Just another Day on the Farm

Frugal is as Frugal does.

Posted on August 18, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

It happens to all of us, that unexpectedly high car repair bill, you know the one.. the one where you are like this should cost 200 and you go, I have six hundred so if they find something else.. we are good! and then the bill is over a thousand and you blink hard.

Well, we have had a string of Blink Hards of the past six months and we have taken each one with a grunt and an moved forward (because really what else can you do) and then in the past six weeks, we have had a few more and they have been far bigger.. instead of it being a blink hard.. its a sit down and work it out. The Blinks have been all over the place to be honest, some are from the farm, some are from the vehicles, some has been vet care and some has been related to needed medical care.

So in order to both get a few things caught up and for putting away some for that rainy day fund which has been depleted some. we are needing to do some belt tightening. Being on the homestead, the first thing that goes is the outside food budget (it gets cut out or bare bones. I say bare bones because you can’t miss out on sales. Its never a good idea to not get something that comes only once a year or once every three months or six months in the sale cycles)

The good news is if there ever a good time of the year to eat off your garden and land, summer is the time.. but the bad news on that is that its also the time to be putting up and some of those putting up things normally are gotten off the farm. While certain things are grown in amount for fresh eating and even a few months worth of eating some things are just not mature enough or had a bad year etc and normally those things are gotten in bulk from other local sources. I will need to figure out if that will continue to be the case because those sales and those bushels only come around once a year.

The second is off the farm trips, events or other ways to spend money. The question is what an where can you give and what do you need to spend on. Now I am NOT talking about your regular bills, they are a must and they are not the issue here. They are just a given.

No the issue where does the “unclaimed” fund go.. that is much harder thing to figure out at times. I am still working on some things.

Examples

I really want to put in a rain garden in the new ripped up front yard, but that means renting equipment that can do the job.. in the long term.. this would be a good thing but is it a hold off and do it later fall but before freeze up?

I need to replant in the yards, but plants all cost money, so do I only use plants, bushes and wild dug babies to do what I want and then have to plan in and leave spaces for the “paid” for fruiting bushes and tree’s next year?

I need to bring in soil, bring in gravel, bring in more fence posts, buy new fencing.. but that’s a tricky one as well, because I don’t HAVE to do that. My old fence may be ugly and it may need to be replaced but it does keep the animals in.. New sheep fencing is costly but its one of the big 2018 projects and we have already got the posts in.. and sections are newly fenced off but there is still three lines that need to be redone.

In the house, there are a number of projects that are in the same boat.. which one needs to be done more then the other. Getting the power lines and such fixed on the house so that we could get it signed off was spendy, it was pretty much a two month budget on work to be done in the house..

There are lots of things we don’t need anything from in the next month to three months. I figure we can get back to level one in three months (without to many new things happening, like I don’t know.. one of my main big living room windows breaking!) yes this just happened or I should say found today..

And six months to get back to the level that I prefer us to be at.

Posted in At the kitchen table | 15 Comments

Powdery Mildew and Treatment plan

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Last week was filled with a number of things that kept us just one foot in front of the other. I might get to the point where I will write about some of it.

However the garden is in full swing, making pots of pasta sauce, putting up corn and beans, and lots of zucchini. Eating it fresh, grating it and putting up small bags of it into the freezer for baking at a later point, and I did nine trays of grated dried for use in winter for soups and stews, I like to just put a handful into them. I found this big one hidden (you know it all happens, you think you got them all but nope) which I am going to make a mock apple pie or crumble with it.

Its aug though that means that like most gardens in our zone. Powdery Mildew is starting to show up on the squash plants. It has not hit the truly bad stage where the whole leaf is covered in the grey but its coming! you can see the infected spots on the leaves. Now is the time to try and get it under control as much as you can.

So this issue is common and there are three ways to work on helping your plants.

Remove effected leaves and then either burn them or bag them up and send them off the property. DO NOT COMPOST THEM please.. or you will be adding to the issue 🙂
Air flow, this often happens in plants that have lots of big leaves that layer up on each other, taking out those effected leaves will open up the air flow but take a good look at your plant and see if there is a closed off layered area that is not effected yet.. Take out a few leaves to create better air flow in and around the plant itself.
Spray those leaves, there are a number of different mixes you can find on the net to spray them with but I am going to keep it basic and simple. Sometimes you just need to change the ph.
Mix 1/2tsp of baking soda with one quart of water. Shake it up till well blended and in a spray bottle, spray the leaves top and bottom and down the stems at least once a week or after each bigger rain.

Posted in Garden, Life moves on daily | Tagged Garden, Powdery Mildew, Treatments for Powdery Mildew, ways to keep powdery Mildew under control | 2 Comments

Project 2018-Stumps- Maple

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

We have a number of stumps left over from the work done and some of them are smaller, a few mid size and one that is considered large and two that are massive..

