A Suprise or Learning Opportunity Every Evening

I'm currently sitting in the basement writing this post while Kevin is playing Boogie on the Wii.  He is singing Celebration- I'm barely containing myself as I type.  After he is done slaying the song, I'll help him out.  Darn- he now knows about YouTube and will be surfing for hours a day.  "Wow Mommy, what website is that?  Oh, I see, YouTube.  Can you find other songs there?"

Celebrate good times----come on!

I love coming home from work and hearing what Mike has learned or figured out during his day.  Every day is a another day to learn something that I never thought I'd need to know.  

In the past, I've learned about pasture grazing techniques, polytape, chicken processing, chicken mobiles, chicken varieties, the cornish cross and how they can barely walk 10 feet when they reach 8 weeks old, the benefits of grass fed beef, the benefits of a steer/sheep combination farm, guardian dogs and the particular breeds, how to build a root cellar, soil sampling, the various cuts of meat and combinations that you can get from 1/2 a butchered pig, etc

I am now educated.

Today Mike and the kids had been to the local Ag center and found out that to encourage more local farming, the farm bill passed just last month can help with the watering and fencing needed to start up with animals.  It could actually pay up to 90% of the fencing and watering costs.  Amazing- who knew!  Although the catch is that you first need to have 16 animal units (aka: 16,000 lbs) of livestock on your current land.

So that means the book learning is coming to an end and the real learning will start soon.  

Mike has been trying to figure out what should be our first 16,000 lbs of livestock.  10-11 cattle at 1,500 lbs each?  25-30 smaller stocker cattle?  What kind of cattle?  Where to buy them?

The fun is just about to get started...