A photo essay of Sustainable Food and Farming graduate, Chuck Canty’s family farm
These are the baby chicks back in May. We have 11 chickens for egg laying right now
Our barn currently houses 13 goats, 11 chickens, and a guinea fowl. We’ve also raised cows and sheep here before tooOur herd spends its’ days grazing on roughly 3.5 acres of pasture, this is them back in May when the kids were just 2 months oldThis is Jonas, he escapes oftenSunsets overlooking the pasture and orchard are always spectacular; this one is from right after a summer stormIn this photo from June, the kids are about 4 months old. In the background you can also see our manure spreader for fertilizing the pastureHere is Jonas leaning over the fence to gnaw on a fruit treeHere you can see (from right to left) our Japanese Maple tree, Black Walnut trees, the primary garden, and some of our apple orchardHere the kids are enjoying an afternoon snack of assorted weeds from around the garden. We grow broccoli, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, radishes, onions, strawberries, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, raspberries, blueberries, beans, eggplant, melons, squash, and pumpkins in for our extended family’s consumption in our garden patches.Five minutes after this photo was taken, Jonas escaped and led 2 kids on an adventure before they were captured and brought back to their pen.Around September we begin pressing fresh apple cider with apples from our orchard and our press. Our orchard consists of McIntosh, Macoun, Summercrisp, Gala, Golden Russet, St. Edmund’s Russet, Westfield-seek-no-further, Baldwin, and Black Oxford apple trees as well as a few pear and peach treesIn October the kids were seven months oldBy October the chickens were five months and began laying eggs in NovemberThey herd us talking about them!By the end of November our billygoat landed himself in goat jail after attacking my fatherAnd finally, this is our dog Bella who herds the goats when they escape!As you can see, Bella is not that scary once you get to know her…
UMass Sustainable Food and Farming 