Farm Life

We Smith’s have used olive oil for years. It was on the weekly Costco list for the longest time. We felt confident that the Italian OO that they sold was from where they said it was…Italy. We also felt better about buying NON organic OO…

This was originally written for Homestead Living Magazine in the August 2024 issue and in that issue was titled “Butcher’s Cuts – Transforming Tough and Uncommon Cuts of Meat into Mouth-Watering Meals.” The Other Cuts I would think that most of the readers of this great…

I have updated this post to reflect the fact we now grow our own eggs and use them every day but decided to keep some of the raw elements of the original post from 2012. I also combined three posts into one as you will…

One of the recent projects we put together was working through a barn quilt maker in the Midwest to turn our little farm logo into a barn quilt. When I pitched it to my wife, she was a smidge skeptical as it isn’t all that…

There are a lot of things we have learned in our short time owning a little farm. Some are dramatic (cows trying to leap fences) while some are so subtle and so simple and yet provide tremendous joy. One such item is lard. Lard was used…

At Lake Joy Farmstead we take great care of our pigs.  Our “pastured pork” is free to graze all day, every day, and we supplement their grazing with 100% organic, non-GMO, Washington based pig feed. When you select your portion, from 1/4 to whole, we…

At Lake Joy Farmstead we take great care of our cows.  Our cows are 100% grass-fed and grass finished and have access to pasture their entire life. We use the very best haylage and alfalfa from throughout Washington state. When you select your portion, from…

This was originally written for Homestead Living Magazine in the May 2024 issue and in that issue was titled “Up in Smoke – the Art and Science of Smoking Meat.” The inspiration for building a smoker on our farmstead was essentially an evolution. We had…

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a model of food production and distribution that connects consumers directly with local farmers. The CSA model is based on the principle of community members supporting a local farm by buying a share of the farm’s production in advance, before…