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TBF 001 :: Farm Updates, Heritage Breeds, and Hard Lessons Learned

The Very First Episode of The Beginning Farmer Show!

This is something that I have wanted to do for over a year now, but never had the guts to go out and accomplish it. I thought about it … planned for it … gathered the equipment to do it … and finally just as I did with farming … I had to just get out there and do it! With all of that being said, I’m not completely pleased with this very first episode and realize that I need to work on my audio quality, iTunes integration, feeds, and so much more. I am glad to have at least one episode out there though …

On this very first episode of The Beginning Farmer Show I share a quick update on how the farm (and myself) has handled the winter so far. It has been a winter that hasn’t gone exactly as planned and I’m sure I’ll be playing catch up because of that this spring. After the quick Crooked Gap Farm update I dive right into a discussion of Heritage Breed Livestock and why I believe they work for my farm, but how they may not be exactly right for your farm … that is a decision that you will have to make.

The Beginning Farmer ShowFinally, there are many lessons that I have learned since we began the farm almost five years ago and I want to share some of those lessons with everyone in hopes that they don’t make the same mistakes. This weeks “Hard Lesson Learned” actually goes hand in hand with my main topic of Heritage Breed Livestock as I talk about some of the mistakes I made in purchasing some of the initial stock for the farm.

If you are interested in learning more about Rare or Heritage Breed Livestock please check out The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links …

I would love to have you interact with the The Beginning Farmer Show. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions, questions, ideas, or even podcasting tips! You can also always reach The Beginning Farmer through e-mail.

P.S. If you know about podcasting, Feedburner feeds, and all of that good stuff I would love to hear from someone about why two posts that contain links to .pdf’s are showing up in my subscription to the show. It is very frustrating to me!

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{ 6 comments… add one }
  • Mary Ann March 13, 2013, 2:51 pm

    Ethan, I’ve been featuring you on our blog, http://www.calamityacres.blogspot.com for several weeks now. We are just “hobby farmers” here in Kansas, but I find your blog so interesting because you acknowledge that not only are you learning, you make mistakes sometimes, too! I’ve listened to about half the podcast and will listen to the rest of it today… it’s good… have you read Tim Young’s book “Accidental Farmers”?

  • Mary Ann March 13, 2013, 4:44 pm

    Okay, working on my blog this morning, and noticed that for some reason, this latest post moved you clear down to the bottom of my “favorites” list… instead of to the top, as it should have. In fact, it shows that you posted this “2 months ago”! Go and see… http://www.calamityacres.blogspot.com. I’m actually going to call people’s attention to it today.

  • Ethan Book March 14, 2013, 3:21 am

    Mary Ann … thanks so much for sharing my blog! As far as the movement of the favorites and stuff it is probably because I posted an earlier podcast and dated it 1/1/13 … which would cause that. I’m still trying to figure it all out!

    And yes I did read “The Accidental Farmers” … in fact I did a chapter by chapter review … this link may get you to those posts:

    http://thebeginningfarmer.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Accidental%20Farmers

  • Farmer Paul March 14, 2013, 2:31 pm

    Ethan, I tried to play the audio and nothing happens. It might be technology-challenged me. I’ll keep fiddling until I figure it out.

    Enjoy reading your story, keep it up!

  • Rich March 14, 2013, 8:28 pm

    Since you mentioned Salatin’s book, when you look at some of the other books you reviewed in the past, has your opinion of some of the advice given in those books changed?

    Or, is there stuff that you didn’t try in the beginning, but might actually try now?

  • Jeremy Elwell March 21, 2013, 8:50 pm

    Ethan, I have been followimg your blog over the passed year(really just playing catch up to your older posts over the past several years) and have enjoyed it all so far. I like seeing the whole picture from start to present date. Great job on the podcast, I like it. As someone else mentioned, hearing about failures and mistakes is important. Salatin has a tendency to make it sound so simple.
    Thanks for the time you have put into this.
    Jeremy

    BTW, Are y’all fully supported off the farm or do you or your wife still hold regular jobs?

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