Today we are going to talk about the large size one that came from a old maple tree. It had a dead part on one side that got bigger over the years that was trimmed back on but the other side was great.. still it was rotting out. Given that the equipment and men where all here on the farm, it made sense to ask them to come across the drive way and take down the big old maple tree at the same time.

It left me this stump..

As you can see its really rotted out inside the stump itself. I have made a little video for you so you can see it go live.. and I have taken photos for those that do not have the ban width to watch it 🙂

The inside wood just crumbled by hand into the most beautiful wood fluff, it will hold water like a dream and continue to rot down inside the stump itself.

its created a very interesting plant shape in the stump, I like it! I have pulled out a few large not as composted piece out and then backfilled the holes till its all level across the stump. there is around ten inches from the top of the wood fill till the top of the stump. That I will fill with a mix of soil/compost. After I get it ready, I will plant it and we will have a lovely permaculture garden stump 🙂

if it was your stump, what would you be planting in it, keep in mind it is First week of Aug 🙂

Posted in gardens | Tagged Garden, permaculture in a old tree stump, Permacutlure, planting in a tree stup, Using Permaculture on the farm | 2 Comments

Future planning-Yard Redo!

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, we have had the farm for 14 years this spring and we have loved our big old willow tree’s (two of them) our huge very old crab apple and our very large maple tree. The willows are around 80 plus years old and the others are not that far behind.

They were old Grandfather tree’s but they have been warning us for a couple years now that they were at the edge and end of their natural life.. We have had a couple bigger limbs come down in the ice storms, the spring bad storms and then just this week.. we had a short but hard storm hit the farm..

Down came a huge limb and it damaged our power lines and so forth.. So we had to act quickly and get the work done so that we could get our power back on the farm. It used to be that you could not see our home though the wall of green in levels along the house, you had to drive past the green wall to see the house..

Not anymore.. We had to take down the front small tree layer, the big tree’s and we have lost pretty much all our shade on the whole front of the house and deck.. lots and lots of clean up to do yet.. this photo was taken at the end of day one.. Massive difference and then some.

The stumps got cut down as well as the maple on the side on day two. I am sad that we had such a loss but I am excited about planning the new yard. I will look forward to sharing the planning and the work as it all comes together.

This is the new view from our kitchen window and boy is the kitchen so much brighter 🙂

I will get more photos later. but its safe to say that our whole front yard is going to be changing to a large point. Now I could have taken less to be honest. Some things had to come down.. other things I said take down for a reason.

Honestly I said take them down to the effects I am seeing in regards to climate change. We are having so many more storms.. hard fast brutal winds, Ice storms and crazy hard rain storms and so forth. I believe that when we are done, we will have removed all the “storm danger” to the house trees.

The replanning and replanting will take these types of storms into effect.. including run off for heavy rains, wind breaks for the high wind storms, Shade factors and so much more. Its both sad to see everything changing but exciting to plan and then work the plan for the coming future.

I am also so glad that we worked on planting out the front over the years because that is now my view and once its cleaned up.. its quite a nice one really 🙂 Spruce, and apple tree’s, hawthorn and a lovely smoke bush and so much more.

Still its a shock each time I look outside right now!

Posted in At the kitchen table | 3 Comments

Farrier and Vet Care

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

LOL, hubby made me make a shaming Meme for our big boy Caleb.. the reason is seen in the meme. Our horse’s are for sure big old horse puppy dogs in many ways.. those two geldings are best buds. I am so happy to have them enjoy each others company as much as they do. Just as grateful that you can pull them apart and work them as their own horse.

Weds morning was the regular farrier visit, he is a great guy and really works with each horse for what is best for them. It never fails to amaze me that my boys both get such different hoof shaping. They have very different hoofs, Calebs are mainly white and he has a good amount of flaring out on them and they are shaped to give him a certain angle that is best for his conformation. Bojangles on the other hand has dark grey hoofs and he is prone to chipping on them. His hoofs dry out much faster then Calebs do and he has a much rounder hoof that is trimmed into a more compact shape.

Both boys passed their feet trims with flying colors and are good to go for another 8 weeks at this point in the year. Always a good thing.

However I needed to take Paris to the vet, we needed to get more flea and tick meds for both the farm cats and the hounds. We normally treat for fleas and such but not ticks.. however we got a notice with the amount of ticks that are carrying lime locally has exploded and I have been finding and removing ticks. Its just not worth the risk. I hate the meds that are required to treat this in the dogs and cats However when the number of red dots that show positive tests are like a nice red swarm over your own area.

Well, I love them all to much not to get the meds for them. Its a bit costly to do so, I was glad to have much smaller numbers to buy for this year as it is the ticks that are the most concern this year, it means I have to run my control program longer as ticks are active at 4c so longer into the fall and earlier in the spring. I will take the hounds in for blood work in the spring to make sure everyone is good before starting the meds again.

