Went to see the herd last week. The kids are getting so big! Sophie and Faye's hooves were horrible! With my sisters help I was able to get them in somewhat good shape but I will be heading down once again at the end of this month to do everyone's hooves again. I've noticed that the sheep's hooves need a lot less maintenance and are less prone to foot rot and fungal infections. More pics after the jump.

I received a package in the mail the other day from the Town of Plattsburgh with all the complaint letters they received pertaining to our attempt to start a small sustainable farm on my families property on Cumberland Head behind Champlain Park. So I'm going to uploading each letter and writing a response. So without further adieu here is the first post in my "People Be Stupid" series.

If you can't read the above letter, here is a link to a larger sized version. Link

First off it’s vacant land of course it’s not going to be maintained to the same standards as an active farm. If we had been permitted to farm the land it would have been maintained!

Secondly we THOUGHT that we could put a couple animals on the property, the town codes and zoning laws are so complicated that even the people that enforce them don’t understand them! We originally were told that we had to get a variance and then after going through 2 zoning meeting we were told to go to the planning board instead because we needed an approved site plan! (Which needed to be drawn up by a certified engineer = to expensive. Then we were told we needed a water run-off study = even more expensive. So that’s what’s ultimately led to us giving up.)

Third, my Grandparents bought the land to one, prevent a development and two, so my grandfather could plant some crops (which he did). My grandfather maintained the land for MY families enjoyment, NOT for the people in the community. If we can no longer ENJOY the property why maintain it? Also, why does it matter if my mother doesn’t live in the area? She’s wasn’t the one planning on farming it. It was me and my husband who live less then a mile away. Side note: Before my grandfather died he was planning on building a barn so my sister could get a horse, we were only continuing where he left off. My grandfather grew up on a farm and he’d always wanted to get a few animals, but he didn’t have the time and my sister and I were to young to be of any help.

Forth, just because we planned on having chickens doesn’t mean they would have to deal with a rooster crowing. Meat birds mature at 8-12 weeks and roosters normally start crowing at around 12wks so they would most likely be processed before they got too loud (when they first start crowing you can barely hear them). Smell? animals kept on pasture don’t smell (much) and we only have 2 pigs!

In closing, people are stupid and these people especially. If they had any concerns they could have stopped and asked us! We were there every single day and my dad lives right next to the property. All they had to do was stop and ask us what our plans were and express their concerns and I would have been happy to explain to them the difference between sustainable and traditional-intensive farming.

Finally, what is these people's issues with deer, bunnies and foxes? OMG if you have an issue with wildlife move to the city, where you can deal with rats, raccoons and stray cats instead!

Check back soon for my next installment of "People Be Stupid".

When we went to load the pigs for the second time we figured everything would go a lot better then the first. We had a bigger trailer that's lower to the ground so the incline on the ramp was significantly less. We figured now that the ramp's incline was shallower Toony would just walk right up into the trailer... not. So we once again were chasing around a pig in my dad's backyard while I desperately held the rope tied to her back leg and then it began to rain.

We were at our wit's end, the wind was picking up and the lightning was getting closer. In a latch ditch cry for help, or friend Yvonne called a farmer she knows. After our farmer friend got over laughing at us for thinking a pig would willingly walk up a ramp and into a trailer, she told us to put a big bucket over the pig's head and back them up the ramp. At first we were thinking there was no way this was going to work, but wouldn't you know that within fifteen minutes we had BOTH Niles and Toony loaded. So thank you Betty! We bow to your superior knowledge. I wonder why none of the forums mentioned this method?

The trip down to aunt Chrissy's went well and Niles was easy enough to unload, but Toony, who was the hardest to load, took a few minutes to wake up and get her into their new home. When a pig is asleep they don't like to wake up for anything. Niles seemed to remember the electric fence and only took one shock on his noise to remind him to steer clear. Toony took a few shocks before she got the point, but she adapted surprisingly well. They fought a little the first week and Toony still won't let Niles into the hutch to sleep at night but other then that they are doing well.

