Just another Day on the Farm

They are heading their way under lots and lots of horse power LOL, well more like Grayhound horse power these days but the message is the same..  The above wrapped gifts might seem like a huge amount but I have a big! family out west..  How are you doing this xmas season, are you like friends of mine that have opted out, don’t do presents, or very limited ones or only homemade ones?

Are you the kind of family that goes all out?! or do you fall somewhere in the middle, I am a in the middle girl, while I love the family time and I am really torn this year, I spent last christmas with my family last year which I had not done in years and all it did was really make me want to spend this years with them as well but that would so not be far to my hubby.

I have a little surprise planned for christmas day and I won’t ruin it by talking about it but I think it will be a blast and will share photos of some of it afterwards.

What have you got planned for your christmas? Are you going somewhere? Staying home? Having family come to you?

Pony update: the little mini-pony is doing well, and as I need to get him out each day for a walk about and some fresh air, I decided I might as well work with him so we have come along way in basic manners, he is a smart fella, sure wish we could figure out who his owners are..

Now for the suprise part..

So you knew that I did ducks on sunday and this meant that I had a bucket that had a fair amount of duck blood in it, forgive but it was not high on the list to be done, as the blood froze and could easily be dealed with after I did the meat etc etc. The plan was fill the bucket with nice warm water and then pour the bloody water into a fall compost pile..

Yesterday morning Brandy was bucking and jumping and acting like a real silly girl in the pasture and so while she looked fine, I figured something had to be “up” and went out and checked her over in a number of ways and nothing wrong, she was just bored..

So I figured she could follow me around the main yard while I did some chores, a change of place so to speak, well she settled down and started pawing in a area that had lots of plaintain and was very content to dig and eat the plants, so I finished chores and headed in to the house and kept a eye on her from the big window, for a good hour, she dug though the snow/ice and enjoyed that big old patch of plantain..

Then the next time I looked, she was not visable, so fast like went to the other window to make sure she had not gone in the front yard or worse down the road between checks, nope, no horse.. so go open the door and there she is right by the front door, with her head in the bucket that had the duck blood..

and she went crazy for it, she licked it and eat it and knocked the bucket around and picked up the peices knocked out and eat them.. she was on the last little bit of it by the time I came out and I will admit that I  didn’t run out and take it away, I just kinda stood there in a stunned HUH?

Now before you ask, yes, she has access to a salt block, yes she has access to a excellent quality mineral/vits/protein/fat lick block, as well as getting a horse feed ration, plus she has access to a little tree patch that I keep in the feild so that the critters can nibble on the tree’s if they feel the need to do so.. and that’s on top of free feed 24 hours a day hay access.

So while I do believe that clearly there was something in the blood that she thought was awesome, I don’t believe that she is “lacking” in her diet..

I often laugh a little when I see folks talk about, ever seen another animal drink cows milks, because some cows will self-milk themselves, even a full grown cow will sneak milk off a other willing girl, pigs will nurse off of cows or goats if given the chance, cats will lick up drips of milk if they can get their paws on them etc.. trust me being on the farm has shown me that its not that other critters won’t drink milk, they will in a heart beat, you have never seen chickens get more crazy then if they can get their beeks into a pan of warm fresh whole milk..

But this one I will admit to being surprised at but i’m also not going to worry about it, I would never choose to offer her this, nor would I ever! recommend adding something like this to any animals food etc etc.. but it was a interesting thing that went into my book of knowledge under the title of Who Knew?!

A number of these lovely’s are currently drying in the fridge and then a few will be heading into the smoker, plans for at least one meal of simmers in a beer/crout, and not sure what the others will be used for but for sure I will have to share a few bites with some dear friends of mine.. A huge thank you goes out to big brother for helping me figure out the fat percents as my books were all over the place, looks like not that many folks make duck. From what I can see for breast meat, you need to be looking at least 20 percent, I used pork fat..  Let me tell ya, those test patties were devoured with delight.. So the one below is in a 3/4th inch casing and its right around a foot long, it will make a smaller but still fairly typical type garlic sausage when sliced up.

Ok, so first, it seems that I forgot to say which muppet names we gave to the piglets, now I would be the first to have said that you really can’t tell them apart and so naming would not work and I felt that way for the first couple weeks, but as they have gotten older who each one is has become clearer and clearer to me..

We had two boys and six girls.. the boys were called Beeker and Gonzo and both have already been harvested.. We currently have six females, two of which are nice enough that if the right buyer came along, I would consider selling them for breeding stock which would be Madam and Zoot, the other four are healthy and growing well but will for sure end up freezer camp which include Fozzie, MorkMork Skeeter and Animal..

Next..

So … what ARE you getting from Heritage Seeds?   Details, my dear, details.

This is as close as I get to details because until you order and its processed you don’t know if you can get what you order, some of them are in very limited supply and sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, and you end up with different then you think, but there is lot of others to pick from if that happens..

3 kinds of drying beans 2 kinds of beets Broccolli (one that does many tiny heads not just one) 2 cabbage kinds red carrots 1 cauliflower 3 kinds of soup/stalk celery 4 kinds of corn- 2 critter, one human grinding flower and one popcorn 2 kolhrabi leek 2 melons 1 parsnip 2 pea’s 3 peppers 3 kinds of radish (one for critter use, one for seed sprouting and one for human use) 4 sqaush (both human and critter use) 5 tomato’s 1 turnip 1 rutabaga 1 watermelon

Critter use Soybeans Barley -both critter and for human use 2 kinds of mangels 1 quinoa 2 amaranth Sunflower (critter and sprouting) and they also have a very rare carrot that was grown for fodder use that I want to see if I can grow for seed and then use for fodder again.

Next questions are from a new reader, welcome to the farm 🙂

what are 1)bottom land and 2)micro-climates 3)till as little as possible?

Bottom land refers to the fact that I am on river bottom land or flood land, this means that when the timing is right in winter or spring that much of my pasture area will in fact flood out from the combined river and creeks around me, while not all my land is such, much of it is in fact river loam when tested and that makes growing things much easier then if I had clay or sandy soil.

Micro-climates are areas on your land that are just a bit warmer or colder or wind proof or more wind blown then basic zoning given to your overall area by the canadian goverment.. natural land will have swells on it, gentle up and downs, top of the swell has its own pros and cons, middle the same and bottom the same.. using tree’s, fences, and buildings can all effect how things grow, buildings will reflect the sun and create early microzones for spring growing but on the other hand they can also create very hot zones in the summer months for the same reason’s, knowing which way your wind tends to blow (winds will dry out your plants makes a difference in planting) and cold likes to creep in to the low spots first, so if you have a bottom, it will often “frost out” faster in the fall, so not a good place to plant things you are hoping to get a few extra weeks or even a month or more growth out of if possable but excellent area to plant with the few things that will sweeten with the frost for harvest time in the fall .

No till is just what it sounds like, instead of turning the soil, you place a mound or hill or sheet mulch on top of the soil that is already there and you plant into the mound and grow from there.. I do a mix of things, when it comes to potato beds, I like a deep double dug bed, but when it comes to sqaush’s I like low or no till methods.