There is a red head around here that is in BIG Trouble!

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

So last week a truck pulled in, and farmer T got out and asked real nice if I had any new cats that had showed up to join my barn cats, surprisingly the answer is no, we almost always have at least one momma cat that shows up and think my farm is a great place to stop but so far this year, no new strays..

So who was she looking for.. and I got a list of six colors and patterns to watch for.. what the ? you are missing six cats over the past two months, now her cats are farm cats but she feeds them well, and her children adore those cats, there are times I have drove by and her little ones look like pied pipers with the kitty’s taking a walk with them.

 I personally was missing two cats over the past month or so, but they were strays and ghost cats, so sometimes they move on or you don’t see them much for awhile.

She said that Old Farmer Man down the road had also lost chickens, and one of his cats in the past two months, had I lost any birds, and I had not, but I showed her Hank and explained that I was no longer letting them out without Hank and he seemed to be doing a fine job.

Well, now flyin’ farmer(he has his own light weight) up the road stopped in to ask if I had seen one of their house kitties, which I have not..but I did see the red head that has been causing all kinds of trouble out and about.. got it figured out yet?

Anyone remember me writing about why I got Hank the big Gander this spring, it was because every spring, I have a battle with the local fox, who thinks my free ranging chickens are good pickings, well this year, I am not losing chickens personally but I think I have got a pretty good idea of what has been happening, and its upsetting everyone, we like our chickens/ducks etc but we adore our kitties..

Now to let the local’s know what I think, and see what can be done.

Posted in farm | Leave a comment

Consider the Ant-C.D.

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Canadian Doomer is hosting a spot on her site for all of us Ants to have a little get together, and visit.. hope to see you there..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

Break your fast..

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Or as we call it now, Breakfast, does it bring to mind, eggs, toast, porridge, or how about waffles or pancakes? Some lovely fresh fruit, with fluffy biscuits with sausage?

What about soup? Do any of you ever have soup for breakfast? I don’t ever remember my mom serving soup for breakfast, then we moved north, and I was invited to breakfast at a local’s and was served soup, it was tasty and very healthy and I enjoyed it alot and when I got home I wondered, why have I never done this before?

Then I was on a international flight and we were served fresh hot soup with our breakfasts and once again, it was perfect, most folks drink hot coffee, or tea which is fine, but why not consider a bowl of fresh hot soup for breakfast. You can make a light broth soup, and drink it from the mug, or if you are going to have a heavy busy day, you can go for a hearty soup. This was our breakfast for saturday morning, leftover roast beef, hashbrowns, fresh greens and mushrooms in a rich broth.

Considering that I will eat what is considered breakfast foods for lunch of dinner, pancakes, porridge, french toast and omlets as examples.. why not switch something that is considered a dinner meal and try it for breakfast!

So do any of you like soup for breakfast? If so, what is your favorite kind?

Posted in food | 1 Comment

Way to quiet…

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Lost my phone line for a solid two days and off most of the time for another two days, that means no phone, no internet, no blogging, and no google.. Let me tell you, I am more prepared for power loss, then I am  for the phone line to be gone!

In a way it was very good for working on the farm, on the other hand, I truly felt like I had lost part of my daily routine and I didn’t like it at all. That is the strange thing about writing on a blog or following other blogs, when its not there- you miss them.

Saturday, I got on, and thought the issue behind me, so got my post up and then lost it solid till late tonight, so mother’s day came and went, and I didn’t get to talk to my momma, that was such a odd feeling.

Dh took over the cooking for the day, and like any good farmgal, my mother’s day presents was 3 new blueberry bushes, and some fancy purple/white lilies, along with some very different heritage tomato and pepper plants, along with new garden shoes.

The rest of the day was spent putting up barb wire, which seemed perfect, half the day out plant shopping, a lovingly prepared meal and barb wire fencing.

So what did you do for mother’s day?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

New 140 foot Elderberry Hedge row on the farm.

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

So we spent a number of hours moving those baby Elderberry’s out of the bed they were in, and we had enough to do more then just one back row of them in hedge space, we have enough to do up the whole side of a garden area as well.

The first thing we learned is that they were NOT from seeds afterall, that every single one of them were in fact connected to one of the adult elder’s by thin little roots (you can see we carefully dug out the new rooting and then cut off the root leaving about 4 inches), they had really travels a good distance as they were in among the lily’s and cedars, not around the adult elder’s themselves.

Now according to the ontario planting guide, for a max production, you should give them ten feet between, but I want a hedge row effect, so I went 6 feet apart instead, I have tried both spacings and to be honest with I don’t see much difference in how they produce, I will admit that with the six foot spacing you can’t walk all the way around the bush, they certainly do meet in the middle but o do they produce like mad when they are that close.

