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Meeting Winnie, running over a lamb and shock fencing…
Last week was a roller coaster, we are still reeling from it. You see we were pointed in the direction of a homeless livestock guardian dog. We’ve known we needed one since our beloved family dog lost...
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Electric fencing is a pain in the ASS!
I’m really unimpressed with electric fencing. We already decided that we wanted permanent fencing for our “barnyard” where the barn animals will have free rein. Heck, we even invested in the rolls of...
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Ch-ch-changes…
Some big things are in store for the site. Some of you feed subscribers got wind of some changes thanks to the automatic feed that went out with lots of dummy giberish text after we did a website...
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2015 CSA News- Week 1
Isn’t this weather beautiful?! I was just out pulling weeds in the garden and the mild temperatures were so nice to enjoy. The weather sure has our plants confused though. To us it feels like it has...
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Southern Illinois Seasonal Eats: Early July
We are really excited that this week is our first week for our CSA deliveries. We have been tending plants, collecting eggs & making goats milk soap for our five special CSA families. The...
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CSA News Week 2
This week has been full of progress in our CSA garden! The garden is finally dried out a bit after the brutal rains and flooding we just had. Luckily everything has survived. I know many folks have...
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CSA News Week 4
Greetings CSA families! The green beans, collard greens & swiss chard are coming along slowly still. I promise we planted more than what you have been getting. I’m personally feeling impatient...
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CSA News Week 5
We took a road trip to secure some delicious fruits from our dear friends & fellow family farmers over at High Hill Orchard this week. They had quite the blackberry crop this year so we braved the...
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Canning Fairytale Pumpkin and Sweet Meat Squash
We drove up north last week to retrieve our award winning produce from the Duquoin State Fair. Nathan wanted the experience of entering stuff in the fair so that we could show our daughters what it is...
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What is a CSA all about? Do I want to join?
CSA is short for community supported agriculture. We joined our first CSA about ten years ago back in Flagstaff, AZ. We heard about it and were immediately intrigued. We had no idea what we were in for...
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Counting down to goat kids…
Some of you might remember our saga last year when trying to breed our ADGA registered Alpine goats. We dove into breeding them sans first hand experience after owning them for just 3 months, we relied...
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It’s got pink spots and it’s in a nesting box…
I’m pretty excited to share this with you. I collected it yesterday… Can you guess what it is? It’s the start of my expanding heritage turkey flock! Really, it’s a Bourbon Red turkey egg, the first...
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2016 Goat Kids – A Bucky Year
It’s relaxation be sick time here on the homestead now. Over the weekend we did a private test run for our Farm to Fork Dinners via our partnership farm, Tanglefoot Ranch. The test run dinner was a...
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Beautifull Naturally Colored Eggs
I never intentionally set out to become a poultry farmer, it just sort of played out that way. It all began with a flock of three Americauna/ Easter Egger hens about 6 years ago in our suburban...
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Adaptability on the farm
“Be the water, not the rock” they say. This holds much value on the farm as practically nothing goes as planned. Ever. It’s not because of mistakes or lack of skills, it’s because when you are dealing...
View ArticleThe ducklings are coming…
The girls are officially enrolled in 4H this year. They’ve wanted to do it in the past but haven’t because they were too young to show live animals, we thought they were old enough this year and got...
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The Farm is Moving to Golconda, IL!
I’m sure you’ve heard the news, we are setting off on our own farming adventure. We are excited to share, we have a summer moving date set and we are packing up the house right now. After a tumultuous...
View ArticleNewspaper coverage, moving day nears, baby goat birth video and a teaser…
We have less than a week before our great farm moving adventure happens. We are in the last stretches of packing things up. In the house it’s come to just grabbing armfuls of unpacked things and...
View ArticlePress Release: Beginning farmers want fresh, local food available to everyone
The Ryder Family Farm Can Accept SNAP Benefits GOLCONDA – Eating fresh, local food is about to get easier for some families in Southern Illinois! Starting this Saturday, June 10th 2017 at the...
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New farm beginnings, again. The backstory.
Three years ago we set out to follow our dream of farming and moved to a working farm to become farm hands. The opportunity was like a dream come true, a place to stay, an employee wage, the promise of...
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