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Thursday, July 17, 2008

New Project

I'm a firm believer of not having to have it all figured out before getting your feet wet in farming.

We bought 300 chicks before I had a brooder house set up, but you know what, when you have 300 chicks coming in the next couple days, you tend to figure out a brooder house pretty quick.

We bought two sows, and some feeder pigs before I had a pasture fully designated for them, but as they get bigger, then your motivation comes for getting things further in line for them.

You can try and learn all you want from a book, and try to have things set up absolutely perfect but sometimes I want to write a book, and right when you open the cover, bam, a big wrench flies up and hits you in the face and says, "Now whatcha gonna do?"

The best training is OJT (on-the-job-training) so my advice is if you want to do something, do it. Then learn together and figure out how to fine tune things as you go. The great thing is you should never be satisfied with how you have things because there is always going to be improvements you will see can be done.

So that being said, I have about 375 pullets or so that are going to need a place to lay eggs in the coming weeks, so........

Today is the day for converting this old cotton trailer I picked up a couple of months ago into the first of our full fledge mobile egg machines. I found two at one place and brought one home but the other needed some work before I could haul it the 50 miles at 30 mph. So Old Man Scarmado is suppose to be fixing it for me. These things are old as Mathusila (sp?) but will be great for what we are doing.


So Aunt Debbie and I started our project after I finally got all the materials gathered up. I know a guy that had some old tin that he sold me for cheap so I bought about 600 linear foot of it or so. You can never have enough old tin, especially when it is the good stuff from long ago and not the cheap gauged stuff you have to buy at the local hardware store.

Its so fun when I get to do projects with Aunt Debbie because of her personality. She is the most positive person I know who is constantly uplifting you even when you really feel like you don't know what you are doing. I can hear her now, "Thats okay," as I break the 6th drill bit.

Plus I am always putting her in a bind because I am 6'1" and she is 4'11". Honestly. So out of habit, I tend to put things where they are just right for me but way out of reach for her. I don't do it on purpose but you would think that I could figure it out by now. So that is something I have been trying to get better at doing.

So tomorrow, we hope to be close to done with all the exterior work on the trailer. Then comes setting up the inside for roosts, boxes, etc.

On the sides of the trailer I will paint in neat letters, FARM FRESH EGGs. We have over 3000' of highway 105 frontage so surely people will see it and be interested.


This was the sunset as I was moving the irrigation for the night water. The cows moved a couple hours earlier and were loving the cooler evening as some clouds rolled in.

It makes you realize at the end of each day how blessed you were to have gotten that day and be prayerful that you get to experience another when you lay down to sleep.

3 comments:

Ron said...

Hey, Jason, really enjoyed your updates. I'm a firm believer in not having everything figured out either, rather just a general sense of what is worthwhile to do. :)

We live in far different areas... you have grass and we have trees. I find reading about your MIG and experiences fascinating.

Take care,
Ron

Anonymous said...

Great idea Jason! Those cotton trailers have worked real well for us. I use them to raise pastured heritage turkeys in also.

Glad to see you posting again!

Tim
Nature's Harmony Farm

SweetPea said...

Jason & Lynsey... My wife Angela and I (Ben) love your site. We too have the bug to become farmers we live in Spring TX now and are currently looking for land out side of Harris County. We will be volunteering at HomeSweetFarms on Sunday the weekend of September 5th. We would love to come visit your farm and maybe spent a day (Saturday) helping out around the farm just to gain some knowledge. You know that OJT!

We received your Blog via Tami from Tera Farms B&B where we will be staying over that weekend. She said that you and your family went to the same Church they did.


Give us a shout back if you could use two energetic farmer hopefuls, we would love to help out for the day just to learn a little more about farming.

Regards,

Ben & Angela Neikirk