Just another Day on the Farm

Sunflower Report 1- May

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, for those of you who are new to the blog, please check out my first post on the grand 2013 Sunflower plan 🙂

So its grown a bit, I have confirmed with Farmer R that he has no issues with me growing Sunflowers on my buffer zone, and that it will not effect his crops, he was also kind enough to give me a timing on the two times he will be spraying so that I could plan my planting around it.

So there has been a slight modification on the plans themselves, in that I am going to be growing different kinds of sunflowers, one side is going into Mammoth Russian, these suckers can grow 8 to 10 feet tall and produce heads as big an heavy as 5 pds each..

If you think these look like something you know, that is because this is the kind of sunflower seed used to make spits from..

The second row is going to be grown as black oil seeds, most folks know these as the smaller solid black sunflower seeds you buy to put in your bird feeders, they only grow 3 to 4 feet high and they max out at around 2 pds per head, they have a much! higher fat content then the Russians do a above..

The third and shortest fenceline is growing sunflowers that are for cutting, they are pollenless and are meant for the table, you have no doubt seen them at the florist or peeking out at you with its bright sunshine face in the buckets at the farmers markets.

In my food forest garden, I am putting in smaller multi-colored and flowering sunflowers, they can make small heads but they are mainly there to help feed the pollinators and to work the soil.

Posted in Food Forest, gardens | Tagged sunflowers, sunflowers for animal fodder, sunflowers for bedding for animlas | 1 Comment

Pin Cherry(nope) Wild Plum (YES!)

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, on the past weekend, we passed a large bush that was in full flower, the flowers out, but the leaves still in bud and we snagged three nice branches and then snagged some fresh willow branches and into wet paper towel and a baggy till they got home and I am working on rooting them out.. well the willow will root for sure, we will see about the bush..

I can clearly tell that its a fruiting bush and I figured that it would be fairly easy to dig out what kind in my different books but I in fact a little huh.. it fits a couple different ones but its not quite right on any of them and there is no chance that I am going to head out that far way on the other side of the city later this season to figure it out.. I can of course hope that it will in fact grow and find out that way but I figured it would not hurt to ask if any of you can take one look and tell what it is..

I have it narrowed down to the red cherries prunus spp family.. but the leaves should have been out before the flowers.. the flowers remind me of Saskatoon but the leaves are wrong from what I know.

Put the photos out on my wild edibles group and they came back with service berry (and its not that, I know my saskatoons) or wild plum.. well dang, compared it to my own current in full bloom plum tree’s and its a perfect match, now I hope more then ever that one or all of them will root out.. three wild plum bushes to be added to the food forest sounds just perfect to me!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 5 Comments

Asparagus are starting to come up now..

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

while we are planting last night dh pointed out something that I had in fact missed… there in their bed where asparagus standing proud and tall, with more spearing shooting up from the rich dark soil… I think for the first few ones ready, I am going to use them in a lovely fritta.

Posted in gardens | Tagged Asparagus | 4 Comments

A lovely Visit with Callie K and pretty flowers

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I braved the downtown of the big city to get to have a picnic shared lunch with Callie and a short but lovely walk, my foot is still quite sore from the double nail step down last week.

When I asked if she was good with being in the picture, she sais yes, so I hope I got that right that that I could use it.. if not, let me know and I will remove it and move to just the lunch photo only..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged ottawa tulips | 4 Comments

Boom, Boom, Out Go the Lights: Writing during Emergencies

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Love this writeup from DH, check it out, way to funny, my man has a great sense of humor.. 🙂

Boom, Boom, Out Go the Lights: Writing during Emergencies.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

The Fruit Trees and Flowering Bushes are starting! But Where are the Bee’s!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Just a few of my flowering fruit tree’s are fully out, there is pears, and the plums in a full swing, the haskups are putting out a few (not bad considering they only got planted last year) and many many more are like the apples tree buds photo.. getting there.. but while I did see ants, and bettles I didn’t see a single bee on any of these tree’s or flowers.. I put the blame on having that dang GMO corn fill the fields around me last year..

We will have to get our little paint brushes and make sure our fruit tree’s get good movement of pollen to increase our possible end production. I might also pop into my closest bee keeper and see if there is any chance at all that he might be willing to put a hive on my place for the year..

Posted in gardens | Tagged First Fruiting trees of spring, Fruit Trees, Where are the bees, Wild violets | 7 Comments

Fly control.. homemade bug spray mix..

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, there a number of things that are in play to help control the flies, there are the ducks and chickens having access to the compost piles and the dung dropping from the larger critters.

There is a natural mix that goes into both the cow and horses feed to help control this as well..

But none the less, the bottom line is that they need to be sprayed down once or twice a day to help with the flies and bugs and to have fly masks..

I very much liked the mix we used last year and so while I am tweeking it a bit this spring, it will be my man go to mix.. its 1/3rd avon skin so soft, 1/3rd vinager and 1/3rd water, my extra’s this year is I am adding in ten drops of lemongrass oil and ten drops of Tea Tree oil to the mix.. pour together.. shake well before using and avoid the eyes, I just cup over them when spraying for the cow and I spray my hand and wipe when it comes to Brandy’s ear’s and face, I am careful around the nose as well..

I am also thinking about maybe? trimming down Brandy’s feathers, I have heard that its a good idea, we will see..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Homemade bug spray for the horse | 2 Comments

A peek in the nest.. we have fur now!

