Carwood Blog Posts

Bee Hives Pasture Ryan Brown runs New Life Community in Carlisle, PA.  Our working relationship started by him identifying families he was working with who could benefit from Carwood Beef & Burger Bundles during the pandemic and getting the bundles to these families.  These bundles are sponsored by Carwood customers. Along the way, he shared with me that he was a bee keeper in his spare time.  One thing led to another and we partnered with Ryan & his wife and Ebenezer Honey for Ryan to house hives at the farm.  We set up pollinator plots where we could on...

Efficient and Regenerative Land Use, Part 2. In this post I'm going to discuss what I'm doing to try to implement Regenerative Farming Methods on Carwood Farm along with some of the struggles I've experienced along the way. What I've found to be the most significant challenge is to maintain weed control within the implementation process.  I know by not tilling, thus not stirring up the seed bed that exists in all soils, at least a bit less of weed germination should occur.  Also, by keeping the right things growing in the soil, year round, weeds can be shaded and...

Efficient and Regenerative Land Use, Part 1 "Crop farming", as they call it is probably my weakest farm skill, at least starting out full time.  Up until that point, we always "share cropped" with another farmers.  These other farmers planned, planted and harvested most of our crops and we split the yields 50/50.  We had these relationships because we didn't have all the necessary equipment, know how or time to do our own field work.   So this is where I started from about 6 years ago.  The first few years I tried to accumulate the equipment I would use most...

Animal Management This is one of my favorite topics!  I believe it's grown into being one of my most unique and highest skill sets.  What I love most about it, is the learning and improving never stops.  If anyone tells you they are a master cattle manager, don't take their advise.  We're talking about the management of living creators.  Where as they definitely have tendencies I take advantage of, each one is different and will react differently.  The moment you think you have them figured out, they'll do something that surprises you and completely blows up a management situation.   So...

As I stated at the end of Blog #9, I spent much of my first year farming full time in 2018 focused on learning as much as I could about farming and business.  As a result, I came out of this first year with a mission for Carwood Farm and a really clear vision for what I wanted the farm to become.   "Raising happy, healthy cows, while building a happy, healthy community."  This became the mission statement.  The vision of Carwood Farm is to produce high quality products, exceed customer expectations, become a pillar of the community and constantly improve...