Terrabyte Farm

Mike and I got our first chickens in the summer of 2002.  We maintained a flock of between six and eight hens at our old house and loved having fresh eggs.  We let them free range and they kept the bug population way down as well as giving us lovely eggs.

Our flock currently stands at about 40 hens and roosters.  Five came with us during the move, five are from a friend, and the rest are chicks we either got from the hatchery or hatched here on the farm.  We are very happy with our flock, we have four great roosters (you want around a 1:8-1:10 ratio) and are currently getting about 18 eggs/day from our hens.  Our chickens free range and we feed them an all natural vegetable feed with no antibiotics.  We also give them leftovers from the house since we are currently pig-less.  We use a little more than one and a half 50lb bags of feed per week (each chicken consumes roughly 1/4 lb per day, plus we let the 11 ducks and 4 geese eat a little as well).  Each bag of feed is roughly $12, so we spend about $18/week to feed our flock.  Right now we are getting about 8-10 dozen eggs per week, which if you do the math comes to about $1.90/dozen eggs in feed costs, which is way better than the price you pay for all natural free-range eggs in the local grocery.  Plus, there is NOTHING better than eggs that have been laid that day.  We sell several dozen/week to friends and eat the rest.

Here are some of the dishes we made with eggs this week:

• Hard Boiled Eggs and Egg Salad
• Ham and Swiss Quiche
• American Sponge Cake
• Cookies (three kinds that we cooked a few and froze the rest)
• Challah Bread
• Beignets
• Omelets
• Fried Eggs with Bacon and Home Fries
• Kasha Buckwheat

If you can, find a local farm and purchase some eggs.  When chickens are happy and have access to the outside, fresh air, water, and healthy grain they make the worlds best eggs.

We eat at fast food restaurants.

We are busy, working parents with two young kids.  Sometimes we go through the drive-thru.  It is infrequent (once/twice a month) and we have rules, for example we try to only order fish or whole cuts of chicken if we order meat at all.  We avoid foods that have been ground due to concerns about contamination.  Same thing goes for restaurants in general, although, again, we are not completely dogmatic about this.  Sometimes we make alternative choices based on what would be easier, faster, most polite, whatever.  The key is moving towards and ideal even if it’s never reached (nor expected to be reachable).

We really like sweets and allow our kids to eat candy and drink soda.

GASP!  To be honest, most of the sweets we eat are things we make ourselves.  If you come to our house, you are likely to find anything from homemade root beer to homemade twinkies to homemade candy.  Several nights ago we made a chocolate cookie cake with a ganache frosting for Mike’s birthday.  I made a batch of dark chocolate covered cherries that I am hoarding in the back of the fridge and not allowing anyone else to eat.  We limit soda to special occasions; birthdays, parties, eating out, and don’t drink soda with caffeine (we usually stick to root beer or ginger ale).  We feel pretty strongly that life is for enjoying and we really enjoy yummy foods.  Our kids get plenty of veggies and other healthy stuff, so the occasional desert won’t hurt them or us.  Plus, when you are living and working on a farm, you can use the calories.  Finally, from years of personal experience (Jamie has only ever had child-related jobs; camp counselor, baby-sitter, nanny, etc.) the kids who have the biggest problems with sugar and sweets are the ones who are never allowed to have them.  Children who are allowed to have snacks and learn to moderate themselves tend to grow up with the healthiest food attitudes.  In our house, it is common to have to throw out the last cookie or piece of cake because it has gone stale.  We have a huge candy cupboard that the kids can both access. They never try to sneak candy because they don’t need to.  In fact, this next year, I think I may just make a bag of uneaten candy that I set aside and we use to decorate our holiday ginger bread houses.

We watch tv and so do our kids.  We also play Wii.

