Interested in what keeps us engaged and connected to the land at our farm. We periodically update our blog with stories, lessons, recipes and photos from the farm.
The weather is getting colder, and the forest is ablaze with color. Watching the seasons change on the farm is an education in itself. The September duties are different than the October duties & so on, but one thing remains constant on the farm: The animals need to eat. Amy’s gardens are still filled with food suitable for the pigs, goats and rabbits. It’s educational to learn about which animals eat the mulberry leaves, the kale, squash, beets and the hickory nuts.
When I was a little girl, my mom and I were driving on a quiet, rural road. Unexpectedly and without commentary, she pulled the car over, got out and walked over to a mound of dirt in a farm field. She started digging with her clean hands. I cocked my head. What IS SHE DOING? Then she pulled out a potato, turned around and smiled at me. This little memory remains in my mind and I remember the joy I felt that random day we picked a couple of potatoes. Why is harvesting potatoes so rewarding? Today at HSF, we harvested potatoes and found the same joy I experienced years ago. Digging in dirt, we found the potatoes in all shapes and sizes, sharing ooohs and aahhhs of our biggest and smallest finds! We used our potatoes and some leeks we harvested to make a delicious potato-leek soup!
Later, we spent time in the forest near the pigs, the pigs are part of a system of animals used to helping to reclaim the oak savanna forest. Bumble and Bee(the pigs), play a major role in this reclamation clearing out invasive ground plants. They move around the forest in paddocks made of portable electric fence. Then when they clear and area, logs and sticks are collected into piles to clear the ground floor for planting seeds.
