# PotterWatch- Moving to Virginia!  Pics in post 17



## PotterWatch (Jan 1, 2012)

1. What state/province/country are you in and what is your climate like?
I'm in Southern California.  We have hot summers, very mild winters.  

2. How many people are in your family? Marital status?
There are four of us.  My husband, myself, and our two boys.

3. How would you define your farm?
We are an organic (not certified) farm raising chicken, Dorper sheep, and LaManchagoats for milk.  We also sell beef that is raised for us by a local rancher who has lots of range land.

4. Who or what inspired you to be a farmer/rancher, hobby farmer?
I have always been interested in farming.  I grew up reading James Herriot and other such authors who of course make farming sound very romantic but also lots of hard work.  When the opportunity to start a business raising chickens came up, we jumped on the chance.  It's not exactly been easy going so far, but I think we will be able to make it work.

5. Is it a hobby or an occupation?
Occupation.  My husband is a a retired firefighter/paramedic and I have had a few jobs I liked but never a career.  We now both work 100% on the farm.

6. In what areas are you knowledgeable and in what areas would you like to learn more?
Very knowledgeable in raising chickens for meat and eggs, reasonably knowledgeable about turkeys.  Reasonably knowledgeable about sheep and goats, though I am always looking to learn more.  We have had goats for several years but sheep for just one year.

7. What types of farming will you never choose to do?
Commerical-type farming that doesn't allow the land to rejuvenate itself.  We keep our numbers low and give our animals enough space so that our pasture is kept in good condition at all times.

8. Are you interested in providing more of your own food supply?
It would be great if we produced 100% of our own food but I don't think we will ever get to that point.  I would settle for producing all the meat we consume and 70% of the produce.  I don't think we will ever be producing our own grains, we just don't have the space.

9. Do you like to garden? If so, what do you enjoy growing?
I love gardening though I've only kept a garden of my own for a few years.  We hope to have a CSA garden if we are able to move to a larger property.  Right now, we just don't have the space.  We do have a community garden on our farm that is run by a friend of ours.  It provides many local families with a place to grow their own produce.

10. How much space/land do you have or rent? City farm? Country?
We own a house, but we are renting it out to someone so that we can live at the farm which we rent from someone else.  It is a 10 acre parcel with 8 acres of pasture.

11. What is your farm specialty? Or what one would you like to learn?
Our specialty is meat animals, we raise chicken and lamb on our property and beef is raised on a local ranch.  

12. Are you interested in herbal animal medicine?
Definitely.  

13. If you could live any place you chose, where would it be?
PNW probably.  Though it is really nice that here in So. Cal., we can garden year-round.

14. Are your family or friends also interested in animals?
My immediate family, husband and kids, are very much into animals.  The rest of my family, not so much.  I think they all think we are a bit mad for choosing to be farmers, especially farmers raising animals that we process for meat.

15. Do you like to cook? Are you interested in whole foods and natural foods? raw milk? farm fresh eggs?
I like cooking a bit more now that I have a little more knowledge and am fairly confident that I can turn out something decent.  I try to use local, in-season foods as much as possible.  When we have dairy animals, we do not pasteurize any of the dairy products we consume.  We only use eggs from our own birds if at all possible.

16. Do you process your own meat? Can or preserve?
We process all our chickens ourselves, lamb is done locally but not by us and our beef has to be slaughtered at a USDA facility since we sell cuts to the public.  I love canning and hope to be able to buy a pressure canner soon so that I can preserve more of what we produce.

17. Do you use alternative energy sources on your farm? Would you like to?
Currently we don't but we would love to add some wind and solar power.

18. Has the experience with animals changed your attitude or habits?
Definitely.  I think our family feels much more connected to nature now.  We depend on the rain to water our pasture, we deal with the wind when it knocks water buckets down and tears roofs off,  we notice much more the effect the weather has on our daily activities.   We also pay much more attention to where our food comes from.  I now very rarely eat meat that is commercially grown and I try to do the majority of my food shopping at farmers markets.


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## Ms. Research (Jan 4, 2012)

It was a pleasure reading your journal.  

Welcome to the Journal Section.

Look forward to reading more on PotterWatch.

K


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## elevan (Jan 4, 2012)

Ms. Research said:
			
		

> It was a pleasure reading your journal.
> 
> Welcome to the Journal Section.
> 
> ...


x2

I'm looking forward to reading your journal.


