At the Farm

Goose Island Farm

 

September, 2006
The farm and family were featured on a News Channel 6 report.  Fortunately, we got a copy!  Click here: Report

Supplement for July
Prices and the orderform are now online!  Click here to see it.

July, 2005
We have chicken! Email or call to order your pastured, naturally farm-raised chicken. It will be available for pickup after July 16th.

We attended our first farmers' market in Oologah last Sunday (Oologah has it every 1st and 3rd Sunday each month). We may also attend the one in Claremore (every Saturday, at the expo center) and we will try to be at the Wednesday market in Tulsa (4pm at the Garden Center).

April, 2005
Progress and additions characterized the end of March and the beginning of April (well, that and MORE wet weather) .  We built a cute little nesting box on wheels for the chickens and got a great deal on a portable shelters from Harbor Freight which we are putting together to provide shade and shelter for the sheep and poultry.

We've also added some new family members to our farm: 26 laying hens have settled in on their portable pasture and have started producing delicious eggs for us and our customers.  Then there's Cid, a Great Pyrenees puppy who will grow up to help Nikki (who has been WONDERFUL!) protect the sheep and, now, the chickens.  And just last night we had our first ever lamb!  She's so cute, Beth was smitten with her right away and says that all the work taking care of the sheep through the winter is finally worth it.  I'll try to get a picture of her put up before the end of April.

Here she is!  Her mom is not yet done cleaning her but she
sure wanted that milk!

There's been some rough times dealing with the weather and all the little obstacles that nature gives us everyday but, on balance, there's no question it's shaping up to be a wonderful - and wondrous - Spring at Goose Island Farm.

March, 2005
March has arrived and along with it, Oklahoma green.  The fields are beginning to show new growth and most of our farm is a dark, emerald green on the black of the soil.  It was a mild but wet winter.  It will be interesting to see what spring and summer bring and if the unusual weather trends continue.  I'm looking forward to watching the first leaves begin to show on the trees.

The Bridge - February 16, 2005
Also found at chebacco.com

Never have editors for friends. "Write an article for me," they whine.
"Where's my article I bullied you into agreeing to?" I swear, it never ends.

As if I didn't have enough to do, what with keeping my sheep wormed and happy, getting my steers to the butcher, finding customers, building the infrastructure for a farm while working full-time planning new telecom and network systems for an entire company move.

Here comes Richard, "You live five minutes from a lake, and you have a Bolger Micro that you haven't sailed in two years.  Surely there's a sailing story in there somewhere."

Uh huh.

Ok, let's see. Well, something rather amazing did happen the other day.
Not so much sailing as "rafting" but...

My farm is split down the middle by a creek which, with all the rain we've been having, is not a small one these days.  There's only one spot that is passable by man or truck and you don't do it without getting wet.

Now that's just fine for my cattle, they'll plod through anywhere that's below their chests.  But my sheep are a bit more finicky. And shorter.

So I decided it was time to build a bridge. Now shoestring budget that I have, I wanted to do this for next to nothing.  In fact, free was a good target.  I could have gone and bought a culvert, buried it to 40%, put fill and cement around it, and had a decent bridge for, oh, I don't know, $2000, $5000, something like that.  Or I could use my muscles, my ingenuity, and materials I already had and keep the cost below a hundred.

I have about two hundred railroad ties sitting around collecting sheep poop.  Some of them are light (well, relatively light) and some of them are so heavy I can barely get them into the truck.  Heavier than water in other words.  Being a bit lazy, I used whatever weights happened to be on the top of the pile.  Some were heavy, some were light.

I hauled fourteen of them out to the crossing and laid two parallel to the flow and ten across those two.  I tied them together with three poly-ropes and laid the remaining two ties crosswise on the lower and the upper end - to make a two-sided "bowl" that I could then fill in with a layer of rocks and dirt on top of that.  Then I began filling in either side with rocks, the plan being to build up ramps that would be level with the top of the
bridge.

I went and bought some threaded rod and some of those aluminum tent stakes.  I would put two rows of threaded rod through the top two ties, parallel to the creek flow. I would drive four stakes down through the top of the two ties.  This would help prevent those ties from pushing out as weight was added between them.

Then there was about a week where I didn't get a chance to work on my bridge.  Then it rained.  Not heavy but it kept up for most of the day.

Then yesterday I went to put in my threaded rod.

I'm sure you've all figured out what happened.  Bridge gone.  Just not there.

I started tramping down creek to find it. I passed numerous spots where I was sure it could NOT have passed, it being so shallow there.  I finally found it about a mile downstream, hung up on a fence across the creek and still tied together with the poly rope.

Knowing how heavy those dang things are, it still amazes me that it made it that far.  Now I get to figure out how to pull the timbers out of there.  Could a culvert and cement be in my future?