Saturday Vince and I went to one of the most magical places
on earth, some think this is Disney World, but no my friends it’s a small farm
outside of Holly Springs that sells pasture raised pork, beef and lamb.
The owner was nice enough to give us a tour, despite the
freezing temps. We met the pack of Livestock Guardian Dogs. Thank goodness the
puppies were too young to be sold because Vince and I both melted to the
cuteness and almost came home with one… or more. I have heard and read much
about Livestock Guardian Dogs and I figured we’d end up with ones someday, but
it was so nice to see them in person on a farm. After asking lots of questions
about them they might need to be one of the first animal purchases we make for
our farm. She told us how before the dogs they lost their original 3 sheep and
their pigs were being attacked; now they have no predator problems. Also the
puppies are adorable, I didn’t get any good pictures because I was too busy
snuggling the cuteness.
We also got to meet and pet a large number of pigs. I always
thought pigs would be a good starting place for us, and the owner agreed
(that’s how they got started). My idea was I love piglets but adult pigs aren’t
as cute, so I’d be okay sending the adults off to because bacon, the problem is
these pigs were really cute as adults and super friendly. Why did they have to
be friendly?! Now I want to actually keep some to breed so I can have pet pigs!
This means the amount of animals I want on our farm is quickly multiplying!
The good news is that after talking to the owner I probably don’t
want to breed cattle or sheep anytime soon. She said she has a friend that
breed cattle and it’s a lot of work and things go wrong a lot, so they purchase
young steer and raise them for slaughter. That sounds like the way we would
need to go.
The idea of having sheep will be a hard thing for me to let
go but it sounds like they really aren’t for me. First, wool sheep are a ton of
maintenance. Between parasites and wool and predators they would take up most
of our time. So that leaves meat sheep, but they are also a lot of work because
everything love to attack and eat sheep…
We left the farm with a bunch of yummy meat and a better
idea of how we plan to proceed on our farm, whenever we can get land. And the
most exciting part is I didn’t bring home any animals! I was tempted, but I resisted…
ok really it was that the cute baby animals were too young to be sold… but
either way we have no new animals!
I have to mention that the drive up there was very humbling.
A few weeks ago we had terrible storms and tornadoes come through this area. We
were fortunate enough to have very little damage near us, Holly Spring,
however, was not as fortunate. Houses were just gone and trees, big trees, had
been pulled up from the roots. I knew there had been damage, but seeing it was
different. Those families that lost so much will definitely be in my prayers
for a while.
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