Food, Inc. to air on PBS on Wednesday, April 20th - Check it out!

If you didn't have the opportunity to see it when it was in theaters or haven't had a chance to rent it, now is your chance to the see the highly acclaimed documentary Food, Inc. for FREE on PBS this Wednesday night. 

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Read more about Food, Inc. here and check the time it's airing in your area

Our family's desire to start Cedarfield Farm came before Food, Inc. but the information in this movie further confirmed our reasons for doing so and inspired our actions. 

Even though we do not have plans in the near future to be able to produce any food here beyond our own family's needs, we would be happy to connect you with other local farmers that may have products of interest to you and your family.

Farm Update

After the unusually cold and snowy winter we had this year, we have really enjoyed the recent change of seasons to a beautiful spring so far! And it seems, just as quickly as the plants have sprung back to life, that life on the farm in general has quickened its pace. The rest and slumber of a long winter have definitely given way to many projects and other interesting farm "things."


Here's a quick list of some things we are working on now or will be working on very soon:

• One of our Nubian dairy goats gave birth week before last to three adorable kids.
• Both of our hives of honey bees perished during the bitter cold snap in December, but two new sets of bees are arrived from Georgia last week.
• We are switching from traditional, row based planting for our vegetables to using intensive, high yield methods in raised beds -- we are working feverishly to build and install ten 4' x 8' x 2' beds so that we can begin planting once we are past the last frost date that is quickly approaching.
• This year we've moved our indoor greenhouse to our office/study and have trays of seedlings beginning a journey that will hopefully culminate on our dinner plates this summer.
• Chris took a "backyard poultry" seminar two weekends ago to learn more about....yes, backyard poultry. We struggled last year with how to get started with our chickens (for both eggs and meat) and were pleased to learn about this class offered through a great organization in Goochland (centerforruralculture.org) and led by a real homesteader know to us through beekeeping circles.
• A wonderful family across the road from us is having multiple acres of land timbered and cleared next month and has offered us free use of the land for any farming things we might want to do that we cannot accommodate on our own acreage.

We hope to share more about each of these happenings (and others to come this year) here.  We are changing the format of the Web site to be that primarily of a blog through which we can share the adventures of living a new way of life with you. We hope to post more frequently and share more intimately the details of both the ups and downs of life on a modern homestead. And, the focus on Cedarfield Farm as a business operation will be secondary and only occasional. Which leads us to our next announcement...


On April 12th, Chris begins a new part-time job that will provide us with a stable source of income and health insurance coverage.  It was a tough decision to move away from doing the farm as a full time enterprise, but we feel good that this is the right thing for us right now. 


So, to close, Cedarfield Farm is alive and well and we are excited about continuing to pursue a life of self-sufficiency and simplicity by living off our land. It is our hope that from time-to-time we will have products that we can offer to you for sale when the blessing of an abundant harvest occurs. We will make you aware of these either through our Web site or via e-mail if you are on our e-mail list.



Thank you all for your support this past year!  

Merry Christmas!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us in one way or another this year. The support of our family and friends was greatly appreciated.

Our family wishes you a Merry Christmas and many blessings for the year to come.

Goats, Garden, and Sunflowers!

We have been very busy recently with working in the garden and taking care of our two new dairy goats, Daisy and Violet. The "girls" arrived about a month ago, and it has been quite a time of adjustment, for them and for us. There have been some difficult times of learning how to milk them, how to process their milk, getting them to eat, keeping up their milk supply, and some minor health issues that have made us feel a bit like goat veterinarians! We've also discovered that, although goats love to eat poison ivy (great for us!), they can pass it along to others that they come in contact with (bad for us!). Fortunately, the poison ivy is gone and they are no longer "contagious"!


The finished goat barn - living quarters for the goats and a milking area

Daisy is a very sweet white Sanaan goat, and her milk is equally as sweet and delicious.

Violet is a beautiful black Nubian goat with some patches of brown. She is a little more sensitive and needs more attention, but is always wanting to give and receive love by rubbing up against people.


Violet!

She can even walk on her two back legs to reach branches held up in the air for her. It wasn't long before she taught Daisy how to put her front hooves on the fence to reach leaves from nearby trees! The children love the goats, leading them around, feeding them, and petting them. We are all enjoying the milk very much, drinking it fresh and by making it into yogurt, cheese, and ice cream.

Our garden is now in full swing, giving us lots of produce such as several varieties of green beans, lettuces, peppers, summer squash and zucchini, okra, and tomatoes.


