Discover past '“What is New on the Farm” posts to follow along with our farming adventures!

October, 2024

The outdoor work on the farm may be winding down, but there is still much to do!

We are working hard getting ready for the Christmas season! We are fortunate to be able to be a part of two traditional, quality craft fairs: one at the Christian Village of Mason on Oct. 26 & the other at Historic Downtown Loveland on Dec. 7. We will also have special days on the farm where you can stop by to purchase our quality alpaca items, dog toys, fall honey & more! Make sure to check out our new Events Page for more information.
The cornfield is empty, but October is the time to plant garlic here in SW Ohio. The garlic will over-winter and be harvested in late June. This year, we purchased Northern White Garlic from Mad River Garlic Growers in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This hardneck variety of garlic produces large bulbs with a full-bodied, spicy flavor. It is a good all-purpose variety that we are sure will become a favorite!
Kevin, our resident certified beekeeper, has been very busy harvesting the fall honey. This honey is darker and boasts a more complex, clover-heavy flavor. It contains beneficial pollen from plants such as Golden Rod & Aster. The fall honey is my personal favorite, and we are sure you will enjoy it too. This year, we will also be offering 2 oz. honey bear bottles, perfect for stocking stuffing!

Make sure to check back as more exciting things are coming to the Happy farm! You can check out all the items we have for sale by visiting our Products Page. And make sure to follow us on Facebook.

Remember—Life is short…live happy!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————August, 2024

What a busy time at the Happy Farm!

We are gearing up for two big events for our farm. The first is our annual Corn Day, where we offer our delicious Silver Queen sweet corn for sale. We are not taking pre-orders this year, so make sure to stop by from 8-4 on Saturday, August 17. We expect to sell out, so watch the banner on the website to make sure we have some available before you head out. We will also have our delicious honey and honey sticks for sale.
The second event is the End of the Summer Craft Fair in Blanchester, OH. We are excited to be participating in the amazing day of food, music and quality products for sale from local crafters. To coincide with this event, we are launching our line of hand-spun & hand-knitted alpaca products! We are offering neck cozies, ear warmers & baby booties in a variety of colors. Check out our items on our Products page. To learn the process of hand-spinning yarn, visit the new Art of Fiber page on our website. We also have a new alpaca page that contains information about these unique animals.
We are excited to announce that our farm is now a Certified Queen Rearing Apiary. Our resident beekeeper, Kevin Moore, has earned the Queen Rearing Certification and we will be selling nucs, queens, and other beekeeping items in the near future. We are looking forward to this next step in our farm adventure! To learn more about what is involved in sustainable beekeeping, check out Kevin’s blog on our Beekeeper’s Corner page.

Remember—Life is short…live happy!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

July, 2024

Welcome to Summer!

It may be the “dog days of summer,” but there are no lazy summer days on the Happy Farm! The higher heat and humidity of Southwest Ohio means we are working overtime time to keep the crops & the livestock well hydrated. And while it is a very busy time, it is so great to see everything from the baby chickens to the garden growing strong!

Buckets of honey! We had an amazing spring harvest this year! After removing 21 frames of honey in early June to provide some relief to over-filled hives, we harvested another 69 frames at the end of the month. This brings the total amount of combined harvest to 350 pounds! The flavor is very light and sweet, which is typical of spring honey; however, this season also boasts a more layered flavor with notes of clover and other local flowers. We will be busy in the next few weeks bottling, labeling & marketing the honey to our farm friends. While we have a lot right now, it will go fast! Make sure to order some today!
The sweet corn is growing and the garden is bursting! Despite the dry last few weeks, we are excited about what we have growing in the fields. Our famous Silver Queen harvest is on track to be one of our best years yet. Look for our Corn Days weekend in mid-to-late August, where we will have our fresh, hand-picked corn for sale, as well as all our produce and hand-made products!
The animals are working to stay cool. Through the extreme heat, the livestock all have their own ways to stay cool. While afternoon naps in the barn during the hottest part of the day is the primary way to avoid heat, our alpacas like to go for a dip in their pool and roll around in the dirt to cool off. The chickens will dig a small divot in the dirt to make a cool bed, and will slightly keep their wings out from their body to allow for the air to cool their skin. The bees will hang out in front of the hive and provide air circulation inside by flapping their wings rapidly at the entrance. Of course we are on the “bucket brigade” full-time, making sure everyone has access to clean water.

