What’s missing? What’s next?

We have a long way to go on our mission to becoming a fully functioning farm that employs traditional methodologies, once we do that we can really do practical research about the viability and suitability of these cultural techniques today. We have buildings to repair, fences to mend, a vast amount of brush to clear, rubbish to remove, and systems and machines to fix. This is the work that occupies our forward efforts today, but our main next objective is to restore our farm hay system. A farm like this ran on solar energy in the form of hay. It provided food for the cows, (one of the main producers of nutrition and value on a New England farm) and fuel for the horses, who could move the hay, and everything else. We have an extensive collection of horse powered equipment original to the farm and purchased, threshing machines, reaper binders, cultivators, fodder choppers, mills and grain processing machines etc. Our biggest step will be to use the pasture again to make hay, the barn to store it, and the animals to use it as our main source of power. We have been learning from folks and workshops associated with the Draft Animal Power Network, and are confident in making the transition when the groundwork is prepared.