Month: June 2023

Chickens, Chickens, Chickens
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Chickens, Chickens, Chickens

Henny Penny standing guard- and looking for treats.

Over the years the farm has seen many phases of chickens. From Grandpa David’s first business venture selling eggs as a young child, to processing them for meat as a job working for chicken Murray down the road. To Grandpa Normans little prized flock of banties that provided eggs and the occasional rooster stew. To the mean silkie rooster who lived with a brood of hens in the big barn during my childhood causing my trips from my parents house to my grandparents house across the dooryard to be a dangerous trek usually accompanied by a broom, just in case. To the chickens my mom got right before we moved back in 2021 when she started selling eggs. To our first flock as a family starting with Chicky, a banty hatched here on the farm, and some banty brothers and sisters from the store to keep him company. To 2022, the year of the meat birds! From way too early in the year to way too late in the year mom worked moving meat chicks from here to there, and finally chicken tractors from here to there. Now this has been the year of laying hens, indoor brooders, greenhouse brooders, chicken tractor hen houses, expanding, and growing, and learning.

Over the winter our small flock of chickens weren’t producing enough eggs to support eating them daily, as well as baking with them, so we mistakenly bought an organic dozen from the grocery store. My husband was shocked at the difference and bewildered at how he went his whole life eating such sub par eggs. From taste, to color, to viscosity even the store bought eggs were lacking up and down. There are plenty of blogs explaining the benefits of eating farm fresh food to include vegetables, eggs, meat, and dairy products, so I won’t belabor that point. What I will emphasize is how much it means to the families you support when you are supporting your health with the healthier choice.

Compost pile scavenger hunt, fresh fruits and veggies come each week on donation along with free ranging and foraging. The fence is a predator deterrent not for keeping the chickens in.

Not only do I recommend finding a local source for your farm fresh food,but beyond that, I recommend starting your own chicken flock. It can be very simple, cost efficient, and low maintenance, with a high value reward. The eggs are a byproduct of the labor of caring for another creature who provides for you. It is a simplistic way to add to the ecosystem of folks cutting out to get back to our human roots of sustaining and providing for ourselves, with littler reliance on big box stores or commercially raised goods. While supporting your local farm is a wonderful compliment, and life choice ultimately, we rejoice at seeing people with the grit and willingness to take a step toward connecting with God’s green earth again with self-sufficiency.

Undoubtedly you will enjoy the eggs, but you will also enjoy the chickens. If you spend much time at all staring out your window at your free ranging flock, or hanging out around your coop, you will learn each chicken is a special creature and has a personality. We have the joy of having names for a lot of our girls and boys and that quite adds to the fun of it. Henny Penny pictured above will most often be seen begging on the back doorstep, or otherwise leading a charge of scavenging hens beyond the limits of our yard. Pickle is a tiny banty rooster who has legs that are far too short and it is hilarious to watch him run. You’ll learn who the bullies are, who the best layers are, who the curious ones are, and sometimes you’ll even get one who is friendly and doesn’t mind being held. Part of the passion for farming is sometimes curated through noticing such things and finding joy and solace in them; of course, that can be applied in many other ways in our lives and should ought to be done much more frequently. Thank you for reading this, come back next week for more 🙂

Be Blessed,

Lorin

White’s Farm on the Hill
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White’s Farm on the Hill

Norman White chasing cows through the field with his grocery getter!

Hello all,

My name is Lorin, I am Kara’s daughter, part of the fourth generation of White’s farm on this hill raising the fifth with my husband Benton. I will be doing a weekly blog to give update and insight into what farm life is like here on this farm. There are farms all over this country doing things like this farm is doing. While I am sure there is some similarities in daily chores and motivations, each one has a unique blueprint dictated by the farmers, the land and the animals they are stewarding, and the customers they serve. So, this will be a journal of our blueprint, our motivations, and our family story.

I suppose we could start anywhere but might as well start with the start of it all. A story of Stormin’ Norman in his station wagon. Anyone who has been to the farm has probably noticed this old car tangled up in a patch of sumac nearly hidden by grass as tall as it during the summer months. It is a bucket of rust, could be hauled to the junk yard, but lives on in its old spot where nothing else much would be. It serves as a reminder, for me daily, of the old man in his old car who chased cows, hay, and was chased by a line of cars every time he left this hill on the way to Hannaford.

About the only time he was stormin’ toward the end of his time here on earth was when he was on the tail end of a cow chase. I have a lot of great memories from inside that car, driving through the hayfields on grandpa’s lap, moving calves, playing with his bag phone, watching people work from the passenger seat. The car went from what he drove to get him to the tractor to what he drove to watch the tractors work as he no longer could. It is so peculiar when someone like that leaves the world, someone who maybe unknowingly started a legacy farm, the hole they leave behind but also the wholeness left behind.

A lot of families end up all over the country with nothing truly tying them together, and while this family isn’t without that entirely, the scattered pieces do carry with them memories and character that was built on this piece of rock. Through hard work, through tough love, through relationships, through the good and the bad, growing up in a place like this makes you who you are. None of it would be possible or have come to be without the determination of one man and his loving wife and those that came after him. It’s hard to know the exact desires of Grandpa Normans heart when he chose farming above all else in this world. One thing I can say is that the journey has not been without tumultuous times for family and wealth, not without sacrifice, and not without passion and love.

As we go on in gratefulness and gratitude, we attempt to fill the shoes of those that have come before us in the ways we can with our own shoes on, and with our own heart desires. This world looks a lot different now than it did when Grandpa Norman started out here so considering that changing landscape brings on new motivations and new ways of doing things. The same passion and love exists because without it there would be no reason to go on doing this. Farmers have to be among the most passionate people on earth and I am so grateful to come from a long line of them.

Stay with me as each week I share more of the current farm through photos and broken up journaling, in between wife-ing, mothering, daughtering, grand daughtering, and caring for our small brood of animals. Thanks for reading this, and thanks for investing a piece of your lives in the support of this family farm operation working to bring you high quality, clean food for you and your animals.

Be Blessed,

Lorin