Ok – New Year, new reset, new commitment.
Hello again!
We bought a ranch, again, now what?
Seriously. We bought more land and expanded our footprint to grow our operations. Soooo… Wow! It’s been a little over a year since we started down this path and we have learned a lot!!! I just saw a quote today that rings true and hits home.
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries
James Michener
Ain’t it true.
I’m proud to say Mother Luck Ranch has grit. That or we are too stubborn for our own good. Either way, we love it! We have had a myriad of changes befall Mother Luck Ranch over the last 15 months. All good changes, even if not apparent at the time, but educational at the least and have provided us with solid teaching moments if you will.
I don’t ever consider any of them bad, in the sense, as ultimately they will only help us grow. Some unfortunate, but the land is not forgiving sometimes and it’s a reminder we are never in full control of Mother Nature, no matter how inclined we may believe ourselves to be. Now, the greatest change since last we chatted? A new addition to the family, Evey Soleil Martin, born right here on the ranch!
Other changes – 5 new head of cattle, a lot more fowl (turkeys, more guineas, more orpington layers hatched right here on the ranch and meat chickens), 2 donkeys, and more livestock joining us shortly (another heifer, goats and pigs, oh my!).
We had a historical freeze shut down the state for a minute. That led to us getting a wood burning stove for inside the lodge, which is amazing by the way. We got a tractor, cutter, rake and bailer! We’re starting a boutique orchard but lost all but two of our peach trees to the chickens and the freeze.
We’ve had a ton of rain and discovered we have leaks in the roof above the girls’ room. We have attempted to fix the roof but just realized we are not professional roofers.
Just as much as we love our living creatures, we also discovered we have other friends in nature who love them too. Hawks, racoons, skunks, snakes and weather. Perhaps taking them a little earlier than we are ready for to dispatch them ourselves.
Oh, and I started a new job. I believe that’s the bulk of what’s been going on around here. Needless to say, as I heard Rebekah Rhodes say just the other day “The days are long and the years are short.”
Ain’t that the truth. Again… Amazing how words of wisdom just seem to ring so true after you have had an opportunity to be baptized by experience yourself.
So what’s next?
Good news is, we made progress on the infrastructure we need to move forward as this previous year was spent building out the ranch. Fortunately, we were blessed to have a great head start with the existing infrastructure so there’s that too. Now, we can focus on planning and doing what we wanted to do this past year. Market garden, meat chicken processing and sales, Christmas trees and other adventures.
If there is one thing I can say I learned it’s this; we all dream we can do everything in a minute, but all we got is 15 seconds, so plan for that first.
I look forward to continuing this story, I’ll be the best raconteur I can be for you. We’ll go back to last year more in depth and I’ll walk you through our struggles and success as we embrace the journey into this next year.
Happy New Year and may luck favor the prepared.
Neil
