In West Virginia we Remain

We have been looking online for a few farms to view

 because it has been on our minds to move

this operation over into a more farm friendly state.

Sadly, West Virginia is not very farm friendly.
It is also not very homeschool friendly.
It isn't raw milk friendly. The land
isn't conducive it farming unless
you're very wealthy or born into
a family that owns some of the hard
to come by farm land.

We took a drive today to Winchester
and Richmond, Kentucky. Beautiful
land. But as I've found typically
is true of real estate, nothing look
half as nice in person as it does in the
perfectly framed photos from just the right
angle.

If you have 500k to spend, that is THE place
to buy farm land. I believe a nice market can
be found for local, sustainable and humane
products, too!

We do not have half a million dollars to spend,
so for now, we will Remain here in West Virginia.

Since we will be here awhile longer, we did get the area that

slipped a year and half ago around our barn repaired. $4,500

later, both the barn, hill and behind our house is repaired.

OUCH!

We still need to sow grass in the next few days.

We are changing some fence around here because we have really

nearly outgrown the farm we have, and we are going to have to

do more rotation here if we want to keep everything nice

and green through fall.

We have 18 goats, 1 heifer and a 1 on the way, 7 horses,

1 miniature horse and 2 miniature donkey here, in addition

to 30 plus hens and roosters. Technically, on 23 acres, we

are still within the ACREAGE to animal unit formula,

thank GOD, but we need to be sure to manage this land

well to assure future use.

A useful tool is the Animal Unit method. Each animal

unit is 1,000 lbs of animal, be it goats, cattle, horses,

chickens and so forth.

http://ag.arizona.edu/arec/pubs/rmg/1%20rangelandmanagement/1%20aum93.pdf

Typically, 2% of the animals body weight is needed

in food, mostly forage, daily. This is the amount

needed for maintenance.

http://www.noble.org/ag/coffey/auds.html

I estimate we have a bit less than 11 animal

units here, so that is 220 lbs of food daily

being consumed.

We do not have enough pasture to support that

here because of the wooded acres, but we

always provide hay free choice. While

this isn't ideal in terms of financial

matters, it helps offset the amount of

forage we need to produce here.

 We have weeds taking over the pasture in the front
and on the 8 acre pasture above the house. This is
something we will address this fall.

Lots of work needed around here, to say the least.

So far, everything is thriving, and we have gotten
a lot done this summer. Since we have ideas
of a move, we've let a few things go, but I see
now it is best to move forward assuming we will
be here for the long haul!

As an aside, we have
Animal Welfare Approved coming out
to inspect and see how we might become
an approved farm through their organization
in September.


I am not sure how this will go because we do
not agree with everything listed on the care
sites per species, but we do have similar goals
and goodness knows, we have the high
standards of care here.



So for now, from all of us to all of you. . .

Stand by, in West Virginia we Remain. . .

For now ;)