One other official herald to the beginning of spring, I found a tick on me today. Ewww!! We all know how much I love ticks.
Today we attended the Iowa Horse Fair . It was so much fun! And the horses are so stunning. I bought Major a fancy gizmo that will protect his tail. It's three spandex tubes, connected at the top. You put a third of the tail hair in each tube, and then you braid the tubes together. It keeps the tail protected. There are little fringes at the bottom of the tubes to help him swat flies. We're trying to glam up his tail because M wants to show him at the Iowa State Fair in August.
Our neighbor K came down yesterday and harrowed up the part of the pasture that is bare. The previous owners had cattle here, and a large amount of them in a small area, which meant that the grass was nonexistant in the areas where they congregated. Before we had the horses to help eat all of that vegetation, it grew and grew, and we had weeds take over all of the bare spots. K mowed them down in October, and we knocked down some of the other spots that needed attention. Now he will plant brome grass and oat grass. We've also agreed to farm our back 10 acres on shares. He'll plant soybeans this spring.
Does that mean we're officially farmers? We have two crops (hay and soybeans) and livestock. Maybe livestock means that you have to make a living from it? I can't believe how hard it actually is to make a living being a farmer. K and I talked for a long while today about that sad fact. I want to take on some animals here, to make a little more money, and K told me that it's next to impossible. He used the example of hogs. It used to be that farmers could go down to the sale and buy 1-2 sows, and bring them home to start their operation. They would have babies, and then either sell the piglets or add to their stock.
But now they don't have sale barns like that, where you can buy 1 or 2 animals. The small farmer is competing with the hoglots and the factory operations. Prices are so low that you can't even make it becuase you can't recoup your costs.
Take chickens for example. Let's say that I wanted to make our farm a chicken farm. I would buy 50 chicks for $1.00 each. I would feed them, love on them, etc., for 10 weeks. Some quick research reveals that it would take 15 pounds of feed to grow a 5-pound chicken, costing approximately $1.80 per chicken. If your chicken weighs 3 3/4 pounds dressed, that's $.48 per pound. I've put $1.00 into the cost of the chicken, not to mention my time, facilties and equipment. Hy-vee is selling chicken for $1.15 per pound. Let's just say I can get $2.00 a pound for my higher-than-normal quality and farm-raised goodness. That means that I sell each chicken for $7.50, and after expenses, it yields a profit of $4.70 per bird (not including equipment and facilities). If I had 50 birds, assuming that I had no unexpected illnesses or setbacks, I could sell those birds for a whopping total of $235 for my chicken flock. Because I am a small operation, and focus on quality, I would never have more than 50 birds at once. If I did this year-round, it would yield $2350 per year.
While sometimes I complain about my job, it generally does pay me more than $2350 per year!
And so it goes with hogs and cattle, too. It's a shame. My kids are in 4H-- why? Just to keep them busy, truthfully. Those kids will never have the option to grow up and be a farmer. It's really, really sad. : (
Well, we're not giving up just yet. And we can enjoy our farm with or without animals. Here are those spring photos:
Lilac bush
Unidentified Plant (can you identify)
Pasture
HyacinthsHope spring is springing for you, too.
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