THIS & THAT.

Some random photos from the past week.We got this years pigs! But they are completely terrified of us, so the only photos we can get of them are creepy paparazzi-zoom shots.We moved our bed downstairs for Further's birth, and it has stayed that way, out of convenience and the fact that it is usually a raging inferno upstairs when the woodstove is going.We set out a ton of transplants before the rain - always feels good.The old plum orchard is in bloom!

GUINEA SCORE.

The goal was to buy more guineas. We like what they do to the tick population around the house and, admittedly, we like their meat. The noise we could do without, but as we've said several times before, there are no perfect creatures, only perfect systems. And our system needs more guineas, loud or not, to be perfect.So we decided to go to the Amish auction in Scottsville, Ky. This is a wildly popular event. People come from all around the country. But auctions are also intense places. It's hard not to buy all the random rabbits, fowl and miniature livestock available. On several occasions we found ourselves itching to bid on rabbits. But we've made a deal with ourselves this year: any animals we decide to get, we have to be ready for first. So we waited impatiently for some guineas to come up.And finally, after twenty or so lots, they did. We didn't want to spend more than $25 on a bird, and when the auctioneer began at $15, several people jumped in, as did we. It was three one year old guineas—two hens and one cock. Exactly what we wanted. But when the bidding ended at $22.55, I was a little surprised to see everyone else back off. We had won. We had won three guineas for less than what I had expected to pay per grown bird!But if you've been to an auction like this before, you know what a newbie assumption we'd made. Because the biding is per item, I learned in the check out line, not per lot. Oh well, we'd still paid less than we'd wanted to per bird. I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed, but not nearly as much as the guy in front of me who thought he had just scored twelve Tennessee Quail for $10. That's a lesson you don't learn twice.Of course, when we got home we kept them penned for a couple days before letting them out with our other guinea who seemed uncharacteristically excited. We were, however, a little dismayed when they promptly flew off into the woods.They are still (as of now) hanging around the property, living in an old barn. But so long as they eat ticks around our woods, they can live wherever they want. Rough Draft Farmstead, indeed.- Jesse.

BACK AT IT.

Well, as you can probably tell by our blog and internet presence, or lack thereof, we are back at it here in Bugtussle. We're planting, and starting seeds and getting ground worked up. It's a lot of work, a little soreness and a very welcomed feeling. I've never suffered from any sort of seasonal depression, but I have to say that I come close to it towards the end of February. I get antsy to get back in the dirt, to correct my mistakes. I get cabin fever. I wait, with baited breath, for the first favorable forecast so that I may finally start working towards feeding people.And we're going to feed a lot more people this year, which is very exciting. Our CSA is filling up quick and we have many returning members, several new ones, all great families. We had a shiitake party/workshop a couple weeks ago! That was great––we'll likely do it again next year. We've got thousands of transplants in the greenhouse ready to go into the garden. And we've done a lot of garden work to get the season going. Anyway, here's a bunch of pictures of what we have going on. And as always, bare with the sparseness of the blog through the growing months––we'll do our best to give regular updates!

FARMSTEADING.

When we originally came up with the name Rough Draft Farmstead back in 2011, our thought process was simple. We liked "Rough Draft" because it fit us as artists, but also "Draft" spoke to our ambitions to one day have draft animals. "Farmstead" originally just sounded better than homestead or farm, but it also felt more accurate, like it was directly in between the two. But over these past few years, I really feel like our farm has begun to embody the farmstead part of its name. And I'm proud of that.We homestead, sure. We grow our own food and cure and preserve and dabble in permaculture, cheesemaking, etc. etc. etc.. Certainly, we are very involved with our home. But we also farm. Professionally farm. We make our living growing food––a living that becomes increasingly more reasonable as we get better at it and as we dig in further.And I like it this way. I see a lot of interest in homesteading and permaculture, but not enough in actually making a living on this lifestyle. I love completely sustainable ideas, but nothing is sustainable if it can't pay for the farm, or the bills. This doesn't mean you have to drop all of your dreams and buy a giant tractor. It just means you should find ways for your life make your living. For us, we want to eat good food, so we grow a bunch of it and sell the excess (so to speak). We want fruit and herbs and mushrooms––same thing. And we do our best to feed as many people as we can. I have no idea if farmsteading is a word people use––my word processor is certainly skeptical––but I do like what it implies. It's a combination of farming and homesteading, and a viable way to make your life your livelihood.- Jesse.