Lessons Learned

I believe that the purpose of life is to learn. Seems simple, huh? We are constantly learning as humans. In the first few years of life we learn how to take care of simple tasks without which we would not survive. Far too often I hear of people, including myself, that look at every mistake as a waste of resources. Without experimenting on the unknown how are we to know? You can read every book published, watch others more skilled then you, but without actually experiencing it, you never really learn anything. On our farm, that is core. My husband and I read and researched Guinea hens before we bought a dozen for the garden. They are touted as the great bug killers, leaving your plants alone as they attack every moving thing. This is not true. We attached a small 4-6 hen house to the garden, clipped their wings and gave food and water. The next few days they destroyed all the jalapeno plants, trampled all my carrots,made my onion bed a dusting area, and finally- got loose and went to the other 6 that were a good 500 feet in our main chicken coop. We cut them down to 2 in the garden; yet still they attack what was left of the jalapeno. We tried putting bonemeal and crushed eggshells on the beds. This was thought to deter them since they don't like the feel under their feet. It did not deter them. So, for now we'll leave the stocks of the plants and see if they come back and the carrots we harvested and put some more seeds in their boxes. If they continue, we'll have to put fencing up around the boxes, but I'm not sure if they would just fly over it.

Missed opportunities exist, especially during the first year of any business. We recently attended a local store's "customer appreciation day" and realized that we could have set up a booth. We could have sold all our poultry products and pork products. It was not all in vain though, we met a few people that we can barter with for raw milk and beef, and that makes us very happy. It does not wash out the fact we could have sold over a thousand dollars worth of product, but it does make a dent in our hurt. Our decision? Next year! It also makes me alot more alert in looking for such things in the future.

We have started participating in rogersville's farmers market, and have barely broke even every time we go, but have handed out multitudes of business cards. I told Erick- if we can establish a base of customers that are looking for pork and poultry, the farmer's markets will just be icing.

The only downside to our poultry base though: Just when our business is starting to pick up, I don't think I ordered enough birds.