Raven Ridge Farm

more house

2010-12-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

the tools i've used to build my house

This STIHL MS 250 is the biggie, making most all of the cuts for framing

a little side counter in the kitchen of rhododendron and walnut top
piles of boards, salvage and bought to be used for trim, furniture and otherwise
north side of house, with the homemade door of yellow pine and oak flooring

east side of house, bath and bed windows, split poplar shoot trim, board and batton siding

more house

2010-12-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

ella and i

backside of cabinets with the kitchen sink set on locust countertop, and a view of the ironwood post, on right

ollie

ceiling around the stovepipe

a table i built. crepe myrtle legs and a maple top, mortise/tenon with walnut wedges
this one is a coffeetable with a 'curly'-grained cherry top. that's a pretty wood, and pricey, too!

my woodstove

homemade doorsills of barn oak transitioning kitchen to foyer and foyer to bedroom, poplar flooring on the left, 1 1/4" wide oak flooring on right

mahogany doorsill to bathroom

my pantry door made of pecan flooring (identical to hickory), trimmed with oak

Window and spice shelf by the stove. made of crepe myrtle. Window trim is American chestnut, taken from an old barn.

Interior house

2010-12-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

This is the juicy stuff! I've had a great deal of fun, latenight time building interior spaces, trimming windows, plumbing my sinks, doing simple rustic carpentry, generally being creative and dreaming about sleeping, reading, lounging, eating, watching movies, meditating in my home, my primal shell without the dust, drafts (cold!) frozen pipes, and constant "do!do!do!" of the building flow. Moving into an unfinished building is a well-tread path toward incompletion ('proper finishing' the Buddha suggested) Yet, I have moved in, and will finish!!!!!!

my homemade back door. Salvage flooring, barnwood, cedar trim, heavy brass handles and lock plus OSB, screws and wood glue. That door is heavy! and thicker than the average: I had to rout the openings for handle hardware many times before the spindles would reach eachother! The exterior face is completely different, oak flooring and yellow pine, sorry no pic!
A roundwood locust walkway up the hill to the back door, a railing will be there soon. Hard to see the ext. window trim, but it's round, too! split 3" poplar shoots from the woods.

Kitchen floor, bathroom floor (sideways, cock your head 90 degrees) clawfoot bathtub and homemade sink stand of mahogany slab and locust, black haw, grapvine and honeysuckle rounds. The cabinets are barnwood pine and oak (beautiful!) maple flooring from an old gym and a locust countertop all painted with Tung oil.

Roof, windows, insulation

2010-12-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

Some more pictures of my house for the benefit of family, friends, and continually unfolding joy of life on earth.

I am indebted to Kate O'mara for snapping so many photos of my house from August to December 2010. Mostly on her way down to milk a cow or two, including her own cow, the sweet May, who's due to have a calf at any moment.

Kate and Kevin are building a house, too. Right up the hill from mine. Check out Kate's blog: http://homemadeinmarshall.blogspot.com/interior walls

Kevin and I break in the shade, probably talking about houses

Here's kate and kevin and the view from their house on our farm:

Teleported to the winter!

The view of my house. from kevin and kate's.
I am grateful to my mother and step father for helping to install the roof on my house

the house has a roof, insulation, windows, doors, and some siding, board and battons from the sawmill.

There is still much work to do on the exterior of the house, but with the winter coming on strong, it hurts to be out-of-doors in wet wintry weather. These things include:
1.) digging a 2' wide x 2' deep french drain on the embankment above the north side.
2.) pouring a footer and building stud walls to box in the basement and provide extra foundation support
3.) building a front and back deck. The front door is a 8' tall full glass, french (double) door, and actually steps out to nowhere right now, hehe!
4.) finish the siding and two minor roof details.

I can work outside when it's above 35 degrees no problem, so long as it's without wind and preferably dry and sunny.

Building my house, the frame

2010-12-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

In August 2010 I began building my house in Marshall, NC.