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## PotterWatch (Jan 5, 2012)

Tomorrow is a big day at our farm.  We had a request from a nearby homeschool group moderator if she could set up a field trip to come see the farm.  We encourage people to come see where their food comes from and how it gets to their table, so we said we would be glad to have them over for a tour.  We were thinking it would be 20-30 people at most, after all, how many people really want to come look at a bunch of chickens.  Well, there are now 70 people signed up for the tour and another 40 on a waiting list  !  I never thought there would be that many!  I just hope they won't be disappointed at how little there is to actually see.


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## PotterWatch (Feb 19, 2012)

I took a few pictures around the farm today.  We are a small farm by any standard, but we are working with what we have and hoping that some day we might be able to afford more.


The inside of one of our brooders.  We recently starting using this heat box rather than the traditional lights and it has worked far better for us.  Out of a batch of 117, we have only lost two so far!  The chicks really seem to like it.  We have it suspended so that we can raise and lower it as the weather and age of chicks changes.








Our chicken tractors out in the pasture.







Four young steers that just arrived on the farm yesterday.







The goat pen with the larger of our two pastures behind it.


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## TTs Chicks (Feb 19, 2012)

nice pictures


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## PotterWatch (Feb 23, 2013)

It's been over a year since I posted here.  Farm life has been very busy and ever-changing.  In the last year, we have added sheep to our farm.  The steers were slaughtered this week, so we don't have any more cows on the property.  We have decreased the number of chickens we run as 400 a month was too much for our current market base.  We have started a CSA program with the meats we offer and that has been very successful.  We are looking to move to a larger property as we have outgrown this one.  Hopefully that will happen!

Some pictures from the last year:

A little gang of lambs that were all born within a few days of each other.  They hang out as a group and play together.





My husband with one of our LGDs, Pongo.





One of our does with her new triplets.





One of our white-headed dorpers with her triplets.





Padfoot after a morning of playing in the mud.





Another Dorper with her twins.





The large pasture on the farm.





Another view of the pasture.





Neville, our mottled java rooster.


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## goodolboy (Feb 23, 2013)

Looks and sounds like life is treatin' you good.


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## bonbean01 (Feb 23, 2013)

Love the photos and the scenery


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## greenbean (Feb 23, 2013)

I love the pictures, your place and animals are beautiful!


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## Pearce Pastures (Feb 23, 2013)

What wonderful pics.   And I am really intrigued by your heat box.   Do you have a heating elements inside it?


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## PotterWatch (Feb 23, 2013)

It has two heat bulbs inside. Before we had the box, we needed 5-6 lamps for the same number of chicks. It always helps to save on the electric bill!  As they get older, we turn one off and then both of them. We have definitely seen an improvement in survivability since using the box rather than heat lamps alone.


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## alsea1 (Feb 24, 2013)

The heat box is very clever.
Your farm is really nice.


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## PotterWatch (Feb 28, 2013)

The new kids got to go out in the big pasture for the first time today.  They didn't quite know what to make of it and spent most of their time hanging out near the fence to the area they are usually in.  Their moms were all too happy to leave them behind and go foraging.





























Goats are so nosey...


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## greenbean (Mar 1, 2013)

they're all so cute!


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## CocoNUT (Mar 1, 2013)

I love their poses! They're adorabe!


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## PotterWatch (Apr 3, 2013)

Our big news for the year is that we are leaving California and heading to Virginia!  My husband has never lived anywhere other than Southern California so this is going to be a big leap for him.  Our boys have always lived in this area as well.  The place we are moving is incredibly rural compared to what we are used to.  That will be a big change.  We are really looking forward to the move.  We are currently on a 9.5 acre parcel and we are moving to a 113 acre place.  We flew to Virginia a couple weeks ago to check the place out and took a few pictures.  Here is our new place:


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## WhiteMountainsRanch (Apr 3, 2013)

*Wow amazing farm!!! I am so jealous! It's beautiful! 


 Do you guys work from home? I would love to move out of Cali, but just haven't figured out the logistics of just picking up and moving... *


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## PotterWatch (Apr 3, 2013)

We are full time farmers so we don't have to worry about outside jobs. Our cost of living will be so much less in VA, so we won't have to make as much from the farm as we do here. Our customers here are sorry to see us go as we are the only farm around offering a grass-fed meat CSA. We plan on doing the same thing in VA. More competition out there, but I think there is a market to support it.


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## WhiteMountainsRanch (Apr 3, 2013)

*Wow that's awesome. 


When moving to a more "farm rich" environment are you worried about being able to sell enough to maintain? That's one thing we're worried about... that if there are a ton of farms around would we still be able to sell our stuff...