The goats and sheep are doing well, the shetlands look ridiculous with their wool sheared, but they are a lot cooler now. Ollie got the stubs of his horns caught in the fence and they ripped a bit, but Jeff went and checked on him the other day a they look to be healing well. That is one of the reason if you want to dehorn your goat have it done professionally. Faye was dehorned but she doesn't have the deformed little stubs that Ollie does. Both Faye and Sophie are being great mothers and both the kids are doing great.

We also went and saw a little farm that's for sale in Pennsylvania. It's PERFECT, but unfortunately it can't be financed so we'd have to come up with $125,000 in cash to purchase it, which isn't really possible right now. We aren't writing it off completely, but I'm also not holding my breath that we'll be able to get it either. It's about 25 acres with one large pasture already set up for electric fencing and a large renovated barn. The house isn't anything special and needs A LOT of work, but it's livable.

It's been a rough few weeks with most of my animals now moved to western NY and me still stuck up here in Plattsburgh, but I'm hoping to get the house up on the market within the next couple weeks and hopefully it sells fast so I can join Jeff. I probably won't be posting much for a while, because I'm not doing much as far as farming goes. I still have the chickens but I'm going to be selling and or giving them away soon. There is really no point in transporting chickens that far when it will be easier just to buy new ones.

Speaking of chickens. ChickenStock is June 25th up in Heuvelton, NY. We won't be buying any chickens, but Aunt Chrissy wants us to pick up some Silkies for her. The last ChickenStock was a blast so we're really looking forward to this one.

2 Fridays ago things did not go as planned, which wasn't a huge surprise, but I didn't think they would go so spectacularly wrong. Everything started out well enough, Jeff had finished the boxes to transport the pigs in and we had my dad and our friend Yvonne to help us load them up, and then we let Toony loose. Boy was she happy to be our of her pen and because we figured she would just fallow us we didn't restrain her (not that you can really restrain a 500lb pig). She romped around for a bit and then followed us into my dad's backyard, so far so good. Then came time to go up the ramp... ya not so much. Toony would take three steps up the ramp and then jump off the side and start rooting around my dad's backyard.

The ramp was apparently too steep and in a moment of pure idiocy I forgot all I know about animal behavior and didn't advise Jeff to put SIDES on the ramp (I felt like a moron). So after about three hours of trying to coax Toony up the ramp while also trying to keep her in my dad's backyard and not running around Champlain Park, we gave up and put Toony back into her pen. Pig = 1 Humans = 0  Round 2 is tonight and I hope it goes better then Round 1.

In the end we gave up using the wooden hutches to transport the pigs and instead we used them to transport the sheep and goats instead. We have since procured a horse trailer, and the ramp is less steep, so we'll be trying again tonight and if all goes as planned we should be hitting the road with the pigs first thing Saturday morning. One thing we did learn from our bought with Toony was that a rope around her back ankle works pretty good to keep her from running off.

While we really didn't want to subjugate the Geeps to such a long ride with two of them being pregnant they seemed to do really well on the trip. We wanted to hit the road early Saturday morning and get to Jeff's hometown by early afternoon, but that didn't happen and we didn't leave until 4:30pm. We didn't reach our destination until 1:30am, so the Geeps had to spend the night in the hutches.

We got up the next day, went to Mother's Day breakfast with Jeff's family and then around noon time headed over to his aunts and uncles with our herd of animals. One of Jeff's brother had beat us there and within minutes of pulling in we were all putting up fencing for the animals.

It took most of the afternoon, but we got the animals settled into their new home and they are currently being spoiled rotten by Jeff's Aunt Chrissy. We thought that Faye would be the first to kid out, but surprisingly enough it was Sophie who had her baby first. Little Bandit was born last Saturday. He is a healthy little boy and Sophie is (not so surprisingly) being a very over protective mother.

Faye followed a few days latter and gave birth to a healthy baby girl this past Tuesday that Chrissy named Gracie. Both of the babies are doing well and I can't wait to see them in person! I'm going to take a ton of pictures.

