We visited Polyface Farms earlier this month. I always read Joel Salatin’s articles in the Stockman with great interest, therefore I was looking forward to touring his farm. Interesting and inspiring. Much has been said and noted about the practices at Polyface so I’ll touch on a few things I noticed beyond the portable chicken wagons, bee hives, grazing layout, land use, assorted animals, green houses, etc.

First of all, the electric gate handles were made of wood. To me, this means that good use is made of resources on hand and actually, this was a theme I saw as I walked around. I like to scavenge, reuse and repurpose and I was inspired by other ideas I saw as well. Here on our farm, Don and I have turned some of our standing timber into a corral and along with some salvaged tin, have made loafing shelters. They aren’t pretty or even square for that matter, but they’re functional and that’s what matters. We also use the cedar trees for perimeter fencing. Anyway, upon returning home I started looking around. What else can we recycle, reuse or repurpose to our benefit and profit? Right now my eye is on the 1949 Ford tractor just sitting behind the garage.

I also found the floating garden interesting. Of course you probably can’t plant enough food to feed the entire family for a year, however some extra vegetables that you don’t have to water would be good. We have small pond here on the farm, not far away from the yard area and right now I’m watering the garden weekly due to a lack of rain. Hmmm.