We spent last weekend visiting best friends on an organic farm in Efland, NC. The farm's main focus has been grass fed beef, pork, free range chickens and eggs. Recently my friends have started a multi season garden, and are also building a greenhouse to have more produce and herbs. We got to learn a lot about organic farming methods and eat delicious meats and greens.Instead of pesticides they use very fertile soil, sometimes spray soap/water mixture... and that's about it. They use electric wire that they can move around to allow the animals to graze in different areas, allowing the rest to grow back more fertile than before.
Great Pyrenees dogs guard the chickens, goats and pigs
Mule guards the cattle
Goat's view
Chickens move around the field to fertilize the earth
Pig & the Billy goat
Baby chicks in their insulated home
It was these friends that motivated me towards living a farm life 2 years ago; after visiting them on the dairy farm they lived and worked on. I hope the next area we move to will have more organic farms I could intern on, because that kind of hard work is the only kind that really makes sense to me.
Laura, are you familiar with WWOOF (World-Wide Organization of Organic Farms)?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwoof.org/
Camp/live while you learn/volunteer. Brian spent a couple of months on an organic farm and blogged about it
http://giffordsrvdream.blogspot.com/2011/04/dear-earth-i-planted-tree-for-you.html
Your friends place is beautiful. Love the Pyr's!
Thanks Cyndi I have heard of WOOF, but I would rather get paid too! :) There is a great website I use to browse paid organic/sustainable farm internships, its the "Sustainable Farming Internships" link on the right. :)
ReplyDeleteTheir place IS beautiful! I wish I could live there too.