Aunt Chrissy also found someone to shear the Shetlands for $50 plus the wool, although he said because of the condition the wool wasn't worth much. I really miss hearing Keera bah when I pull into my dad's driveway. I can't wait to see them this weekend and I hope we find a place soon, so I can move down there. We are looking at a farm on Sunday that has about 25 acres and a really nice barn. I'm keeping my figures crossed that our properties here in Plattsburgh sell quickly so we'll have money for a down payment.

Jeff just got hired as a full time Engineering Technician at GE Transportation in Erie, PA! So it’s bye bye Plattsburgh! 

 Jeff still has to finish a rehab house that he’s fixing up and sell our house that we live in so, I will still be in Plattsburgh for a while but the animals should all be moved to Jeff’s aunt and uncle’s property by July. The pigs are actually the first to make the trip and we are hauling them down there tomorrow. We are holding off on the goats and sheep because both Sophie and Faye are pregnant the latter being due within the next week or so. It’s an 8 hour trip so we don’t want to subjugate them to the stress while they are pregnant. 

Jeff’s aunt and uncle have been nice enough to take the animals for us until we can get a place of our own. They are going to breed the pigs together and keep the piglets as payment, and if they want I will probably offer Sophie and Faye’s kids to them as well – I don’t plan on keeping them.

To transport the pigs Jeff has built two big wooden hutches that will second as movable houses for the pigs after we get them to his uncle’s (I am so HAPPY they are going to be out of their disgusting, muddy pens and onto pasture!). I’m super paranoid about the trip, but a pig farmer that we talked to said they should be fine just to make sure the hutches are well secured. (2 pigs running loose on I-90 would not be funny). I plan on taking lots of pictures of our trip and tweeting (Twitter ID ImpulsiveFarmer) as we travel (except for one area where there is no radio or cell coverage). We are loading up the pigs tonight and leaving first thing on Saturday morning. I really need to invest in a video camera because us trying to load the pigs is probably going to be hilarious. We are hoping that if we throw a bunch of apples into the transport hutches they will just walk right in, but of course nothing ever goes as planned. 

Also there is a butt load of flooding in this area right now and Lake Champlain is at a record breaking high, please keep all those that have lost their homes and have no place to go in your thoughts.

I was going to write about slaughtering roosters and moving Flower and her lamb to the pasture with the rest of the girls, but instead I find myself needing to write about what is happening in our Battle with Plattsburgh.

Misinformed, it’s what the people that oppose our farm are and no matter what we say they refuse to let go of their preconceived notions. 

This is what they think we want to do.

When what we were planning on doing is actually this.

Mismanaged, is the town in which we currently reside. It is one thing to let a group of well informed concerned citizens sway your decisions, but it’s wrong to cave to a bunch of misinformed, ignorant people that are incapable of minding their own business. Because of the “outcry” that the ignorant masses have raised the town is insisting that we get a drainage study done on the property. This study, plus the engineering we would have to have done could cost up to $10,000! If we had that type of money lying around we would have packed up and left this hole a long time ago. 

Also the town’s planning guidelines are completely unreasonable for someone like us or other small businesses to comply with. We have scrapped our plans for our farm but even to just keep the animals we have now we would need to go through the whole planning process. If you want to see for yourself how intensive the process is here is a link to the application. (Application for Site Plan Approval)

The reason we have to go through this is that according to zoning guidelines anyone that lives on a residentially zoned parcel can use it for agriculture activities, but only if they have a minimum of 7 acres and an approved site plan. That’s right if you want to have a few hens in a residential area of the Town of Plattsburgh you need 7 acres and a site plan (I don't think they really enforce this though). What makes this whole situation more absurd is the fact that the property on the back side of ours is agricultural! Part of our parcel (a small part mind you) is even IN the ag district!

And all of this leads to me being seriously Miffed!!!!! We now have to either find a place to keep our animals or sell them! I am not a happy person to be around right now. We have a piece of land we are trying to buy in Chautauqua County in western NY, but we first need to sell our house and that takes time, time I’m not sure the town is going to give us. We haven’t received any notifications to remove our animals yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of days until we do.

If you’re as miffed as me let the Town of Plattsburgh know, it can’t hurt and maybe, just maybe, it will help.