Now, I have read this on other sites and I am going to back them, Elder’s don’t like to dry out at all! between plantings, I highly recommend digging out only what you are moving one at a time so that they get as little chance as possable to dry out before going in to their new home, they tend to wilt, and look very sad, don’t worry they will perk up, or they will die right off, but don’t panic, I have had this happen a number of times, every single time, the roots themselves will shortly send up new starts.

Now I am only speaking for my wild transplanted ElderBerry Bushes, but these guys grow like mad, they can easily grow ten feet in a single season in my climate and soil, they will produce to the point that they will break their own limbs with the weight of the fruit if left alone, I will do a post later in the season to show you how I select how to take out the elder flowers, along with some recipes on how to use them, so that you can help remove some as needed so this won’t happen.

So far we have moved 40 bushes which equal’s 120 foot row so far. We still have at least another ten to move, but it will be up front in the soft fruit rows up by the hard fruit orchard. In total we now have 140 foot of new Elderberry Hedge planted rows

One of the things I am most looking forward to, is having enough Elderflowers to wrap more apples in the dried flowers for keeping in the fall.. the flavor it gives them is heavenly.

Posted in gardens | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Lemon Dill Salmon Recipe

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Take your Salmon Steak, and drizzle a little good oil over it, with a fresh clove of crushed garlic, dried lemon peel, and a heaping tsp of dill and place in a baggy and let it sit at least a couple hours or overnight in the fridge.

The next day in one cast iron pan quickly stirfry

  • One pepper any color, this one was green, that has been cleaned, and cut into stripes
  • One onion, peeled and sliced into stripes
  • 10 mushrooms into large slices
  • Heaping handfulls of fresh greens
  • Drizzle of oil to start them off, with a finish of touch of salt and lemon juice.

In a second small pan, heat at med heat, and put a little oil and place your salmon in, cook about 2 to 3 min per side, and then give it a fresh sprinckle of dill.

If you wanted this to be a more filling meal, you can of course serve this over mashed Potato’s, Rice or Coucous, or over any kind of cooked pasta.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged | Leave a comment

The last lamb due has joined the flock

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Sheep Update, This past week saw that birth of the last due ewe on the farm, and we were fooled that she was ready a few days before the birth, she sure bagged up early but when the little one came, it was as active and healthy as can be.

Its funny to see her out in the pasture, she looks so tiny compared to the other lambs, the ewes and the older lambs walk, she runs to keep up.

Last year, we had all ewe lambs, this year it was a good mix, with 60 percent ram lambs and 40 percent ewe lambs, only one ewe lamb will be kept back this year, that will be the lovely brown/white girl already named Frudge or as we already call her Frudgelit, now if only her baaa didn’t sound like a deep foghorn, I would think her perfect.

We had some challanges in the barn this year, one stillborn, who I believe died at least a number of days before being born, one loss within 24 hours, and then the true strange one, a perfectly healthy almost two month old lamb, that jumped off the bale the wrong way and broke its neck, we had just seem them jumping around and play not 30 min before, and I had commented, I don’t like that the lambs are climbing the big huge bales of hay, do you think that is safe, and the answer is NO.

We had one bottle feed lamb this year, and one bum lamb, asking yourself the difference, the bum lamb was rejected but fully able to drink off a ewe, and more then willing to do, but mom didn’t want him, but after weeks of taking him to the barn, mom gave up and he moved back out to the barn, he is now 3/4 the size already of his momma.

The bottle lamb are just that, they won’t nurse on momma, they are on the bottle, and become house lambs until old enough to head out to the barn when they are big enough.

Having said that in total we have a dozen lovely lambs romping around the pastures, grazing side by side with their momma’s

Next: gardens, Yardwork, Fencing and I have a number of hens of the feathered kind sitting on nest of eggs, so with luck we will have chicks and ducklings gracing the farm soon enough.

So for those that have sheep, how did your lambing going this spring? Are you done? Are you just starting? Half way there? Do you milk any of the mother sheep for your own use?

Posted in turkeys | Tagged | 3 Comments

Cranberry Coconut Cake Recipe

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Give this lovely flavorful but heavier cake a try, its meant to be a good snack for when you come in from working outside and need something to fill you up a bit and tied you over till the real meal comes.

  • 1/4 cup of oil
  • 1/2 cup of Sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 tbsp of Baking Powder
  • a pinch of salt
  • 1 cup of dried cranberries (or any other dried fruit)
  • 1/2 cup of Coconut

Mix your oil or Butter/Margine together with your sugar, then add your eggs and beat together, then add milk, then all the dried, mix together, its a fairly thick batter, and into a 8 by 8 glass pan.

