Category Archives: animals

Spring is in the air, which means mud on my knees

Posted on May 7, 2012 by dlhitzeman

I haven’t disappeared: I”ve been farming. As you might imagine, spring is a busy time of year. This year started with banding steers and selling off our excess calves, interspersed with planting our garden. We got our next load of 75 meat chicken peeps in (they’ll be ready in Septemberish) and we’ll be adding to [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, Dirt, garden, hay, Spring, Work | Tagged | Leave a comment

Planning spaces: working animals into a sustainable permaculture plan

Posted on March 21, 2012 by dlhitzeman

I’ve learned a lot about utilizing the ground for food production over the past few years, and one of the things I have learned is that there is no space, whether it is a garden, a tilled field, or a pasture, that should ever be left for a single use. Nature multitasks everything, and the [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, food, Gardneing, Lessons, permaculture, sustainability, Tools | Leave a comment

Punching calves

Posted on March 19, 2012 by dlhitzeman

I think it’s funny that one of the terms for handling cattle is “punching”. It seems like a kind of inside joke among cattle people about the arduous nature of the task of physically handling cattle during those times when they have to be moved, sorted, tagged, or banded. I punched a bunch of calves [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, cattle, Challenges, farming, food, nature, punching, rhetoric, Work | Leave a comment

Web roundup

Posted on February 28, 2012 by dlhitzeman

Want to know what I’m reading about agriculture, food, and sustainability? Well this periodic post is the place to find out: Kajabi on the old wise farmer Treehugger on exploding pig barns The New York times on the rise of the artisanal food producer Scientific American on the impracticality of the cheeseburger Foreign Policy Magazine on [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, artisans, barns, Challenges, Choices, commodities, courts, crying, explosions, food, forests, gardens, Gardneing, Goals, impractical cheeseburgers, inflation, Law, Lessons, Local, Monsanto, Morality, philosophy, pigs, poisoning, Prices, producers, Readiness, Resources, Revolutions, secrets, Self-sufficiency, superbugs, Web Roundup | Leave a comment

Back to the start

Posted on February 13, 2012 by dlhitzeman

This is what we’re doing here at Innisfree Farm. Thank you Chipotle for supporting what farmers like us are trying to do.

Come join us by supporting your local, sustainable farmers and farmers markets.
DLH
Continue reading →

Posted in animals, Chipotle, Choices, Goals, Local, Morality, philosophy, Revolutions, sustainable farming | Leave a comment

Some thoughts on Punxsutawney Phil

Posted on February 3, 2012 by dlhitzeman

So yesterday was Groundhog Day, complete with its requisite trotting out of the rodent and an internet full of mocking said rodent and the people who flock to him once per year. Now, I will grant you that the whole show surrounding Groundhog Day is ridiculous and proves nothing except that people like to have [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, Groundhog Day, holism, nature, observation, philosophy, Punxsutawney Phil, reality, science | Leave a comment

Good rules for rounding up wayward animals

Posted on February 1, 2012 by dlhitzeman

If you grow livestock, it is almost inevitable that eventually some of them will get out of the place you keep them. This problem could result from a poorly latched gate or from an animal’s desire to see if the grass is really greener on the other side of that fence. Either way, at that [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, fences, Tools | Tagged | Leave a comment

Good rules for rounding up wayward animals

Posted on February 1, 2012 by dlhitzeman

If you grow livestock, it is almost inevitable that eventually some of them will get out of the place you keep them. This problem could result from a poorly latched gate or from an animal’s desire to see if the grass is really greener on the other side of that fence. Either way, at that [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, escapees, fences, Tools | Tagged | Leave a comment

MENF 2011: We’re all really dirt farmers

Posted on October 5, 2011 by dlhitzeman

Whether we all like it or not, we’re all dirt farmers. You don’t think so? Well, consider this the next time you’re sitting on the pot: you’re finishing the process whereby your body turns the food you have eaten into energy, nutrients, and dirt from which more food can be grown, even if we don’t [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, changes, compost, Dirt, farming, food, ideas, Manure, Mother Earth News Fair | Leave a comment

MENF 2011: Show me the money

Posted on October 3, 2011 by dlhitzeman

Sometimes its easy to get lost in encouraging people to grow their own food and forget that this stuff still costs money. As idealistic as we may all want to be, at some point we have to pay the bills. It turns out paying the bills may not be as hard as you might think. [...] Continue reading →

Posted in animals, Challenges, food, Gardneing, Lessons, Local, money, Mother Earth News Fair, options, paying the bills, philosophy, Self-sufficiency | Leave a comment