A three year setback being certified organic, 10 tons of fertilizer spread, meat birds v/s layers

hey guys this Josh darney Ridge farmer got a lot of stuff going on on the farm today going to take you along with me we've got some fertilizer coming on the farm we'll talk a little bit about that got to check on the baby chicks check on the goats make sure everything's going fine lots of stuff going on the grass is turning green the honey bees are rocking it out right now so we may even get into the honey bee boxes either today or tomorrow check it out come along with me guys let's go check out the farm woo [Music] guys let's ride on over the other side of the farm here and check things out so a minute ago when we rode by here you might have said man what's all those big rocks doing there well here's what they are so this rock is called Rip raft rock this rock is going to be used around the house for uh landscaping and different spots that are washing we pack it around the uh Creek edges and stuff like that if they're washing out so this is for erosion control these rocks are 25 to 50 pounds each which are pretty big pretty heavy and they won't move when it rains so that's the main thing when it rains water might wash away from them but they'll sink down in the ground a little bit and hold ground steady and that's what we want prevent erosion this guy's been waiting on a phone call here hello it's Josh Josh yes sir this is Richard I'm getting I'm just stop got fuel I'm pick and pull out and come your way okay what about 25 minutes yes sir here we are in our 25 acre field we just cleared this 25 acre field last March so this time last year this was all dirt and mud I seated this with about 3,000 lb of grass seed and then came back and overseed it again with 3,000 more pounds of grass seed what you need to know is no matter what you do you cannot make top soil appear out of thin air you've got to add organic material to the soil in order to promote top soil if if you do the research people think the land in the woods is more fertile and has more top soil but they're wrong grasslands have more fertile top soil than wooded lands with that being said we're not mowing this for hay this year but we are having some fertilizer brought out today and we've already put down Limestone to bring the pH of the soil up and we're going to have to put down some fertilizer this fertilizer is an organic mix of fertilizer it's not purely organic it sets us back 3 years in getting organically certified on our farm it's a bummer but it's something that we're going to have to do in order to promote the greater good here on this land that being said I'll show you if you look behind me there's just Barren land in spots even though I work so hard and put so much seed down the seed won't grow if there is no nutrient in the soil we're trying to provide nutrients but we don't have nutrients to provide without using some sort of fertilizer so the fertilizer truck should be here in just a few minutes it's from our local co-op it's called Southern States we're putting down triple 17 it's 17 17 17 we're going to fertilize the land we're going to do it once and that's it and we're going to mow and return that organic material to the soil and promote growth once we do that we're going to fence we're going to put cows in and we're going to let cows sheep and goats Revitalize our soil like it should be look at the landscape here and you can see in this area we really have a problem and if we don't address this problem we're going to have a lot of washing if you look up there it's not so much a problem but down here we've got to provide some sort of nutrient for our land and there's buddy hey buddy guys when we planted our seed here it was last March okay some of it took great what we did was broadcast spread some of the seed and then ran behind it with a piece of equipment called a culta packer it's like a big roller uh with little humps in it that presses seed down into the ground after that we came back this fall and we went over this with a no till drill which means it doesn't till it doesn't turn the soil it doesn't disturb it it just places seed in the ground and it leaves little Stripes of grass I'll show you how it does so I'm sure you can see the little Stripes of grass here that we have and this is just what we get after we use the no till drill and basically right here is our no till drill stripes and now that you look you can see them all the way up the hill here we've got to put some nutrients into this soil or this grass will grow up dry out and die we've got to get it growing so that it Shades the ground it retains water and our money doesn't get thrown down the hill let me give you an interesting backstory this area right here has two of my nice switchblade type pocket knife two of them are out here every time I come out here I look for them and I never find them we're going to look again today maybe we'll find it maybe we won't bummer man two pocket knives lost in this field they just bounced out of my pocket while I was mowing and it sucked by the way this field takes 27 hours to mow three times a year farming takes a lot of time guys guys another thing you need to know if you're buying land you better like picking up rocks I bet you I picked up 10,000 rocks out here not fun raining grass we're adding organic material right now guys I need a new hat man so here's some more that landed I was talking about you can see the stripes where I came through with the planter I want to show you some parts of the land that really don't need repair and right up here on the top of the hill where I'm at this is kind of above the pond if you look the grass is luscious and thick and awesome we really don't need a lot of repair here so we're want to concentrate our fertilizer in the areas that need the most fertilizer and uh we'll put a little more fertilizer on the top of the hill then we will on the bottom because rain is going to slowly move that fertilizer down the hill just a little tip for the Stony ridger baby wo this field behind me looked like this when one year ago one year ago this is what our field looked like and now that's what it looks like rad this field goes over and opens up to the right over there swing left over the pond right there come back across where it's flat just go all follow the woods all the way around so guys right behind me is a truck we're going to go ahead and get started spreading here in just a minute woo so there he goes over the hill guys I'm going to have a whole lot of mowing to do this is a part of farming that a whole lot of people don't get to see okay it's