# Kelsey2017 - Folk Art Farm's journal



## kelsey2017 (Sep 20, 2011)

1.    What state/province/country are you in and what is your climate like?
About 10 miles from the North Shore of Lake Superior and about 20 miles from Duluth MN.  We are lucky enough to be a zone 4 here due to the lake.


2.    How many people are in your family? 
I have four children ages 10, 7, 4 and 2 and am recently divorced.  I do have a wonderful boyfriend that I have known for sometime now.

3.    How would you define your farm?

I am trying to create a balanced farm that will take care of my family.  We raise chickens for meat and eggs, have ducks and turkeys, sheep and horses and are going today to pick up our first foray into cattle- a bred Jersey/Shorthorn heifer.

4.    What would you do with your spare time if you had any resources you needed?

Have a brand new livestock barn built for cattle and have a small milking building built. - DITTO, DITTO Hear hear!

5.    Have you ever built a house, barn , or other types of building? 

I have been a carpenter since I was a young lady and could build anything I needed if only I have unlimited resources.

6.    Can you weld? Steel, aluminum, MiG, TiG, stick, Oxy-Acet?

No, but I have always wanted to learn.  My Boyfriend does though and our neighbor borrows us the equipment.

7.    Who or what inspired you to be a farmer/rancher, hobby farmer?

I guess it would be my impression of my family (Great Grand parents) homesteading and making it though so much, and my parents not having done that.  I don't like to see the way my mother has become such a consumer and takes things for granted.  I don't want the latest version of the Iphone I want that good old technology that kept people alive.  I want my kids to value those things.

8     Is it a hobby or an occupation?

I think of it as a hobby that feeds and sustains us.

9.    In what areas are you knowledgeable and in what areas would you like to learn more?

I know horses best and chickens good.  I love all animals and learn what ever I can!

10.  In what types of farming will you never choose to do?

Confinement operation - Ditto, and any gardening that requires chem fertilizers or pestisides

11.   Are you interested in providing more of your own food supply?

Yes- that is why we keep adding different animals to the farm, so we can be diverse and not over tax anything because of mismanagment.

12.   Where do you end up when you sink into yourself, away from the outside world?

What outside world?  I love my farm on a dead end road, who needs to leave?

13.   Can you drive a farm tractor or a semi?

Tractor, yes.  Semi, no.

14.   Do you make crafts or useful items? 

When I have time, I can sew and knit. I also paint and re-purpose things.

15.   Can you legally have all forms of livestock where you are at? 

Yes, we have 2 off the track horses, 2 Shetlandish sheep, 8 mostly BR turkeys, 7 Black Swedish ducks, a couple stragglers from the meat bird pen, 14 Norwegian Jearhons, and after 10am today a Jersey/ SHorthorn heifer.

16.   Can you operate a lathe? Metal, wood?

Have not

17.   Do you like to garden? If so, what do you enjoy growing?

We try to grow a large vegetable garden.

18.   Do you fish? Bait or explosives?

Bait

19.   How much space/land do you have or rent? City farm? Country?
Currently on a small farm of about 10 acres

20.   Are you a Novice, Technician, degreed?

No degree but no novice.

21.   What is your farm specialty? Or what one would you like to learn?

I don't really have a specialty, trying it all and getting good at one thing at a time.  I would love to start a school, teach  community ed classes or just run a vacation type day care.

22.   If you could create a degree and curriculum, what would you major in and what classes would you take?

N/A

23.   Do you do wood work? framing, finish, cabinet?

Not as a hobby.  Just for work or projects around here.  My boyfriend is a real craftsman though and does beautiful work with wood.

24.   Are you interested in herbal animal medicine?

I do use essential oil remedies and natural thing when ever possible

25.   If you could live any place you chose, where would it be?

Right here but I would buy the neighbors other 60 acres

26.    Do you use a wood stove for heating or cooking?

I grew up with a wood stove and will use one when I build my own house.  I have always wanted I dual fuel cookstove.

27.    What would your ideal super hero/villain be?

Myself but I never get tired or run out of money!

28.    Are your family or friends also interested in animals?

I do most of the work but we all enjoy them.  Everyone likes the farm food though.

29.    Do you like to cook? Are you interested in whole foods and natural foods? raw milk? farm fresh eggs?

I am a nut about cooking.  I don't use recipes much and have learned how to cook from scratch well.  I love to feed my family simple unprocessed food, especially the kind I grow and care for and harvest.  We are trying for raw milk this coming spring with our new heifer.

30.   What was your best animal experience? Worst?

A little 2 week old Alpine doe.  She was both.  I never got such a kick out if an animal before, she also was unfortunatly a reminder not to jump into things.  She died after having her only three days.  I won't get a just weaned anything ever again.  Start with something more forgiving whenit is your first time.  RIP-  Lirra

31.    Do you forage or hunt for part of your food needs?

I deer hunt and grouse hunt.

