Come Grow with Us Trivia Night fundraiser for the Madison County Fair Friday, September 13 from 7:00 pm-10:00 pm at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Fredericktown. Doors open at 6:30 pm. 8 players per table $150 Table or $20 per person. Cash prize monies, door prizes, and a Silent Auction. Bring your own drinks and snacks. Preregistration preferred. To register, contact Sandy Dismuke at ssdismuke@wildblue.net or 573-783-4662. Please have a name for your team. Special drawing for those who pre-register.
Enjoy a fun filled evening with friends as you support our community’s Madison County Fair!
Creating a Symbiotic, Synergistic, Production Model
As part of the Madison County Fair’s speaker’s series under the pavilion, Sheri George will be presenting two sessions Growing Naturally for Market. Part one, Creating a Symbiotic, Synergistic, Production Model, will focus on meat chickens while Part two, The Myths of Organic Gardening, will focus on garden produce.
Can we provide the world with food if we do not use herbicides and pesticides? Can we really increase our yields without the use of chemicals, and is it worth it?
We will share our walk on this path and a little about what we learned along the way. We will describe techniques to help increase your ability to grow meat and produce without the use of pesticides or herbicides while increasing the production and the health of your soil. Â
The George’s are a family of four who spent most of their lives in the city. They were drawn to a healthier way of life after their young daughter began experiencing some health issues. After years of research they went back to their kitchen, learning to cook everything from scratch using local foods.
As they did this, they saw amazing health improvements in the whole family which created a desire to raise and grow their own food. In 2014, God brought them to their own farm, Liberty Mission Farm, where they purpose to share their story, their farm-raised food, and their other natural products.
Since arriving on the farm, both sets of their parents (grandparents to their children) have also relocated to Missouri and are assisting on the farm daily. There are now 3 generations working together.
The family focuses on replenishing the nutrients in the soil through crop rotations, composting and livestock rotation on the pastures. This encourages healthy soils which produce healthy plants that are naturally more pest and disease resistant.
And they purpose to have nothing go to waste on our farm. Each animal has a specific purpose. For example, their laying hens eliminate waste by eating vegetable scraps from their gardens in addition to their fresh pasture, and in turn produce eggs, fertilizer and act as a natural bug removal system.
It’s all a symbiotic, synergistic production model that yields far more per acre than industrial models; and it’s aromatically and aesthetically pleasing.
Symbiotic Relationship Between Family, Farm Animals, and the Family Farm
When Sheri sent the title and description of her workshop, I found this article I wrote years ago which explains the beauty of the symbiotic relationship God designed for family, farm animals, and the family farm.
As we depend on God for all things, so, too, God has designed his creatures to be fully dependent and mutually beneficial to one another. Let me define a word that is not often used today but one that holds significant meaning, nonetheless. The word is symbiotic. It means mutually beneficial and dependent on one another. Common perhaps to some, but nearly incomprehensible to our culture’s narcissistic minds and independent lifestyles, it is a way of life to those who farm, who fully live symbiotically with their families, animals and the land.
I personally love the symbiotic relationship that God designed between family members, farm animals, and the land, from which I am fully experiencing His blessings now. It always brings to mind the story of the Good Shepherd who leads his flock to green pastures and beside still waters. Who watches over them, protects them, rids them of parasites, treats their ailments, pets and comforts them. In turn the sheep provide wool and leather for clothing to keep man warm and protect his feet while also providing meat and dairy to keep him fed. It is a mutually satisfying arrangement where each is dependent on the other. Both need the soil and the life that springs from it, which in turn is enriched by both man and his animals.
Nothing goes to waste. Everything is used for the benefit of the whole. For example, flower blossoms, vegetable blossoms, fruit and berry flowers all feed the bees, who in turn pollinate the plants so that they continue to produce fruit which in turn propagates the same plant kinds while also feeding both body and soul. In the end, we benefit by the honey that issues from the harvest of pollen, which helps to keep us healthy so that we may continue to care for the bees.
The grasses that spring from the ground provide food for the animals that graze it. As the animals graze the land their excrements go back into the ground to fertilize the grasses that fed them. The chickens that follow the cows scratch the cow patties for fly larvae, reducing the distress and advancement of disease from the flies on the animals, while also increasing the fertility of the land by spreading the manure throughout the pasture and adding their own droppings to the soil as they work. From the fertilized ground shoots healthier forbs, which in turn feeds the animals that graze it. In the end, we benefit by eating the animals that graze the land so that we may continue to care for their offspring that continue to graze the family farm.
As we weed and pull up spent plants, we put all the pebbles and rocks into a bucket which we dump in gulley’s to stop erosion. Most of the garden weeds and spent plants feed the chickens and the pigs. The remainder become compost for enriching the garden from which they came. Cover crops such as buckwheat are grown as feed for the chickens. As the chickens eat their way through the buckwheat, they till in the crop that becomes green manure for the ground from which it came.
Except for apple cores, cornhusks, and melon rinds, which go to our horses, kitchen scraps go to the chickens and the pigs. Shells that come from the eggs that strengthen our bodies are fed back to the chickens to strengthen the eggs they produce. The rest of the eggshells are fed to the pigs to strengthen them or put on the compost pile to enrich the garden so it will grow more food for our family and our animals.
Cattle provide us with milk and meat. The milk from the cow feeds the calf, the family, the barn cats, the watchdogs, the pigs, and is also left on the counter for two to three days to clabber for the chickens. Scraps from butchering go to the dogs, cats, chickens, and pigs; bones go to the dogs and bone meal to the chickens and vegetable garden.
The barn cats in turn eat all the mice and rats that diminish the livestock’s feed. The watchdogs protect the land from predators that would hurt the cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens. The pigs in turn fertilize the fields, which in turn, grows richer grasses for both cows, sheep, and chickens and provides meat for the family. The chickens provide eggs and meat for the family, the cats, dogs, and pigs.
Efficient exterminating machines, chickens devour insects that would otherwise hurt the family, field, and vegetables. The insects feed them and they feed us with richer eggs and meat. As they make their way throughout the fields and garden, they deposit nitrogen rich droppings for the plants that feed them.
Chipping blow downs provides bedding for the animals, which becomes compost for the fields, gardens, and trees, which in turn provides suitable ground for sprouting tree seedlings.
Hay taken from our fields feeds the livestock while providing nesting material for the chickens and bedding for the cattle, sheep, guard dogs, and piglets. Spent bedding from the livestock and nesting boxes goes into the compost pile, which later enriches the fields and vegetable beds that feed the livestock.
In the winter as the cattle eat in the barn, we cover their manure with hay, wood chips, and saw dust that comes from the surrounding forest. In turn that compost goes back into the ground either for the fields or garden, to enrich it.
In the winter, the pigs forage on acorns that drop freely from the surrounding oak trees. While foraging, the pigs excrete manure on the ground that goes back into the ground fertilizing the trees so they are able to produce more acorns.
God’s economy is so perfectly delightful. I just stand in awe of His wisdom and His goodness to His creatures!