Farm School

Farm School FARM SCHOOL is a diversified family farm offering organically and sustainably raised produce and meat. Contact us for information on our CSA and meat.

Checking on the sheep before bed.
06/05/2026

Checking on the sheep before bed.

He was so proud of himself… until it came time to get down.
05/27/2026

He was so proud of himself… until it came time to get down.

05/20/2026

Going to bring the ewes and lambs back up to the barn turned into a multigenerational lamb race throughout the woods.

05/15/2026

Early morning move.
I was tired from a marathon planting session yesterday and they were trepidatious. Not another day of Smooth Brome in that played out paddock, please!
The ewes in the lambs are off to eat up all the invasive in the woods.
This is the first time that we have sent young animals down to the woods. Will bring them back and forth daily so they have the safety of the barnyard at night.
Even with a woven wire perimeter fence, we don’t want to take any chances.

The ewes and the lambs, doing their part to knock back the smooth brome grass.We’ve never had them down here this early....
05/13/2026

The ewes and the lambs, doing their part to knock back the smooth brome grass.
We’ve never had them down here this early. I was afraid to let them be so far from sight.
But really, the risk of predators in the daytime is low, we have a woven wire perimeter fence, and the lambs are really respectful of the temporary electric fence we use, mostly because their mothers are good role models.
Every morning and evening we walk them from the barnyard down to the division where they will fill their bellies with all this invasive smooth brome and do their part to help eradicate it.
Moving them is one of my favorite things to do.

Tell me you dug ANOTHER hole under the pack shed without saying you dug another hole under the pack shed.
05/11/2026

Tell me you dug ANOTHER hole under the pack shed without saying you dug another hole under the pack shed.

05/09/2026

Bretta and I checked the bees this morning and couldn’t find the queen.
Hives need a queen, so we gave them a new one.

Last week, I thought this would be the last picture I would take of our ram, Mister.Earlier this spring, he picked a fig...
05/08/2026

Last week, I thought this would be the last picture I would take of our ram, Mister.
Earlier this spring, he picked a fight with Gator, our other ram, who outweighs Mister by well over a hundred pounds.
I quickly separated Mister into a large pen in the front shed to recover.
Though he showed good improvement, he still wasn’t putting much weight on his back leg. As Mister has only one real job on the farm, a bum back leg is a real disability.
I took him to the vet and they determined that he has a torn ligament, serious, but not (ahem) life threatening.
After three days in the corral Chad built for him, he escaped. Imagine my shock when I went out to find him GONE.
After lots of looking, driving up and down the road, and an embarrassing call to the sheriff and neighbors, I found him limping along the fence line, flirting with the goat gals.
We quickly built a janky but secure larger pen with every spare cattle panel on the farm where he’ll spend most of his summer resting and clearing the smooth brome for us, unaware of how lucky he is.

After hitting the brome grass hard in the prairie pasture, the girls moved up to the front pastures to rotate their way ...
05/01/2026

After hitting the brome grass hard in the prairie pasture, the girls moved up to the front pastures to rotate their way through the brome in those paddocks.
I don’t mind the brome in those pastures, so we’ll graze it lightly and move on.

Smooth brome is a cool season grass that can completely take over a pasture.We have a half dozen areas of it on the farm...
04/27/2026

Smooth brome is a cool season grass that can completely take over a pasture.
We have a half dozen areas of it on the farm.
Not only is it an aggressive spreader, it also chokes out all other grass species.
Our plan is to plant the back ten acres in prairie grasses and forbs.
To give them the best chance to establish, we need to reduce the smooth brome.
Our best line of defense is the sheep. The smooth brome is the first grass to mature in the pastures and the sheep search it out first and happily eat it.
This spring, the sheep and I will hit those stands hard and overseed prairie grasses to try to turn those species the way we’d like them to go.

Address

14033 120th Street N
Stillwater, MN
55082

Telephone

+16122509125

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