Completely Moved!

We're finally finished! It took three trips with the big trailer, one trip with a smaller trailer, and one semi truck to haul the reefer and we're finally done! Every last piece of equipment, every last tool, and every last piece of junk is now at the new farm in Yale, OK! We figured it was time for some celebration - hence the bottle of champagne in the photo.





We can't even begin to tell you how excited we are about our land. We'd like to thank all of our customers - those who visit us at the farmers' market, our wholesale customers, and especially our new CSA customers who trusted us and invested in us. Just last night Chelsea and I were musing about how we owe our success to all the people who vote for local, sustainable, thoughtful agriculture with their dollars and their supportive words. Thank You! We could not have done it without you!

There is Chelsea in the first new field at the farm. All our production fields will be 300' x 300' square with a 40' grassed turn lane around them for convenience and erosion control. That is 2.5 Acres of growing space per field and we have room for at least 7 of them on flat ground.

This is the old farm, we disked all the residue and the beds back down. I broadcast Improved Fescue and Lespedeza for Jeff's cows and leveled it with a big drag. Chelsea and I beleive that when you borrow something, whether it be land or tool, you give it back in better condition than you found it. In our time on Jeff's place we reduced the soil compaction, raised the background fertility, and improved the tilth. By next spring this field will be bright green early spring forage for the cows.

-Don

New Farm - Here We Come!

We've finally begun moving! After waiting for what seemed like forever for the rain to subside and then for the sun to dry out the mud we can finally pull this big rig in and out of the farm. This is my Dad's service truck and gooseneck trailer he let me borrow for a few days. The orange tractor is also his. We have to have a front-end loader at the new farm and one at the old farm so that we can lift equipment onto and then off of the trailer. Pulling a trailer like this down the highway can be a bear.
This is what our first load looked like. It was a gigantic tangle of cultivators, drills, chisels, and the enormous rotary hoe. My tractor had a hard time lifting some of the big stuff, the rear wheels on the tractor would just come off the ground - but we finally got all this stuff onto the trailer with some clever rigging and planning. Chelsea did much of the actual loader work so that I could do the grunt work on the ground.



Though she wasn't brought up doing this kind of work, it turns out that Chelsea is at least is as good or better heavy equipment operator than I am. The photo is her lifting the grain drill at the new farm.

We are so excited to finally be moving to the new farm. It is a beautiful location and the soil is fantastic - way better than the hard clay at the old place.