Building a stone boat for Girl..

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I have not given up on the idea of a proper cart for girl, I am putting away the funds for her proper gear and wow, I don’t think I ever really understood the money involved with in regards to tack, it was just always there in the barns when I needed it as a child and as a teen and even into my 20’s when I went to work with horses.

My poor DH is having fits at the costs of outfitting my darling draft cow, but we have reached the point where it “just needs to be done” I can’t move forward in her training or to be honest, move forward in using her, the training is there, its time to get off the pot and get it done!

Thankfully I already have my single draft garden  plowing tool, I am really enjoying the trail’s and packing with Girl but as nice as it is, its not very productive at this point.. and I am giving up what could be productive time on the farm to take the cow for walks, good in some ways, she got to meet stranger folks and dogs and horses this weekend and I just love her manners, sometimes she surprises me, as she tends to have better manners with vistors at times then she does with me at times, granted to be honest, she only pushs it when out of gear, never in gear.. and she always meets folks while in gear..

I was asked this weekend if I was going to take her to the local fair this summer, I will have to think about it.. I don’t know if I want to do that or not.. it might be very good training for her but I will have to figure out a number of things.. I think next year is more likely..

So as a proper stone boat can be built in a day, its on the hit list for this spring, updates will follow!

Girl in her Fancy New Black with Bling Black Leather Halter, I love it, so much easier to put on then her old one, this one is simple snap on and off and while I know you can’t see if easily in this photo, it has a moving side to side action on the bottom ring, which is great, as long as it’s self hanging and the rope is loose, then I can “see” that I am not guiding her with the rope even when she is on it when using commands.

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Digging for my lunch! I’m having Burdock and Dandelion root with a dessert of nettle…

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I had Girl tied out for grazing in the main yard and she was within reach of a old compost pile that grows stinging nettle, dandelion and Burdock root for me as a kind of spring wild kitchen garden and I didn’t think anything of it, until she went wild at it..

She dug it, pushed it, and even used her shoulders to break it apart and dig out those yummy! roots, I had tossed the roots when I would dig them out of the garden over the fence to her all last year as she was growing up and I guess she could smell them in the pile.. I can totally see now why I read that they would dig up turnips and beets if you planted them in as a alternative feed.

She sure is not a wallflower 🙂

Posted in Critters | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Small Wound Care

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Its bound to happen between having a older barn, barb wire fencing, and just general life, the barn critters will get some cuts and scrapes, now I know that some folks just feel that they will heal on their own, and in most case’s that is true..

However the time of the year, the overall condition of the animal has a fair amount of effect on that, example, in fly season, you need to worry more about fly strike (maggots in wounds), or if a mother is nursing twins, and has dropped condition a bit because of the amount of milk she is producing, or if they are young, they are clearly going to not heal as fast as a adult with no stress’s is.

Now I am still not sure how Marty got this scrape, its oddly placed on his back, with no way for him to keep it clean, it does not look like a barbwire poke, nor could it be a bite from girl (which would be odd anyway, she tends to keep him in line with a push) and yet the height is all wrong for anything in their loose box stalls, so the best I have come up with, is that he did it on a tree in the pasture.. Boys will be Boys after all!

Now I have trimmed out the hair to allow open air flow around the scrapes, they were already starting to heal a bit with no real sign’s of a issue but as often is the case, looks do not tell the whole story, so I wanted to make sure I did a little care on them, I carefully soaked warm cloths on it till it soften, so that I could take the half healed scab’s off to make sure I could clean under them, and while one is smaller, the deeper bigger one on the right did in fact have green puss in it. 

 I flushed it with hydrogen peroxide and the truth came out on if it was infected or not.. and it took two more flushes before it stopped bubbling white.

 

then time to give  it a dab of healing salve, which I will touch up twice a day at feeding time, and it should be healed up in a matter of days.. Now I’m not saying that his body would not have healed it, but why not give a helping hand and put our knowledge of germs to use.

Posted in Critters | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Wild Greens-Fiddle Heads are up locally!

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Having trouble posting over the past few days, so here is hoping that I can get this photo up.. look what I found on my afternoon walk.. Yummy!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

O my, the driest winter in 63 years locally..

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, this past weekend, we were out and about on the farm, and around the local area.. Digging in my gardens, it was startling to see just how dry some of it is already.. then we did some work in the pastures and while my front big pasture still has some wet area’s, my slew is down to mud, and my pond is down by half..

Lets break pond info.. this our eighth spring, two springs, the pond overflowed and joined the slew area, five springs the pond filled and would be full to the brim right now, and this year.. we are down by half.. hmmmm

Then I went for walk in my past cow pasture (aka Small pasture) and was very surprised to realize that is green yes but also dry.. my wetter area’s did not swish under foot, so I headed to my lowest spot and its summer dry as well..

