Welcome Back to Oikos Hollow Farm! My greatest apologies. It has been over a year since I last posted. Alas, as with many of you, life has been very full. So I'll work backwards with what has been filling our time here at Oikos Hollow Farm.

FLOODS! As you may have read in the news, our area has been inundated with floods and mudslides. Read the following story for details.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20347050/

We were very forturnate in many ways. Our house did not flood and we have all our belongings. However, as you can see in these photos, we did have a few mudslides. The two largest blocked our road for two days. It took a bulldozer over six hours to finally clear it.

Another mudslide blocked both our ridgeroads that lead to the hayfields. These will be cleared sometime this coming weekend. The rising and rushing water from our creek washed out many section of fence in our pasture.

Fortunately, most of the critters stayed close to home, with just a few wandering the roads and surrounding area.
After repairing fence for about eight hours over two days, the fencing is secure again.

This past Saturday, I spent in Gays Mills volunteering with the clean up effort. Two things I witnessed made an lasting impression. First was the resilancy, energy, and high hopes of the people which live and work there. There were huge numbers of folks pitching in to help. Many were from out of state and from all over Wisconsin. That's not including all the people from organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Many thanks to all who came. The second image I have is a mountain of debris containing the destroyed, useless, items of residents' material lives. Books, clothing, appliances, furniture, toys, and the many symbols of our daily lives. Those are gone, the people are not.

NEW CRITTERS!

Pigs: As always we have many new critters this season. Our fun loving pigs are quite nicely growing in hard playing hogs. They are great garden waste consumers, eating weeds, broccoli stalks, corn stalks, and other tasty garden tidbits. We'll be sending them "down the road" sometime in October. One is for us, the other two have been sold.

Pastured Poultry: Earlier this summer I raised 75 pastured broilers. Good sized and very tasty! I have another 75 broiler that will be ready for butchering coming up in September. We usually keep about 35 and sell the rest. This past July I gave a talk on backyard pastured poultry at the Kickapoo Country Fair. I had a great time and met many interesting folks.

Pygmy Goats: The kids have their own project this year. They are raising pygmy goats. As they put it.."Its the first animal we raise on this farm that we don't eat!" They are awfully cute though. The kids are for sale (not my kids, the goat kids), and are going into their college fund.

Skittles

Rocky

Abby and baby Otis

Micky

Big Mama and Calf

Scottish Highlanders: The Highlander cows I got last year are doing well. Three of them had calves so far this year with one more expecting any day now. The calf to the left we were able to see being born. Two of the calves are bull calves. They will be banded and become steers. In two years they'll be butchered. The other calf is a heifer. I may sell her or keep her as a breeder. Below is the proud papa, Thor.

Harry and Calf

Brindle and Calf

Proud Papa Thor

Kai on Ace

Horses:This Spring Casey and Ace came to our farm. Casey is 14 years old and Ace is the elder at 22 years old. Both are geldings. Heaven Lea is our horse enthusiaist. Most days she feeds them a bit of grain, brushes them down and picks out their hooves. Haven is also very well versed in all the tack and how to put it on. We've been able to ride several times this summer but it never seems enough.

Haven and Casey

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to post more often for this fall. Lots do do.

BE WELL.