SeeWolf Farms

When we first started discussing starting a farm we really didn't know what to raise. Neither of us were raised on a farm. My father had a back yard garden and I had one steer, Baby, and periodically we would have chickens. But it was far from a farm. My husband didn't even have that growing up - so we were really starting from scratch.  

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I wanted the farm, it is going to be our retirement income. But where to start?  We live in Florida, and I really wanted to stay in the state as I haven't retired yet and work for an organization on the space coast.

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So, first order of business was to find affordable property. Note the term affordable, not easy in a growing state but there are pockets. We found 13.5 acres outside of Lake City. This is in northern Florida about 3.5 hours from our home. Yep, quite a drive, but I had seven years to get it ready to be a working farm, or so that was the plan.

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Farm Setup

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The original owner had contracted with a logging company to clear out some of the overgrowth, this wasn't started before we bought the property, so we benefited from that work, once we closed. We had the logging company clear 20' from the property line for perimeter fencing and thin out about 50% of the water oaks. In hindsight we should of had them clear more of the land, but oh well, lesson learned. During this adventure we have A LOT of lessons learned.

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Fencing

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Once the loggers were complete it was time for fencing. We are not spring chickens, at this point my husband is in his early 70s and I'm in my late 50s. Yes, we are doing the fencing. Our tractor has an auger and we watched numerous YouTubes on putting up fencing. Thank god for YouTube.

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We finished the perimeter fencing over a 7 month span, working weekends and holidays. Yep, driving back and forth to get the work complete. Neighbors were watching and commenting that we should have posted the progress on YouTube, another lesson learned.

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You may be asking at this point, how did you know what fence to put up if you didn't know what you were raising? We had many discussions about that question and had narrowed the choices to No Climb or Sheep/Goat fencing.  I knew we weren't doing horses (had a bad accident off a horse and am now scared of them, but that's another story). Since we weren't doing horses, why spend the extra money on no-climb, so we went with sheep/goat. This turned out to be a good decision, as the 4"x4" squares minimizes the chances of heads getting caught in the fence.

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Once the perimeter fence was up, I was getting antsy to put animals on the property. Did I tell you I am type A - with little patience. But we weren't ready yet, per YouTube. We needed shelter, we needed at least one interior fence to separate from the main property. We created the perimeter fencing for the first interior paddock, about 2.5 acres.

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Barn

 

We then contracted with a local company to put up our pole barn with one lean to, which would be the area for the animals. The main area of the pole barn would be working space and shelter for the farm equipment and trailers. 

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We then put siding up on the lean to so the animals would be protected from the weather and created stalls. I thought the siding was going to kill us. Climbing on 2x4s and putting up 12' boards. Thank goodness for battery powered nailers!

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Animals

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Finally, its time for animals! After researching different breeds of goats and sheep; yes, we went back and forth between the two NUMEROUS times, we had to find the most appropriate and self sufficient breed to support our farm, while we lived 3.5 hours away.

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We setup redundant watering troughs, put out a self serve grain feeder and they had plenty of stuff to eat on the property. Based on our needs we chose Kikos. They are hearty, self sufficient and a great overall meat goat. 

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I can hear you all now, you mean you put animals on your property without being there?, Yes. And it worked just fine. We were gone four days a week and up for three day weekends. We had two hurricanes come through during that time, too.  Fences were secure, neighbors kept us abreast on fallen trees and general state of the property while we were gone, they are great. We didn't ask them to - but we are in a rural area and people just keep an eye out for each other!

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During this time we did make our one big paddock into 3 smaller paddocks, it allowed us to move animals, should a tree go down across a fence. The animals lived this way for about four months before we started building our home (five years ahead of schedule, remember I don't have patience). My husband moved up to supervise the construction and I came up on weekends.

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Not done yet

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We are now moved into our new home and continue to improve the property. We have more rotational grazing pastures planned, fresh produce on the horizon to sale and the herd continues to grow. No more commuting 3.5 hours on weekends.

 

Keep coming back to continue hearing the saga!​