Geek.Farm.Life

Comment by Scott Grayban

April 3, 2006 @ 5:40 am

Hey I like the sound effects !! Maybe others don’t understand but I lived on a farm for years and I miss it all.

LOL don’t feel bad I have thrown my wallet away when I had knapkins in the same hand that needed to get thrown away. Unlike you, I didn’t realize it until a few hours later when I got home. That sucked.

Good podcast as always :)

Cheers,
Scott

Comment by andrew

April 3, 2006 @ 6:46 am

Thanks Scott! Ouch, tossing your wallet!

I like doing the podcast from the barn as well. Even though the microphone amps in the iRiver are a little noisy it’s something pretty unique. I have never found any other podcasts about farming, much less a podcast done from inside a working barn.

Just in case someone thinks they are mixed in after the fact, they aren’t! I have pictures of where we sit that I’m working on getting online now.

Comment by Ellen

April 3, 2006 @ 11:05 pm

But remember….

The further south you get the more it sounds like Kentucky You should hang out with -my- relatives from down in Bedford.

Anywhooo….

You guys must not be too awful far from where my husband grew up, Rome City. I’m originally from Indy. Now that we are stuck in Chicagoland I keep finding myself waiting until we are back at his house so I can stock up on groceries.

Glad to hear how nice the corridale turned out. I’m working on the seemingly endless 8 lbs of shetland

Comment by etherdog

April 4, 2006 @ 9:12 am

Love the show! I think that addressing the whole panoply of farm life, the unfortunate occurrances along with the joyous ones, is important. The notes on ducks in the garden was really good, on how they clean it up and fertilize. The explanation on the tail issue with the lambs was good, too, that infection is likely unless the “docking” (I forget the correct term). How are the dog and cats with the farm animals? How difficult do you find managing the farm, especially with the jobs?

Thanks for your work!

Comment by misty

April 4, 2006 @ 3:03 pm

Thanks for the feedback, guys and gals!

Ellen, I spun up a bobbin of the Corriedale and it’s just so nice. It’s not as white as the last batch, but that’s my fault for letting it sit around for way too long. I don’t mind it either — it will make a nice vanilla color on its own, and will overdye just fine I’m sure.

Etherdog, thanks for the feedback! The geese are awesome in the garden. I’m glad the banding of the sheep’s tails didn’t gross you out. In my view it’s just like vaccinating children, but I guess some people are even against that now. They won’t be when their kids catch a third-world disease though. Ugh, don’t even get me started!

The indoor cats don’t go outside, so they don’t interact at all with the barn animals. The dog loves all animals though. She gets so excited when a new animal is born or comes to live at the farm. She immediately wants to be best friends. Some of the animals are not quite as pleased with her, but mostly everyone gets along. When we had the pigs, she never got tired of trying to steal their grain, sniffing them, and just watching them. She spends hours inside watching my three cavies (guinea pigs) too. We joke that they are her pets.

Working and farming is a great topic for a later podcast. Thanks for the idea!

Comment by Karen

April 4, 2006 @ 10:06 pm

Andrew, I’m with you, it’s called bbq’ing, although after having lived in the US for 5 years, I have taken to calling it grilling too.

Loved the geese info, I didn’t know any of those facts you stated. We have a pond at the end of our street filled with ducks and geese from Spring to Fall. Our son loves to go feed and chase them. Perhaps I’ll have him lay off the chasing, haha.

Glad to hear your Dad is doing well Andrew. Your Dad sounds stubborn so he should recover just fine.

Congrats to both of you on your marathon running. I’d be proud too.

Comment by andrew

April 5, 2006 @ 7:02 pm

Hey Karen, Etherdog, Ellen.

Marathon? Haahahah, no, no just a 5k. A marathon is 24k or some such. I agree it’ll always be BBQing, I just don’t want to fight with Misty every time we talk about it. ;)

I looked up Rome City Indiana, Ellen and we’re about 60 miles away. At first I put in Rome Indiana and that’s down by Louisville, but Rome City is really close. I’ve driven past it several times on US-6, but never through it. Heh, too bad about living in Chicagoland.

Thanks Etherdog!!! My goal is to explain some of the things we do and why. Like disbudding (which I haven’t), docking tails, castrating, etc. We were, and most people are so removed from food production they don’t understand why things are done and the effect on the animals. Sometimes it’s just for our safety, and sometimes it’s for the animals health. Hopefully we don’t scare to many people away in the process.

Comment by Kate

May 7, 2006 @ 11:24 am

Hey, only just listened to this episode and I was listening to your part about Daylight Savings - a subject close to my heart. I grew up in a farming area (in Australia) and my state actually ended up giving up daylight savings because of the problems the farmers were having. My partner is from a southern state that still uses daylight savings, and I do cop a bit of flak for it - but it makes sense to me, because of where I grew up, so I hope everything goes well with getting off work to keep things on schedule!

Comment by Kevin

November 19, 2007 @ 8:57 pm

This episode seems to be missing from the Archive Feed. Is there an easy way to download it? It’s also not in the back episodes in iTunes.