On the farm we have tons of blessings but we are also weighed down by the economic consequences of the stay at home orders. Normally we would be prepping for a busy season selling at the Farm Market in our city. We were producing eggs, soap and tending to the 2020 season of farm produce well before COVID-19 brought Illinois to a standstill.

As you know, small businesses across the USA with staff can put in for SBA relief programs to help keep their businesses afloat. Also, commodity farmers will find economic relief from the USDA CARES relief package but COVID-19 has left mom and pop sized farms like ours struggling and mostly left out of all the economic recovery efforts.

We have been brainstorming all the ways we can still get our produce, eggs, soaps, pumpkins and mums into the hands of customers without crowds or excessive person to person contact. We have ideas but a farm like ours has very small margins and not many resources at our fingertips.

While we’ve been homeschooling and simultaneously managing our kids virtual meetings schedules for all their education related stuff we got a crazy idea about how we can help ourselves in this time of crisis…

Why not offer the joy of farm animal interaction to folks electronically? So we launched:

GOATEE MEETING: A VIRTUAL FARM EXPERIENCE.

Pick your favorite animal from our list of farm residents, select the date and time of your meeting, pay for your selection, and provide us the link so we can join your meeting at your specified time. Click here to read more.

Basically, as our farm scrambles to innovate ways to replace lost income from our goat yoga events, farm tours, farm market sales, etc we are turning to virtual tourism to fill the void.

You can now schedule one of our farm animal residents to attend your next video meeting or you can book a virtual farm tour!

“Does social distancing “goat” you down? Are you ready to bring some joy and excitement to your virtual meetings and give your meeting goers something to cluck about? Let a farm animal from the Ryder Family Farm help you out!”

You can view photos of our critters and learn more about pricing options and how to book by visiting our farm site here: https://www.ryderfamilyfarm.com/book-a-farm-animal-for-your-next-virtual-meeting

The post Bringing the joy of farm animals to your next virtual meeting… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

The kids have been out of school since March 17th and will remain home for the duration of the school year while “remote learning”. We are also looking ahead and trying to anticipate when social distancing might end and how that will impact our farm business.

Normally our farm has sold produce, eggs, soaps, fall mums and pumpkins at farmers market throughout the summer, this year will likely be very different but I think it is going to be in a very good way.

We have a new project planned to make shopping with us even more enjoyable, stay tuned!

Our farm has already adapted to serve you better.

We are able to take electronic payments and schedule on farm pickup for goods sold. This was something we tweaked just after our state issued social distancing recommendations last month.

Our farm fresh eggs and goat milk soaps are available for sale 24/7 online with inventory updating daily. You may order & pay online for pickup and we will prepare your order, leaving it on our porch for your future collection. Of course you are also welcome to check out all that we have going on and we can chat outside from more than 6ft away when you pickup your order too. It is all up to you.

We have also added a product delivery option to our online store for nearby folks that might need items delivered to them. Just visit https://www.ryderfamilyfarm.com/ and click on “Shop” to see what is in stock right now and to place your order.

Local produce is coming!

Our gardens are already seeded and the seedlings are already growing.

Very soon we will have produce for sale and we will begin packing weekly spring goodies just for for our CSA families. Yep, this is our veggie basket program (you can still sign up!).

As items become available we will update inventory in our online store and we will email/ post to social media about the new offerings as they become available. Be sure you are on our email newsletter list and following us on social media for the latests updates.

A timely expansion to feed more of the community.

Yesterday the plastic went up on our brand new high tunnel that we built on our farm. This is amazing news for us and it will greatly expand the number of community members we are able to feed in the future.

With the high tunnel in production this summer, we will have even more produce to share with our community. We are working on ways to reach customers with this abundance of produce so stay tuned.

As you can imagine, interest in our weekly vegetable share program (our CSA) has skyrocketed during this time of panic buying. Security can be found in locking in a prepaid, reserved for you, weekly allotment of farm fresh produce from a trusted source. Where our produce is concerned, the absolute best way you can secure our produce is via this CSA program.

We are blessed to have the ability to add additional families to our program, even before adding the high tunnel. Now that our food production is about to ramp up, we are able to add more availability to the CSA program. Be sure to check out the details and sign up here-> Yes, you can still sign up.

New life continues…

These uncertain times can certainly weight on the mind but one thing is for sure, life continues on. Scotchie our sheep had twin lambs for us today! Also, the Killdeer nest out in the pasture is full of new three babies.

The garden seedlings and transplants are busy taking root, the birds are singing the bees and butterflies are fluttering around… Life is good. Just gotta stop/ refocus to enjoy it.

How are you enjoying life and slowing down today?

The post Meeting Southern Illinois Food Needs during Covid-19 appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Yesterday brought us one doeling (baby girl) that was living, see the video link here: https://www.facebook.com/RyderFamilyFarm/videos/793794707790852

Unfortunately, the second doeling got stuck forever and had to be pulled. It wasn’t living. Another unfortunate detail is this first time mama isn’t being kind to her baby so we brought it in the house to warm up and to get colostrum. She’ll be a bottle baby it seems.

Not only is the sound of a baby goat being heard in the house, we also have the sound of happy chicks is filling the house! Between broody chickens/ ducks and my indoor incubators we are welcoming new chicks every week here on the farm.

Several of my fancy chicken eggs have made their way to hatching so we already have an array of full sized and mixed frizzle and/ or silkie chicks in the brooder box.

We are also busy with high tunnel construction, seed starting for our CSA families and general farm/ garden spring time preparations.

Yesterday was a lovely spring-like day! I finalized the CSA crop plan and planting schedule while Nathan put more sidewall posts in for high tunnel project. We’ve started making plans for our outdoor rabbit housing and various chicken tractor living arrangements for the spring.