Are you having a bad tick year? Do you have lime in your area that you live in? We didn’t used to have lime carrying ticks locally like we do now.. but with the longer hotter summers we have had them move into our area and they are exploding in numbers!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Farrier visits, horse care, Routine Farrier, Vet care on the farm | 1 Comment

Garden is doing well

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I love when folks post photos of what they picked that day.. but I thought It would be nice to show the day’s harvest as it was being processed.

The little cherry tomato’s are fresh eating, the bowl of peppers was a mix of two kinds, I am very pleased with how well my pepper plants are doing this year so far. Lots of peppers being chopped and put into bags for the freezer for different uses. We are putting up around 8 to 12 cups of roma type sauce tomato’s into the freezer for sauce making every day or second day so far.. No point bring out the big sauce making pots until I have a stock pile or until later in the season when larger amount start coming in.

So far we have four different kinds of beans coming in, and each has its own flavour, one kind we are just eating fresh so far, one kind is for canning, one for freezing and I have been told that the other one is ideal for pickling. I will be trying it this week and see how it goes.

Last but not least, the smaller squash was eaten fresh in meal but the two bigger were grated and frozen for later baking in the year. I know that everyone loves their noodles now made out of fresh zucchini but I still love my grated for making loaves. I will grow some later in the season big for Fake Pineapple but I want lots of the smaller first 🙂

Are you picking daily at this point 🙂 I hope so.

Posted in Garden | 5 Comments

Summer Zucchini Pie

Posted on August 1, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Zucchini Pie

This is a very easy dish to make and its flexable. You will need one base sheet of pie dough for a regular sized pie plate. This can be homemade or it can be gotten at the store (Pie dough is really easy to make but not everyone does)

Once your pie plate is ready, you are going to slice Zucchini into thin rounds and you layer them out two layers deep in the pie plate, intermixed with about 10 to 12 sliced in half cherry tomato’s.

Then in a bowl, beat eight med to large eggs well, Then add in 2 tsp of dill, 2 tsp of Basil and 2 tsp of mixed veggie blend flavouring of your choice and 1/2 a tsp of salt.. Beat your herbs into the eggs well then pour over top your veggies in the pie shell. The zucchini will float up, it happens.

Bake in a slow oven at 325 for approx. 40 to 50 min till pie crust is golden brown and the center of the pie is set. Can be served warm or cold.

Posted in Baking | Tagged zucchini summer pie | Leave a comment

Homestead- What do we need to produce?

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

So a dear friend of mine said? Ok, so you want to make some changes and I know you love your lists.. so what do you need to produce? I did the first three fast off the top of my head, meat, milk and eggs.

Its a good answer but its not complete by any means and it got me thinking.. What do we need to produce?

The gardens need to produce

Fruit
Fresh Eating Veggies
Storage Veggies
Canned or Frozen Veggies
Root crops
Cold Storage Crops
Herbs
Healing Plants
Fodder
Protein (plant based)
Bee and Native pollinator food

What does the farmyard need to produce

Milk
Eggs
Meat
Wool
Manure

What does the land need to produce

Compost
Pasture
Hay
Fodder crops
Mushrooms

What else does the farm land use and or the farm produce

Hides
Bones
Blood meal
Wood
Ash

What are our other main goals on the farm

A small non-sprayed piece of land that is run by human or animal power
To provide for the people and the animals that live on this piece of land
To provide a safe haven for native plants and pollinators and other small critters that thrive on our land, be it snakes, breeding turtles, toads/frogs/ salamanders and so much more.

What other goals are important as they relate to the farm

A way to give back to the community
A way to share the knowledge of what happens on the farm with the great community at large.

So what do we have on the farm that is meeting those goals and how many overlapping layers on certain things do we have? Can we tighten in our overlap, and what does that mean, does it mean remove? or does it mean reduce numbers?

Two good examples of this are Eggs?

We have chickens and ducks. We have three breeding programs of chickens, do we need all of them? Do we need ducks as well as chickens and if so, do we need as many breeding groups, how many of each do we need for our own personal family of two adults, two dogs and seven cats need?

A second example is the goats/sheep.. do we need a milk goat if we have a couple nice milking sheep? Goats give more milk for a longer steadier curve then the sheep do? Goats can cycle more easily out of season then the sheep will.

Does it make more sense to reduce the sheep flock and keep the milking goats or does it make more sense to remove the goat herd and only have the sheep flock?

When it comes to meat production, a pig is the king in this regards.. Honestly I can not beat the production rate of a nice little well bred weaner piglet for turning all my extra’s into really good protein and fat for use in our kitchen.

Having said that, we have been naturally over the past five years having many more meat-less meals, more plant based meals, more huge salad based meals. This means that I need to continue to look at shifting what we are going in the gardens to meet those meal needs, while reducing the animal carrying load on the farm.