Those are the first trusses raised on a platform 37' x 19' east to west longways. My 10 full trusses and 6 half trusses are made of 10 1/2" wide by 1 1/2" thick sawmill poplar.

The 'truss' consists of 4 lengths of poplar connected with 3/4" plywood 'gussets', essentially sandwiching the joints from both sides with gobs of nails and the strength of plywood. You can see gussets are the peak of the truss and the joints that make the gambrel roof. A gambrel roof is what you see: two pitches, one steep one shallow, designed for barns long ago to accommodate more hay than a simple gable. Additionally, my trusses have 'collar ties': rough-cut 2x4's spanning the distance between trusses to resist the force of gravity and prevent the trusses from kicking out off the platform.

1o days to assemble and half a day to raise. Andy helped me raise each one, brace it to the platform and one to the next!

This photo shows part of the foundation: 12 locust posts and 3 oaks post in 3 courses of 5 supporting beams that hold up poplar floor joists.

Building trusses on the ground in addition to the truss being both wall and roof made for a quick house frame.

Once the trusses were up, there was more framing to do: 4 dormers, 3 on the south side for windows and 1 on the north side. The trusses did not complete the roof, the dormers would and be designed as i went along. Actually, I didn't start with a definite design, but liked the gambrel and went with the rest of it. Andy helped me design and build the frame.

See the 3 half trusses? ---> they're missing the collar ties and they 'die into' a header plate that also carries 5 rafters resting on the dormer wall. There are two walls like this in my house each with a window.

The big open space in the middle would have a vaulted ceiling between two more dormer walls, a little higher than these two pictured.

another view, two small dormers with windows, rough-framed.

A view of me from a hazy summer day skinning the roof with OSB (oriented strand board).

There's the big southern dormer wall up too! Without the rafters yet......

but....

There's the finished frame! Vault ceiling in middle. Went up pretty dang quick. looks, feels, smells very rigid and strong, too!
It looks so beautiful at this stage I almost want to stop and be done! So skeletal and clean and shiny with the OSB panels. Course it would rot to shreds without a roof....

October 30

2009-10-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

Tuckered out from a day of labor. Splitting fence posts from Locust trees is hard work! here's the tools required: two metal wedges, a maul, and a sturdy axe.

And the result: a big stack of 8 foot long fencepost ready to sink in the ground. We'll need about 120 line posts for straight lengths of fence and about 30 bigger Locust posts for gates and corners. When all's complete, there will be a fence nearly 4,000 feet long, six strands of electric wire circling 20 acres of grass, clover and pasture weeds. With such a fence, cows and sheep will happily forage, making milk and wool.

Today, Andy and I cut a 70 year old Red Oak in a dramatic WHOOSH! as it broke through the crown of an adjacent Sycamore. Andy will use some of the tree for wet-dry Oak wrung joinery and some will be stovewood and some for trunnels, or wooden pins to that pound into the joints on timber frame buildings.

After sucking down four pounds of warm milk, 50 pound Zoe feels pretty sleepy.

Calves and Corn

2009-10-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

Happy October!

The autumn air brings more than clear skies and blowing leaves. Besides the sense of imminent cold and cleaning to the soil, earth and air, it brings in crops, and new cows to the farm!

It's easy to be content watching cloud formations and feeling cozy in a morning sweater, waiting for the heat of noon, but when there's work to do, it doesn't wait! Diggin potatoes, storing them--nearly 400 pounds from the upper garden--, clipping ears of flour corn before the 'coons get them first, hanging each one to dry, canning beans and curing pumpkins in the sun. Sweet potatoes, red and white have to be dug, and the oats, peas and wheat planted (and protected from the chicken flock!)