In moderation and without commercials.  We have a Netflix subscription, so we get disks in the mail and watch movies and shows online.  We go to the library once a week and the kids each pick out a movie.  We use a program on our computer that is like Tivo and we set up a weekly schedule to tape the shows that we and the kids like.  I take out the commercials from the kids shows (FYI, a half-hour show is really only 22 minutes).  For our shows, we just fast forward.  We feel that by not being tied down to watching at certain times, we have tons of flexibility and probably watch far less tv.  We have a few kids shows and a few grown-up shows we watch and maybe once a week watch a movie as a family.  We limit the amount the kids watch, some days it is none, and some days (bad weather, sick, really tired, etc.) we watch a lot.  Sometimes I feel like the kids watch too much, but that is life.  If we had a communal living situation and people around to play with and interact with at all times, I am sure they would watch almost none.  As it is, all four of us tend to be people who are very concentrated and focused and intense with whatever we are doing (working, playing, visiting with friends, cooking, etc.) and then want to just zone out for a while.  Plus, there are some really great shows and movies and we feel that our lives are more enriched having watched them.  As for the Wii, it is also something we set limits on.  Mostly Mike and Jackson play together (Lego Star Wars), but we are starting to play as a family now that Charlotte is older (Big Brain Academy).  Like with the sweets and soda, we feel that having our children get exposure to it and learning to set some limits for themselves is the best way to proceed.  Jackson will spend half an hour on the Wii and then go play his legos for an hour or more.  He is learning self-modulation which we feel is very good.

We love technology and pop culture and politics.

We have  and iPhone and iPods and keep up with the latest scandals on a myriad of websites (actually, that’s mostly Jamie).  We don’t wish to be living at another time or place.  We are happy with our modern lives and consider ourselves to be techno-pioneers.

The last two weeks have been filled with fiber finishes.

I finished my log cabin quilt.  I am very happy with the way it came out, one side is a bit wonky, but I love the way to colors look together and it is very soft and warm.

I finished the pair of socks I had been working on.  I knit socks from the toe-up using the “magic loop” technique.  It is a great way to do socks (and also hats from the top down) as you can try them on as you go and get the sizing exactly right.

I tanned all of my rabbit pelts.  I have a total of 28 tanned pelts, one was “sacrificed” to try knitting with fur last summer, and Zsaka ripped the other one up.  I will use 16 to make a quilt/pad for the baby.  I need to block all of the pelts to take the wrinkles out and then decide if I want to make a free form quilt and try to maximize each pelt, or cut them all in a uniform fashion.  I will use cotton batting and a silk backing to finish it.  I need to get a walking foot for my sewing machine to stitch the fur and then do the quilting.  I have several books coming soon on sewing with fur and leather, surprisingly little on the internet about the topic.  I will use the rest of the pekts to make a few hats and maybe glove cuffs and maybe a really nice wrist rester for Mike while he is working on his computer.

Most exciting of all is that I got my spinning wheel, a Lendrum that a new farm friend was looking to sell.  She dropped it off almost two weeks ago, but with the quilt and pelts already in progress and Mike traveling, I wasn’t really able to sit down and spin until this weekend.  The kids helped me clean one of our sheep fleece this week and I carded 4 oz of Leicester Longwool and also mohair from our female Angora goat into rolags.  I tried spinning those, but had much more luck with some mohair that was processed into roving at a local mill (the roving was bought form the same woman we bought our goats from, so in all likelihood, our two goats fleece was spun by me today).  I actually did better than I thought I would, but the yarn is a completely typical newbie spinner yarn, full of thick and thin spots, bumps and slumps.  BUT, I did it and am happy to finally be spinning!  I plied the blue mohair that I spun with a grey yarn that was left on one of the bobbins, presumably from one of my friend’s Blue-faced Leicesters.  As I type, I am “setting the twist” having wound the yarn into a skein and soaked it in warm water.  It is now hanging with a weight and hopefully tomorrow I can take a few pictures, and maybe even knit it into something.  Both kids are VERY into the spinning wheel, so I think once I am good enough, I will try to get them involved in some way as well.

Almost all of the meat, probably at this point > 90%.  We buy fish from a local fish market and rarely eat out, so I would say that figure is accurate.  In the summer >75% of the produce we eat we grow.  All of the eggs we eat we grow.  We aren’t yet eating our own fruit or nuts, that will take another 5-10 years.  We buy grain and other staples at the grocery store just life everyone else.  Of all the meals we ate during the week, only a few contain no Terrabyte Farm products (for example if we have cereal for breakfast).  For a while Jamie milked our cows, but it was too tough on her hands so she stopped.

