Twin Valley Ranch, A Tennessee Homestead

Twin Valley Ranch, A Tennessee Homestead Harvesting health and happiness Connecting people and nature through permaculture. TwinValleyTN.com

On our farm, raising rabbits isn’t just about meat — it’s about respect for the animal and providing healthy food for ou...
09/30/2025

On our farm, raising rabbits isn’t just about meat — it’s about respect for the animal and providing healthy food for our community.
🐇 Rabbits are one of the most sustainable meats you can eat:
• They convert feed to meat better than chicken, pork, or beef
• They thrive in small spaces, reducing environmental impact
• Their meat is lean, protein-rich, and delicious!

07/13/2023

The ditches and pastures are bursting this summer with wildflowers, some say weeds. Wild carrot, Mullen, yellow crown beard, beefsteak/ perilla mint, daisy fleabane, several varieties of wild aster, ragweed, Tall fescue, r**e, haired vetch, Red,White Dutch and crimson clovers and sericea lespedeza. A veritable plethora of permaculture and symbiotic sustainability for Tennessee pollinators including honey bees during the long hot summer months after the primary spring honey/nectar flow has ended. While some are spraying to leave nothing but grass across the pastures and lawns elsewhere, we continue to broadcast seed on our pastures with blooming broadleaf, pollen and nectar producing diversity.

In preparation for next year, we have already begun seeding the whole ranch with other native wildflower perennial assets like black eyed Susan’s and even have a few non native annuals like zinnias, marigolds, poppy’s, and wild sunflowers included in the upcoming years variety of pasture seeds up on Twin Valley Ranch. The multi-color bursts throughout the season should be a noteworthy bonus for sure.

03/29/2023

Queen cages unlocked and her royal highness’s hard at work laying eggs.

03/29/2023

Tossed the obligatory water splash like they do on the YouTube sawyer channels to reveal the grain of the 1x12s that were just finished up on the Woodland Mills 130max this afternoon. Box Elder in the maple family. Commercially used for pulp mainly but we’re going to make some hens look really happy with it by catchin their eggs every day.

03/29/2023

Finally we’ve gotten a little time to mill some 10 ft true dimension 1x12's up on Twin Valley. 2 down only 3 to go for whats needed to build two 10 hole chicken nest box banks each hole with a removable bottom. A little wane on one edge in the middle on that last board sitting on the mill but not big enough of a gap will be created to allow an egg to fall through so we’re good. It’s not furniture, just barnyard construction. We’ll just call that nest air conditioned. I'm down into the true 12" on the cant now. A full board length 12 inches. I don’t think you can even buy 1x12’s like this anymore. Later today its on to cleaning up some storm downed trees, much of it able to give me 10-16 ft logs for the mill. All the slab wood from the initial cuts off the sides of the log that can’t be used as lumber, will be used to heat the house and the water for the house in the boiler furnace.

02/20/2023

And so it begins again. The first chick hatch of the season up on Twin Valley. These are all 100% leghorn and just one day old. A breed thats feathers are snow white in color with the iconic red crest, think “Foghorn Leghorn”. These are our own eggs produced and hatched here on the ranch.

This breed only produces solid white eggs. One of the most prolific egg layers anywhere with a body specifically streamlined for making eggs but like all of the milk cow breeds, so well designed for the egg production side, they aren’t raised for meat. A beautiful breed with a very calm disposition that lays up to 400 eggs per year each once they reach laying age at around 7-8 months old. They will freerange well. They are also gentle and great around kids.

Hive inspections went better than expected today. Almost no pest loads were found. All the forager bee’s were quite con...
10/04/2022

Hive inspections went better than expected today. Almost no pest loads were found. All the forager bee’s were quite confused though as they came back packed with pollen baskets overflowing from their day working on the flowers around these parts. I had closed the front doors down to 2 inches to keep any pesky neighbor bees or wasps from steeling the days kitty.

A smaller entrance means less real estate to defend to keep the beggars out. All the guard bees it took to defend 14” now can do multiples on just 2”. A few of the swarms we’ve caught over the summer still have a ways to go to grow into a large hives so we are feeding them sugar water inside the top box of each hive to further prevent the tendency of the feral bees and wasps to steal from the smaller hives with the entrance type feeders and give them a boost going into winter. By the end of the day they all figured out where the new doorways were and are all tucked into their little bee beds sleeping soundly tonight.

Another Bee-utiful fall day up on Twin Valley Ranch. Today We are slowly working through the fall process of hardening a...
10/03/2022

Another Bee-utiful fall day up on Twin Valley Ranch.

Today We are slowly working through the fall process of hardening all of the bee hives for winter, looking at their resources and stores they have secured before winter and doing inspections for hive beetles and Varroa mites.

The natural silence around here has been broken by a nearby neighbor who is working diligently with a skid steer building a garage/barn/shop.

That’s the big buzz for today up on TVR.

One of the last flowers to stick around and feed the bees in the fall of the year aside from the native goldenrod is the...
10/02/2022

One of the last flowers to stick around and feed the bees in the fall of the year aside from the native goldenrod is the native White Field Aster that abound around here in the fall. Most call them weeds but to us they are a great late season food source for our pollinators. Today we got a few good shots of them hard at work finishing up the season.

Another picture perfect fall day up on Twin Valley Ranch. Most of the winters wood heat is done. Maybe one more day of c...
10/02/2022

Another picture perfect fall day up on Twin Valley Ranch. Most of the winters wood heat is done. Maybe one more day of cutting and we will be all set.

08/11/2022

My view from the office today. Chopping the weeds 10 ft width at a crack.

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Dixon Springs, TN

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