Plans for next year:
1. I'm planning to offer home delivery of produce and eggs.
2. We plan to continue to going to farmer's markets.
3. We'd like to establish our own roadside stand.
4. I'm exploring the idea of providing a welcome service for this area.
We'd like to produce pastured turkeys, chickens and rabbits for meat sales, but we haven't quite figured out the logistics of pasture areas and butchering yet. We hope to do a little of this for ourselves this year just to get a feel for it. Maybe next year we'll offer some for sale.
We are also very interested in breeding chickens for hatching eggs. We have to figure out how to keep them seperate in order to do this. We can't keep the chickens we have in the pasture right now. They roam the yard, the garden and the surrounding fields at will right now. Once we figure out how to contain them, maybe we can work on breeding.
1.The garage sale
Bit the dust. We have such a big demand for eggs. We had to have more room for chickens. So now the all the feed and equipment is in the garage instead of in the feed shed.
2.Pastured raised eggs
Wow! There is a huge market for these out there! Hy-Vee in Macomb wants 60 dozen a week, Ducks in Nauvoo goes through 3-7 doz a week, we can sell 15 to 20 dozen a week at farmer's markets and we have several people and offices that have expressed an interest in having eggs delivered. We've only just begun to tap the tip of this iceburg. Naturally, a great deal of our efforts are being focused here. We have ordered 125 more chicks to fill the feed shed with.
3.Sheep
Hair sheep are incredibly good mamas. It has been so cold and they are popping out babies with no problems. But the chickens are making us more money. We plan to downsize the herd to only 4 or 5 ewes and a ram.
4.Cows
Don't have any at the moment, but Grampa would really love to have a milk cow or two. We have bought bottle calves to raise and sell for several years, but we're not sure we'll be able to do that this year. Chickens are going to be top priority! Grampa says he wants to be the chicken king of Hancock county first. To be truthful, I think he probably already is. There just aren't many egg producers around here.
5.Egg noodles
We are working on our taxes. It is amazing, but we sold almost as many dollars worth of noodles as we did eggs last year. I've managed to start making some noodles for the markets this year. I could have sold more, but didn't have the time to make them.
6.Natural and recycled crafts and craft supplies
My golden goose eggs and blown eggs were a hit. Not as big a hit as the noodles, but we'll be doing this again.
7.Great Pyrenees dogs
Haven't seen Pinky for quite some time. She disappeared at the same time our mutt came home with a huge wound on his back. A couple of weeks later the cat came home with a very similar wound. We really loved this breed though. We would still like to breed these dogs, but we'll have to wait for a while.
8.Honey bees
It is amazing, but we still have one hive alive after the ice storms. Grampa had a bad reaction after being stung several times. I won't let him work the hives anymore. I'm not crazy about taking care of them myself. I'll do what needs to be done to utilize the 4 hives we have, but this won't be a big money maker for us.
9.Avon
Have just started to push this. I've made the 30% level. I'd like to get to the Unit Leader minimum and then focus on recruiting.
10.Farm crops from the 10 acres we own with our son
Fairly good year, considering the fact that the company that was supposed to spray the weeds was really late getting it done. We will be converting a couple of acres of it to sweet corn this year.
11.Garden produce
Didn't produce nearly enough! Trying to figure out how to do more this year.
12. Affiliate marketing
No income yet, but I haven't given up hope. Just got to figure this one out. Remember, you can help me out by ordering your vitamins through the ad on the right column of my blog!
13. Building low maintenance gardens
No time! Maybe someday.
Here's a picture of the latest species addition to our farm, guinea fowl. What are we going to do with them? I have no clue! They were given to us with a bunch of chickens.
God Bless You All!
~ Grama Sue
