Crazy to think we are halfway through the year! It has been a nice busy month but not quite as crazy as it was in early spring when everything starts at once. Here is a little bit of what we’ve been up to.

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The sheep are continuing to grow and enjoy the green grass on pasture.

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And as the sheep have been grazing, we also have been doing a bit of hay-making, gathering some feed for winter.

This month we also butchered our first out of 3 batches of broilers for this year. We still have a few available. You can order yours here.​

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“Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”

Madam C. J. Walker

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

I’ve really been enjoying an early spring this year, which has been very nice. Although the weather has cooled down, the grass is still growing like crazy.

The sheep (and myself) are getting antsy to get out in the pasture. They got a little taste of the green grass this week as a test, but I’m excited to have them out on pasture full time on the fresh grass, where they can start harvesting their own feed and we can start rotational grazing, which helps the land and grass to rest and recover in between grazing times, and also helps the sheep to be healthier and happier.

Earlier this month we wrapped up the mower project. Since then, we have been focusing on preparations for the summer, which includes getting ready for the broilers that will be coming later this month and making sure that the chicken tractor and other supplies are all ready to go after sitting all winter.

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“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”

Stendhal

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

(Click ​here​ to watch a video version of this update)

We are only 15 days away from spring, although we’ve been enjoying plenty of spring like weather for the last couple of weeks.

Late January we purchased 3 lambs. 1 ram and 2 ewes for our starter flock. So this month has been spent watching them and making sure they settled in nicely. They have been doing great and are acclimating very nicely.

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We’ve also been spending quite a bit of time in the shop doing maintenance on various machines. We have also been working on getting my grandpa’s old mower up and running smoothly and updating it to modern safety standards.

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“Some call it the middle of nowhere; we call it the center of everything.”

Author Unknown.

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

This last month was fairly slow, but things are starting to pick up as we start getting ready for summer. (Yes, I’m getting ready for summer in January)

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A lot of January was spent working on final preparations and scheduling for this year’s production. We finished getting all the feed that we will be using for the sheep this winter, and we also got all of the feed that the meat chickens will be eating this next summer.

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I’m so excited to announce that after just over 2 years of working, planning, and researching, we finally have some sheep on farm! These lambs were born last fall and were weaned just a few weeks ago. We still have a long road ahead of us before any of the sheep will be available to sell, but we are very excited to have this very crucial part of our farm growth journey underway.

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“A meadow without sheep is just a field of unfulfilled dreams”

author unknown

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

We have wrapped up another year. We had lots of growth, and we finished a lot of projects that we were wanting to work on. And now as a review…

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This year we raised 30 broilers. And thanks to God’s amazing blessing, the rains were timed to come at just the right time so that the pasture was ready for them, even in the midst of a drought.

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We also did lots of work on preparing our property for sheep! Including spending a month on a sheep farm helping them with lambing!

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As usual, we also helped a few farmers with corn harvest this fall.

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I’m looking forward to another amazing year!

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“Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.”

Laura Ingalls wilder

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

Well, it’s been awhile. I’ve been busy helping some farmers with harvest.

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We kicked off harvest in Iowa, working there for two weeks in mid October.

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I got back home late October and finished off the harvest season with a farm here in Wisconsin.

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“May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness, an abundance of grain and new wine.”

Genesis 27:28

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

The weather is cooling down and reminding us to enjoy these last few weeks of summer!

This was a fun month. I did some work on the sheep yard, made some more hay, and am looking forward to getting the chickens off pasture.

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I worked on welding up some rebar to our gates to help keep lambs from escaping from the sheep yard when they are little. This was an idea I got from some friends this spring when I was helping with lambing.

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We were able to get a second cutting of hay off some of our pastures and also did a first cutting off another 2 acres just down the road from us.

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The broilers are doing very well! They will be butchered tomorrow morning.

I was able to take another trip down to Iowa to visit the sheep farmer that I helped with lambing this spring and see some of their operation during the summer, which was really fun!

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A good laugh is like manure to a farmer. It doesn’t do any good until you spread it around.

Michael Pritchard

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

It is hard to believe that we have just one month of summer left.

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This year has been quite dry here in Wisconsin, like a lot of the Midwest. We had decent rains until late May when it just shut off. Other than a few showers here and there, we got hardly any rain for all of June and a lot of July. The pastures have been quite stunted and were growing hardly at all. But thankfully, a few weeks ago we got about 2.25 inches of rain.

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Before rain

After

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The rain came at a perfect time. It gave the grass a few days to green up before we moved the broilers out to pasture.

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“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

George Bernard Shaw

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I’m excited to also announce that we are now on Facebook!

Like and follow us there for more frequent updates!

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

Hope you all are having a fantastic 4th of July weekend! This summer has been great here so far. We even got some much-needed rain last weekend.

We were able to finish all the paneling on the sheep fence this month and finish all of the electric.

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And I’m very excited to have the baby chicks finally arrive on farm, middle of last week!

They will stay in the brooder until they are old enough to go out on pasture in about 3 weeks.

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This month I did an experiment on our extra pasture that turned out really great!

I made my first crop of hay…

using my grandpa’s old rake that he converted from the original horse pulled style to be able to be pulled by a tractor.

We got about 20 small square bales off of about 2 acres of pasture. We use hay for bedding for my parents’ layers, and I’d like to switch over to using it for my broiler chicks as well when they are in the brooder.

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“When my time as a farmer is over, I want to be able to say… that I was a good steward.”

Laura Rutherford

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Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture

May began the summer rush of fun!

I spent a good portion of May working with some farmers from the area with their spring planting.

When that finished up, I got started working on my fence for the sheep yard. This week I got about a third of the woven wire up since planting finished up.

Last summer, as an experiment and to try and save on some start-up costs, I cut down locust trees and used them for my fence posts. Surprisingly, they are starting to sprout branches.

“…a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.”

Wendell Berry

Judah,

for Cadwell Agriculture