Then take brown sugar and lightly sprinkle it on top of the cake batter, till you can’t see it anymore, then take Coconut and repeat, covering the brown sugar, then Bake in a 350 oven for about 35-40 min or until a knife comes out clean.

Serve with Tea or goes wonderful with a big old glass of ice cold milk.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged | 6 Comments

Rising Costs of Meat-Are you feeling the effect yet?

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Last weekend, my Step-dad was in the “big city” for work and we did a meet up for a visit, lunch and then to give him a ride to the airport, one of our stops from his downtown hotel was the big local farmer’s market, and as I looked at the booths, I was going a little wide eyed. The costs on meat was up, Up and UP. I was surprised to see grass feed lamb, organic but not certified(so eqaul to how I raise my own animals) and the cheapest was 2.99 a pd with the highest cut being 16.99 a pd, to which I say.. good heavens!

Whole Frozen Chickens/Turkeys/Ducks all raised like mine, and running right around 5 dollars a pd, and then there was the beef, o my, the costs of the beef was breathtakingly crazy to me. 

I didn’t see any available rabbit but I know that at our really good local butcher shops a 4 pds dressed out whole rabbit will run between 20 to 25 dollars per.

So this morning on the radio, they were talking Beef on the rise, so here is some of what they said, in Canada, when the border was locked down, the price on beef dropped as low as the seller getting 10 cents per pds in 2002 or 2003.

Lets jump forward on to some reason why we are seeing such high prices and why I don’t think that the price will be going down any time soon.

  •  currently getting 65 cents per pd in my local area, which is up to a full 55 cent per pds increase for the farmers.
  • Less farmers, less cows, since 2003-2004, we currently have 1.5 million less cows on farms, that means 1.5 million less calves per year being born.
  • Farmers switching from Cow/Calf to Cash Cropping, Soy and Corn being the main crops being done as the rising prices on these crops mean that more money is to be made.

Interestingly, the farmer said that the bigger stores were in fact taking on some of the higher costs at the meat counter so that they could raise the prices slower, as there are consumer studies that say that if you raise things 3% that the will grumble but still buy but if it jumps 5% or more on a single item, that the rumbles will grow loud enough to make them choose to look for a cheaper cut of meat or a different meat altogether.

Other costs that add to rising prices that they didn’t talk about, but I am sure they figure in as well.

  • Rising feed costs
  • Rising Vet Costs
  • Rising Hydro Costs
  • Rising Gas Prices
  • Rising Costs on All Fencing materials, when we fenced our first pasture four years ago, we paid 180 for that roll of sheep fencing, the second pasture those same rolls cost us 210, the third pasture, the same fencing cost 260, and this year, that same roll is now listed at 300. Of course to be honest, I have never paid full price, I always buy only when our local feed store puts them on sale twice a year typically 25 to 35 percent off.. still that is one huge hike in price!

So let me hear from you? Are you seeing the same increases in your area, your country? Do you eat beef? If so, are you buying less? What are you replacing it with, a different meat? or are you eating less meat? For those with land, are you looking hard at any spare peice of land and working to figure out how to grow your own protein on it? If this is the effect on regular prices, what does this mean for the local prices in regards to “organic beef” which is typically sold at least 30% higher.

Posted in farm, food | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Troublesome Flower Bed!

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I admit it, I have a spot that is to be a flower bed that has cost me more time and effort then I would ever want to admit to, when we moved here, the very first bed we made was on the east side of the house, I planted two lovely bushes, that have done very well and then planned on filling the one spot that is about 10 feet by 5 feet with flowers being mainly with those that would come back year after with a bit of spring color in the form of annuals. Sounds like such a simple plan yes?

Huh, I have redone that bed for five years now and it still does not work, I have filled it with bulbs, that the chickens dug out, I have put in grasses that refused to grow? I have done tomato’s that loved it (Maybe I should just give up and make it a garden spot) I have done it into wild flowers, and still between the heat, and the chickens, it never works well or for long.. so this year, I REFUSE to spend any money on replanting it, anything that is going in there has to be free from the farm garden and or the pasture etc.

So here is my new plan, at the back, I am going to put in a row of Red Bee Balm, as they are the tallest, the second row will be Ditch Lily’s or Tiger Lily’s, the third row is going to be wild violets, as they grow freely as a ground cover under my big tree’s and the last front row is being planted into strawberries. All really tough plants that “should” come back year after year and between them fill in every single nock and granny in that bed.

Ok dear readers, what do you think of this plan? Would you add to the list and if so what? Do you have one spot that because of shade, heat or pets/chickens that is a trouble spot in your garden?

Posted in gardens | Tagged , | 4 Comments