The weather gave us April in March and I have a late june water dryout in the first two weeks of april! Just to drive home, Farmer R was working in his back field, and he had dust behind his tractor, normally, he can’t even get on the land at this point, its to wet, I’m flood zone, that never flooded this spring..

Needless to say, we have already put and extra gutter, the rainbarrels and are looking at doing an extra roof or two to create a bigger storage amount.. my back well which is drilled is and will produce water as its nice and deep but my front house well is already showing of a dropping water table.. this is not good, as we typically do major house cleaning in the spring as we have lots of water, good thing I did alot last month..

I think we are going to have to start our late summer/early fall water rationing in regards tothe house now, instead of late june or july..hmmm I need some good heavy spring rains so fill up a dozen or so 55 gallon drums..

What is this going to do in regards to my hay crop? Garden crops etc.. not bad enough that everything is off in regards to starting timing, now I am going to have to worry about watering.. I am going to have to do even more dry land spacing in the gardens and mulch heavily to keep what I have in the soil..

One more reason to really like those hugelbeet’s, they hold alot of water in the wood and release it much slower for the plants.. So anyone in ontario that got hit with this early spring, also finding it dry in their area?

Posted in farm, food | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Come on a spring hike with us!

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

We took a lovely little 3.6 km hike in the woods and around a bit of a little lake yesterday, it was the yellow loop, come join us on the hike in a series of photos I took!

It always amaze’s me that everywhere around me there are these amazing rock, and yet on my own farm.. no rocks..

Some of the photos are just there because I liked them, not because they are showing the route or the area so much I just thought they caught my eye on the walk.

We reached the lake and part of the goal of the hike, besides a nice walk in the woods, is always to play games of “what can you find that could be used” so at the lake, we found lots of clam shells, minnows, bog cranberry, tons of cattail, frogs and tons of frog eggs

The cool thing about the board walk on the side of the lake is that it’s a bog walk, you can look into the swamp and channels on your right and the lake shore front on your left, then it leads off into the swamp for a good while..

The wet lands yields up not only some very pretty photos but also we found 9 different types of mushrooms, only one was of eating quality that I am aware of, but I found three that I know how to use medically, and the others were of unknown origins.

Most of the forest walk was off the board walks, and on a local trail that showed us some very nice starts to local wild food, we found wild strawberry, Grape, Blackberry, raspberry and lots and lots of ferns!

We flushed two sets of Quail out, we spotted a male robin, two piles of deer poo, and tracks that showed that there was rabbit to found locally, we heard but never could spot some woodpeckers.. on the other side of the trail you go back into a very heavy wetland area and are on the second boardwalk but it’s very different woods from the first..

Now as fate would have it, we saw the only bigger wildlife on the walk near the end, as we were just about to join up to the smaller walk to the lake and back, and it was this handsome big fella..

Now the funny thing about this about this was that I heard him coming in the leaves and we had stopped to let him cross the path, he got about half way there and stopped and sat up on his rear for a better view and was clearly alarmed.. I could not see or hear anything yet, but knew that he and we had the wind,  I shifted a foot and he gave me the eye, came down and moved another foot or two and then went back checking out the area, then I heard it.. human voices.. including a high children’s one.. and the critter was frozen and smelling but clearly unhappy (Odd I thought, he is not reacting to us and he know’s we are there) and around the bend came a group of three adults, one child of about eight and a young pup, not on leash, not even with collar or harness for quick catching, just loose with them, the child had got a splinter and was very upset, and they were making him hold his hand above his heart (hear me groaning and kinda laughing at the same time) so that it would not bleed  as much..

The porcine went back to the right and was frozen again in a threat pose, with tail at ready, when they reached where the trails joined, and the pup seeing us, of course started our way, lady looks at us and say a tentative hello to these two folks in wood colored colors, I point out that she might want to call back the pup, as the porcupine is right! there, and I take two sets to set him off and up the tree.  They chatter excited about how they have seen them on TV but never in real life and the lady goes to walk closer! I say, I would give him some space and we continue on our way. Wow, they didn’t even have a thing of water with them, let alone a first aid kit for a bandage.. the lady was in sandals! no coats, no gear, no water, no food.. nothing.. 

Then we headed home and I spotted a garage sale on the way though a tiny village, and ended up coming home with 3 1 gallon glass wine or vinegar bottles with tops, 2 med size glass oven roasters with lids and a very old cut glass vase with a flower holder top, like my grandma used to have.. Great outing that is for sure.. but I am not quite done.. we took a new route home and we passed this, and I am so going to go back and check them out!

Posted in wild foods | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Happy Easter! We are having homemade Lamb Ham!

