Tag: Hobby Farm

A Look Back at 2016

As the year draws to a close, Five Feline Farm is taking a moment to step aside and recount the changes we experienced.

All of this was made possible because of the support we received through the year from you. Our friends and customers. We made new friends on Saturday mornings at the 18th Street Farmer’s Market, at the fall Honeybee Festival in Paris, IL, on social media, and special group tours of the Farm. Your support, enthusiasm, words of encouragement and product feedback are invaluable as we move forward in this business.

We created new products and enhanced existing ones:

Spearmint and Hint O Mint Beek Balm

Patchouli, Bergamot and Winter Phantom Balm fragrances

Snow Balm-our own version of that smeary stuff in a little blue tub

White Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Cherry scones

New cat toy shapes

Some things around the Farm were improved or increased:

Market garden beds

More honeybee colonies

Online store expansion

And a few things discontinued:

Olive oil based Phantom balm

Oatmeal Raisin scones

2017 Vision

Our most recent leap of faith was to purchase a building. The back of the building offers equipment storage and the front, with it’s cabin style porch, will house an on-farm store.

We will continue to preach our anthem of whole and natural living wherever possible. From food to skin care products, to repurposed materials in catnip toys, every step is about whole, natural and sustainable.

This past year, Five Feline Farm grew beyond our expectations. Our dreams are bigger for the coming year. Maybe even outlandish. Stick with us, you never know what might happen.

Thank you for your encouragement and support. Here’s to a wonderful 2017 for all of us.

Check out our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. And don’t forget the online store!

Hobby Farm Transformation

It’s been just over eight years now living on this slice of the country we call Five Feline Farm. At first it was just the “farm”, a tongue-in-cheek expression of this postage stamp sized property in the midst of large acre farms. Now it is becoming much more than that. Slowly, with the requisite blood, sweat and not a few tears, it is transforming into a hobby farm. A place to host the next phase of life. 

But the transformation goes beyond the land. In this process of making something new, we are being transformed. 

Beekeeping has changed our perspective on many things. We are trying to be better consumers and more aware of good practice in land management. Our focus is more basic than sustainability, settling into the more practical mantra: “if it’s good for the bees, it’s good for us”. 

Then there are things that we have learned intuitively or by observation. Yes, these are things that can be read in books and maybe everybody knows it. There is something about the experience that anchors the lesson. 

Things like the moon rising an hour later each night, until finally it rises unseen in the daylight.  Birds begin their nesting just as the fur bearing animals, like our cats, start shedding their winter coat. Cat fur surely makes a comfortable place to lay an egg. Noticing that the Juncos leave just before the hummingbirds return for the summer. 

Through these experiences comes a deep soul satisfaction. A oneness with the land and nature that just feels right. 

It is right to take care of the land that will provide food for us and wildlife. Right to reduce or eliminate chemicals used on property we control. Smart to reduce the need for artificial amendments by moving to a no till garden with careful crop rotation and green manure.

It is a lot of work to reconstruct this once forgotten land. Our passion for what it can become makes it less work-like. 

Five Feline Farm is already growing beyond our wildest dreams. Follow us on Facebook. Signup to get blog posts delivered to your email inbox. 

You never know what may happen next.