Remember—Life is short…live happy!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May, 2024

Spring is here and there is much activity on the farm. From the relative quiet of winter, we have jumped head-first into the busy-ness of the farming season. As the days get longer, so does our work day! It’s as if nature gave us the shorter days of winter to rest and now we have longer days of spring to take care of all the things we need to do. Here are just a few things happening on the farm:

It is swarm season on the Happy Farm! The warmer temperatures and the longer days have triggered a few of our hives to swarm. Many beekeepers work hard to keep their girls from swarming, but Kevin has become proficient at catching swarms and he uses this opportunity as a natural split to increase the size of our apiary. When the worker bees sense that the hive is going to be over-crowded as new brood begins to emerge, they will create several queen cells in order to raise up a new queen. Then, as many as 10,000 bees will take the current queen and leave to find a new home. Fortunately, the swarms we have had ended up in easily accessed places and we have been able to catch them and put them in new hive boxes. If the bees accept their new home, they will build it out and we just got free bees! Make sure to follow our Beekeeper’s Corner page to learn what is involved in sustainably keeping honey bees.
Our chickens have begun to lay more eggs. The longer days also affect our hens, and the egg production has begun to increase from the natural slow-down we experience during the winter. They all have their favorite places, and sometimes 2 or 3 chickens will squeeze into the same spot to lay their eggs! It will still be several months before our new chickens will start to lay. The babies have gotten big enough to move to the coop, but still need to stay fairly warm until they are fully feathered out. It will still be several weeks before we move them to the barn, and then another few weeks until we introduce them to the rest of the flock. You can follow their journey from tiny puff balls to laying hens on our Baby Chicken Photo Journey page.
The alpacas are at their fluffiest, and shearing day is just around the corner. With the warmer temperatures upon us, the boys always feel better once their heavy fleece is harvested. Alpaca fleece is 7x warmer than sheep’s wool, and overheating is a possibility as we inch closer to summer. We will skirt the fleece, removing the vegetable matter & debris, and then take the best quality part, called the blanket, to the mill along with other blankets that we purchased from local farmers. At the mill, they will get washed and carded and then returned for us to dye, spin, and knit into scarves & headbands to sell. From animal to scarf, the whole process takes about 6 months! We always have fleece in several stages (raw, skirted, carded, dyed & spun), and work with them year-round. It is very time-consuming, especially for a small farm such as ours. But we are dedicated to bringing high-quality products to our farm friends!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

April, 2024

Things have been very busy at the Happy Farm, as the weather gives us occasional glimpses of warmth and we inch ever-so-slightly toward spring.

We are excited to offer our hand-crafted lip balm, made with beeswax sustainably harvested from our hives. We use healthy oils such as avocado, coconut & sweet almond and add just a hint of tropical flavoring. These protective oils help to nourish your lips and the beeswax offers a bit of protection from the elements.
The bees have been busy bringing pollen into the hive! Some trees such as maple & alder are producing pollen, and the bees take advantage of any warm day to fly out and collect as much as they can. It won’t be long until we start seeing more of these pollen flights as the warmer temps start to be more consistent. Learn more about what is going on in our apiary at our Beekeeper’s Corner blog.
We picked up our roving from the fiber mill, and have been vary busy spinning it into yarn. It takes around 14 hours to spin, set, dry and wind 8 ounces of plied yarn into a center pull ball. While it is a time consuming process, it is also very meditative and relaxing. It is a wonderful feeling to be participating in a craft that has an unbroken lineage of thousands of years! We have been chronicling the entire process, and will share each step from animal to finished product soon.

February, 2024

Winter is a time of rest for nature, but there has been no rest for the farmers! The Happy Farm has been very busy creating new farm products for our friends, and getting ready for the new season.

New chickens have been ordered to add to our flock. This year we purchased Golden Comets, one of our favorites. A prolific layer and a gentle breed, these girls will be a welcome addition to our farm.
Seeds have been ordered for this year’s crop. Perennial favorites such as zucchini, green beans, Roma & cherry tomatoes will be back, as well as our famous Silver Queen Sweet Corn! Plus a few surprises!
We will be picking up our first batch of fleece from the fiber mill soon, and we have been busy skirting more fleece to take down. We are excited about the amazing hand-knitted items we will have available for sale soon!