Most that was done last week and thankfully so, because this week delivered two blessings from the grassy-hill-fed wombs of Dana and Willa: a calf each, both girls, two Jersey cows, suckling, bleating and romping free (for at least a few days before weaning from their mothers).
Kevin bottle-feeds Dana's calf for the first time. She was born October 4 and lives in a spacious pen protected from the weather with a house all her own. She'll soon have 3 playmates, another calf born at the farm October 6, and two male goats from Spinning Spider creamery.

Here's Willa, she freshened 3 days ago with a beautiful Heifer calf, a little bigger than Dana's

Traditionally amongst the Native Americans corn was raised for flour or popcorn. Sweet corn is a modern twist on the ancient Maize plant, essentially the immature, sweet ear of grain before it dries down as a stable, starchy cob of kernels . The Appalachian homesteaders likewise raised what they called "indian corn' which was also used for flour, popcorn, and often feed for chickens and pigs. At Raven Ridge Farm, we've raised an open-pollinated variety called Bloody Butcher, for it's crimson red kernels. Open-pollinated means that it's non-hybrid and heirloom, preserved for it's characteristics as a good flour corn, color, and growth through isolation from cross-poliinating and seed saving. We figure that our two bushels of corn will be good for 80 meals of cornbread. This is our corn hanging in the barn:
Here's Dana with her calf the same day she was born. Incredible that a 50 pound baby animal stands up, dries off and begins feeding on milk in no time
Building news: the materials for a timber frame structure are on the ground and ready to set up. Timber framing is the ancient building art of durable, long-lasting construction using large timbers and precise joinery without the nails, expensive products and pre-fabricated modern shortcuts that produce houses of questionable integrity and longevity. Many, if not most, modern houses are built for the purpose of being lived in, sold, lived in again, sold, destroyed and re-built to make profits for realtors and speculators. It's possible the timber-framed house I grew up in, in Massachusetts (circa 1809, 200 years old) will outlive many of these modern day buildings.
See those massive timbers? Posts 6x6 inches and beams to match them. Typical stud construction of houses with 2x4's is quick and saves on labor, but cannot match the sturdy and efficient use of large timbers that will last long if protected from the elements. More later

Geoffrey

Mission and request for contributions

2009-09-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Raven Ridge Farm is a collaborator with the Ananda Marga Yoga Society, a spiritual and social service organization that runs educational, economic development and relief projects around the globe.

I first became involved with the Ananda Marga folks in the high chaparral of California--sort of a forested, montane desert--where I helped manage a large and incredibly beautiful peach orchard and vegetable farm for three seasons. This seminal experience as a 19-to-22 year old helped lead me to where I am today, starting Raven Ridge Farm in North Carolina.

Mission

With a firm foundation as a working farm, Raven Ridge seeks to integrate numerous agricultural systems that fit the farm's steep Appalachian hills in order to build soil fertility, diversity, and a self-regulated health into the landscape. Practically, this means: managing the cow herd rotationally, allowing water fowl and laying hens to forage out-of-doors, planting orchard trees for fruits, nuts and shade, rotating crop fields with grass/legume pasture and gardening intensively in fertile, flat patches fenced off from foraging animals. Such a landscape provides beauty, diverse profit sources, an exciting array of farm chores, natural education and a high quality of life for farmers and their neighborhoods. In short, Raven Ridge Farm is an incubator of ideas on the practical "how-to's" of creating and replicating peaceful and productive patches of Earth. In particular, we're interested to work in conjunction with others who actively manage land, or who are interested to do so, for its increasing fertility, abundance and beauty.

If that's too wordy a mission statement, I''m sure I've written one different somewhere else, but frankly, love hearing it come out differently each time...

Raven Ridge Farm fits into Ananda Marga by focusing on its goals for sustainable rural development and education by creating a model for non-destructive, diverse food production on hilly land. To see more inspiring work of Ananda Marga check out the webpages below:

http://www.amurt.net/ - AMURT is a disaster relief and development team worldwide. They manage a number of highly-acclaimed development projects happening in Haiti, one of the neediest countries in the world.

http://www.prout.org/ - The Progressive Utilization theory is an economic model based on meeting universal human needs through dynamic, regionally-self-sufficient economies. PROUT gives a strong emphasis on cooperative enterprise, service-minded leadership of society, and environmental sustainability.

http://www.anandamarga.org - Information on Ananda Marga centers, meditation and news worldwide.