We live on a farm because we love this lifestyle.  Some people love sports, others love reading, others love watching tv.  We love raising animals, DIY projects, and gardening.  We also REALLY love good food, and that means having really fresh ingredients, and there is nothing fresher than food you grow yourself.  We also like making unconventional choices.  How many people eat Hampton-Romney lamb or Silver Fox rabbit?  Even if you can find ethically and organically raised meats and produce at the grocery store or local farmers market, you are still limited in choice by what that farmer chose to grow.  We like making our own choices.  In addition to liking this lifestyle and liking good food, for us, this is an ideal way to raise our children.  They are growing up with experiences that are priceless.  They have such a mature understanding of things, especially life and death, responsibility for the earth, animals, neighbors, etc., that they couldn’t possibly get without living in this way.  Yes, it is a lot of work, but we think it is well worth it.  We are really good at structuring our time and planning, plus we work very efficiently, so at the end of the day, we still have time to relax and unwind.  We also expect our children to help out and love seeing the look of satisfaction and accomplishment on their faces when they have done something they (and sometimes we) didn’t think they could do.  Currently, our oldest (age 5.5) is without question a net plus and able to offer real help.  Our youngest (age 2.5) is starting to turn the corner from being a baby to being a little girl and is very helpful in her own way.  As for the cost of things, we do have outside jobs and are very careful with our budgeting.  The animals more or less pay for themselves in what we would otherwise have to pay for meat and eggs.  Mostly it is our time that is the issue, and again, we like doing this type of activity, so we don’t see that as a burden.  Plus, it is hard to put a price tag on the experiences we have had and we feel it is all worth it in the end.

We have outside jobs.  Mike works full-time from home as a computer consultant and Jamie works (very) part-time as a psychologist.  There is no way we could live off of the income generated from our farm even if it was our full-time job.  And honestly, we have no real interest in doing that.  For now, our goal is to raise meat for our family and sell shares to our friends so that all of our out-of-pocket expenses for the animals are paid for and the meat that we keep for our family is paid for by our time and effort.  Maybe someday when our children are older we will try to do more revenue generated work, like have a fruit and vegetable CSA, sell more meat, fiber, etc, but for now we are happy producing top quality food for ourselves.  Neither of us has any real interest in attending farmers markets, but we would someday love to host monthly farm workshops where people can come here and learn how to, for example, butcher a chicken, make jam, preserve vegetables, etc.  Any entrepenurial ventures our children might hope to start in the future will be fully supported by us.  For now, our farm is more of a hobby than a source of income.

Yes you could.  Honestly, it is not that bad.  On our farm Jamie does the majority of the butchering with Mike providing back-up.  For the poultry, she uses a sharp knife and cuts their throats to bleed them cleanly out before removing their heads and plucking or skinning and gutting.  For the rabbits Mike stuns them by shooting them in the back of the head with an air pistol and then Jamie cuts their throats to bleed them fully and then removes their heads, skins, and guts them.  Both kids (ages 5 and 2) hang out with us and help as they are able.  Jamie did the majority of this year’s butchering while pregnant.  It typically takes about a mornings with of work start to finish to dispense with either 4-6 turkeys, 10 chickens/ducks, or 15 rabbits.  The first few times you do it, it can be nerve-wracking, but then you get used to it and it becomes a matter of skill and precision.  Yes it is messy, but not smelly or bad or dirty.  It really all smells like blood or wet feathers, which aren’t the most pleasant smells, but are a lot better than many other smells. No one taught us how to do it, we read a few books and watched a few videos on line.  The larger animals are in some ways easier, all you have to do is load them up and take them to the butcher.

As far as being attached to them, we just don’t allow ourselves to be.  We know (all of us, kids included) that some animals are for eating and some are for keeping forever.  We bond with and give affection to our breeding stock and the rest of the animals are treated exceedingly well during their time with us.  I am pretty sure that I have said this before, but the animals are all typically butchered when they are “teenagers”.  Like human teenagers, they can be rude, loud, and very naughty.  Believe me when I say that I feel nothing but relief when we have dispatched a particularly troublesome creature (our Hereford steer being a great example).  These are not pets, they are food.  We have chosen to take the responsibility of dealing with our own feelings about taking their lives as opposed to forcing the animals we eat to live in sub-standard conditions just so we don’t have to think about the fact that the chicken nuggets on our plate were once real live animals that walked and squawked and had to be killed so that we could eat them.

