WHAT'S NEW
WHAT'S NEW AT
STRAIGHT CREEK VALLEY FAR
M
FEBRUARY 2010

I have retired from being a city lawyer and am now staying amazingly busy as a country
attorney and "farmer".  The farmer part of my life has taken a wonderful turn as I now have
the opportunity to write a weekly column in Brown County's local newspaper, The News
Democrat, about my adventures at the Creek.  The column is called Straight Creek Essays
and for those of you who do not get the paper,
you can read what I write on my blog!
MAY 2010

We have several new additions to our farm "family".  Two goats, aptly named One and
Two, have now made Straight Creek their home.  Greg built them a beautiful green tin
roofed and cedar sided goat house that matches the other farm buildings. I promise to
post photos and goat stories soon.

We also have acquired seventeen Bantam chicks. There is no telling for the moment
how many of our new flock are roosters, but we hope that the odds of about 50% hold
true. Time will tell, and time will also give Greg the chance to build a portable chicken
house, but for now the chicks live with us, in a cattle trough, in the cabin. We fall
asleep to their chirping each night.

And the seed starts are now looking like a jungle in their float bed. They are quite
ready to plant, and the fields are ready for planting our bee forage crops too. So we
shall be busy over the next few weeks, but I promise to keep you posted!
DECEMBER 2010


Our farm family continues to grow.  We now have three goats, all hopefully pregnant
thanks to a visiting billy goat.  The young'uns should be due this spring and then we
hope to milk the mothers for a while.

Our chickens now number twenty.  For a while they were laying wonderful eggs, but
now that the weather is colder, we get few if any.  They still provide endless hours of
entertainment as we watch their antics about the yard.

And the rabbits provide good eating as well as good companionship as we feed and
water them.  We even built a large run where they could enjoy the grass and sunshine
over the summer, but now in the cold of winter they stay in their hutch all of the time.

Life is good on the farm!
MAY 2011

And now we have 7 kids, goats that is.  All were born without any assistance from us,
despite all the reading and ways to assist that I had learned.  We will keep the only
billy to breed back to his non mother.

Our new pig is growing leaps and bounds and should be ready to slaughter by fall.  
She provides us entertainment and is a companion to our new Rotweiller, Ripley.  
Each thinks that the other is her sister.  The pig acts like a puppy dog and the dog
acts like a pig, though the pig is quickly growing far larger that the dog.

All is well down at the creek, except for the rain.  Way too much precipitation this
year,so that I only have half of my garden planted and none of the field crops have
been set yet.  Last year's clover is thriving, as are the bees, blackberries and
strawberries.  And hopefully we will be able to set our corn, soy, and sunflowers
with enough time to grow them to harvest.  We shall see!
JUNE 2011

And it is still raining!  The strawberries have struggled to yield only a few handfulls.  
Even the blackberries do not seem to be producing much, but perhaps it is still early.  
But our second year clover field is thriving and the bees are happily working it over.  
I have eight supers on the hives that I hope to take off in the next week or so. Folk are
clamoring for honey!  I promise to post as soon as we have the honey in jars so that
anyone who want fresh, ever so good, spring honey can come and get it.
FEBRUARY 2012

So much has happened!  The web site is sorely in need of updating, and I promise to get
to it in March when I will be teaching litigation skills at a week long seminar up in
Columbus and should have every evening free to work on the web site. That is my plan ...

Two out of three goats have kidded.  I am about ready to breed the rabbits for the first time
this year.  Our four remaining hens are all laying again ... and I am ready to raise at least
six more chicks ... we shall see ...  

The freezer accumulating more space as we eat rabbit, deer, and pork and I am
wondering, beside rabbit, what we will raise for the freezer this year.

We have decided to plant three acres of soup beans, another acre of clover, and I am so
ready to float start my seeds and get into the garden!

So life at the creek is as filled with wonder, as always, and to see what we do on a weekly
basis, just follow us on our blog!   The link is at the top of this page under February 2010.  I
can't believe that I have now been writing a weekly column for the past two years!  No lack
of adventures here!