Hello from Five Feline Farm, a modern homestead.
Established in 2008 on 5.5 acres in Central Illinois, the first question is whether or not we are a cat rescue. We are not, although all of the felines here have been rescued. The name honors the number of felines that moved to the Farm with us.
Sadly the original five have crossed the rainbow bridge.
What is a modern homestead?
This small farm serves as an outlet for our creativity and interests. But it is more than that. It is where we live and strive to find a middle ground between learning the skill sets of our ancestors and taking advantage of modern conveniences.
Our focus is on eating well, living well and sharing how we do this with others.
Each year we expand the gardens. Every new season finds us trying new crops, varieties and techniques to determine what works best. The goal is to grow and preserve as much of our own food as possible, with the exception of meat. Although we remain carnivores on a limited basis, we just can’t quite get into butchering.
So Five Feline Farm has become our way of life; always experimenting with new things and sharing what we learn.
We started with gardens, orchards and honeybees which led us to our local farmer’s market and included selling baked goods along with vegetables and hive products. In time we added an onsite store called “The Mercantile” which allowed for a climate controlled venue.
In 2022 we made the difficult decision to close the onsite store to concentrate on the education facet of our business. We have books and courses available now, more are in development.
Our latest venture has been fiction. The first novel published by Five Feline Farm Press is The Inheritance: A Novel by JK Miller.
Thank you for stopping by our website. You will find links to everything we do and offer in the navigation menu.
We hope you enjoy what you read and hear. Drop us a comment if you wish or ask questions. Visit us on Facebook, or Instagram. You can also email us if that works better for you. Our email is fivefelinefarm at gmail dot com. (You know the drill, avoid spammers.) We love to hear from our followers through any channel.
Received my order TODAY. It’s perfect and the honey looks great! Thank you for your promptness!
Happy Holidays
Ann Kehler
Thank you!
Oregano Thyme with Spring Garlic butter. Oh my!!!
Can one pet and hold the cats? Would like to pop over on Saturday.
Sorry for the delay in responding. During the winter the cats are busy inside, planning what they will do next for the Farm. When we are open during the summer months, you may get a glimpse of them in their outdoor enclosure “The Catdom”. Overall they are pretty shy and tend to claw or bite people they don’t know.
I read 1 of your beekeeping blogs & you mentioned you smoke your bees. I like to use something less stressful to the bees. I use a fine mist sprayer with a mixture of water, red thyme essential oil & kombucha. The bees once sprayed, just groom themselves. The red thyme has the highest natural level of thymol so can help with mites & the kombucha helps with their intestinal health. Just thought you might be interested.
As beekeeping and the rest of the Farm evolves, we are looking at more natural options in everything we do. Thank you for this suggestion.
I just ran across your comment.i am new to beekeeping and am currently using a smoker. Your post is dated 2017 is this method still what you are using??? If so can you share the ratio of goodies you use? Thank you!
Do you sell honey other than at the farmers market in June? It is hard to find raw honey in Charleston.
Thanks,
Wendy
Unfortunately we are out of honey at this time. We plan to have more this summer. There are a couple of others in Charleston that may have some honey still available, although you would need to ask specifically if theirs is “raw”. Can you send us a message through Facebook and we’ll get you contact information for those folks. http://www.facebook.com/fivefelinefarm
Or if email works better for you, email us at fivefelinefarm (at) gmail (dot) com and we can give you contact information for the other beekeepers in the Charleston area.
I am a starting beekeeper from th Netherlands. I like your site and way of living. I, am also a miller with a windmill in South – Holland. Space to grow my own food is difficult but i will try aquaponics in the future. Thanks for the free download, so i can pick up some advise and practice my English grammar. Greetings Ger
Thank you so much for visiting our website. We are always working on something and have a lot planned for the future. This summer we are venturing into selling at our local farmer’s market. Do you have a farmer’s market where you live?
This is so wonderful! Kudos to you! I like to start a garden, however, my husband loves the squirls! They multiplied in many!! For me to have a garden it needs to be totally isolated lol any advice
Here’s some ideas to keep squirrels away from the garden:
–plant garlic
–feed the squirrels away from the garden
–sprinkle hot pepper such as cayenne around the garden
–plant marigolds around the perimeter
–scatter dog hair around the edge
Thank you for visiting our website and your interest in Five Feline Farm. Happy Gardening.
Julia I love your site I came across from the tribe and would love to read more about your life on the farm.
Welcome to Five Feline Farm. We appreciate that you stopped by. You just never know what we might be up to.
I would like to purchase some honey and I believe you live just south of me a few miles. I live north off the Westfield blacktop at 2200 E 500 N. Just wondering when it would be convenient for me to come buy some. You can contact me by my e-mail (work) or my home phone 967-5632 or my cell 663-0571. Thank you and it is nice to have you in Hutton Twp. Cathy
Thank you for your interest in purchasing honey. At this time, we are sold out but plan to offer more in the late summer/early fall. We are starting a list of people interested in honey, so we’ll add your name to the list.
We will be offering plants for sale on May 17th and 18th from 1:00PM-4:00PM if you might be interested in those.
As for the location, I believe we could be considered neighbors.
THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO! A fellow MG, and friend! Please put me on the HONEY list.
Sandra