We feel fairly strongly that if you don’t think you personally could take responsibility for the butchering of an animal (either by bringing it to the butcher or doing the butchering yourself) than maybe you shouldn’t be eating meat.  We feel that when you remember that the food you are eating required that an animal had to lose its life, you tend to feel more concern over the living conditions of that animal and therefore you may be more likely to seek out sources of meat in accordance.  That is certainly the path that led us to our farm.

Finally, most domestic breeds of livestock have gone extinct (95% in the US).  There are many fewer types of cow, pig, sheep, chicken, etc than there have ever been since the beginning of animal husbandry.  Most animals in existence today are commercial breeds that require tremendous care and handling to survive.  They cannot breed, or even live outside of the carefully constructed environment of commercial livestock farming.  When the family farms started to disappear, so did the family farm breeds.  We make a point on our farm whenever possible to only raise breeds listed as endangered by the American Livestock Breed Conservancy.  If more people raised, and especially ATE these animals, there would be more demand for them, and they would not be running the risk of becoming extinct.  Furthermore, to ensure that these breeds carry on and improve on their vitality, vigor, etc, it is important to breed them yearly and then ONLY keep the absolute healthiest and best animals to carry on the line.  For example, we have two ewes (female sheep) that just returned from breeding.  They are hopefully bred with their first set of lambs.  We plan to return one out of every four lambs born back to our breeder in exchange for the services of her ram.  Of those, only one out of two or four may be chosen for breeding purposes, meaning that over the reproductive span of one sheep, she may give birth to 10-20 lambs but only a few may be chosen to be bred and carry on the line.  The chances of producing a really healthy offspring worth breeding increases with the number of breedings that occur.  All of those other sheep could become pets, fiber animals, or they could be eaten.  To continue  (and improve upon) any breed of animal, only these best animals should be chosen to breed, they should be bred yearly, and only the best of their offspring (the top one or two animals) should be allowed to carry on the line.  It is our domestic form of “survival of the fittest”.

We don’t get up any earlier than we would otherwise.  The great thing about animals, and especially ones that primarily free range, is that they  are adaptable.  They come and go as they please (we do close the chicken coop at night, but leave an upper window open, if it is not too cold, so they can get out in the morning) and are used to being fed when we feed them which is around 8am.  We tend to put out one days worth of feed all at once in the morning and then they can forage as they wish.  We do check on their water again in the evening to make sure it isn’t either frozen or empty.

It takes about 20 minutes/day in the winter and maybe twice that in the summer to care for the animals. During cold weather, all animals must be fed but water is less of an issue (except for the freezing of the ponds). We also only carry our breeding stock and maybe beef calves through the winter, so there are fewer animals to care for. During warm weather, the animals all graze (we also offer grain to our poultry, rabbits, and pigs) but water can be a bigger issue as they need more of it and it evaporates. Plus, we have more animals (chicks, pigs, rabbit poults, lambs, etc) meaning more time. Additionally, on average we also spend about half a day on the weekend doing some animals related chore. This includes cleaning out the coop, mucking the barn, butchering, taking the large animals to the butcher, fixing fencing, building housing, vet care, etc. Maybe one weekend/month we don’t do this type or task, and again it varies seasonally, but that is a good general figure.

People frequently ask us how (and why) we do what we do. We were not raised as farmers and spend much of our time (professionally and socially) interacting with people who are not farmers, although a number of them do try to eat local foods, grow gardens, are big into DIY and fiber crafts, etc. Most people are generally curious about our life on the farm and we are always more than happy to answer any questions they might have (which is part of the reason we have this blog, in addition to having a record for ourselves).

Additionally, people are often surprised when they learn about certain things that we do (like eat the occasional fast food meal and let our kids watch tv) as if they think that just because we raise our own food, we must live every aspect of our lives in a natural and old-timey way. We are in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM perfect, nor do we ever want to be. We are not zealots (about anything really, except for not being zealots) and we try to make the best choices we can for ourselves each day. The choices that we make for ourselves as individuals, for our children, and for the animals that we care for are personal decisions and as much as we don’t want other people making our choices for us, we would never judge people for the choices they make in their own lives.

So, here goes, we’re starting an FAQ category. Watch for entries appearing presently. If you have questions, feel free to post them in the comments herein. We’ll post the links to the answers when they get written.