Aug 28
It was the saddest day yet on our farm. As parents we had talked about how difficult that day would be, but imagined it would be a long ways off. Brooke’s horse, Chief–her strong gelding horse who was the love of this 12 year old’s heart–had injured his leg. We thought it was a simple …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/what-a-horse-taught-my-daughter/
Apr 16
I had a solid white male lamb die unexpectedly this past week. He appeared to be a perfect little lamb without spot or blemish. But he died. He lay on a clump of hay. His lifeless body in the exposed sun motionless. From a distance he looked like he was just taking a nap in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/the-dead-lamb/
Apr 23
One of my favorite times on our farm is when we turn the animals out to fresh pasture in the Spring. Our sheep and cows have been in the back pasture eating hay all winter. Any sprig of grass that popped up this spring would quickly be eaten by them. With two horses, nine cows, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/a-lesson-from-my-livestock/
Jul 02
Lewis is a six months old Barbados Blackbelly sheep on our farm. His mother died when he was born. We bottle-fed Lewis for the first two months of his life. Lewis had a twin brother named Clark, who sadly died unexpectedly at about a month old. Lewis is strong and healthy. But he has …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/lewis-the-lamb-fearful-of-sheep/
May 30
We have had lots of activity on the farm the first 5 months of the year. Here are a few significant things! We bottle fed two lambs! We named them Lewis and Clark. Unfortunately after about 4 weeks, Clark died very suddenly. He was always a little weak, but he seemed to be doing well. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/farm-report-10-a-busy-winter/
Feb 01
I have had sheep on the farm since 2014. We started with two ewes and a ram. We have an unusual breed of hair sheep called Barbados Blackbelly Sheep. They are very skittish and flighty. They aren’t your cute cuddly version of sheep. We raise them for the meat, which tastes very good. We recently …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/what-i-have-learned-about-sheep-and-myself/
Dec 16
I haven’t shared about our farm since June in Farm Report #8. Our relationship to the farm is maturing. We are settling into farm life and finding more rhythm with it. We did lots of fencing this year to allow for our plan of rotational grazing. Our animals have been healthy and our numbers are …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/farm-report-9-growth-and-harvest/
Jun 29
We moved to our new home on the farm in December. Living at the farm has made it much easier to take care of the animals and land. Though, we have been surprised with how much mud, dirt, and dust there is when living on the farm! I haven’t given a farm report since October, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/farm-report-8-living-at-the-farm/
Dec 15
Our life has been crazy the last five weeks, well crazier then than the last 8 months I should say. All of it has been too busy. We don’t esteem busyness, so we haven’t been proud of how booked we have been. However, we had a Dec. 12th move-in-date and over the last 5 weeks …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/reflections-on-building-our-house/
Oct 08
I haven’t given a farm report since February. You can read all of the other six reports on this site to learn the whole story. In this report, I want to simply update my readers on the status and progress of the farm. The big news is; we started our house. After much delay because …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/farm-report-7-a-house-is-being-built/