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

What can I say, I didn’t have ham in the freezer but I wanted the meat to be 0 mile..  so put the old thinking cap on,  I do have some very nice legs of lamb, so I cured up two of them, one is being smoked and slow cooked for later use but this one was baked into a lovely lamb ham with root veggies for our Easter Dinner.  I think that the color turned out great, we had it for supper on good friday, and then yesterday when we came home late from our hike, we cubed up all the veggies, some of the cured lamb and made a stew, still have a good feed of it left for today, plus lots of cured lamb for another dish or two to be figured out.

So what lovely meat is gracing your table this weekend and is it local? or did you take it one step closer and make it 0 mile (from your own farm?)

Posted in Charcuterie, Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Garden-My $2 dollar “cold frame” Horse Trough

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Ok so I picked up this nice big metal water trough for $2 dollars as it was rusted though, now it was fixable if you had a welder but that was not what I wanted if for.. So the glass was gotten as curb shopping or given to us, the compost is from the barn, and the rich dirt is a three-year old compost pile that has rotted down into good black soil. Even the seeds I am starting where saved from the farm’s gardens.

We moved the trough to a bright sun spot by the front of the main garden fence and we filled it up 3/4 of the way with half done compost from last falls pile, it has heated once and has been turned by the pigs once.. once it was filled up, I watered it down to get it going again..

Then we needed to go to one of my three-year old compost piles, I know that from the first look of it, there is not too much to see, ah but our eyes are fooled..

Once you start digging into it and breaking up the shovelful, taking out the starting top plants, and now you have wheel barrel full of rich good dark soil to be used on top of the compost, we want about 3 or 4 inches of good soil on top of it. Now I placed glass on top to act as a greenhouse effect, the big piece will stay, but I have a small overlap piece on the end that can be added or removed with ease to increase or reduce the heat I can easily throw a thick old wool blanket to drape over it, on a very cold night but as the compost will act as a slow acting heat matt, at this time of the years is very unlikely that it will be needed.

I am going to plant some lovely squash and maybe some cucumbers in there ahead of the game by 6 to 8 weeks, it’s just the perfect heavy feeders for something like this, and I will add in a vertical climber on both sides, and allow them to go up and then out and over the sides for excellent air flow..

Reuse and think creatively, and almost anything can be used to help you create different garden spots! What is the most interesting thing you have turned into a growing spot?

Posted in gardening, gardens | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Beefed up Corn Pudding Recipe with Mashed!

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Beefed up Corn Pudding recipe Inspired by Kodi’s Aunts Recipe but also by a recipe found in Fat-Back and Molasses, a collection of favourite old recipes from Newfoundland and Labrador.

  • 1 onion-Peeled and finely diced
  • 1 cup cooked and diced Leftover Beef
  • 2 cups of canned corn (drained)
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 tbsp of olive oil
  • 1/2 cup of flour
  • Salt, pepper, basil and diced winter greens (about 1/4 of a cup)
  • Baked in a bunt pan at 350 for 25 min till golden brown and firm.

Start with your oil, and eggs, beat them together till a nice light yellow color comes, if you want your onion, soft-you will need to precook it, I like the crunch so it went in raw, then the beef, corn, greens and the seasonings went in, mixed well, sprinkle the flour and beat in, then pour evenly in the pan, it filled it about half way, check it with a wooden toothpick to come out clean. Allow to sit for a just a min or two and then flip it out, let it sit and with a little bit of luck, it will come out whole.. Serve hot ideally but can be successfully re-warmed. I recommend it with mashed, a drizzle of homemade gravy with a side of colslaw or carrot salad, but green would work as well if you prefer. Or Go J’s way, mashed, gravy on its own will do just fine thanks…

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Long weekend coming up!

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Its a long weekend and its going to be a busy one!, we have mini-trips off the farm planned, I lucked out enough to have a farm sale happening this coming weekend less then 20 min from the farm, so will pop off to attend that, and hopefully come home with a goody or two.

There is work to be done in the garden, and I am going to put together a new hot manure compost bed, taking photos on how its done, we need to turn and water some piles of compost, we need to keep working on the hugelbeds.

I want to do a little bird butchering, ideally putting six to eight roosters into freezer camp and or do a little curing and smoking.. I have made a lamb ham for easter 🙂

Want to plant out a new area in the garden and put a covered plastic row covers over it, and then the new work project that is these for the ducks.. I saw this photo on a poultry site last year  and loved the write up about them for nesting ducks, and I want to try making some for my own girls this year.. I’m sure that credit goes to someone or something with the TCD logo but it was a repost on the site so just know it was not me, and we will go from there..

Will make sure that the camera is fully charged and will do my best to remember to take lots of photos to go with the write ups.. Wishing you all a wonderful easter long weekend, may it be filled with family, friends, good times and perhaps a few projects 🙂

 

Posted in farm | 3 Comments