INTRODUCTION
Barlow Roots Newsletter - 5/14/2025

Ummm… did you read that subject line??? What!?! Yes, it is true. We were VERY short term cow owners. We were more like cow flippers, as opposed to cow owners. 🙂 The decision was a pretty easy one, we LEARNED A LOT. I explain more below. Beyond all that excitement we were thrown into midsummer weather conditions in a hurry and are now hustling to figure out how to irrigate all our baby plants, it’s been a challenge but we are figuring it out. Summer is coming and we have some plans we are excited about. Thanks for following along on our journey!

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Enjoy this weeks newsletter!

HOMESTEAD UPDATE
We Sold Our Cows, Pigs are Doing Well!

So when we last spoke, we were the proud new owners of Peaches and Cream, a jersey cow and her steer calf. At the time I wrote that newsletter we were settling in to the routine of milking and figuring everything out. We had some concerns… but were still committed to giving it a go. If you read that newsletter you may have sensed some hesitation. 🙂 Here’s the deal… the cows were just too big for our little farm. We’ve always had a long term plan for bringing a family cow to the farm, it involved creating more pasture, enlarging our barn and creating a system to make it work. When we brought the cow home we believed we could make it work until we got all those steps completed. Nope… that didn’t pan out. The first time I saw that cow poop and pee in our little barn I knew we were in a bit of trouble! HAHA! We also have very little grazing ground at the moment for a cow, and really the only good grazing ground we have isn’t fenced.

We did have the vet come by and he gave us a clean bill of health. He was unconcerned with the mastitis that we thought was an issue… though he did say our hay wasn’t great and that we needed to be feeding her more. I will say the milk was delicious! And I miss it. But the size of the animal and the realization that the environment we could provide for her wasn’t that great made the decision pretty easy.

Now for the good part of the story. We were pretty deeply financially invested into this project. And once we found out the cow was healthy we were anxious to get her sold pretty quick. In a true answer to our prayers, God came through and found us a wonderful family for the cows. 2 hours after posting the cows for sale they were spoken for and 4 hours after posting them they were on their way to their new farm. In that same window of time a woman committed to buying the milking machine. WHAT!?! Maybe God agreed that the time wasn’t right for cows! And here is the kicker, the other big stress last week was my skid steer being down, guess the profession of the new cow owner… yep… he was a diesel mechanic. He had his own small business helping farmers fix their tractors and equipment. He gave me 5 minutes of time and helped me diagnose the problem and give me a plan to get it fixed. What a gift!

As for the cows they are in a wonderful place! The farm they went to has 80 acres, they cut their own hay, they have other cows and the new owner grew on a dairy and showed cows as a kid. A nice happy ending for us, for the cows and for their new family.

In other news the pigs are all settled in and looking good. We have one that acts a little funny at times, I am hoping he snaps out of it. We have been doing some mud baths for them to help them cool off and they have been dealing with some sunburn, it is the downside to all white pigs! Some suggest sunscreen… hmmm… no thanks. But we are trying to give them mud to bathe in and protect themselves.

Ingrid and the kids took on an overdue project of disassembling the wheelchair ramp on our deck. It was here when we moved in and while it has been handy it is also ugly! They’ve done a nice job with it and we are happy with how it all looks. To be honest our whole deck needs a bit of an overhaul. New deck boards would make a big difference but I am hesitant because I have some bigger plans and don’t want to do a bunch of work and pay a bunch of money only to have to redo it later. We will see!

MARKET GARDENING
Open for Business, Irrigation, Tunnel Progress

We officially opened the farmstand for the season last week on Friday. So far it has gone really well. We are easily keeping up with demand and are staying busy, which is good! We’ve been selling all our early season favorites, salad, arugula, turnips, radishes, microgreens, etc. I maybe mentioned it here??? We got a new tool called a Quick Cut Greens Harvester, WHOA is that an amazing tool. We are still getting the hang of it, but soon we will put out some videos of it in action. It makes harvesting greens WAY easier than before. These little efficiencies make a HUGE difference.

I had to delay the delivery of our new tunnel because my skid steer was broken and I needed to have it to unload the trailer. So hopefully that will arrive soon, now that the skid steer is working again. I still have to move the end walls on the previous tunnel, that was also a skid steer project so it was on hold. Hopefully I will get it done in the next few days.

The big work this week has been irrigation as we were thrust into summer in a hurry. Temps in the upper 80s with super dry conditions were really hard on our baby plants. We’ve been doing a lot of manual watering as I order supplies and get things set up. I think we are doing OK! I will get it all figured out just in time for a rainy stretch! The biggest challenge has just been expanding everything as we continue to expand the garden. Automating irrigation has been an eye opening game changer for us, as it takes a lot of the thinking and guess work out of keeping plants healthy.

We will now get into a good rhythm of harvesting Monday and Thursday mornings. Having our hired help around on those two days and then continually seeding, weeding and doing maintence through the summer. Over time we have created systems that make it all doable, but there is always a tough stretch early in the year as we refigure it all out!

CLOSING
Summer Projects

As we hustle through the early garden season and get everything up and running we don’t have a lot of extra time. But we know a little time will present itself this summer and it is good to plan ahead for that time. The big project of course is getting the new high tunnel built. Maybe that will take all summer! I don’t really know. I do know that it is a priority because our business depends on it. The other project that is high on my list is a new structure on our property. It will be 10×20 and hold a sauna, outdoor shower area, and compost toilet space. Why??? It is partially for us and then also potentially for guests to our property. We’ve tossed around the idea of putting in some tent pads, or tiny houses, or domes, or wall tents? Some place where people could come and stay and experience the farm and the gardens and get away from the stresses in their world. Right now we are just taking things one step at a time. In typical Barlow fashion we will take things slow and conservative to make sure it all feels right.

Thank you as always for reading and for following along on this journey. As always I would love to hear from you. If you have questions or suggestions just reply to this email and I will be in touch.