View of the garden with tomato plants in the foreground


Melons - we have cantaloupes, honeydews, and watermelons!


Another view of the garden with peppers, watermelons, lettuce, and okra in the foreground

Right now, we do have lots of beautiful sunflowers and colorful zinnias.


Our sunflowers

Things are in full swing on the farm....

Things are starting to get busy at the farm as the warmer weather has arrived! We spent the week before last planting the +3,200 square foot main garden, after adding a dump truck load of compost and some mineral soil amendments to the soil. We had been delayed for planting by the cool and rainy weather recently, but this year's garden is now underway. Last week, we also planted a large area of asparagus and a space for corn. Pumpkins will be interplanted with the corn in June for a fall harvest. This past week we planted a large area of flowers, including daisies, purple coneflower, dahlias, zinnias, and sunflowers.


The garden area -- trellises for over 100 tomato plants in the foreground


Close up of the tomato plants in the garden area

Here is a list of what we have planted in the garden:

*Green beans (three different varieties)
*Small ornamental gourds (including luffa for making sponges)
*Cucumbers
*Corn (three varieties--yellow, white shoepeg, and a multicolored corn for fresh eating, popcorn, and decoration)
*Lima beans
*Potatoes (Rose gold, Yukon gold, and Russett)
*Yellow squash and zucchini
*Winter squash (buttercup, butternut, spaghetti, and sweetmeat)
*Parsnips
*Carrots
*Radishes
*Melons (cantaloupe and watermelon)
*Okra
*Sweet potatoes
*Tomatoes (several varieties of slicing/canning tomatoes including a special striped heirloom tomato, cherry tomatoes, and yellow tomatoes)
*Tomatillos
*Salad greens (mizuna, arugula, claytonia, mache, and sorrel)
*Lettuce
*Onions and scallions
*Spinach
*Swiss chard
*Peppers (sweet banana, hot banana, green and red bell pepper, mucho nacho, and jalapeno)
*Eggplant
*Herbs (dill, cilantro, basil, chives, garlic chives, and parsley)

In addition to the garden areas, we've been tending to our two orchard areas and our berry patch. While a lot of the trees and berry bushes are still quite small, it's wonderful to be able to watch them starting to grow.


The north orchard - peach, cherry, & apricot trees


The south orchard - apple, pear, plum, paw paw & fig trees


The berry patch - blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, and grapes

We've also spent the last couple of weeks getting started on a goat barn/shed to house the two milking does that we are getting from a local farm in the next few weeks.


The goat barn/shed under construction

Welcome to Cedarfield Farm!

Cedarfield Farm is a small, family farm committed to the practices of sustainable agriculture and stewardship of the land. We are located on approximately 4 acres of land in Chesterfield County, a short distance west of the beautiful Swift Creek Reservoir.

Cedarfield Farm is our way of creating a sustainable lifestyle for our family. As stewards of our land, we are committed to not using any chemical or petroleum-based fertilizers on our plants or pastures. We will fertilize the old fashioned way--with compost, manure, and other natural soil amendments. Our animals will be treated with care, and we will provide a habitat that closely resembles their natural environment. Our goal is to use natural and organic methods for everything we produce.

If you were to drive by our farm today, you might not see much that looks like a farm. We are still early in the planning and planting stages! Our vision for Cedarfield Farm includes the following:

• Fruits - Apples, Pears, Peaches, Plums, Cherries, Apricots, Strawberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, & Raspberries
  Vegetables - Tomatoes, Squash, Corn, Okra, Potatoes, Beans, Peas, Salad Greens, Asparagus & More...
• Fresh Herbs - Basil, Rosemary, Parsley, Chives, Mint & Others
• Honey
• Eggs
• Pastured Poultry -- Chickens & Turkeys
• Goat's Milk Products
• Fresh Cut Flowers
  

So far, we've set up two beehives with about 15,000-20,000 honey bees that are already actively foraging for nectar and pollen. We've also planted more than 50 fruit trees, nearly 100 fruit and berry bushes, and just finished adding 150 strawberry plants to the 50 plants we already have from last year. Inside the house we have a miniature "greenhouse" for starting seeds to be later transplanted to the garden.

Soon we will be adding 2 milk goats to the farm for our own personal use.

Later in the spring or early summer, we hope to have our laying hens set up and producing delicious eggs and then we will move on to our broiler chickens!