Neighbors of Raven Ridge Farm

Another organizational affiliate of Ananda Marga, the Women's Wellbeing and Development foundation, based not far from the farm in Asheville, NC helps support 800 Ananda Marga-run schools as well as medical clinics and orphanages, especially in developing countries. The foundation owns and manages 40 acres just over the fenceline from Raven Ridge Farm as well as Cosmic Vision, a pleasant boutique shop in downtown Asheville. Here's their webpage: http://www.wwd-f.org/

The Prama Institute is another neighbor to the farm, also on 40 acres. It is a retreat and conference center focused on adult education in the realm of arts, health, universal spirituality and sustainability. Check out their ongoing programs and availability as a beautiful rental space for your workshop or seminar at: http://www.pramainstitute.org

If you are interested to learn more about the farm, please email me at geoffrey@ravenridgefarm.org. Any contributions to my project are tax-deductible.

The current need of the farm is for building materials to improve the milking operation with an addition for storage and sanitation. A slab has been prepared for a 16 by 20 straw bale structure adjoining the milk barn with hot water and a small processing room. I have estimated $ 2,100 to cover costs for: framing lumber, straw bales, electric materials and wiring, plaster, roof insulation, windows and doors. The labor will be provided by the farmers and another priceless education and confidence in building gained. Salvaged materials represent costs cut out of the equation and include: Tin roofing, windows, rebar, earthen plaster, tile and lumber. A little bit of thrift goes a long way!

If you would like to contribute to the farm, checks can be made out to 'ANANDA MARGA' and mailed to:

Geoffrey Steen
c/o Raven Ridge Farm
284 Catawba Drive
Marshall, NC 28753

That's Ms. Jessica Hill milking Dana. Right there by Jessica's head is a calf's head bumping against Dana's uterus. It's not easy to tell when a cow is pregnant, but the first sign is that the right side will appear bulgier when she's viewed from the behind. If you bump with your fist on the right spot [behind her third or fourth stomach], sometimes you can feel the calf bump you back. Dana is due to Calve September 30.

Concrete

2009-09-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

Prayer Flags atop the Persimmon Saddle

Farming is very material: Wood, lumber, metal, dirt, soil and rocks, heavy by the shovelful, tin roofs torn from old houses, outbuildings, storage space, rain-soaked piles of objects, heaps and mounds of material for later use.

Consider the immensity of plant material a single bovine consumes per day: 60 to 90 pounds of grass, roughly approximate to the amount going out in urine, milk, and manure (+ the 25 gallon *slurp* of water). Miraculous! Water, sunlight, soil, thousands of pounds of grass and clover grow in a single day, one hour, one minute! Don't forget the pasture weeds, ragweed, cockleburr, pigweed, partridge pea, ironweed, asters, goldenrod, burdock, too many to count, rising soft, innocent, then popping up into hard stalks and sticky seeds, awful!

Yesterday, a concrete mixer backed up a new gravel road, slightly steep, with 14,000 pounds of concrete. Combining the weight of the truck that's 42,000 pounds coming up a hill of loose gravel--in reverse! I'm grateful the contents of the truck made it up the road and did not require a 'middle-movement' of men with shovels and wheelbarrows to pour a slab of 500 sq. ft. Now we're ready to timber frame the roof of an addition to the milk shed. After the roof, straw bales are likely candidate for walls. Keep posted.