Mulling.. Mulling.. Willing to hear what you have to say in regards to reducing the goat-sheep herds or thoughts on removing the goats totally and just focusing on the sheep for our household milk needs.

A good steady ewe can hold that half gallon milking for a good long, long while.. it’s not enough milk for a dairy but its about right for our own household needs (need more when we want to do cheese etc but that is when they freshen more) but do basic house needs.. I have done it number of years where I get a quart a milking for months and that works just fine for the two of us?

But that does not give enough for pig feed, but it does give enjoy for extra yogurt to go to the hounds and a bit for the farm cats now and again per week. or to finish fattening up a couple butcher chickens on clabber.. (if you have never had a clabber finished rooster.. do try it.. o so good)

Also on the hmmmm block is our Geese and Turkey programs.. How many fowl breeds do we need to run and carry?

This is the last post this week on this subject, I have a lovely recipe going up tomorrow and then I will off (I think) for a couple days as I am going on a mini holiday and hubby will be home and running the farm. I am planning on taking those days off from the blog at that time.

Posted in At the kitchen table | 4 Comments

Rabbit Breeding Program 2018

Posted on July 30, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

We have had rabbits on the farm since the first spring we arrived here over 14 years ago and we still have rabbits.. We have two lovely young rabbits called Pudge and Brownie, who where the very lucky ones. They are two of the sweetest and friendly buns I own.. they are the only rabbits that got the pass on the weekend.

So the first breeding program that was removed from our small farm was the rabbit breeding program. The remaining two rabbits are because while I can give up breeding, I can not give up rabbit manure for the gardens.. Its gold people!

It was a rough butcher out weekend, and yes there was tears, there was a even a stop in the process while Dear Hubby said.. “if its this hard and you are this upset are you sure you want this to happen” You see its not the grow out that are the issue.. that’s what they are for.. from the time they are born to the time they are freezer camped, that’s their job.. live well, grow well and have one bad day.

But putting down my breeders.. very hard, the whole way around.. they have names, two of the females have been with me for five years plus. None the less I pulled it together, got my focus on and by mid afternoon on sunday.. our whole rabbit breeding program was removed off the farm..

Sort of.. I held back a top line female (pudge of one breeding line) and Brownie(male) of a combo of the second line. This was the agreement that hubby and I came to.. I would hold back at least one of each line in a young rabbit in case I changed my mind down the road. It was a good meet in the middle for that stop and review talk. We agreed that we could have two “manure” producing rabbits (no total free loaders allowed)

This allowed us to empty out two set of hanging grow out pens in the croft on the back working wall of pens. It also allowed us to empty the big high two rabbit hutches, both of them were then filled with a set of hen/chicks for growing out.

Some of the oldest rabbit hutches will be pulled apart, some saved and the rest broken down into save parts and burn pile. In straight terms of cash output, this move will save the farm 940 in feed and 150 in combo of straw/hay. So a total cash output saving of $1090.

Now I want to point out that this breeding program DID make more return in regards to local costs of buying rabbit meat, it was a cost effective program. the extra’s in returns for hides and manure where both awesome as well.

Given the above statement, it might seem strange that I made this choice in regards to the rabbits. I made it for a number of reasons and I figured I own you a detailed account of why.

I need to reduce the amount of meat production on the farm. I started breeding rabbits to help feed my very allergy prone lab lily and she has been passed away now for four years. Then I increased the breeding program as my mom wanted rabbit on the menu.. but with her back in Alberta, there is little point to the increased numbers
I want to reduce the amount of butcher I need to do. I would rather do a larger animal, then have to do smaller animals on a more regular base.
Time.. I want more time to do other things on the farm. The rabbits are great but they do take work, the more you have, the more cages, the more grow outs, the longer the chore’s related to their care takes each day.
Money I can find a different use for that 1090 in savings in the coming year!

So for now at least we are going to stop actively breeding rabbits, We will keep our two rabbits and we will move forwards seeing how we feel about this choice.. we have a backup plan in place if needed.

The current plan is to stay with the two rabbits over the winter and see how it goes.. I figure we will have a much better idea of if it was the right choice next year. We will either go- Yes, that worked well for us or No, I want my rabbits back but on a smaller scale.

Posted in rabbits | Tagged Rabbit | 10 Comments

Food Hedge Row 2018- Two month update Video

Posted on July 29, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks, I took a video yesterday of my food hedge row that I shared the building and planting of with you this spring pretty close to two months ago. I wanted to show you how its doing at this mid summer point. I will do another one in the fall for you.

As you know we have had at least one bout of three weeks of crazy high temps and no rain, this area has not been “watered” in any sense. Once in the middle of the three weeks, it was given two five gallon buckets of a drink and that was it. Otherwise, its been on its own.