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Nettles.. o how I do adore my nettles..

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Its spring and the nettles patches are growing and I showed them in a post on the walk about and got asked a couple questions on them in the comments area..

So yes, these are indeed those owww. stinging nettles.. now young fresh nettles in the spring or the top two to three inches of fresh growth on older nettles are what you are ideally after, having said that, I also let them get full size, cut them in bundles and hang them to dry for animal use..

But we are talking about the best ways of them for people use.. so please use gloves and have your basket and your cutting tool and snip them off and into the basket..

Then wash them in cold fresh water till clean..

then you need to pick off the useful nettles and throw out for compost the stems..

Tea is always good, this is 3/4th nettles and 1/4th apple mint with some raw honey and will steep for five to ten min, after having boiling water poured over them, you can use a strainer, or a tea strainer, or a coffee fresh press.

The plants will continue to sting until they are either cooked or dried.. wilted nettles will still sting you, aged cold but still fresh nettles in the fridge days later will still sting you.. they need to be cooked to the wilted time or dried till crumbly for use.

I promised that I would also show a cooked, so I took half the plate, ran a knife over them a bit cutting the biggest leaves, put a bit of butter in the bottom of a pan, threw the nettles in and let them cook till dark dark green and well wilted, if you cook mustard greens or big older spinach leaves, you want a full wilt on these greens.. then I added in a cup of lovely pork bone broth, simmered till hot, added a tsp of sour cream and that was a light wonderful tasty breakfast!

Posted in gardens | Tagged eating Stinging Nettles, Stinging nettle tea, Stringing nettles soup | 10 Comments

Nut Seminar.. Boy, O boy did I learn about black walnut.

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Its been a week of little things just rubbing the wrong way.. you know those kind of weeks so when Friday came around, I have a bit of awesome down time with a girlfriend of mine and it was so relaxing, my cow is acting like she has 3/4th of the right signs that she is gearing up for labour but she is lacking that last push at this time.. to say that clear thinking is happening in view of my possible impending calving would be fair

Somehow I didn’t make my list and check it twice and that meant that I forgot things and then had to own it and now I need to fix it for a few folks.. I have the list now and I will get it done and throw in something extra to say. so sorry and just let that part go..

So needless to say, I was excited to in fact get to go to the this tree seminar event, a huge thankful for farmer T for keeping eye on my farm for me so that I could leave.

We found out that while the event itself is in Ottawa, its really in the country and its a pretty drive, so we were just laughing and teasing, enjoying the fine weather, I had dropped off a rhubarb, picked up 2.2 pds of Giant sunflower seeds and got a awesome bonus of some extra beet seeds (I can always use those) and a naturilze 1st gen of a sweet baby, so excited to see if they will grow..

The seminar was much different from what either myself or Dh expected, I think we were expecting more lecture, less hands on, free flowing.. but we still filled two pages with information and came home with a lovely bag of sprouted red oak (I will do a post on those on their own) and meet a very nice lady who had come down to the event and had just moved from Winnipeg, Lovely lady, gave her the blog site, hope she will be a regular reader and will find the time to comment, so much in common in some ways.

Got some great idea’s of what to grow for oaks for fodder for the pigs, got some amazing information on what we locally have in our own forests just out our back door, and its a lot more then I think Dh and I expected.

Then came the cracking and tasting, now there were easily well over a dozen flock that eat from the same walnut as I did, including DH, as I know the forage rules, take a little bit and then wait and see. I took maybe a 1/8th of a half piece and in it went, and yuk! it tasted rancid with a truly aweful vile get it out of my mouth, this is not food taste, I in fact spit it out and went and rinsed my mouth out with water.. everyone else, though it was yum.. Dh said it was walnut but stronger in taste.. I did not taste walnut at all, (side note, I eat nuts, including walnuts on a regular base)

By all that is holy above and that below.. did I have a reaction.. first my tongue went thick and itchy, then the roof of my mouth, then moved to thick puffy itchy lips, then down into the throat, then up into the sinus and behind my eyes, my eyes went bloodshot and itchy..

This was over a course of around half an hour from start to end, we left early, no need to ruin others good time plus I only had tongue and palate when I left.. needless to say, I needed meds, I was to drive home and that so didn’t work, DH ended up driving me while I groaned in the seat next to him, trying to keep from taking something and scratching my mouth, I had a memory of my momma tying mittens to our hands when we have the measles so that we could not scratch them to make scars.

Needless to say it was a full three hours before I remotely felt even a little better and the more I learned about reactions the more I sighed, as I had moved right past the hives and right on to the more harder to miss listings.. and I found out that often it can react again at the eight hour mark and take upwards of three days to work out of your whole system.

Needless to say, it was a long night of checking and confirming that all was well, woke up this morning, tired, sore and with a very little scratchy feeling in the my throat, and red gritty itch eyes(but at least they are not blood shot) and I am grumpy but o so happy to be here feeling much better!

None the less, NO BLACK WALNUTS or tree’s are coming anywhere near my farm, and I am taking no chances, I am ruling out the related beechnuts as well and I will need to consider taking a new allergy test and see if I am now going to have problems with the nuts I have been eating with no issues for years..

It was a eye opening moment to see myself react so strongly to something like that.. it was also interesting that my body told me from the second that thing hit my tongue, that it was wrong!

Everyone had a great sunday .. its a great day out there and I have farm helpers coming and lots and lots to get done.. so watch for a second post coming later today with tons of photos 🙂