When discussing my rabbit manure management ideas for our CSA garden with Nathan our older daughter overheard and got some creative ideas.

I like to arrange the rabbit hutches in a way that allows us to collect their manure for composing and working into the garden soil. This allows us to take a sustainable approach to feeding our vegetable crops and reduces the need to bring in soil fertilizers.

This year in addition to minding my rabbit manure I also wanted to setup a nice garden run for the rabbits to enjoy. This will help me keep rambing herbs under control and it will be a fun way for animal interaction on the farm. However, this takes some advance planning.

If you don’t bury chicken wire under the soil where you let your your bunnies play they may very well have a tunnel dug and be hiding away underground when you go to put them away for the night. We know this from past experiences. Ha, ha.

So the game plan was to bury chicken wire fence, then plant a perennial herb garden in and around the bunny place space. This got my oldest pretty inspired. In the afternoon we went outside to visualize the new layout plan and she went to work digging the space for putting the fence down. When we got that done it was time to move the very heavy rabbit house. Normally this is a two adult lifting job but instead me and the 3 kids did it without Nathan. Next Everly started digging a frog pond just on the other side of the rabbit play area, in the herb garden space while I secured fence and pulled weeds.

All we have left to do is the fencing around the rabbit playspace and the planting of herbs. When the weather warms up we will tackle the planting and move the rabbits to their outdoor home.

Our average last frost date is about a month away at this point and it is still raining a ton here. We can not wait for some sunshine and warmer temperatures so we can start bringing the garden back to life!

The post The excitement of almost spring… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This crazy wet weather we have been having here in Southern Illinois isn’t making our high tunnel construction go very quickly- Yep you read that right we are building a high tunnel right now! Woho!

However, the weather is making our free ranging duck flock very, very happy. They are just running from puddle to puddle splashing and eating grass and bugs.

Their joy and health means I am absolutely overloaded with duck eggs right now. All the baking must commence. It’s time for my Valentine baking explosion!

Right now on my recipes to consider list are:

• Gluten free thumbprint cookies
• Gluten free carrot sheet cake
• Gluten free chocolate pavlova cookies
• Gluten free brownies
• Banana bread with chocolate chips
• Gluten free angel food cake
• Chocolate chip cookies

Baked goods are amazing with duck eggs! It is true, ask any serious baker. Here is why:

“The higher fat content in duck eggs make cakes rise higher, give meringues more volume and stability. You substitute one duck egg for every chicken egg (no more and no less) – and yet- the baked good WILL be more fluffy. You’ll also have richer sweets because of the larger yolk.”

Gluten free baking is better with duck eggs!

I initially wanted to add ducks to the farm for their eggs because of all the gluten free baking we do in our household. In duck eggs, the added protein in the albumin (whites) binds the gluten free ingredients better and improves the texture of baked goods considerably.

Of course you can also just eat duck eggs like you would a chicken egg. You don’t have to bake things just to enjoy a duck eggs, though that is what I prefer to do.

I’ve even heard from folks who who aren’t able to eat chicken eggs (due to food intolerances) but they can stomach a duck egg. I thought that was interesting.

How is a duck egg different?

Duck eggs have a thicker off-white or grayish shell and are generally larger than a chicken egg. Also, duck eggs generally are more nutritious than a chicken egg and are richer tasting. Duck eggs have more than twice the nutritional value of chicken eggs and are much higher in Omega 3 fatty acids- which is great for the brain (and sought after by those eating a Paleo diet)!

Year after year people ask us if we have duck eggs for them to try. Often we do but when market season gets underway our farm’s eggs sell out fast. If you have a hankering for The Ryder Family Farm’s duck eggs you can reach out to us here to secure some. Remember the early bird catches the worm

Are you Eggventurous?

Have you ever consumed a duck egg? What did you think? Tell us in the comments below or on social media.

The post The ducks are living their BEST LIFE these days. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Each year we try to time breeding just right and each year we have to just roll with the punches because in farming nothing is really 100% in your control.

Last year one of our older, medium sized female goats (called a doe in the goat world) managed to get bred by a full sized buck (bucks are uncastrated male goats) and ended up having twin doelings (you guessed it, twin female baby goats). We were convinced she wouldn’t be able to birth offspring from a full sized buck and we did everything in our power to keep her from getting bread by him but she proved us wrong and did her own thing!

This year we weren’t supposed to have any births until at least late February 22nd but a doe, named Latte, was in labor January 25th. Turns out she was miscarrying the pregnancy but it was unknown for a day or so.

You see our efficient female livestock guardian dog, names Winnie, either mothers the live goat kids after birth if their mama is slacking or she will get rid of any signs of birth, stillbirth, afterbirth, etc. This is an instinct she has that will protect the goat herd from predators.

I found our goat doe, Latte, on January 26th at the hay bales passing membranes with her tail ligaments loose but not in active labor… and with no babies to be found. We searched the pasture, the barns, ect. We looked everywhere for any signs of birth/ babies. No blood, no bones, no hair, nothing was anywhere. I was puzzled!

That evening Farmer Nathan tells me about Winnie’s bloody paws from the day before and it all becomes clearer. Goat kids can’t be born a month early and survive… 2 weeks is about the earliest I’ve heard of. I’m confident whatever Latte birthed wasn’t alive and it was cleaned up by Winnie to keep potential predators away.

Not having live goat babies from Latte is sad business. However, she is producing some milk for us now which helps our raw goat milk soap production.

While we were puzzling over goat babies we also bounced all our other lady goats (this is basically a belly palpitation to feel for babies). We believe we will have goat babies due from one other mama and lambs from our ewe so stay tuned.

The post The mystery of a missed goat birth. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.