Doud Dairy Farm Journal 11192009

DDFJ_11-19-2009
Time slips away from me, slowly sliding off my pate, to land quietly in the deep forest of sleep, where I do not often find myself peaceful. Here I find this bit of peace I seek, in a few feathered friends.
I am but given to wonder, if it will make sense to me tomorrow. As I wait, and wait for the weight to fall out from under me. I try to not think of this, but keep telling myself that it will uphold the frame of my dream, but is it really my dream after all, I wonder.



Are all my ducks in a row
or scattered, barely held together by paste, and hide glue.

I hate doubt, it creeps into you like the cold of winter, slowly, but ever still, it is there, chilling you until the spring breaks its grasp with warming sun light.

So there really is nothing new on the farm front. It sits there taunting me, just out of reach, but so close now I can almost smell the acrid flavor in my mouth, watering, wanting to pour milk on the floor, just to swim in the depths of my approaching exuberance.

If anyone is reading this and wondering why the pictures, well I really don't know, they are actually old pictures and they have not been messed with, just snapshots of the animals from a few months ago. I keep telling myself I should take some more recent pictures, but every time I get to work with the animals I am just doing my job and then when that is over, I don't take the time to wait. It is where they are located, there is an urgency to get out of there as fast as possible, because we don't want to hang around there. Besides there always seem to be something else we have to do. I don't want something else to do, I want to take care of the animals and watch them do what they do, and work on my photography, and the other things I do. I am going back to film, because until I can afford a really expensive digital camera, like a Nikon D90 or something, although I always thought I would not own a Nikon, I guess they won, film is better, and I can turn it into digital pictures. I won't set up a lab though, as I think that is worthless at this time. I really would like to move to large format, and then I guess I would need a lab, but I digress.

I wish, I pray, I whatever, that it should be.

Peace;
JD

DDFJ_11-12-2009

Why don't I write everyday, like I was for a while? Hmm, that is an interesting question indeed. I guess it is because I lack discipline, or maybe because I feel I have other things that I am doing that seem to be between me and the writing. I used to write a lot, but now it seems it is really sporadic. I really need to write more often.

So anyway, what's going on with the farm. Well not much to report on the farm really, at least as it stands now. We have been offered a farm lock stock and barrel so to speak. Well the cows, and feed, plus a lease on the barn, at least until spring, when we will buy a near by farm and continue from there. Now I only have to get the money to buy everything, and I need to move quickly, so I can get this running on before winter really hits hard. What I need is for someone to come in as my partner with some money and good credit, so that we can get this show going. I have the contract to sell the milk, and the offer to buy the farm, now I need a good partner who is willing to come on with some cash and run with the plan. Okay so I am a little short on the plan now, as the previous plan does not apply, and I haven't really wrote a new one yet.

This is an opportunity for the FSA to actually help me out, but it is doubtful that they will, even though they indicate that they have the farm start type of program just for such a situation. I can only hope that they will see the opportunity and understand that the loss of another farm will not be good for the economy, and if we don't buy it, it will be lost.

As far as the future is concerned, well that is still up to the wind. No really, once we have purchased this farm, we will operate it from its current location until spring, and then we will have to refinance to buy the farm down the road. When we buy that farm, we will need to cut cost every where, so we will look to building wind power on the farm to cut our input cost. We have other plans though for the farm. We will increase the diversity by many fold to decrease our exposure to economic factors. We will buy 10 Tamrac sows and a boar to produce pork and piglets (which will be increasing in demand in the near future). We will buy an additional 9 Sanien goats, and 10 Oberhalsi goats (does) and a few Nubian goats to round out our dairy herd and for pasture health. We will buy 40 sheep to provide fleeces and lambs for market. We will also fill out our chickens with about 60 more standard egg breeds, although for the most part we will be looking at heritage breeds. We will also purchase about 10 Muscovy ducks, added to our current ducks and chickens for pest control and pasture health.

We will also be buying Milking Devon cattle, Kerry Cattle, and a few other dairy cattle, to begin to build the dairy herd towards 100 head of cattle by January of 2011. To assist in the animal control we will be looking to acquire two more boarder collies (females only) and at least two horses, Belgian would be preferred as I would like them for farm work, although we will also use a tractor for some of the work, we will do as much as we can with the horses.

I still have some pretty ambitious plans, but we can do this if we can just get started. The hardest part seems to be finding a partner that will ride with us to make this happen. I am not asking for much, but I am not doing much to find that partner either, so I guess that may be why we haven't found them yet. I have to be more social, something I am not very good at. I need to write more, in the hope that maybe I can write enough to support the farm until the farm can support its own growth.

Well that's all for now, have a pleasant day.

DDFJ_11-07-2009

Well we have been searching for property, and we may have found some we can rent in Mexico, NY. I hope we can buy it in spring. I am only putting everything I have into this, and I do not know if I can take much more.