Homestead Life
Always learning…
Our goal at Lionpaw Organics is to create a diverse and healthy ecosystem that promotes life. We have the ability to tend to beautiful livestock and land. By always approaching our slice of heaven with a beginners mind, we are always learning and giving back to the land that cares for us.
The 186 acre homestead we live on is filled with perennial gardens, trees and flowers that provide food for the animals, our stomach and our soil. Over 30 apple, pear, plum, cherry, elderberry, nectarine, peach, walnut, and acorn producing trees line our property giving endless bounty to feed, forage and ferment.
Land and Animals always go hand in hand on our homestead. We have found that every animal gives and takes different elements to lead to the better health of our land. Songbirds, mites, bees, butterflies, bats, chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, cows, dogs, geese, and even mountain lions and bears all reside on our land. Each of these animals provide different and unique gut flora to our compost/soil. Utilizing chicken tractors and electric fences we are able to move not only the animals but their poop and energy. By doing this we have started the large and long process of regenerating our soils and pastureland in what we have learned is the most natural way.
Besides being living composters, the delicious and nutritious food our animals provide is both invaluable for our health and valuable for our bottom-line. Knowing the lives they live and the food they eat is something we feel great about.
Our animals, compost and soils consume an alfalfa/native grass grown on 40 acres of our land. These grasses are never sprayed and are full of life. Mob grazing is our latest step in land and animal management.
From our flock to our flowers, diversity brings balance. We try to encourage that.
On our homestead we have a solar array capable of producing 32kWh at peak. Gravity brings us the water we live on, it comes from a variety of natural springs on our north facing slope. We also have two riparian zones with water rights for pasture irrigation. By managing our woodlands we get multiple bi-products. Hugel/swale material, lumber, firewood, poles, small batch bio-char and wood chips when needed. Worms might be the biggest part of the decomposition and aeration that happens in our soils, compost piles and vermi-compost bins.
Bio-mass is also key. Leaf mold, perennial pruning’s, cannabis bi-product, fresh cut alfalfa, cow, pig, goat, chicken, duck, bat poop and as many ‘weeds’ as the fingers can pull are used for composting and mulching.
We use a quiver of natural farming approaches. Everything from Rodale’s Institute, living soil food web, permaculture, biodynamics, KNF, Jadam, Terra Preta and just good ol’ Blood, Sweat and Tears.
We are always learning different skills in order use resources from the land and animals for the land and animals.
We are living the most regenerative life we know and always trying to better ourselves.
-Each One Teach One