The First Year
Our First Year Is In the books!
What a year! Some days it’s hard to believe it’s already been a year that we have been stewards of Songyard Farms. Other days it’s hard to believe it’s only been a year! This space just feels like home. And just like at home, raising the farm babies this year has given us days that feel long coupled with months that feel short-it’s crazy how time flies! Lately those long days have kept my hands full and busy, and so I have not taken the time to update this blog and share with you what we are up to! Luckily I found my hands idle this morning, so let’s catch up.
In case you’re just joining us, I’ll give a quick summary. A year ago we purchased a 33 acre property from Western Reserve Land Conservancy. This beautiful property contains about 6 acres of field and 27 acres of woods that are a mix of mature woodland and younger scrub brush areas. We have been planning, preparing and learning ever since in order to bring our Songyard Farms into existence!
My long term dream for Songyard Farms is to create a space that lives up to its name. It should be as cozy and inviting as your own backyard, but full of song-from birdsong to farm animals chatting to the laughter and noises we make as people-all together in harmony. To achieve this we will create a space that serves four purposes:
To be a working farm growing native and pollinator friendly flowers, herbs, fruits and nuts as well as raising goats, chickens and ducks for milk and eggs. We want to provide a habitat for native plants, birds and animals to thrive that also contributes to the local food supply.
To practice sustainability through using solar energy, rain water harvesting, intentional grazing, composting and by creating opportunities to make artwork and products by upcycling farm materials. This lets us minimize our impact on our little corner of land.
To provide a garden space for the community to enjoy through garden tours, classes, public events and private events.
To develop opportunities for teens with autism to explore job and career activities that bring them joy and teach them skills that can lead to satisfying employment in adulthood.
The first goal has to happen before the third and fourth can start, and the second goal makes the first a success! This is where our energy has been focused over the past year. We have adopted 4 pigs to help with our site prep. Our lovely pot belly pigs-Piper and Panda- came to us from Happy Trails Farms as full grown rescues. They took a little time to warm up and to teach us how they communicate. Once we learned how to understand each other, they were happy to get to work. They cleared areas for the pasture to get planted and cleared some of our pathways of poison ivy that have been growing rampant! They even planted us a surprise squash garden that popped up this summer! Two kune kune babies-Dolly and Waylan- joined them this spring. They are a heritage breed pig, meaning the have been living in this region for hundreds of years and are well suited for this ecosystem. They mow the grass very well too!
We moved Poppy, Travers and Flora, our tiny crew of 3 Nigerian Dwarf goats (also heritage breeds!) to the farm where they happily got to work on clearing out some invasives in the woods. They have welcomed their new herd mates-2 bucklings named Marley and Motley and another doeling named Myra who will allow us to start a breeding program-as any big siblings would. They play, they snuggle, they show them the ropes and they squabble over the best toys and food.
Lucky for us a friend needed to find a home for a handful of chickens, which we happily provided at the farm! The chickens have been very productive with giving us eggs and never protest at the idea of helping the pigs with composting food waste so it can stay out of the landfill. They even share a run with the pigs, who help to keep them safe from predators. The chickens keep the ground clear of bugs that could be problematic for the pigs. They make great neighbors!
Our rabbits Benny and Daffodil enjoy the farm too and are always happy to pitch in nibbling away weeds and trimming edges around the barn. We have been raising one more bunny, Rose, at home who will be moving to the farm very soon. She’ll be our first bunny for breeding and we couldn’t be more excited to see how this goes! We are hoping to find her a mate very soon and already have his name picked out-Axle.
All of our animals give back to us in so many ways around the farm. The bring us so much joy every day. The goats waste hay that the pigs are happy to use as bedding. The pigs and the chickens eat up food scraps from our friends and neighbors and they all create wonderful compost that we will use to keep our soil healthy for next year’s gardens.
Speaking of the gardens-they are coming soon! We spent time this summer preparing the field with a cover crop of buckwheat. The buckwheat suppresses weeds, feeds the soil with great nutrients and was a wonderful pollinator plant-wow were the bees happy! We have been busy harvesting the buckwheat and making it into flour this month, and as soon as we are done we will mow it down to let it finish smothering the weeds! In addition to weeds the field grows beautiful pollinator friendly wildflowers, which we will transplant to preserve. As I wander through the field to harvest the buckwheat, I’m always dreaming of garden designs. The final designs are almost set, and seeds, plants and trellises are on their way! Many of our plants will go in this fall to over winter, and the rest will be planted in the spring.
I could go on and on about my plans about the designs and plans and layouts-but I’ll just wait to show you!
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for updates on our next project-installing rain barrels and filtration systems for rainwater harvesting!