Kevin leads Malika. It looks more like 'pull'

Farming is expensive. In my transition from college--I finished just 8 months ago--straight into 'self-employment' I've discovered there seems to be a fine, razor's edge line between investing in big stuff like buildings, barns and farm equipment, cows, ducks and chickens and making a living: the things like food, car insurance, phone + electric bills, rent. It seems, fortunate for them, that farmers often have a comparably lower cost of living than other people, considering the amount of thrift that comes with the job and the quantity of food one can produce on a small piece of land. However, without some significant financial contributions from a few people, the farm would not have been able to invest in stuff like cows, the milk parlor, a new truck, and an addition to the milk barn this first year. I would like to list those individuals and family members below followed with what their contribution made it possible to purchase.

James F. Steen

Dana, the first milk cow
4/5 of a 4x4 Chevy truck
Remesh and rebar for a slab foundation
Lumber for the milk barn
Blueberry plants and apple/pear rootstocks

Rene & Karen Ochoa

1/2 of a STIHL weedwhacker
Attorney & surveyor fees to close on the purchase of 10 acres for the farm
Boots

Pamalan G. Mitsch

Steel Buckets
1/2 of a STIHL weedwhacker
Assistance with the cost of concrete truck for a slab
Books on Cattle Health

Ernest Miller

Nearly all of the equipment needed to put a 6-strand high-tension fence around 20 acres of pasture. This fence will be started this winter and be approximately 3,800 feet in perimeter and make it possible to intensively rotate animals and improve the pasture.

Evelyn Lindenmuth

Bulldozer work and gravel for a new road 100 ft long
Part of the concrete cost for a slab

Sid Jordan

Repair cost for a Poulan chainsaw and use of his Husqvarna saw

Prama Institute

Three beautiful Locust logs, now supporting a barn roof

_______________________________________________________

A candy-roaster pumpkin grown from seed saved by Lela Davis, in Madison Co.
makes delicious pie!

_______________________________________________________

Human faces of the farm

2009-09-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is Andy McFate leaning on the truck and I, Geoffrey Steen. I graduated from Warren Wilson College in December 08 and began farming on leased land in January. I am currently addicted to carving out a beautiful space on the farm for people to learn about plants, animals, and how human beings can actively improve the productive landscape of a farm for others and themselves through sustainable management.

With an immense amount of help from friends who share my dream, especially Andy McFate, a fine carpenter, a budding woodworker, and a capable farmer, this dream is taking shape(s) and the farm is moving ahead with construction projects and improvements. It feels wonderful to share a dream that began so personally with friends and watch it change organically with their spectacular energy and ideas, yet still make progress toward common goals.

Here's one of the most significant faces of the farm, Mr. Kevin Lane. He originally hails from Roanoke, VA and graduated from Warren Wilson College May 2008. After joining me milking two cows in March, we managed to jointly purchase 10 acres of land as part of Raven Ridge Farm.

Kevin enjoys fine Chinese teas, eating multi-course meals slowly in a collective setting, running very long distances over beautiful mountain terrain and meditating as much as possible. Kevin's constant friendship, silent wisdom and steady temperament have made him an integral part of building the farm. It's with great pleasure that I tell visitors how we work together at Raven Ridge Farm--it's a three-person cooperative between Kevin, Andy and I. There are no two men I would rather be working with than these two special souls.

Jeremy came from Wilmington and by chance came up to Marshall. He now plans to winter here on the farm, staying in a tent along with Andy, Kevin and I, while helping out with building projects, the perimeter fencing job, and planting trees. He tentatively plans on going west on his bike in the spring. We look forward to getting better acquainted with Jeremy and feeding him as best we can with butter and whole milk yogurt.

