The new year is here and I am starting into my9^th year here on the farm with Bruce!  Hard to believe that I have been here 8 years already.  I am still loving it all. We have been self sufficient for the past 6 years with no outside jobs or outside income and hope to continue this way until we retire (10, 15 years from now?).  It feels great to know that we are able to make farming work.  It hasn’t always been easy and we will probably face more challenges in the years ahead, but we wouldn’t be happy living any other way or doing anything else. 

January was relatively mild in the weather department. It was a little colder than December, and we had about 6 inches of snow, but we also saw some very nice warm days, and even a record high of 52 degrees on January 5^th.  Can’t complain about any of that!

I spent much of January working on a new website called BeefaloCentral.com.  It is a site designed to give lots of information to the general public about what Beefalo is and what the wonderful qualities are of the breed and the meat.  We have included lots of pictures and articles and even have a place where people can advertise anything Beefalo for free.    We hope you will check it out and tell all your friends about it.  (You can go to our Links page and click on Beefalo Central)

When I wasn’t working on the website, I made lots of butter, ice cream, and cheeses from our Guernsey milk.  I also managed to get to the library to get some books to read in the evening hours.  It’s nice to have a break from work for a few hours a day. 

Bruce did a lot of brush clearing this month but also took time to look through a lot of his Beefalo information to find things for me to put up on the website. He has been raising them for over 25 years and still thinks they are the best meat animal around!  He also took over the washing, candling and packing of the eggs for me so that I would have more time to work on the website. 

The chickens continued to lay lots of eggs this month and at 3 dozen per day, we got and sold about 90 dozen!  The goats are doing well also, except poor Waylan.  Wanda doesn’t like him much and after I feed and water them, if I leave their little barn, Wanda will push Waylan out of the feed bunker and not let him in.  I have to stand guard both morning and evening until he has had his fill.  But I don’t mind, they are fun to watch.  Waylan is my favorite.  He is mostly white but has a brown “ace of spades” on the middle of his back.  And he has the sweetest personality of all of the goats. 

Here’s to 2012 being a peace-filled, happy year for all of our loyal customers and visitors to our site.  We hope that you find joy in simplifying your lives and appreciate what makes life special – doing what you love, the special people in your life, and the time you have together.