Classes and Farm store

Richard is offering classes at the farm. October 12 is a hands on chicken processing class. We also have items for sale in the Farm store. Check out the pages at the Church Farm Blog. You can find out more information and register there.

New Directions

Here's a link to the new website and blog Green Desert Sanctuary. This has been in the making for a while now, but without a suitable piece of property, we are having trouble getting it off the ground. Yes, we have ten acres outside of Taos, but there are restrictions, the road is horrid, and Taos County has some odd rules about certain livestock. Plus, there just isn't any water, which we need in order to run a working farm. Throw in the spiritual side of it and how I want to counsel people from a spiritual perspective, as well as do energy healing, and Green Desert Sanctuary was born.

Check out the new site, and if you feel compelled, make a donation to help us really get this thing off the ground!

Staying here...for now.

Yeah....we're not going anywhere. There are no financing options and we don't have a boat load of cash at this time, so here we stay, on the border of Colorado and New Mexico. It's not all bad. It is one of the prettiest places I've ever been, there are wild horses nearby and lots of art opportunities.

I did make it into the Arte de Descartes XIII again this year. The show is at the Stables Gallery in Taos and runs through September 7, 2013.

We have decided to move things in  a new direction and so I may not be blogging here too much anymore. But, I'll leave it up for all of you pallet fence folks out there.

I am creating an artist website, which you can find here: http://kerryabennettart.blogspot.com/

And another website to encompass the new direction we will be taking with the farm, which I will share as I get something posted there.

So, for now, we will continue to farm our little piece of the southwest, pray for rain and hope the winter isn't too cold here.

Rethinking it all.

It's hard to be excited about farming or much of anything really when the negative news of the world finally sinks in. The Southwest is in a severe drought with no possible end in sight. Fires and more fires. Is this the new normal?

We are having a lot of trouble finding local hay at an affordable price. Believe it or not, all of the farmers around here grow alfalfa, but they won't sell it local, and instead, they truck it south to the dairy farms in southern New Mexico where they get high dollar for it. These are the same dairy farms that are selling off cattle because of the lack of water? These are the same dairy farms contributing to the problem because dairy cows are simply not sustainable in a desert environment.

So, yeah, I have been depressed. We rented this little farmstead with great anticipation about the water rights. We hoped we could grow our own hay and have an enormous garden with produce to can up for the winter. No water. We did get a little more than expected because the man who runs the ditches and gets most of the water for his cattle and alfalfa operation decided to give us a little extra. His reservoir was flooding you see. So we flooded some of the fields, and got some weeds going, but we have never had enough water to seed and flood the big 17 acre piece, which is what we were hoping for.

So, we have been reconsidering everything. If the Southwest has no future and will dry up within 50 years, how can we expect to have a sustainable homestead here? As a result of second guessing, we have been researching alternative places to go.

Maine? I was born there, some of my family is there, and there is plenty of water. And cheap properties. But, it is a long, long way away.

Pueblo, Colorado, which is back over the mountains to the northeast of where we are now. It is a small city and we are familiar with it. There are health food stores, a nice library system (Taos library has decided to charge a $10 yearly fee to anyone living out of town limits, so we opted to give our cards back.), a zoo and parks for the kids, doctors and dentists, access to a holistic vet and alternative medicine, a growing art scene, a hospital, and 2 1/2 inches more of rain per year than where we are now. Plus, big bonus, Pueblo does not sit over the shale deposit that takes up so much of Colorado, so there will be no fracking there. But, living in the city exposes us to flouridated and polluted water, polluted air, noise, crime and the potential for craziness if the economy gets worse (like it isn't going to get worse?).

We have been looking for a small farm property outside of Pueblo city limits, thinking we could take the critters and continue on, like we always do. But that may just not be possible. Financing is a big hurdle with our abandoned house in the frack zone a couple of years back. They foreclosed on it and so our credit plummeted even more from the low point it already was. The only solution is to rent or to find an owner carry property, which is do-able, but not very easy to find. As a result, all of my time has been eaten up with trying to find that perfect property, but not knowing if we are keeping all of our farm animals or if I should be trying to find homes for them.

Everything is up in the air again and our future is uncertain at this point, except immediately, where in reality, we have no money to do much of anything.

Here are some photos of the day we got water from the irrigation ditch.

Preparing the ditch. The tarp diverts the water to the field.

Water in the ditch.

Here comes the water.

Not so bad on a hot day.

Llama shearing 2013

This past Monday we got our llamas sheared by two wonderful men from Albuquerque. $40/50 a head (depending on how hard they were to catch). Teeth and nails extra.

After we (mainly Richard) had caught and penned them, and tied them all up, the men hobbled the llamas and pulled them down to the ground.

Llamas in a line.

Turbo being led to shearing spot.

Patty hobbled and pulled down.

 

This is a great way to shear, and I've decided it far outdoes the chute method (the llama is held still in a llama chute, but legs are still free). This tie down method leaves little room for error. The animal is completely immobilized, which cuts down on chances of accidental cuts. This is the typical method used to shear alpacas. As you can see, it works great for llamas too.

Frosty getting sheared.

And they all got their nails done. Vader got his done by the shearers, but the rest were done by Richard. Only Frosty had to have his fighting teeth cut back, otherwise all teeth on all llamas looked good.

Vader gets a pedicure.

Vader getting sheared.

And when it was all said and done, two hours later, the llamas sure looked funny, but much cooler and I hope much happier. They didn't get too mad with the whole event. Only Frosty and Turbo filled their mouths with green, nasty, regurgitated goo. Fortunately they never had the opportunity to spit at anyone.

Overall the shearing was a huge success. I will never do it any other way. Turbo and Vader had years of gunk on their legs and necks from never being fully sheared. Now they are naked. We have a field full of naked llamas. I'd recommend these shearers to anyone (in the northern NM, southern CO area)!

Turbo, our guardian, doesn't look so formidable now, does he?

I have three large garbage bags (triple bagged) full of fiber. All of it is very dirty. The wind was so intense on shearing day, the guys did not blow out the fur with the blower, so the wool is full of hay and in some cases sticks (llamas love to roll on the ground, giving themselves dust baths). I'd like to sell it raw, if I could. The moths are so bad here, in the house and in the garage, I'm afraid the wool will get ruined if it hangs around too long. The wool I've been dragging around finally had to be thrown away. After two months of sitting in the garage here, it was infested with moths and larvae.

So, I've got raw, fresh off the animals, 100% llama wool for sale at $1 per oz. I think I have 30 pounds total from this shearing. I do have it divided by animal. We have brown mixed with silver, brown/black with some red undertones, brown and white mix, black, and brown...or some variety depending on the animal. Llama wool is hypoallergenic and extremely warm.  Let me know if you'd like some. Shipping is extra.