Lunch at the Farm Cafe with Mr. Sid Jordan, on the right. He's the executive director of the Prama Institute, a holistic retreat and conference center next door, (www.pramainstitute.org) as well as the lending hand and inspiration for me to begin the farm here. He's purchased about 140 acres as part of an intentional neighborhood that Raven Ridge Farm is a mutual neighbor and collaborator with.
Andy Duggins McFate enjoys morning coffee with whole milk and molasses, evening 'chicken chores' & 'duck duties', milking Nandi (probably our sweetest Jersey cow), and spinning beautiful & functional objects out of wood on the first try. This woodwork includes but is not limited to, the milk parlor and fine Shaker chairs of red Oak. He will begin selling handmade Shaker chairs shortly. Contact the farm phone, (828) 649-9261 for details or else digitally by his email, bicicleta@riseup.net

Maturing hens, water fowl and people, too

2009-09-08T20:43:00.001-07:00

Here're a couple of Golden Comet rooster that showed up at the farm three weeks ago. They're real tame on account of being hand raised, held & touched daily by some friends in Asheville.

I don't know too much about chickens, besides that they're the closest living relatives of dinosaurs, in fact, the only direct descendants of the dinosaurs on Earth today.

Here're the hens, about 34 or so of them:
The breed are Barred Rocks, the black and white striped ones and New Hampshire Reds, the orange colored hens. They're all hens except two of the Hampshire Reds are roosters.

Down from 50 hens due to casualties from stray dogs, all 35 or so hens plus 4 roosters enjoy two scoops of grain/day and either starving the rest of the day or else foraging for insects, scratching in cow patties, catching flies, eating seedheads and plants. Seriously, they're quite healthy, growing into maturity and should begin laying eggs by late October/early November.

Last week, we brought 11 Muscovy ducklings onto the farm. They're now 4 weeks old.
Saved from a chance clutch of eggs on Lake Tomahawk in Black Mountain, NC, where the native geese and ducks were dying of botulism, these ducklings have found a home, are growing incredibly fast, and have high expectations to meet. The farmers at Raven Ridge are readying to release these ducks from the hen house in order to 'starve' (like the chickens) and instead of actually starving, obtain their calories from foraged bugs. Generally, ducks are far-better foragers than chickens, especially in the way of catching flies and eating mosquito larvae in ponds. These Muscovies are born fly-eaters and will soon be put on pasture with cows to eat the flies off their bodies. In exchange for flies, the cows are happy, and in exchange for a 'starvation diet', the ducks give people eggs. Wonderful how things work without chemical insecticides and chemical feed, a bit of sunlight, a thought of water, and a touch of human management!

Ducks are considered a wonderful farmstead animal. In addition to providing fly and mosquito control, ducks produce large eggs, used by bakers for their richer-taste, and will eat a massive amount of broad-leafy weeds and insect pests when let into your garden. Still experimental at Raven Ridge Farm, we're planning on releasing ducks into our summer gardens to eat the Harlequin bugs, potato beetles, and others that attack human food. Reducing feed co$ts is not only wonderful for people, it's probably tastier for the ducks (but you'll have to ask them: not an easy thing to do when they're out and about on the land, rather than cooped up inside a hot hen house, eating powdery corny feed...)

Here's the pond, a new addition to the farm since mid-July. It began filling up from the underground spring the day it was dug and filled up with the rain. The longest rain-free stretch of summer has been this week--9 days of hot, drying-out sunshine and the pond has not gone down at all. I'm confident this pond will provide a good source of splashing-around-in + food for the ducks and a cool bath for the cows in summer.

It's not the prettiest waterhole right now, but with a touch of care, and perhaps an eventual fence with 1-door entry for bovines, plus some water-loving plants, will begin it's evolution to perfection. If you're a perfectionist and like ponds please call (828) 649-9261. Be prepared to supervise 3 or 4 people in planting and protecting a waterside plantation from a farmful of cows, chickens and waterfowl.

September's second week

2009-09-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

In cool nights and leafy breezes, autumn shows itself as summer spins downward, weed stalks harden and seedheads stick to cotton shorts.

There have been a number of improvements to the farm in the past 3 weeks.

First, here's a new road, cut and graveled 100 feet from Catawba Drive up to the back of the milk parlor and its addition still in the works. Below, Kevin rakes gravel for the pad of the addition-- a milk storage and processing room .

