The pork chops have arrived.

Here are the two newest additions to the farm, Breakfast and Lunch. Lunch is the smaller of the two and has already proved herself an able escape artist. I had to pen them both up in the barn while I re-pigproofed the pasture after she snuck between a 5" gap in the boards of her pen.

So far they seem content to walk around munching on grass and haven't tried to escape from the pasture.

In other news, the garden is doing great, I've got 3-4" pea vines and lots of radishes and salad greens growing very well. Other stuff is a little slow to sprout, but I think the beets and carrots are just starting, hard to tell with the weeds around them.

Early spring = waiting

Right now all we do is wait. Wait for the garden to sprout, wait for the eggs to hatch, wait for the pigs to arrive, wait for the first time to cut the grass (already?!), wait and see how many more shoots come up in the "greenhouse", etc. Obviously there are little tasks to do, turn the grow lights on and off, turn the eggs, water the garden, but for now the predominant mood is ..expectation.

We are up to 19 tomato plants inside. I love tomatoes, but I don't think I can eat more than 3 plants worth. I foresee a lot of canning late this summer, and homemade salsas and marinara. Many people have already commented that they are going to raid our garden so maybe I won't have quite the surplus I envision.

What the heck is an Ardwyn?

I suppose I should explain the farm's name. No, it's not some elf from the Lord of the Rings, or a Nordic princess. Ardwyn is simply a Welsh word that means "on the hill". Since we live in a mostly flat state, it is our farm's distinctive feature.

Last year I sold grapes to a Madison co-op that resold them to some of the best restaurants in Chicago (Charlie Trotter's, the Ritz-Carlton, etc.) They wanted to have a name to send checks to, and to have something fancy to add to the menus. So I did some research on farm names and learned that it is common in the UK to name your farm or home. Ardwyn sounded like a nice name, and since we are on a hill, and my family has some Welsh ancestry, it fit. So I just decided to keep it going.

The garden got a nice start on Sunday with mild temperatures and some light rain in the morning and early afternoon, much better than a intense storm to wash all of the seeds away.Seedlings indoors are doing well also. Right now I have 15 tomato plants, 10 bell peppers of various colors, 6 different hot pepper, as well as some marigolds.

A new corral, and patience.

Spent the day yesterday working on finishing some renovation inside the house. Then, to escape the paint fumes I did some work down at the barn. We needed to have some way of getting the pigs out into the pasture without letting them get into the yard, so a new fence was necessary. I decided to put a gate in there to make my life easier. Pics are at the link, in the Barn album. As you can see, it was a 3 beer job.

Talked with Jack Krell, the plan is for him to bring the pigs over the first weekend in May, so a little bit more patience is needed. But, better for him to feed them than me! He says I can feed them up to 40% spent brewer's grain, if that turns out to be true we'll be feeding these oinkers for practially free.

This morning I got the first seeds into the garden. Peas, carrots, radishes, turnips, parsnips, kohlrabi, etc, etc. All of the cool weather things. Nikki is dubious about the whole "growing things from seeds" process. Hopefully there are lots of successful plants to show that it really can be done.

Regarding Pigs

So why are we raising pigs?

Well, for one, they taste good! In the words of Homer Simpson they are a "wonderful, magical animal!"

I figured that since we have a barn we might as well have something living in it. Pigs seemed to be a good choice because you can buy a feeder pig in the spring and it is ready for slaughter in the fall. Which means it's a relatively short term commitment when compared to other livestock. I was just kind of kicking the idea around when Nikki told me she knew a family that raised pigs over near Hartford.

So we went and visited the Krells' farm. They are a Certified Organic farm and they raise a couple of litters of organic pigs every summer. We got some good information and some pork steaks! They agreed to sell us 2 of them and so it was set, Jack Krell should be bringing us our pigs this weekend or the next.

Our pigs won't be 'organic' because the spent grain I'll be feeding them from the brewery isn't certified organic, but they will be pasture-raised, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and should taste pretty good!

The eggs are here!

Unfortunately, the post office decided to step on the box a few dozen times. Of the 15 pheasant eggs we got 7 that weren't crushed. Hopefully the guy has a few more he can send to replace them. Pictures of the eggs in both states are in the Pheasants album in the link.

First post

Welcome to the Ardwyn Farm blog. Not much to report yet, but soon we'll be hatching pheasant eggs and getting our pigs. Right now we are just trying to get the barn and pasture set up to be pig-proof.

The garden has been tilled and weeded, started plants are doing well in the "greenhouse", might get some seeds in the ground this weekend, we'll see!