The Wild Felid Advocacy Center of Washington is home to 27 wild cats- serval, bobcat, Canadian lynx, jungle cat, jaguarundi, Gordon’s Cat and high percentage jungle cat hybrid. Their mission is providing homes for displaced wild felines, conservation of all wild felines in their natural environments and education relating to all species of wild cats- from the majestic Tiger to the tiny Sand Cat and all those in between. One of our CSA members volunteers there and she has hooked us up with some sweet (stinky) wild cat droppings that we can use to scare the deer away from our peas and beans at the Littlerock Field. She will also take our chicken guts when the time comes and feed them to the hungry cats. What an amazing partnership.

We have a nine foot tall fence around our home field to keep the deer out, but our rented field on Littlerock Road has no fence. There is a family of deer that has a well established path of travel from one the east end of our field across to the west, and sometimes they make a detour to nibble every plant in the line of beans or peas. They seem to enjoy lettuce also, but not endive. They spit the endive back out.
Our general philosophy is to share with the deer, the aphids, the worms, the neighbors…. You know it’s just the right thing to do. And generally, no one takes more than a few bites here and there. However, on occasion, those deer get too hungry, and too specific in their tastes, like when they start to eat the whole row of three inch tall bean plants all the way to nubs. That’s when we go for the bobcat scat. Or the electric fence. Or the ask the neighbor to stay up all night and chase them away. We have very sweet and supportive neighbors at all of our fields.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that our farm is made up of three separate fields totaling 14 acres of row crops. Two and half acres are here at our house, and the others are across the street from each other on Littlerock Road near Black Hills High School. It’s a bit of a juggle to get the plants and water and seeds and people and tools all back and forth, and to that end, we aspire to have two of everything and stock each field with it’s needs. Not people, we need even more than two of those. We have ten fabulous employees this year to help us manage all this work. It is such a pleasure to work surrounded by such wonderful people who appreciate the joys of working outside.

In addition to bobcat scat and fences, we use floating row cover (agricultural fabric barrier) to protect some of our plants, such as today’s Italian Kale. We cover most brassica family crops at least for the first few weeks of life to keep pests from laying eggs near them, eggs that hatch out into millions of hungry worms and caterpillar type things. But today was a great day of unveiling the Italian Kale, it looks so pretty and strong. Now it can grow without cover into a knee high kale hedge that we will pick leaves from all summer long. Some kind of underground animal has been sucking them under here and there, but in those places the plants are just gone, so that the ones still there (most of them) look great. I think it is a Vole that is hungry for Kale, and it ate up a great amount of our garlic as well. If only we understood one another better, I think we might make fine dinner companions, as I, too like to eat garlic and kale. So far the Vole has caused us more concern than the deer, but fear not, we have enough for everyone’s CSA share, and even the greedy Vole.Chicken News

Thank you for all of your support and interest in our latest crop, chickens!!
Our first harvest date will be June 30, the second date will be Sept. 29. So far I have the number of chickens reserved for the June date for everyone who requested them, and there are 25 more available. The cost will be five dollars per pound. I expect the chickens to weigh between three and five pounds each. They are looking so plump and healthy and beautiful now, with three more weeks to grow. I will be calling or emailing to remind you of your requests closer to the date. Pencil it in your calendars and plan to visit the farm after 6PM to pick up your chickens on that day.

There are 125 chickens available for the September date.