I know many people want to build fences, but just don’t know how.  Or maybe you want to muck out horse stalls but don’t have any horses or stalls.  Want to build goat shelters, but don’t have the lumber?  Want to clean rabbit cages, but don’t have rabbits. do you have the urge to pull weeds out of the garden but your garden just doesn’t grow any weeds? You are in luck, because we can offer all those opportunities and more!

Now, you are probably thinking an opportunity like this would cost hundreds of dollars a weekend.  Right now, the Sawyer Family Farm is offering FREE farm experience opportunities.  There is currently NO waiting list to get the full farm experience.  Give me a call and we can get you started right away!

We have 1 room in the house that has an AC unit. The kids discovered Anna had been sleeping in the guest bed in there and last night they took it over. This morning, we found them all hanging out in the AC roomc reading.
Alex and Vicki had found my Natural Horse magazine and were reading the articles to analyze issues they have with their ponies.

Vicki quote from the fair horse show “Dad, that horse had really bad hooves. Maybe you could help them. ”
Alec quote after reading this morning, “Mom, Precious has never went some info a natural relaxed position. Maybe she needs a massage to help her. “

With the move, come a few changes to our phone and email accounts. All of our Comcast email accounts will go away in June. Our home phone will be disconnected on Friday. We will not have a new home phone line, cell phones only.

From now on, please contact Anna on email at anna@thesawyerfarms.com or phone/text at 860-886-3644. Contact Rob at rob@thesawyerfarms.com or phone/text at 860-884-0110.

We have begun the task of moving the farm to Griswold.  We are doing a PPM (Personally Procured Move – formerly DITY) which means we move it all ourselves and get 95% of what the government would have spent.  It works out to be a good deal for us.  Of course, there are limits to what can or can not count, but we maxed out the weight limit when moving to CT in 2006.  We haven’t exactly downsized since then.  In fact, last night I took the first load in my new 14′ dump bed trailer and it had 50% of our weight allotment.  I should only need 1 or 2 more weight tickets to finish with the paperwork, even though we won’t actually be done moving.

I took today off to get a good start on the move.  Unfortunately, when unloading some mulch we were saving for the new place (about 6 yards of mulch), I wasn’t paying attention.  The back door to the dump bed was latched open and as I drove forward, a 14″ maple removed said door.  It broke the welds for the top hinge, sheared the bottom hinge bolt and twisted the hinge, and did some other bending what should have been straight things.  So, the new trailer is getting it’s first repairs.  It should be ready and back on the road before midnight.

Until then, I am continuing to work on fence removal and loading fencing into one of the other 3 trailers we have.  Isn’t moving fun!

Over 11 weeks ago, we found out the owners of our farm (that we have been leasing for 2.5 years) would not extend our lease another 3 years like I hoped.  Instead, they plan to sell it.  We have been looking at properties ever since.  Should we buy this one with some problems (the devil we know)?  Should we buy that one which is cheaper but doesn’t have a barn?  Should we buy the one that has a tiny house with lots of land?  Should we give up on farming and board the horses?  Should we lease something and not buy at all.  Anna and I have been having these conversations every night for over 2 months.  To say it adds some stress is an understatement.

Three times we made up our minds and decided the path to take.  Three times we found out the path was a dead-end road.  I was hoping by now to have a major announcement of what we were doing.  Instead, tonight, we are getting a cup of tea and resuming the same discussions that have plagued us for 11+ weeks.

In the end, we know life goes on. And we know our family will get through this, regardless of the decision.  However, based on the point of my career in the military and the age of the kids, this move seems to have more significant long-term impact that any before it.  We have pondered for a long time.  We are rapidly approaching deadlines to make a decision, even if not the best decision.  We have a fixed window to execute the move, because a farm is a lot to move.

So for now, the suspense continues until we have a decision.  For everyone who thinks they know which way we are leaning, you are wrong.  Because we don’t know.  And the options we were considering are not necessarily still valid.

Do you remember the movie City Slickers?  Norman was the calf that Billy Crystal took home to NY after his adventure out West.  In the movie, Norman was a Jersey calf, even though there were no Jerseys in the herd they were moving, but I digress.

Our Norman is a Holstein calf that we purchased from Valley View Farm.  Last year, we bought half of a veal calf raised on goat milk from our friends at Cedars of Lebanon Farm. The meat was fabulous, and since we have a decent size herd of goats (milking 5, 2 more due this month), we decided to give it a try ourselves.  So, Norman is being raised for meat, like many of the animals on our farm.

Additionally, we now have some new pages online.  Check out our CSA Options and CSA FAQs.  While we are not offering the veal as a CSA, we have consolidated all of our pricing and meat availability on our CSA Options page.

So, Anna and I haven’t really posted a whole lot of substance lately on our website.  It is because we have been debating many things in our life and making some very difficult decisions about how we want to raise our kids.  Do we want to operate a farm?  Is it worth it financially and based on the time commitment? Many of these questions and more will be answered very soon.  While I am not going to really tell you anything right now, we have some very significant changes coming up in the near future.  Some things we are going to do more of.  Some things we are going to do less of (but there always seems to be more added than taken away).

For our loyal customers, we have a few exciting announcements coming up in the near future about meat products and what we plan to do this year.

So, stay tuned!