Farm Fodder

Wishing you a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year!

We will be offering a class this spring on building raised beds -
This class is FREE!!! – Well, sort of free… You have to “work for it!”

We are going to be building the raised beds for our 100+ blueberry plants that will arrive this spring. Time permitting, we may build a new spice bed as well.
This class will incorporate some of the “newer techniques” of old which will include:

• How to make bad ground usable
• How to kill weeds/grass while recycling and feeding the soil in preparation for growing plants
• How to reduce water and fertilizer usage
• How to grow the MOST in the SMALLEST SPACE.

What you will learn will apply to growing anything in your raised garden beds – and using less space to do it!

We hope you’ll mark the date when we post it in the forthcoming email announcement, and plan to join us as we have fun getting our hands dirty!

We have new articles on our blogs – please visit and check them out. And we don’t mind if you add your 2 cents worth! For that matter, you can add a dollar’s worth, if you like!

Marilyn’s blog is called “The Goat Woman” and can be accessed by Clicking here (please copy and paste the line below into your browser, if you can’t see the link):

http://goatmilksoapandlotion.net/blog/

Pat’s blog is called “Farm Fodder” and can be accessed by Clicking here (please copy and paste the line below into your browser, if you can’t see the link):

http://weber-farms.com/blog/

Again, we wish you the best Christmas ever, and a rewarding 2009!

To your Health,

Pat & Marilyn Weber

Weber Farms

http://www.weber-farms.com

http://www.goatmilksoapandlotion.net

Good Health and Merry Christmas to you all!

The fall/winter craft show season is over!!
After 2 months and 14 craft shows, we are going to unwind and celebrate this weekend with our 2 youngest boys!
We made some money, but most importantly, we made lots of new friends. We have gotten the word out to the Greater Cincinnati Area that we exist and we care about the health and well-being of them and their families!
And, we have had online orders everyday for the past 2 weeks!

Our newest chicks are approaching 2 months of age and are growing fast. We have them in the old chicken “winter home”, since our layers are in the orchard and using the greenhouse. They should be “promoted” to layers in about 2 – 3 months.
And our currently laying ladies are getting back to production! After a molting spell, when the daily egg production dropped from 4 dozen a day to 4 or 5 EGGS a day, they are backup up to about 2 1/2 dozen eggs a day ( not bad for winter-time egg production).

The barn addition is coming along and should be done before Christmas – and ready for hay and new stalls for the goats. A much needed space increase for our growing herd!!

Marilyn will soon be the first in Kentucky with a Cosmetics manufacturer’s license.
KY recently changed the regulations, and now many of the products she was making require a cosmetics manufacturing license. But that will happen before year end! Her labels are approved and now she is waiting on the appointment for inspection.

AVAILABLE:
We have eggs, honey, soaps and sundries for sale.

Wishing you good health, a Merry Christmas and happy, prosperous New Year.

P & M Weber

Weber Farms

http://www.weber-farms.com

http://wwwgoatmilksoapandlotion.net

It is very beautiful outside – no rain, just sunshine. We are filling the bee feeders and getting them ready for what could be a very cold, long winter. Every day above 50 we fill the feeders to make sure that they will have enough stores to get them through until Spring.

The chickens are molting. Very sad. We usually sell between 10-16 dozen eggs a week and now we’re lucky to get 2 . . . and we’re not even getting farm fresh pastured poultry eggs ourselves!!! During the summer when we were getting 4 dozen a day, we ate a lot of angel food cakes, egg dishes and boiled eggs – it was marvelous. Hopefully it won’t be long before they have new feathers and start producing again. The hens and roosters in the brooders are doing fantastic. Not one has met with any mishaps. 4 more months to eggs.

The loving, gentle Houdini goat we have is now staying in his pen. Pat had to change the 6 wire electric fence to field fence with a hot wire on top. No other goat that we’ve ever had has gone thru it – until this one. He won’t stay in. Those ladies next door are far too appealing to worry about danger of shock. I’m not sure how many of the ladies are now bred. We meant to breed them to him – all except 2 of them – but in our timing. We attend every birth and assist if necessary. We need to know the exact date. So, we’ll be watching them all for signs in 21 days to see if they come into heat again. I sure hope so . . .

I am tagging all the goat milk, honey and beeswax products that we make to get them ready for a 3 day boutique that we attend every year at the Drawbridge Inn on Buttermilk Pike called Keepsake Christmas. This is it’s 24th year and it is an amazing show. No booths – just an entire hotel area full of different seasonal sections. Decorated with everything that is for sale. What awesome artwork and decorations are put up for display. And it doesn’t cost anything to get in! It’s my favorite show that we do. Although I love the educational aspect to sitting in my booth talking to people about the health benefits of our farm products made fresh for them with our herbs, honey, beeswax, goat’s milk and no chemicals, preservatives, etc. – it’s pleasant for people to shop without being bombarded with vendors at multiple tables/booths. They can wander at leisure and ask questions from the workers there – but don’t have to if they don’t want to. Very relaxing shopping.

