Unfortunately, the promise of permanency never came through and seemed like it never would… The writing was on the wall for quite awhile but we persisted, worked hard to remain positive and hopeful… but deep down inside we were betrayed and heartbroken. We risked everything on this pursuit. Nathan quit his job, we sold our house, we took a 2/3rd pay cut, lost our health insurance, moved to a new state where we knew nobody… Everyone said we were crazy but we knew that we couldn’t make it work without risk and change. Seldom do you achieve greatness by settling for the status quo. 

The backstory, without getting into too many particulars-written March 29th, 2017:

You see I’d been harassing Nathan for the last few weeks to bring up the subject of our promised land contract, again with our farm mentors. Before we moved to Southern Illinois there was a drafted contract outlining that we’d earn land in exchange for years worked. It was supposed to be signed and finalized before we moved in but they encouraged us to check out the 1000 acres after we’d moved down and “pick out the land we’d like”. At the point that I’d started really harassing Nathan to work on the signed deal we’d already worked a couple years towards our land deal… but each time over the last three years that he asked to get the contract finalized with specifics about which area would become our and with official signatures, it was put off, ignored or argued about…

It turns out, me harassing Nathan to get the deal signed was making things tense at work, he’d come home less than happy and with no progress on the signed deal and apparently was being mistreated as a result of broaching the contract conversation.

On March 29th 2017 it all came to a head. Nathan came home for lunch, ate, went back to work and shortly after came home again. “What’s up? Did you quit your job or something?” I jokingly asked him as he stomped off his work boots and tossed his coveralls and gloves aside abruptly.”Yep, actually I did.” he tells me.

With Nathan things build up to the point of bursting. Normally it never gets to the breaking point. Most issues are handled before that point but in this case all attempts were unsuccessful. Ultimately, our family and our dream is the number one priority for us so it was time to part ways with our mentors, move off their farm, leave their house and make a start for ourselves. The one-sided partnership was now over. We suspected this would be the way things had to end when we couldn’t get those too-good-to-be-true-promises in writing, we just hoped we were wrong…

Now that the move is complete we are plugging away on the flip side. Our new place is absolutely great. We feel more at home that we ever have… and we are free to pursue our farm dreams which is super great. Severing ties has been rough and continues to be rough but despite it all we’ve managed to receive approval to accept EBT payments for our farm produce and we’ve obtained a wireless EBT processing terminal for us to use at the Golconda Farmer’s Market with our customers. This is a huge deal because the process of gaining approval is littered with red-tape and seems quite impossible for producers and farm market masters. We pursued EBT capabilities because we want EVERYONE to be able to enjoy our market produce.

Local, clean eating shouldn’t be a luxury for some… it’s a right for all.

We also have our Ryder Family Farm garden coming along nicely at our friend’s place. Radish and salad greens are growing like mad for our farm market customers. We think we will have our first CSA baskets ready for delivery in the second or third week of July, weather permitting.

While we are in a rebuilding phase we wanted to focus on some single season farm products that had a short production time. We LOVE fall and have always toyed with the idea of fall garden mums as an offering for our farm… So we’ve spent the last money in our savings account on the supplies for a fall mum operation and we filled close to 1000 large pots in prep for planting the mums over the last two days. Our tiny mum plant starts arrive today for us to transplant. Happy Summer Solstice!

The image below shows the color variations we plan to grow:

We will be accepting pre-orders on the mums from customers but we haven’t set a price yet as a few supplier invoices haven’t been sent to us at this time. When we have the supply expenses all added up we will price the mums for pre-sale and make an announcement. If price isn’t a concern you are welcome to fill out your pre-order info here: https://goo.gl/forms/4lbSp4z3YaEp97VQ2

For now those are the notable updates here. We are so incredibly grateful for our customers and for the continued community support during this transition. We hope you will please come see us at the Golconda Farm Market this Saturday and every Saturday from now till mid September and tell your friends!

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Our CSA required upfront payment for our portion, commonly called a share. Later, when the growing season was underway and harvests were in we all met at our pickup location and were each given a basket of fresh food that was reserved for us, to last us the week. It came directly from the farm and was grown specifically for us.

Joining a CSA is the perfect way to take the middleman out of sourcing your family’s food, reducing the carbon footprint of your groceries, plus it supports local farms and your community economically speaking. You’ll also enjoy fresher foods from your CSA farmer than you’ll typically see in grocery stores.

One thing about CSA’s that is different than going to the grocery store and just choosing your produce is that most CSA’s do not give you the option to pick and choose what you take home for that week. It’s not because the farmer wants to be a control freak, it is because produce is seasonal and grows best at certain times in the growing season. Most of you know this already but it really tends to hit home when you bring home a basket of produce that has unfamiliar items in it and you aren’t sure if you’ll like them or how you are supposed to prepare them.

For us in our fist CSA experience, it was arugula. Lots of salad greens are typical in the early season and we just kept getting arugula. It wasn’t something we liked to eat in a salad and it was kind of hard to come up with ways to use arugula and other uncommon items that came in our baskets. Unfortunately, as consumers we’ve become accustomed to just eating a select few common produce items (tomatoes, onion, potato, etc.) and it’s not particularly beneficial for our health to eat such a limited variety of produce items. As I mentioned, our CSA eating experience pushed us to expand our produce horizons, this was a good thing though it was hard at the time.

