Welcome back to another season of farm and homestead tours! I’m ready for more entries for 2013! Please read here for guidelines.
We’re heading down home… to your farms! Urban, suburban, or rural — whatever you’re growing and doing, we want to see it.
Welcome to the Down Home Farm Tours series. To see all the farms and homesteads featured in this series, click here. If you’d like to be featured, please read here for guidelines.
Welcome, Blue Yurt Farms!
Today you get to visit Mike and Erin at their farm in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Mike and Erin have 22 rolling acres and live in a yurt. They raise geese, chickens, pigs, and rabbits, and they always stop to smell the flowers. You must visit their blog Blue Yurt Farms — you’ll enjoy it! Plus, they’re on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. And if you want to see inside their yurt, go here.
What is your name and the names of your family members?
We’re Mike and Erin.
How long have you been farming/homesteading?
We’ve been actively homesteading for two years.
Share a brief description of your farm/homestead.
We live in a blue yurt on 22 rolling acres that were neglected for years before we moved here, so lots of brambles and thick woods. We’re slowly rehabilitating it, one acre at a time.
What are you raising, growing, and doing?
We are currently raising meat rabbits, geese (for meat and guarding abilities), laying hens, pastured pigs and we have loaner sheep helping to clear the land. We’ve also raised dairy goats, and are hoping to add a dairy cow to the farm next year.
How did you get into farming/homesteading?
The whole reason we moved from urban New Jersey to a yurt in the middle of nowhere was to raise our own food and have a closer relationship with the land. It’s been an intense two years, and we’ve learned A LOT about farm life and the intensity and cruelty of nature. We still love it, but let’s just say, a lot of thought goes into a roast chicken!
Any future plans?
Our goal for next year is to add both hoop house garden space and cleared land to grow a larger percentage of our own produce and food for our animals.
Do you have any funny stories to share?
Here is a link to a video of a goose that was a little too curious around the new electric fence.
Do you have any sad stories to share?
We lost Adventure Chicken when she had a run in with a sheep and the sheep won. You can read more about Adventure Chicken here.
Let’s Blue Yurt Farms!
(Wardee: In the captions below, you’re hearing from the Erin, as she tells you what is in each picture.)
One of our young Australorp laying hens .
Our first blue egg from an Easter Egger hen.
Our yurt after an ice storm this past February.
Our litter of meat rabbits enjoying dinner.
A gift of fallen apples from the 100 year old apple tree for the pigs to enjoy.
Beauty is all around us. Stopping to smell the flowers.
Forget deer in the headlights!
We discovered one of our laying hens had been hiding her eggs. Drat!
Our young English Shepard herding dog, Loki.
Me and my favorite goose sharing a secret.
Us, on a quick nearby hike and a break from the farm.
Mike bonding with some goslings.
Our three pastured pigs enjoying their new paddock.
One of our loaner sheep, Monster.
Erin, thank you for sharing with us! We hope you enjoy your free thank you video, our gift to you. Plus, feel free to display the following graphic on your site. (Right-click and save to your computer, then upload to your site and link to this farm tour post.)
Would you like to be featured?
Are you a homesteader or farmer at any level? You don’t have to live in the country, you don’t have to be doing everything.
Being on the journey is the only qualification. We want to see what you’re doing, no matter how big or small.
Click here for submission guidelines for the Down Home Farm Tours series. We’re excited to hear from you!
If you’re selected, we will share your farm/homestead pictures and stories in a dedicated blog post, plus you can add the featured graphic to your blog or website. And, we’ll give you a free thank you video of your choice!
Please give Erin and Mike a warm welcome in the comments! Be sure to visit their blog here.
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Love it! I’m so jealous about your yurt! We live in a traditional house, but I would love to have a yurt on our land also for a home office/guests/whatever!