If You Build it, They Will Come......

(I tried to get one of those cool "pano" pics on my phone but just realized I got my 

freaking car in the pic.  Ugggg)

We get asked daily about what the latest is with our Farm we are working on.....It is a S-L-O-W process. If I will learn anything from this, it will be Patience.

  Since we last blogged about our future farm site this summer, the loggers have now finished cutting the trees. We had a good experience with Teddy May and his crew. They helped Brent with identifying and carefully cutting a few nice Black Walnuts that we were able to get milled into wood for our future home. I'm thinking maybe some ceiling treatments. And we have one big one left we hope might work for any island countertop. Fingers crossed!!

We left a few trees scattered here and there for our future cows and left the trees along the creeks to help slow down water runoff and reduce the threat of flooding. 

Quite a bit of that land over there is low.

  Many of our soon to be neighbors went into shock seeing the trees disappear.  I read comments that we "hated trees" and "slaughtered them". 

It really hurt my feelings because I know our intentions, but Oh well....

 I just try to remind myself that change is hard for people.

  We are fortunate to be getting help with the NRCS (National Resource Conservation Service) for a future pond. That Terri Clampit is a funny guy!! 

He and Jamie Shivers came out and viewed the lay of the land and then Terri and his intern did soil tests to see if the land would even hold water for a pond.

Thank you again to Eddie Bailey and his mini ex for helping dig out some of the dirt to test! He saved the day after the NRCS guys hit iron ore with their shovels. 

We were so thankful to get the news that it should hold!! Yay for CLAY!!!

So, hopefully if everything works out, we will be getting about a 3-4 acre pond out there next year. 

  Meanwhile, we have a war zone of tree tops and trunks and just a big mess on our hands.

Most people would pile it all up in the middle and burn it all., but not us. We have been nailing down the best team of folks to come mulch up all the tops and stumps.

Why Mulch?? 

It is better in the long run for the soil. Remember -protect the soil and you protect this Earth!!

Sounds extreme but it is the truth.

Mulch will do a few different things:

1) It will help keep the topsoil from running off.

2) It will slowly rot and help put carbon/nitrogen back into the soil.

3) It will also help keep the weeds down.

This is a long term thing for us. 

We aren't interested in the quickest easiest thing to do. We just want to do what is best for the land.  And The name of the game is REGENERATIVE FARMING. Brent and I are not delusional. We did not grow up in farming families, and we realize we have a lot to learn about EVERYTHING!!

Because of our lack of knowledge, we realize the importance of surrounding yourself with a great team.

  You may of read about our quick trip to North Dakota to tour and speak to farmer Gabe Brown who wrote the book "Dirt to Soil".

He really helped us to see the difference in soils that had either been tilled or had synthetic fertilizer used on it. 

This man is the real deal.

He has even been advising companies like General Mills and even potential Presidential candidates on regenerative farming and why it is so important for our entire Earth. We came home very inspired to say the least.

   To continue our quest for learning and making wise decisions, we hired an advisor out of Texas named Theron Boudreau with Integrated Acres. He was recommended to us from Evan out at Mahaffey Farms in Haughton, LA. We have also gotten advice from Doug Peterson who is a Regional Soil Health Specialist out of Missouri. And thank you to Bob Blanchet with Brookshire Farms in Meaux, LA for your help. We still want to come tour your farm!! 

  We are wanting to grow native grasses on the property to promote a healthy diet for our future livestock. There is more to it then just broadcasting a bunch of bermuda seed and calling it a day. But, more on this in another blog. 

  Theron has been sending us tons of info about our land and will be helping us with laying everything out. He had me create a "Wish List" for the property. I had everything on there from our growing area, to pastures for future livestock, to a big composting area, to an orchard, a bee area, a designated flower field for art lessons and even a baseball practice field!! I like to dream big!!

"If You Build it, They Will Come"

 (Am I showing my age by quoting that movie??) HA!

So, today's highlight is that we had some really big culverts delivered.

This property has some pretty massive creeks running through it and we have no way to access parts of the land unless we put in culverts. We got advice from Foy Gadberry (who is an engineer and running for public office right now -Good Luck Foy!) on the size we needed so we didn't upset the natural flow of the water out there. Big thanks to Danny Matthews at West Feed Mill for helping get these big pipes for us.  Shop Local Folks!! 

When I thought of culverts in the past..oh wait, I never thought about culverts!! HA! 

You hate to spend a lot of money on something that is in the ground and that you can't see, but we know this is very important. Baby Steps!! (I'm trying to make sure I enjoy the WHOLE process like my friend Dana reminded me the other day)

    We have also been slowly working on our house plan with Randy Shultz. (And my bestie Rachel Saucier Knox has been looking over and tweaking things for me too!) I think the 2 big questions are

 1) Does Brent want to share a closet with me again??? Any guesses on that answer??

2) Do we want and can we afford a metal roof?!?  Prob not after paying for culverts!! LOL  The feedback on social media has been interesting to read.

Thanks for keeping up with our little farming adventure. I joked with Clark Cooper the other day that he and I would be making YouTube videos on birthing calves and castrating pigs one day soon!!!  HAHAHA

The Best is yet to Come.....

Love

Lissy