Town of Plattsburgh
151 Banker Road
Plattsburgh, NY 12901-7307

Phone: (518) 562-6800
Fax: (518) 563-8136

Philip E. Von Bargen
Planning Department Head
philv@townofplattsburgh.org

Allen Reece
Code Enforcement Officer
(518) 562-6842
allenr@townofplattsburgh.org

This week the chickens resumed laying, I found out that hay is not a good bedding to use when keeping sheep in your basement, caught a funny video of Flower and Sheena, and made Irish Stew after spending a week trying to find lamb and/or mutton.

   The chickens hadn’t been laying for a few months because shortly after we got back from Christmas vacation the light in the coop went out and threw off their schedule. Once Jeff finally fixed it, we decided to leave it off because I didn’t want to screw up their schedule a second time and throw them into another molt, because they had just finished molting at the start of December. So because of the lack of light they stopped laying and then still went into another molt… oops. Just incase you didn’t know it normally isn’t a good thing for chickens to go through two molts within a few months of their previous one. Molting puts a lot of stress on them and can make them more susceptible to getting sick. Anyways, with the days getting longer they have finally started laying again; which is good because I almost had to go out and by eggs this week. The chicks are also growing well and the younger hens should start laying in May. I think within the next few weeks we are going to start butchering some of the roosters, starting with Zorro. :( I don’t want to do it, but I don't really need a rooster anymore Mr. Axe and that includes Zorro and Dumpling.   

   Back in the house I cleaned the sheep pen for the first time sense setting it up this past weekend. Flower had only been in the basement for a week and a half but it was nasty. I had put down a layer of news paper followed by a layer of hay; this was a mistake. The hay and newspaper absorbed the urine and the ammonia smell, while not noticeable initially, was overpowering once I started picking up the hay. I opened up all the windows in the basement and used some Stall-Fresh stuff – which I guess is comparable to lime – to absorb the smell. So after cleaning up all the nasty hay and newspaper I sprinkled some more of the lime stuff on the floor and put down two bags of wood shavings. So far with the wood shavings the smell has been a lot better and so have my allergies – I’m severely allergic to hay.

   After getting Flower’s pen all cleaned I was given a show by Sheena, who started to prance and jump around the pen. I was nearly rolling on the floor laughing; it was one of the funniest and cutest displays I have ever seen. I didn’t have my phone on me at the time, but have been taking it with me ever sense in hopes of catching Sheena’s play on video. Then the other day when I was down visiting the sheep, I had my phone out in anticipation of Sheena starting to jump around, when it was Flower that actually started to play. Considering how big Flower is, her playing like a little lamb was even more hilarious. Here is a video of Flower acting like a complete goof. Please ignore my laughter.

   Speaking of sheep, finding the already butchered and ready to cook variety is near impossible in Plattsburgh. No one, not even the specialty butchers in town had mutton – which is just meat from an older sheep. Lamb is expensive and when making Irish Stew, mutton has a better flavor and is the preferred choice. After searching various grocery stores in Plattsburgh I was finally able to find some stewing lamb in Price Chopper. I had found some lamb shanks in Hannaford’s but they were over $10/lb, the stewing lamb was still $8.99/lbs, but at least it was a little cheaper. So last night I was finally able to make my Irish Stew to bring to the St. Patrick’s Day party we are having at work today. I haven’t really tried the stew yet, but it sure smells good. I doubt it will compare to the Irish Stew that I’ve had at Wits End Pub in Hemingford, QC though, it is positively orgasmic. I think I am going to have to start raising sheep so I can have a steady supply of lamb, if Hannaford’s can sell regular feed-lot lamb for $10/lbs I can probably sell pasture raised for at least $12/lbs.  

   On a more dour note, we received a call from the town saying that if we want to continue with our plans we have to have a drainage study done on the property. So, we are still kind of stuck in limbo as far as the planning board goes. Oh well, things are looking up on the whole selling front so our neighbors and the town can go fly a kite, I don’t care anymore.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe St. Pattie’s day, and I will post latter on about how the Irish Stew turned out.