Pleasure to be here, my name's Mershka (Mer like 'merry' and shka like, uhh... 'shkuh').
My parents, one of my brothers and I have been transitioning from urban life to homesteading/ranching since we bough this
land about 10 years ago. It started getting more serious once my mom moved out here about 7 years ago to get everything started, and it's been moving slowly but surely ever since.
We raise angora goats for fiber, nubian goats for
milk,
chickens and turkeys for a lot of reasons, boer goats, pigs and lowline angus
cattle for meat, and we have two horses too. Our animals are kept safe due to our Kangals, which are Turkish livestock guardian dogs (except the birds, which don't get a dog). Our kangal dogs allow us and our livestock to live harmoniously with mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, wolves, and all other manner of predators with whom we share these lands. Birds aside, we haven't had a single livestock loss from predation in the 7 years we've had our animals! As we’ve been getting our own ranching practices together more and more, an increasing amount of effort is going towards protecting the natural surroundings and working with the environment to maximize the amount of life which is capable of flourishing in our little corner of this region. We were all totally green when starting out and so there are some areas we really dropped the ball in, particularly with pasture management and getting early starts with tree-planting, but we learn more and more as we go along and improve as we're able!
I was going back and forth between the ranch and a town we used to live in during the early days and then I had a couple years where I was off at the University of Montana as a chemistry major directed towards botany, but ranch life has drawn me back! Sometimes I like to say, "I didn't choose the ranch life, the ranch life chose me" hahahahaha. I still study chemistry, botany and biology in general in my free time and I really appreciate that kind of book-learning and all the logical puzzles which go along with it, it keeps my brain busy, but I really don't do well with urban living. I also do a lot of
art in my free time. I can have trouble expressing myself at times so that's a nice outlet for that and it's a break from physical labor and brain-food.
I've always liked visiting this forum and I think I finally have
my stuff together
enough to sign up, post about my projects, contribute to threads, and continue hearing everyone's input.
So yay, It's nice to be here!
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