32.    What skills do you have that help you be more a self sufficient farm?

Stubborness

33.    Do you process your own meat? Can or preserve?

Yep all that stuff

34.   Do you use alternative energy sources on your farm? 
n
No not yet

35    What is on your to do list?

Get off the computer and go get our heifer!

36.   Have you ever lived completely off what you produce? Would you like to?

No and yes

37.  Do you make and fix things yourself to save money?

Yes

38.  Has the experience with animals changed your attitude or habits

It has made me very grateful and and caused me to get up real early!


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## daisychick (Sep 20, 2011)

Congrats on getting a new heifer today!  Look forward to reading your journal.


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## kstaven (Sep 22, 2011)

Congrats on the heifer. Looks like she has good rib spacing which is a good sign for a milker.

Love the horns but you need to train her not to rub on people. Had a horned jersey do this once and hooked my jacket. Very good thing she was calm and didn't flip her head or I would have been airborne.


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## kelsey2017 (Oct 13, 2011)

Yeah the plan is for the horns is to go, although I read about gluing Kongs on them! It make sense but they need to go because I want the children to be able to handle her.  Here are some pictures of our newest additions.  Three of the four that have hatched so far.  The males are much lighter color and you can sex them at birth! If I get a bunch of boys I will try and raise them to a cornish hen size (1lb) on gamebird feed and see what happens.


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## CYGChickies (Oct 14, 2011)

I love the chicks, so cute. I can't wait to read your Journal and good luck with the cow! I'm so jealous!

CYG


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## Ms. Research (Oct 14, 2011)

Good Luck with your new Heifer.  And the chicks are so precious.


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## elevan (Nov 24, 2011)

Happy Thanksgiving Kelsey


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## daisychick (Dec 25, 2011)




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## elevan (Dec 25, 2011)




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## 77Herford (Dec 25, 2011)

Welcome and good luck with the Heifer.


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## kelsey2017 (Feb 16, 2012)

I have so many things going on right now; I feel I should write things down so I don't forget what my vision is.  

I have spent my long awaited tax refund.  Just pretty much blew it on getting this place of mine running.  Well, it is not mine but I will be able to buy this home and land if I play my cards right this year.  That is the plan, to get this place but in the process, see why I need this place.  When I moved in I had a handful of chickens, a dog, two cats, two horses, three kids and a husband.
I had been seeking this type of place to live for a long time, my husband was not, and we parted ways after 8 years of marriage, me pregnant but stubborn.  The country life I grew up wasn't fancy farm stuff, no real farm animals other than my horse after I was 10. I had a duck that my friend found on the road with two gunshot wounds that I nursed (and became the best pet EVER).  But as I became a young lady and needed the town life, and then got married and lived in the city with my husband for 8 long years, I was depressed and felt like there is no sense of accomplishment with the life I was living.  I am unable to make food for my family on the level that I want.  I need birds, not semis in the morning and I would like not to feel as though the neighbors can see in my bathroom window.  My ex grew up like that in town and couldn't stand the quiet, or the trees and felt so far away from the world because he couldn't go walk somewhere to get a cup of coffee.  We just were not going to work well together if we had completely different goals in life.  There were other issues trust me, I think we could have worked something  out if not.  ANY how, he lives in a really nice apartment on a main street and loves it, I live on 80 acres of pure paradise at the end of a tiny dead end road 10 miles from the tiny shipping town of Two harbors on Lake Superior.  
      Fast forward three years.  Year one I put in extensive gardens and got the hang of raising chickens for the most part.  Put up tons of food and was delighted.  Year two I started over with chickens because my dog had eaten all of them over the course of the winter. I also expanded the garden and began selling at farmers markets.  We tried meat birds and that went very well. 
This last year (you'll be able to tell I got a computer, or rather as my boyfriend will tell you I got a new boyfriend- Craig as is Craigslist) I gardened as usual, doubled the meat birds specialized on  one breed of chicken, added ducks, started raising heritage breed turkeys, and got a dairy heifer,  and two unwanted sheep. 
So that brings me to today of which I have no excuse to be in sitting on the computer.  I write that part after it happens.


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## kelsey2017 (Feb 17, 2012)

My plan for this month consists of erecting the shelter/storage building thing that I got from my best friend Craig S List.  It is going to look ridiculous, but so be it.  The building is 33 feet long and 10 or so feet high and completely covered in sheets of green pole barn steel.  The man said that it was a heavy duty carport type shelter from Sam's club.   I imagine that in my landscape it is going to look like a very large caterpillar. If I had more money I could replace the bottom sheets with red or white and that would give it some definition.  There is also 22'more that has no steel so I am going to have a green house as well.  I will put up shelves for the plants and raise my meaties on pasture right on the floor.  I have a wood stove I could put in the green house side to get it warm enough so I can actually grow something.  Since I am putting it up over existing pasture it should be easy to get things growing.  I also have a pretty good pile of hay, shavings and cow manure that is still hot so I can put the compost bins to action to warm the soil.
 Time to get my two oldest up and off to school and get myself out the door too good day everyone!


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