pretty interesting to me hopefully it's in interesting to you guys so guys what you're not seeing is inside this truck is a satellite signal and basically he takes one lap and it Maps it out on the satellite some sort of way and then he's able to spread accurately over the land it's pretty interesting you can see right here where we try to do some land repairs basically we put some hay in these ditches right here so this is about the worst spot on the whole Farm [Music] can you imagine how bouncy it is in the cab of that truck so guys next time you're fussing at your wife because you got to go out and take care of the yard work think about me and this that's some dag on yard work right there woo so this is the last run on this side and then we're going to go to the other side of the farm and do the other side of the fields we got about 40 acres of fields we're going to do total today guys guys he's going to follow me over to the other side of the farm me and buddy this is what I want to call the ultimate unsafe selfie ultimately unsafe not smart but my style Baby Woo real farming guys this here is real farming how can I ever complain about somebody texting and driving when I'm doing this ridiculous stuff I don't think I can ever complain about it but I do I'm getting ready to go byy my buddy Tony's cabin it's pretty neat a hardw workking man there guys we got to kind of bust our butt here I don't want fertilizer all over my tractor soz I got to run and get the dog on tractor out of the way fertilizer will Rust up anything we want to prevent rust if we can man like I said guys got to get this tractor out of the way we don't want to get fertilizer all over it cuz it'll rust up can't have rust on the farm even though stuff's made out of plas itic nowadays don't want to rust my tractor up prematurely here they come time to shut her down be she's sucking mud woo all right hey goie I think the goats are happy to see me guys hey goie I ain't got no food it's important every day when we come up here we got to check our goats out make sure they're all looking pretty healthy we banded the baby male goats so basically B is castrating them so we kind of assess them make sure they're okay make sure there's no infection or anything like that and make sure all the goats are accounted for because we do have coyotes in the area if you're new to the Vlog these are the goats guys it's interesting how we're working this out this guy's going to have to ride down here and basically stay as close to the goat fence as he can on his first little run through right here he's going to run right around the goat fence we've got a small field down here he's doing 5 Acres up here we did 25 over there and another almost four acres in this field right here here's where it gets a little bit tricky guys he's got a little tight spot to go through right here I think he'll make it just fine so this guy you really got to trust he knows what he's doing he does it for a Jesus dude ultimate mishap the camera tipped over I was in a big hurry this is a pain in the butt to have to film it appears here's everything's okay though I guess you guys can hear me can you hear me now can you hear me now buzz ball well guys we're back in the garage now everything went great with getting the fertilizer down a little bit stressful because I ordered fertilizer for 25 acres and they brought fertilizer for 40 acres we had 38 or so Acres but 2 acres has fence around it that they couldn't get to where the goats are so we just had to layer on the fertilizer a little thicker in some spots hey birdies hey birds so these guys are happy happy happy Happ it's so cool so this is a two we old chick guys this chick weighs almost as much as a full grown bird that I have down in the chicken coop now these guys get big he's a cutie though we're going to introduce Buddy the dog to the to the birdie Bird come on come look at him see your friend come on he's your friend yeah he's your friend he's a good friend he's a good friend you make friends yeah he's a good friend we're all good friends we're all good friends so guys the reason we have these white leghorn chickens is not because they're beautiful it's not because they're sweet it's because they're great egg producers these chickens will eat about a palmful of food a day which is probably less food than these meat birds eat right now they'll only eat about a palm full of food per day and they'll produce one egg per day it's a cheap way of having good egg production look for a Farm Vlog in the future to show you the baby chicks and their first day out on the grass that'll probably come sometime next week we're supposed to get some bad weather this weekend I don't want to put them out I need it to be in the 70s but once it's in the 70s I'll put them outside for the day put them in for the night so now that we know our baby chicks are doing good we're going to go down check on the big chickens give them a little food and water see how they're doing what a beautiful day to be on the farm so happy to be here so happy I can share this with you let's check on these chickens see how they're doing okay hey birdie who knocked over the water which one of you guys knocked over the water huh who knocked the water over was it you got to get you guys some more good cold water I know you're thirsty I can I can hear it in your voice here you go there you go watch out good job the cool thing about having chickens is any old bread any old food scraps you can throw them to them safely no problem going to throw some old bread to the chicken there's some bread there you go there's some old bread so that's it guys that's the farm Vlog for today so we got the fertilizer put down and spread on 40 acres almost 40 acres so we got 5 Acres 3 acres and another 25 acres over here we put down about $3,000 worth of fertilizer about 320 lb to the acre that's kind of a hard pill to swallow throwing that much money at your farm but it's going to pay for itself in the long run so that's awesome hope you guys saw something you've never seen today I've never seen a fertilizer truck spread fertilizer before so hope you guys saw something neat something you've never seen learn something today and I thank you for watching this is Josh Stony Ridge farmer guys don't forget to subscribe to the channel and check us out watch this farm grow watch things turn from bare dirt to awesomeness okay so come along with me on the Stony Ridge guys all right rid bring your wife bring your kids we living life pure and sweet that's the way supposed to be Stony R my stinky old skunk you stinky skunk your stinky old skunk dog oh what a pretty dog