In preparation for our two calves this month, we've fenced in a calf pen of about 300 perimeter feet that includes an old barn for winter warmth. It's near the milk parlor, so we can bottle-feed the calves easily with fresh, warm milk. Separating the calves at 2 or 3 days from their mother is perhaps not the most natural or nicest thing to do, but it trains the calf to people, ensuring she'll be affectionate and sweet. Plus, the people get more milk, and the teats of their mothers are spared the blisters and bleeding from the calf's teeth--interestingly human hands are much gentler on cow's teats than calves.

Here's the farm cafe, an ongoing project to carve out a space to store people--in other words, a place for social things like sitting, talking, meeting, eating, all out-of-doors. From the demolition of an old house on the same site, right behind the milk parlor, we've laid down a stone courtyard from the house foundation stones, much them, beautiful Quartz in many quartzy hues. 'Smoky'-- hues of grey and black, orange sandy colors and the spectacular 'Rose quartz'--ranging from light pink to crimson or deep magenta. Quartz comes more often clear than it does opaqu, with lines of color and tone. When it does come opaque, I've named it 'Milky quartz'.
That's Andy sawing stakes to hold up the wood forms to contain the concrete slab of the parlor addition.

From the courtyard farm cafe, here's shot looking up into the pasture to the upper garden, prayer flags and the farm's centerpiece, the old persimmon tree, 13 inches across at breast height, pretty big for a slow-growing wild American persimmon. Diospyros virginiana is the only specie of Ebony tree found outside the tropics. Like all ebonies, it's wood is hard and dark. Besides producing delicious fruits (Diospyros means "food of the gods" in latin) its wood has been used to make all sorts of furniture and things like door handles. Here's a closer shot of it up on the saddle--

Looks very nice when decked with gold-ball size, orange fruits, but not this year...
Persimmons often bear fruit in alternate years like many fruiting trees. There are wonderful summer apples coming in right now, though, with a wonderful yellow-red striped skin and sweet/sour flesh, good for fresh-eating either green or striped, cooking down, and fed to cows to feel their kicking calves inside!

Here's the corn patch. We're raising an open-pollinated (true-to-type if not crossed-pollinated) heirloom type of corn called 'bloody butcher'. When it matures, e.g.- when it dries down into hard cobs & kernels, it will be ground for flour and used for next year's seed, unlike 'sweet corn' that is eaten wet or sweet & immature. Last week, Andy cut the tassels off the tops, taking much height off the crop in a bid to prevent 'lodging', when the corn topples over from hard winds and rains, and regrettably from raccoons or bears. This garden is in a bit of a wet spot, near a perennial springbed, not great for preventing lodging in corn. Andy reports that there's at least 40 pumpkins in there amongst the stalks, since he placed a board under each one to prevent rot. Gobs of beans, too.

<-- The single best improvement to the farm in recent weeks! An old chalkboard now built into the milk parlor wall, with the function of organizing the work week, planning, and sharing news. Andy, Geoffrey, and Kevin's daily schedule is written in there, with Important Neighborhood Numbers (phone #'s), who prepares Lunch and Dinner, and so on... Here's a nice thing: about 160 blueberry bushes, 250 apples, a bundle of pecan and chestnut trees. Part of the Raven Ridge Nursery stock tbp ('to be planted' or maybe 'to be purchased' -- would you like on for your homestead?) But seriously, the promise of perennial trees and vines bearing fruits and nuts years from now is positively divine! I am very happy that these trees were saved from the virulent pigweeds and crabgrasses infesting their pots and will find a nice home on the farm or in your backyard.
all for now

Second blog

2009-09-05T11:59:00.001-07:00

The third Saturday of July, Kempo Rinpche, a Tibetan monk came to the farm to bless the land with a traditional smoke offering ceremony. The ceremony purifies the space and with the smoke that blows all 'round the world, sends blessing of peace and compassion everywhere. To finish the ceremony, the group of about 30 neighbors, friends, and family helped put up 3 large prayer flags to send out more joyful, peaceful blessings to all creatures on Earth. Thanks to all who came.

