Planning- HIDDEN HAVEN FARM

This past Thursday, the 24th Laura (my farmer friend I will be doing my internship with) and I met up at her farm to begin planning the next 15 weeks out and it was an opportunity for me to get a 'tour' of the farm and see what she has going on - WHICH IS A LOT!! she is one busy lady.

Laura has a 30 acre farm which her and her husband bought 5 years ago, they started with a wooded lot and what they have accomplished in 5 years is amazing! Laura raises, Nubian goats, for breeding and milking, Dairy cows for milk, sheep for

breeding, chicken, ducks and quail for eggs and she is slowing adding fruit trees and bushes, nut trees and a garden.

Laura is having to bottle feed two calves, one whose mother died 36 hours after childbirth and she is also feeding 4 baby goats, whose mothers are not willing to nurse them well - she has found this a recurring trend with most of the goats she has bred so far, but it was sweet to feed them and listen to their playful noises.

Thursday when I arrived, she had just picked up 63 Freedom Ranger Chicks, which is going to be one of the main projects we will be doing together. We are going to be documenting their grow, food consumption and ultimate slaughter for meat through the first week in April. This is something we have both wanted to do, and she took on the task when I approached her about my internship. The same day she also picked up 12 ducklings to be added to her flock for duck eggs.

The other main project we will be tackling at her property, is designing a vegetable and herb garden out front of her house. We have hey area where we live, so Laura has been having to rethink and redirect some naturla waterways on her property, which actually is resulting in her putting a second pond in for her ducks, next to the fruit orchard.

The remainder of our day I got to watch Laura milk a goat and then when poured over seed catalogs deciding what to grow this season.