How did you find out about the market around that area?


Thank you for answering my questions! SO fascinating!*


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## Southern by choice (Apr 4, 2013)

Very exciting news!
Virginia is beautiful, I think you will love it....as long as you are far away from No Va! 

I am sure you may already know this but VA is real funny about ANY animals brought across and into their state lines. 
Make sure you have all your paperwork and certificates of health etc that VA requires. 

How far will you be from the NC border?


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## PotterWatch (Apr 4, 2013)

Most of our market research for that area has been done by looking up farm websites and local harvest listings.  We have been able to see how farms in that area are pricing their wares, and how they are selling (farmers markets, farm pick-ups, etc.).  We know that there are a lot more farms there that are selling things comparable to what we plan to sell, but we also know we are fairly close to a very big market (Washington D.C.).  We will have to do more research when we get there, but we are pretty confident that we will be able to find our niche.  If we want to clear housekeeping and put a certain amount of money away each month here on our current farm, we need to sell about 250 CSA boxes per month.  The cost of living there is so much cheaper, we only need to sell 100 and still be able to put the same amount away every month.  That isn't a huge amount and I think we will get to that point within about 1.5 years.  

As far as transporting animals into Virginia, we have decided that not only would it be difficult to get the health certs and everything done; it will also be very hot when we want to move them so we aren't going to try.  We are selling all our livestock before we leave and buying new stock when we get there.  The only animals coming with us are the dogs.

We will be about an hour from the NC border, I think.


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## Bridgemoof (Apr 5, 2013)

That's great news Potter! You must be so excited. Virginia is a lovely state. I hope the move goes smoothly for you, and remember to contact me when you get here. I may be able to find some sheep for you. The place looks amazing, and sooo much land! Congratulations. I'm jealous


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## PotterWatch (Apr 5, 2013)

Bridgemoof, I would love to start contacting people about sheep right now so I can see what might be available and how much we will be spending.  We really like Dorpers but might consider dorper x katadhin crosses.  Any help in contacting people we might be able to buy from would be great.  We plan on having a flock of about 60 ewes.


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## DonnaBelle (Apr 5, 2013)

There are a lot of people who have moved to Oklahoma from California.  Some are Okies who went there to work and when they retired moved back to Oklahoma to have a lower cost of living with a rural lifestyle.

We retired from the West coast of Florida to Oklahoma.  We bought a 360 acre ranch here, it has 7 ponds, and needed a lot of brush clearing and general clean up, but that was all right because DH wanted a project, boy he has one too.

We paid $145,000.00 for it, and a gas well came with it and has paid us about $20,000.00 in royalties.

We built a new home, just a modest ranch, 1800 sq. ft. plenty of room for 2 people. Of course, a big tractor barn and shop, a chicken house 12'x 24', a nice dog kennel for the birddogs, and two goat barns.  One for the boys, one for the girls.

Our real estate taxes for the place is $2,200.00 a year.  

We love it here, there are three small towns close by, and Tulsa is only 1 hour North of us.

I get upset if I go to Checotah and there are more than 3 cars in front of me at the main red light in town.

DonnaBelle


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## WhiteMountainsRanch (Apr 5, 2013)

DonnaBelle said:
			
		

> There are a lot of people who have moved to Oklahoma from California.  Some are Okies who went there to work and when they retired moved back to Oklahoma to have a lower cost of living with a rural lifestyle.
> 
> We retired from the West coast of Florida to Oklahoma.  We bought a 360 acre ranch here, it has 7 ponds, and needed a lot of brush clearing and general clean up, but that was all right because DH wanted a project, boy he has one too.
> 
> ...


*WOW. Just WOW.  That is what I want. *


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## PotterWatch (Apr 5, 2013)

DonnaBelle said:
			
		

> There are a lot of people who have moved to Oklahoma from California.  Some are Okies who went there to work and when they retired moved back to Oklahoma to have a lower cost of living with a rural lifestyle.
> 
> We retired from the West coast of Florida to Oklahoma.  We bought a 360 acre ranch here, it has 7 ponds, and needed a lot of brush clearing and general clean up, but that was all right because DH wanted a project, boy he has one too.
> 
> ...


The difference in real estate prices is astounding.  We own a house in a nearby city that is about 1200sq ft. on an 8,000 sq ft lot.  It's an ok neighborhood, but not fantastic.  I wouldn't send my kids to the schools there.  We paid 10k less for that house than we are paying for the farm in Virginia.  What a difference!


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