A year of connection!

For one full year, we've been sharing our daily lives on the farm with you all. Our successes, and failures, our fun and our challenges. We hope that our sharing has taught you a little more about farming (at least our version of it...) and how food can be raised in sustainable, chemical free ways. We hope that it leaves you with motivation to support your local farmer and improve your health by eating food that feels good to eat and tastes heavenly!  

I have enjoyed connecting each day with you and thank those that engaged so regularly... you are the reason I made it to Day 365! You can access all the photos and video that I shared throughout 2015 by clicking the link in the sidebar of this blog! 

I plan on focusing on a longer, weekly blog post in 2016 (Weekly Follies) that allows us to focus on sharing and educating in more depth.  

We will continue to regularly share our follies on our social media and would love to connect with you. So if you haven't already... like us on Facebook , Twitter (@FenezFollies), Instagram (FenezFolliesFarm) or subscribe to this blog to be notified when updates are made!  You can also check out what else the farm has to offer - our Products Available page and will always let you know what we have along with current pricing. 

Happy New Year to all, near and far! Make 2016 count!

You reap what you sow....

Day 6 of the FFF Photo a Day

The winter solstice has come and gone and we can now look forward to more and more daylight and the slow march towards spring. At this time of year, all farmers are dreaming of the next season and planning new adventures. For us, that means flipping through the seed catalogs, researching new varieties to grow next year, planning what we will grow where, etc. 

As some of you know, we offer a weekly vegetable box in the summer months through a program called Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Interested consumers pay in advance for a share of what we grow for 12 weeks. We seed, nurture and grow and then provide a box of wonderful goodies each week to our shareholders. We appreciate this type of connection with our customers as we get to know each one in a more personal way than is possible in a farmers market transaction. Also there is less waste as we know before we seed how many families we are feeding during each season. 

Feeling sheepish?

Day Five of our FFF Photo a Day: 

With the weather a bit on the chilly side, we've been bringing some of our projects inside to work on... 

Here you see our sheepskin in progress. These come from a number of sheep we had a few years ago. We've been curing these for quite a while and they are now ready to be washed, carded and stitched together. Eventually, they will be a wonderful mattress topper for our bed! 

This is the first time we have attempted such a project, so we likely have done a number of things wrong... however, that is the way one learns, right?

A Day of Grace

Today's photo features Grace, our Dexter cow (she's the black one) along with her current boyfriend that we affectionately call "The Bull" - (we frequently don't name those animals that aren't likely to be staying long....)  Grace is our current mama cow and has given us two healthy calves so far. Not pictured is Gaston - the bull calf that she gave us last summer.

He's likely hiding in the barn! Dexter is a miniature breed, which means that the cattle are much smaller than your more traditional breeds. They are a good dual purpose animal giving you both meat and dairy. We got into Dexters as it meant we could use the same fencing systems for both our cows and our goats as well as ease of handling. While Grace is a good mom, she is a challenging milker... we are hoping that next summer she will give us a heifer (female) calf that may be a bit more amenable to the task! In the meantime, we will continue our daily negotiation with Grace. 

Even when you don't want to... Day 3 - #FFFPaD

Day 3 of our Photo a Day project features a pair of boots and coveralls.... Philip's boots and coveralls to be exact. On a day in which the temperature reads -43C with the windchill, this images epitomizes the sheer hard work that comes with the rewards of farming. Even on days like these, where others are cancelling activities, staying indoors and hunkering down, farmers still need to slip on their coveralls and boots and make their way out to the barn. Even more so on days like these... where the welfare of the animals on our farm is also a concern in this cold weather. 

One of the things about farming, is the work still needs to be done... even when its too cold, too hot, too buggy, there are other things to do or you are feeling sick... it still needs to get done... even when you don't want too. If you are lucky like me you have a wonderful husband or partner who will take the cold shifts (when I get a choice, I'm definitely a warm weather farmer!). Don't get me wrong, the rewards of farming are definitely worth the energy... you just have to remember that one doesn't come without the other.  So I leave you with a pair of boots and some things to ponder, should you be dreaming of owning your own little piece of heaven someday.