When you join a CSA think of it as more than just stocking the refrigerator with produce… Think of it as an adventure in local, seasonal eating and local community.

As a CSA member you are becoming more connected to the land that grows your food, the land is sustaining you with freshly picked goods, you are helping a local farmer who in turn helps the community by supplying local food and you are investing in food options for future generations. What’s not to love about that?

To find out about our farm’s current CSA membership opportunities and to sign up click here: https://www.ryderfamilyfarm.com/southern-illinois-produce-csa/

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Its also been a while since I posted an update. The most notable happening is my little guy, Grayson, crawling! He has been in physical therapy for a while now and hes mastered sitting up, is working on transitions between positions and just yesterday took off crawling! After a couple months of therapy he learned to sit up and to use sign language to communicate. A few weeks ago he saw a chiropractor snd had some major neck work done.

We’ve also had our one year anniversary as farmers. A year of building constructing, crop planting, crop harvesting & crop selling, shrimp growing & harvesting, lambing, calving, butchering, incubating & hatching poultry, fence hanging, gardening, tractor driving, hay cutting & baling, animal feeding & watering, fence repairing, pruning, learning farm veterinarian skills… lots and lots of learning and failing and bring yelled at… but we survived the year, we feel accomplished and we’re still dreaming & planning the future.

Lots of the site’s makeover has to do with our homesteading and how its no longer a hobby, its now an extension of us and we couldn’t be happier about that- even after a day of being covered in livestock feces, sweat, blood and maybe even tears…

The post Ch-ch-changes… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Shortly after we bought the fencing I was pretty adamant about hubby fencing off my garden space. You see, I’ve sold shares for our family’s first ever CSA project this year so it’s pretty important that the goats don’t smush down the chicken wire fencing and eat all the food I’m growing for other families this year.

The problem is I’ve only got my hubby for 1.5 days each week and that time is spent on our family’s farm chores, his daddy duty with the girls and perhaps his own relaxing or hobbies… Time for fence hanging is in short supply and fence hanging isn’t a one person job.

The fence rolls are about 100lbs each, it takes both of us to unroll a section of fence and then it takes us both to get the fence staples nailed in (one person to tension the fence and one to do the hammering)… So, the completion of fence work has taken a backseat but we thought a moveable electric fence might be a nice temporary solution in the meantime. Plus, we would like to set up pasture rotations with the electric fence later down the line.

So one of the 1.5 days free was set aside for electric strand fencing. We started with a single wire at something like 7000 volts then we added a second electrified wire and then a third “dummy wire” that isn’t hot yet but it will be once weeds are trimmed. 

Training animals on an electric strand fence takes tons of conditioning and we are in he throes of it now with the three goats the two goat kids and the two lambs… Plus we’ve added a Great Pyreneese rescue dog, named Winnie, to the mix. 

We’ve been conditioning Winnie to the electric strand fence plus another invisible perimeter fence especially for doggies. The electric strand fence shocked her accidentally the first day and she’s basically respected and avoided it since. Her collar that is connected to the invisible perimeter fencing beeps and then goes on to shock her if she ignores the beep and continues crossing the invisible fence line. The invisible fence runs around our house, yard and the barnyard. The electric strand fence just runs around the barnyard.

This morning I took Winnie off her chain link tie-up for some fence testing. She seemed like she was going to be fine until she ran and then jumped through the electric strand fencing. I don’t think you get a shock if you are jumping through the air! Then she seemed like she was sticking close to the house, inside the invisible fence perimeter. She tried to cross the invisible line, got a shock, cried and came back… Then five minutes later I see her outside the perimeter invisible fence jogging up the road. I call her back and she just looks at me and keeps running- “eff you lady!” is what I imagine she was thinking.

At the exact same time our ornery goat also decides she will go between the electric strand fencing wires. She gets a good shock, cries, kicks and just keeps going till the wire breaks. Her two babies follow her. I take chase after her. We run two laps around the house and she’s sill evading me so I grab one of her babies, show her I’ve got it and then I head back to her fenced enclosure to deposit the baby. Mama always follow her calling baby! Unfortunately baby head butts me with his horns twice in the face while I’m holding him. Ouch!!

Finally I’ve got mama goat and two babies back behind a solid fence and I tell them they get no field grazing time due to bad behavior. Bad goats!

I turn the electric strand fence off so I can repair the broken wire, there are still two goats and two lambs that need to NOT break free. Once the fence is repaired Winnie comes sauntering back all rolled in some animals poop- after we just shampooed her yesterday (did I mention she was skunk sprayed two days ago?!). Then I walk to the mailbox across the street to deposit some outgoing mail and on my way back I see Winnie has returned home with a special treat- a deer leg.

The deer leg doesn’t phase me since I’m dealing with dead stuff almost every-single-day now and I’ve heard of other people’s livestock guardian dogs (like Winnie) doing similar things… it’s just startling the first time a severed deer leg appears in your driveway.

So, that is how my morning is going so far. I think I need more coffee!

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