerald Acres (over 60 chickens and 2 turkeys currently!) and we have several that are newer layers, so we are still getting some eggs from our girls every day, which are available for sale fresh from the farm! Our girls are fed exclusively organic feed and allowed to range to their hearts’ content each day. While the birds don’t stray far from the safety of their home building on the coldest of winter days, they have a lot of room to move around and bask in the fleeting winter sun to meet their needs for a healthy, happy life, each and every day.

Our Furry Companions: Our beautiful snow-dog, Tula, a Great Pyrenees, watches over her flock of chickens and herd of goats every day and night. Not only is she excited to meet each visitor to the farm, but she enthusiastically greets each day, rain, snow, wind or shine, to watch over the farm, and we love her dearly. Our newest and much loved family member, Little Rosie De, an English Sherpherd puppy (otherwise known as the Old Farm Collies from the early 1900s-known as all-around farm dogs) is both a wonderful playmate and companion to our Tula and our family. Little Rosie De is learning the rules of the farm and what her roles will be in helping with the chickens and goats. She has big paws to fill, but she is smart and energetic and on her way to being an important part of the family and farm.