Implement basic, uncomplicated food processing, including large and small animal butchering and cheese making and.Apply fencing strategies and pasture management basics.Select and purchase the appropriate ruminant for regenerating your farmstead.Find and improve poor, waste, or abused land and develop its natural water resources.Within these pages, the Doughertys discuss how to:

In witty and welcoming style, The Independent Farmstead covers everything from choosing a species of ruminant and incorporating it into a grass-based system to innovative electric fencing and watering systems, to what to do with all of the milk, meat, and, yes, manure that the self-sustaining farm produces. In The Independent Farmstead, The Sow’s Ear model for regenerating the land and growing food-“the best you ever tasted”-is elucidated for others to use and build upon. Pioneered by such luminaries as Allan Savory, Greg Judy, and Joel Salatin, the tenets of holistic grazing-employed mostly by larger-scale commercial operations-have been adapted by the Doughertys to fit their family’s needs. Such self-sufficiency is largely the result of basing their farming practices around intensive pasture management. Twenty years ago, when authors Shawn and Beth Dougherty purchased the land they would come to name the Sow’s Ear, the state of Ohio designated it “not suitable for agriculture.” Today, their family raises and grows 90% of their own food. With in-depth information on electric fencing, watering, and husbandry for ruminants, poultry, and pigs, plus butchering, dairying, and more

Chelsea field books