Next time there's an even like this, it will be posted beforehand as an invitation to you, reading now.

<-- That's Andy McFate, one of the three full-time farmers at Raven Ridge. Kevin Lane and myself, Geoffrey Steen, make up the rest of the crew who manage the milk herd, tend the flock of hens & ducks, grow the nursery of fruit trees, and till the gardens. Here, Andy is putting perlins on the milk parlor, an old photo from back in March. Since then, the pasture's greened up full of grass for the cows and weeds for the dreams of goats (cloven-hoofed friends that might be featured on next summer's pasture, and next year's blog, "Wild & Wily Weed Whackers") That's Kevin removing nails from salvaged wood,
again, back in March. -->

We've been able to cut costs by salvaging, re-using, cutting, and finding all sorts of materials including milled lumber, whole logs, nails, sheet metal, rocks, sand, and clay for our building projects and farm improvements.

To me, animals and plants are tremendously more wonderful to work with than wood and metal and rock, because they grow and reproduce on their own, move on their own, and do all the work without hammering, bulldozing, lifting and certainly they produce delicious cream and wild berries with a minimum of human effort. Cows, for instance, eat steep, hillside grass unsuited for me to eat, and make it into milk and cream. Those same hillsides grow wonderful bramble and tree fruit!

That's Bella and I in Late July. She's an affectionate Jersey heifer with horns hand-raised in Madison County, NC. As of this blog, she's gone on a 'Single's retreat' down east in Taylorsville, NC to meet some potential breeding partners...

If she's bred, she'll spend 9 months making a baby, and calve next year in early summer/late spring.

Malika is our oldest cow, over 8 years, from near Roan Mtn and Bakersville, NC. She's a holstein/jersey cross cow. Holsteins produce the most milk of any dairy breed and have the characteristic black/white coat of the milk cow pictured in cartoons and milk cartons. Jersey cows are smaller, and produce the least milk of any dairy breed, but compared to the watery milk of Holsteins, are loaded with cream--a richer milk better for making butter and pleasing the stomach!

Here's the herd!

from the left: that's Nandi, Dana, Malika, and Bella.

Dana and our newest cow, 'Willa'--not pictured-- are quite pregnant and will each drop a young bovine soul onto the grassy earth by the end of September.

Check back later for new photos!

The farm's first blog

2009-09-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

<-- Kevin brings down the cows to the milk parlor as the morning mist burns off in the 7.30 sun.

It's amazing to reflect on the past 7 months at Raven Ridge Farm! Starting in January, I was milking one cow in the cold of an old 'bacco barn. More cows arrived, and do did Andy McFate and Kevin Lane, a big flock of laying hens, and just last week, Andy's first cow and 11 ducklings.

We've built a milk parlor to gather milk from the herd, destroyed an old house and built a courtyard and planted a nursery of fruit and nut trees in its place. We're working on an addition to the parlor, with insulated strawbale walls, electricity, and space for processing garden goods and milk for butter.

Andy's woodworking craftsmanship shows itself in humble hints, such as the wood hinges on the outhouse door, the nail-less pole-framed tent platform, and the patio roof of our soon-to-be, home-built, wood-fired Lorena stove (more on that later).

Kevin's devotion to the health of the herd, poultry flock and gardens, inspires we 'three farmer friends' to make improvements to the projects we've spun out with enthusiasm, but perhaps not kept up with or completed. His careful nature makes him an important asset to the farm, peacefully tending the plants and animals with a patience older than time. Leave the rushing to me, Kevin can take all the credit for making the farm run smoothly and the chores finished.

<-- the milk parlor in March, gettin' on toward completion. That house with tar-paper walls was torn down and salvaged for wood. Much of it went into the Hen House, which we built spaciously for about 70 hens & ducks for only $ 29 in nails.

More later!