Providence Farm

The reason God created farm ponds. Nathaniel with a lunker largemouth.

Looking for something a little out of the ordinary to grace your table? These black-skinned Silkie chickens ought to fit the bill. [$9.50/lb., 1.5 to 2 lbs each.]

This year's batch of porkers, clearing the spot for next year's high tunnel.

We have a particular affection for the wild gooseberry, but there are lots of other great fruits out there. So to show that we are unbiased, here's a list of three pies that are better than gooseberry pie: 1. 2. 3.... (Get yours Saturday at Farmers Market of the Ozarks from 8a to 1p.)

The little gems you find while picking gooseberries.

The season's first wild gooseberries! Getcha some at Farmers Market of the Ozarks.

Our first batch of heritage breed meat chickens got to put on their big girl pants and move out to pasture today! They'll spend a few days confined to this shelter to get acquainted with their new digs, then we'll start letting them out for the day so they can roam far and wide and forage for all kinds of goodies. Eventually, of course, they'll make darn near the best chicken to ever grace your plate.

A belated Happy Mother's Day to this little lady. There are 14 ducklings tucked up under there!

What's better than a newborn calf? Two newborn calves! Bonus points when the two new mamas are a mother-daughter pair themselves and calve within 24 hours of each other.

Oh, the benefits of human-scale technology! This morning I was scything a 1/4 acre cover crop of winter wheat, winter rye, and clover. There was a female red-winged blackbird flitting about, vocalizing in what seemed to be an obviously distressed tone. (If you look closely you can see her in the second photo below.) I figured she had a nest somewhere in that tall grass, so I was keeping an eye out, but after my third or fourth pass, as I walked back to the end of the fiel...d, I found a small handful of eggs strewn about. Ame was mulching some garden beds down by the barn, so I called her over to look at them--they're really pretty! Then she found the nest, which had been built around the stalk of a curly dock plant that I had mowed in my previous pass. We gathered it up, then Ame held it in place on another curly dock plant a few feet away while I took a handful of the scythed wheat and rye and used it as a makeshift rope to tie around the new dock plant and it's immediate neighbors, giving a cluster of plants the structure necessary to support the weight of the nest and, hopefully, the brooding blackbird. Then we put the four eggs we could find back in the nest, and I went back to scything while Ame went back to the garden. I hadn't got more than 30 or 40 feet away when I heard the blackbird behind me, and turned to see her already attending to her nest in its new location! And that's the beauty of human-scale technology, and human-scale farming. Had I been on a tractor, I certainly wouldn't have heard that blackbird's distress calls over the roar of the engine, and a mechanical mower would almost certainly have made short work of the nest and its eggs. This is not to demonize tractors, or the farmers that use them, just to shine some light on a more "inefficient" way of doing things.

We will have *fresh* pasture-raised, non-GMO ducks tomorrow at Farmers Market of the Ozarks! Dry-plucked and air-chilled and darn near perfect. Reply in the comments or shoot us an email ([email protected]) to reserve one for quick and easy pickup at the drive-thru market. Weight range is about 4 to 5.5 lbs, $7.50/lb.

It's a glorious day when we get to move the cows out to fresh grass after a winter of hay feeding! Here they graze the hillside to the east of the house and the 1/4-acre "Bottom Field." The sheep will be moved in next, to graze it down even shorter, then we'll make mounds out of composted manure and bedding for a no-till "Three Sisters" planting of corn, beans, and squash. The growing season is coming on fast!

Meat selection (and quality) at the supermarket leaving something to be desired? Stop by and see us at Farmers Market of the Ozarks today from 8 am to 1 pm and pick yourself out something nice!