Today is an exciting day! I have lots of before & after photos to show you from the Four Sisters Farm.

Before we get started with that, will you give me just one or two moments to be sentimental?

All my life I wanted to grow up and have a beautiful farm with my husband. I envisioned us working side by side and making decisions together as a team. I hoped that we would raise cattle together and strive to care for our land and cattle better and better each year. Our different strengths and weaknesses would compliment each other. Together we would build something beautiful, clean, and functional.

However, I didn’t expect to marry a row crop farmer who was already in a full-time partnership with his father. I didn’t realize my love of writing and journaling would grow into a creative business involving writing website content, managing social media for local businesses, blogging, and writing books. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to buy our own farm in Kingsbury County.

In conclusion, my 10-year-old dream looks much different than I pictured. I’m still adjusting to that.

However, at the Four Sisters Farm, that dream plays out as closely as possible.

I just had to get that off my chest. Because, you can’t really understand why I am so excited about a hog shed if you don’t understand the background.

The following four projects were discussed this winter, started this spring, and coming into fruition now. All four projects were funded by the profits we made on the Red Angus heifers you read about last fall.

If you are a regular reader of Farmin’ Friday – you’ve seen all of this play out and I’m thankful that you’ve made this journey with us!

Planting 9-Acres to Grass

The new seeing of grass is very tender. We planted it this spring. It has come a long way in the last month. In June, the seeding wasn’t looking very strong and we were wondering if we made a big mistake.

There was too much competition from weeds to allow the new grasses to get started, so John sprayed the weeds from his four-wheeler. You can see the dark reddish coloring in the above photo, those are the places where weeds died.

Fixing the Hog Shed 

The construction crew was here this week, and in just two days they transformed the little, old falling down hog shed.

We still need to clean up around the outside of the barn, clean out the inside and hopefully remove the purpose-less grain bin. I’m not sure when these project will become priorities – we are in the heart of hay season for the Blachford Farms cows and John is very busy.

From here forward, we are renaming this shed. It is no longer “the chicken house” or “the old hog house to the west of the barn.” This is now the gardening or fencing shed. Elaine’s gardening supplies will be stored on the left & our fencing supplies will be stored on the right.

Strawberry Patch

Third project update! Our Mother’s Day Gift strawberry patch. Before, a rotted shed sat here. Now, we have a small strawberry patch. This year, we added a few other veggies since the strawberry plants are not very big yet.

20 Bred Cows

I had hoped to use the Four Sisters Farm to feed out some of my mother’s Charolais cross feeder cattle this fall. Or, to purchase some Charolais cross cattle from a South Dakota ranch. However, feeder cattle prices are so tremendously high right now, that I just couldn’t make things pencil out. We will try again someday.

In the meantime, we purchased 20 bred cows to calve out in July and August. After they have calved, we will sell them. I’m hoping this project will fund my Phase II plans for the Four Sisters Farm. Those include ripping out some old fences and installing the continuous fencing panels you saw laying in front of the hog shed.

This is “Sandy”. She is the lone Charolais-Cross cow in the group, so naturally she needed a formal name besides #123.

So far, six of the 20 cows have had their babies.

Thanks for reading today! Sometimes, on a farm and in life, everything gets so busy that you feel like you aren’t getting anything done. This post is our proof that we accomplished a few exciting projects this year.