Greetings from NW Ohio

Hello everyone, my name is Gordon from NW Ohio and I have been doing some lurking here for close to a month. I thought it was about time to write out a little introduction. My self along with my wife are looking to get back to doing/living life a little closer to the land as well as green as we can. Now that I have said that, am I going to be wearing one piece long johns made out of hemp…. no. Would we like to make less of a carbon footprint here on earth so our children and someday grandchildren have a chance, yes.

For the last 3 years my family has been working together to grow about 80% of our own food in a garden (about 3 acres) that supports 3 families. I am now looking into more of the heirloom type veggies and other plants, any help in locating a good source for these would be great. Almost all of the ground work from plowing to cultivating has been done with horse drawn equipment. We have 6 Haflingers that provide the power we need, as well as take people for wagon rides and a few kids through 4-H.

As for other livestock we have been using the kids other 4-H projects (Holstein calves) to stock the freezer as well as running a couple hundred chickens each year. There is nothing better than knowing exactly why your dinner tastes as good as it does than knowing just where and how every bite came to the table.

Our ultimate dream would be to be self sustaining and off the grid all together. Although this is a wonderful notion I’m not sure that we could ever do it from a financial as well as a labor standpoint. I have enjoyed the reading from here so far and it’s easy to see there are a wide variety of opinions as well as knowledge. Both of which are necessary for a great place to hang out and learn. I have also been to several of the other places linked from here such as Jared Flesher’s Farmbedded blogspot from which I found the following quote. I think this should be on everyone’s front door.

As for my draft background, I have been around horses for the better part of my 44 years. With the last 12 or so in the company of drafts in all shapes and sizes. About 10 years ago I spent a couple of weeks in Sugarcreek, Ohio with Eli J.C. Yoder helping him with his draft horse hitching and driving class. My only wish now is that I had spent more time on the farming end of drafts as opposed to the show end of them.

I’m looking forward to learning more from everyone here as well as trying to put my 2 cents worth in once in a while. If you made it this far in my rambling then I applaud you.

Thanks for reading, Gordon