We’ve sold all but two of our puppies and Jessie gets to rest for at least a year and a half – if not forever. We love our dogs and don’t want to breed just to breed. We love our Northwest Farm Terriers!

I must get to homeschooling, getting product ready for the show, making some bread and some cheese. It’s never ending – but what a blessed life I have! All the best food, entertainment (ever watch goats in the cool air – frisky and fun), and peaceful atmosphere. I never want to be a city girl again!

To Your Health,

Marilyn

Good Health to you!

With October comes cooler temperatures - and work!!!

Slowly shutting down the farm and preparing for winter entails many
things for us.

Mucking out the goat barn, breeding goats for next spring, making
sure there is enough hay put up for the winter, preparing the garden
beds for next spring, expanding the barn and starting lettuce inside
for our own winter crop, grown under lights in the basement, are just
some of the chores we must attend to. 

In addition, we still have 9 or 10 craft shows ahead, spread out over
8 weekends!

The list of craft shows that remain can be found here:

http://www.weber-farms.com/2008_shows.php

The garden beds are being shut down this month, and the hens are
slowing down on egg production as the amount of daylight dwindles more
each day. 

The trees are changing color and it is really a beautiful time of
year. I love the mist and fog rising off of the ground in the morning
and hanging on the trees. Soon we'll have the wood burning stove going
and will be sipping tea made from the dried mint in the spice bed. 

We still have eggs and honey for sale, along with all of our
value-added products ( soaps, lotions and more wonderful items made
from the beeswax, honey, goat milk and herbs).

We hope your fall is prosperous and full of life!

P & M Weber

Weber Farms

October Update

We have put up about half of the hay we need for winter, and are
preparing everything for the inevitable cold weather. 

It is hard saying goodbye to sunshine, warmth and long daylight
hours. 

Now I have maybe 2 hours to work in after I get home from my job, and
i find that things are getting done much more slowly as a result. None
the less, things are getting done. 

Jessie's puppies are now 7 weeks old. I just put an ad in the
newspaper for selling them. This is likely to be Jessie's last litter.

She has given us 2 wonderful litters of beautiful pups, but we don't
want to over-breed her. She is such a good farm dog, we couldn't
imagine not having her around. Northwest Farm Terriers give all they
have to their masters willingly, and are loving, good natured, great
with children, adults, animals and anything else that comes along...
as long as they are welcome. 

Our Jessie has taken down a skunk ( and not gotten sprayed), weasel,
rat, many birds trying to get our blueberries, but has never injured
one of our goats, chickens or anything else that "belongs here". 

We will very much miss having puppies around ( especially our two
boys), but we want Jessie to be healthy her entire life - 

We have had several inquiries about chickens butchered for people.
Unfortunately we never received order requests when we asked for them,
so we have very few left for people at this point. Next year, around
February, we would like for you to inform us how many you would like
and we will work towards filling your requests. We will not be doing
the hybrid "broilers" because they require commercial feeds, which,
for natural and organic sources, have become too expensive for us. We
will be using large meat breeds, which will take longer to fill out
(12 - 16 weeks as opposed to 8 weeks), but will be able to forage on
their own without much additional feed rations. 

We still have honey and have just purchased another 50 chicks for
laying hens in a few months, to help with the added number of requests
for eggs. 

To Your Health,

P & M Weber

Well, we have a new year coming next week…

What does that mean to a farm?

The new year starts in the dead of winter, but there is still a lot to do!

If the temperature is above 50, I will refill feeders and put them on the bee hives so that they can replenish their “winter stores”.

I will continue to “dress” the growing beds from last year, and new beds for this year, with manure. As long as the ground is not frozen, the manure can leech into the ground, providing the nourishment that the soil desperately needs.

The chickens are still active, so I will continue to move their poultry netting, so that they have clean, fresh ground to forage on. It amazes me that, even in winter, when I give additional natural feed, they still manage to find bugs, grass, leaves and other “critters” to eat – and leave some of the feed untouched!

I still need to split wood for the wood stove, work on the inside of the house, repair and build new bee equipment, and work on other projects.

We are planning the beds for the coming spring, ordering seeds, fruit trees, berry bushes, flowers, herbs, spices for the garden beds and starting seeds for planting in the ground. We are also taking extra care of our pregnant animals (goats and dog) to make sure that the little ones coming will be healthy and strong.