Sharing the farm is one of our favorite activities.  This can take many forms, from a simple tour to a meal of farm food to helping with farm jobs.  In the past couple of weeks we’ve done it all.  Sam grilled chicken halves for a MIFFS board tour and dinner.  Adam Kruse is a chef at The Cook’s House.  He works his magic on our chicken in their kitchen and came recently to experience the other side of chicken production.  We enjoyed his enthusiasm and help.  It’s always interesting to have chefs visit.  They look at the farm a bit differently, seeing plates of food in the fields and appreciating th effort that goes in to producing excellent edibles.  Yesterday Mark showed my cousins around.  Their two two-year-old boys were thrilled with the animals.  Moses especially liked the ride in the Willy’s jeep and sitting on the garden tractor.  Being able to send samples of Dorothy’s fresh made butter and buttermilk (the real deal, a by-product of buttermaking) with yeasterday’s visitors tops off the fun.

It’s been so hot and dry for several weeks.  Some places got rain recently, but we only got a little of it.  A few days ago I went out to the field crops to dig some potatoes for dinner and noticed the corn.  It’s all the same seed planted at the same time, but the strip on the right had innoculated biochar incorporated into the soil and the left strip didn’t.  Thedifferences are obvious.  The photo doesn’t represent well the fact that the right strip also has mor tasseled out stalks.  We’ll let you know how they end up producing.

This weather is tough on the animals, too.  The pigs enjoy the wallow Mark makes for them everyday.  The chickens seem to be more resiliant than other years.  They haven’t died–but they didn’t eat enough to grow well, either, so that we’ve been pressed to find birds big enough to process.  Last week we took a half break, only processing a minimum of birds so that the rest could grow. Now that we’re enjoying cooler temps the respite seems to have paid off.