Thanks, everyone. There is a fire pretty close to us in West Point, in Calaveras County. Last I checked it was 90 percent contained. We have a few acres around the house with a barn and some small outbuildings. The goats and birds are here all the time. Our hogs that are close to farrowing are kept here. We keep them here until we wean and train all the little ones to electric
fence. Then we move them to another place down the road, it's forested with black oaks, pines, madrones, maples and quite a few other species of
trees. The
land has been selectively logged twice in the last twenty years and just cleaned up two seasons ago. We are running the hogs through trying to clear the under story and keep it cleaned up. We have kept more hogs at the house this summer using them to terrace a half acre we are planting to
perennial gardens. The one picture is a row of Jerusalem artichokes Meagan planted in the spring. Keeping the extra hogs this summer we've raked lots of manure hence the large compost piles. The goal is to build some good soil for the gardens around the house. We have about a half acre meadow, but that isn't near enough fodder for what we are doing. Our
hay comes from about 30 miles away, it is a mix of oats, clover and
native perennial grasses. I'm working with my hay guy to plant some different mixes for me this coming year. The goats get lots of hay, we let them waste lots of it, then it gets raked out to the
chickens and turkeys. They scratch through it, then it goes on top of the garden beds and what ever else needs mulch. Mulch matters. We stay very busy and always have multiple ongoing projects.