Good rules for rounding up wayward animals
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...
View ArticleSome thoughts on Punxsutawney Phil
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...
View ArticleBack to the start
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....
View ArticleWeb roundup
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...
View ArticlePunching calves
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...
View ArticlePlanning spaces: working animals into a sustainable permaculture plan
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...
View ArticleSpring is in the air, which means mud on my knees
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...
View ArticleWell intended but sometimes wrong
Whenever the weather gets the way it is right now (very cold and snowy), various posts, emails, and even news stories begin to circulate. You know the ones. Those that show something like a snow...
View ArticleHay season
A couple of times a year, I mow lots of grass. Not in the $40-billion-make-my-lawn-look-like-a-golf-course sort of way, but in the make food for animals sort of way. We mow and bale about 30 acres of...
View ArticleOn animals and worldviews
I suspect that one of the driving forces of the greatest changes in society over the past 100 years versus the past several millenia has been specific movement of people away from caring for food...
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Grass farming
So, after a long hiatus, I’ve decided to reboot this blog. When doing so, it’s often hard to know where to start, so I decided to start with the question we get asked most often: Why don’t we mow our...
View ArticleTaming a tangled wilderness
We’re unusually free with sharing our successes and failures here at Innisfree on the Stillwater, a fact that is intentional and purposeful rather than naive and dramatic. You see, our desire, along...
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Farmhack: My latest attempt at temporary animal fencing
I’ve spent quite a bit of the past decade trying to figure out how to create portable temporary animal fencing. My previous attempts were mostly focused on cattle because that’s what we had, but now...
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