BORDER FARM
On a farm you do what you do best, and if you don’t know something, well then having ingenuity in spades is super handy!
Minerals are everything. They are essential for the health in the soil, our food, and our bodies. You literally cannot live without them.
However, too much of a good mineral can block the absorption and use of other essential minerals. Hence the Mineral Circus which I have talked about before.
So balance, knowingness, and observation are super important.
Well water in our area is historically HARD or VERY HARD, take your pick. Just look at all of the rock it needs to travel through in order to get to you.
Our needs for creating balanced well-water without chemical softeners –
- that it is not hard, retains some minerals – way lower TDS
- lower in calcium, magnesium, iron
- bio available copper and zinc and manganese
- a portable system for filling our pasture animals water buckets/pools
- does not interfere with summer irrigation or well PSI
Enter Farm Ingenuity, family style, our MacGyver R.O. and D.I. portable water filtration system. I am the designer or the find the design person on the farm, I know the systems I want and/or need, Piper and her Dad are the builders and engineers that figure out how to do it. Thank you to the Florida window washers for the great idea, often times it is builds from different industries that fit what a farm needs best. We’ll see if this idea with our modifications for our pasture is worth it!
This took –
- less than 3 hours to build
- less than $550 in materials
- filters need replacing every 6 months
- portable
- fills a bit more slowly than we would like, but we are going to keep messing with that design function
- we might ditch the D.I. filter to see if we can have better flow and still better water for our animals
- still in the trial and error stage, but super excited to get this going
- Our goats and ducks are chugging way more water than usual, so this is a first good sign
So far we have tried the RV filters, Equine Hydrators, and letting water stand for 24 hours and just taking off the top (hard on frozen mornings). These have all shown mild success, but the TDS was still way to high as was the calcium. Every new system we try we get the water tested to see if we are headed in the correct direction. The sample from our new system goes in tomorrow, we’ll let you know.
CLASSES
March 7th Sourdough & Wild Yeast Class – We are FULL, however we have two people coming in from out of state for this class and if the weather is bad they won’t be traveling, so I am opening it up for 1-2 more people. It will be full full is everyone makes it, but oh so fun and cozy.
Goat Milking, Goat Camp, and more – please book in advance, we will no longer accept registration for our goat programs the day before.
MILK SEASON
Moonshine, North, and Heather understood the assignment of drying up for the season, three weeks of decreased milking and intermittent milking and all dry and ready for kidding. My other high production girls are a different story, they are not quite ready to dry up but need to be dry as they head into the final stage of pregnancy, hopefully in the next week or so.
Our milk has followed the seasons – sweet after kidding, floral in summer, dry and crisp in fall, to now slightly salty before kidding. Circular as life intends.
Our herd-share clients that pick up weekly are slowly decreasing in their orders and will be first on our list come Mid April when we pick up again.
If you want to be on our WAIT-LIST for the upcoming season, just click below.
WE WILL HAVE SOME KEFIR for the next couple/few weeks and if you are interested please click below.
PAWS & PEOPLE
TRAINING
APRIL Puppy/Adolescent Class – 11am
APRIL Adult Specialty Class – 11am
MARCH is FULL – Group classes and Coaching. If you would like to train with us, please consider booking in advance.
Phone appointments are available M-F in the afternoon, booking 1 hour at a time. A great option to stay on track and to keep moving forward in your training.
