Christmas is coming.. the snow is here

Posted on December 18, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Winter finally arrived on the farm in Dec, before that the truth is while we did have some cooler days and nights and we have bitter cold winds that cut right though you, we also had at least two good bouts of warmer weather as well.

We did drag in our harvests and some were good, some were ok, and some where very poor, our lambs went to the butcher, as did a few yearlings for our own use here on the farm. Leaving me with a greatly reduced flock. I did get my new ram..  His name is King and he is a total sweetheart of a boy.. young but big and strong with a gentle temperament so far.  I am heading into winter with seven ewe’s and my new ram.  The flock is a mix of a two old ladies, four proven wonderful middle age mothers and one two year old young lady.

The hens snuck in two nests on us and hatched out a total of 16 new chicks, the oldest are now ten weeks and the younger are around four weeks now. I am ok with it, because I will enjoy having the young roosters from these as fresh chicken and at fryer size. I raised a number of lovely big six to eight month boys that will do big! sunday dinners.

I still need to get Red the Pig butchered yet, he is getting to be a big boy at this point its not getting done until the new year..

Can you believe it only one week till Christmas? I am doing ok on it but still have some things to get yet for stockings and a few smaller gifts.  Its going to be a busy season compared to what I am used to. I have hubby home for ten days (whoot!) and mom and I are talking and working our way though a number of things.

Its very interesting to see how almost 19 years of living away from each other has created many different holiday customs and like everything else it seems like both fun and a challenge to figure out how to make this and that happen.

The best you can do is keep talking, be open to idea’s an such..  more company then we are used to.. my mom is far more social then I am and I am 100 percent more social then my husband LOL

Baking is planned for later this week so I will have the camera fully charged and I will share some family recipes with you all 🙂 How is your Christmas coming? do you have family coming home? Are you heading to family for Christmas? or are you having a quiet just you one (my hubbies favorite).

Are you ready gift wise, did you get any second hand gifts, I have done well in that regard.. really nice gifts but many were found in second hand shops. A few things were gotten new but all were gotten at really good sale prices.. if its not at least 40 to 60 plus off.. its not getting looked at.

Will you be gifting any homemade things this year? Baking, canning? or perhaps soap or candies etc?

On a frugal note: Butter Sales are on this week.. as are a few other very great basic baking staples.. loss leaders are out in force at the moment! in my local shops.

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

How you all doing.. Something had to give..

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks..

Sorry for such a long time not posting and here I was rocking it this year with my daily posts and then the reno’s hit, the move of my mom coming happened and I pushed to hard and got sick, enough that it knocked me down and its been weeks on meds.. Stress and overwork will get you if you don’t watch it.

I am not saying that its not still busy and not still crazy.. because it is.. but this past week, I baked and thought, I would love to share this on the blog, I saw a image on the farm of one of my critters and thought, that would be a great photo of the blog and I had the urge to stop and write.

I am glad to have those feelings because I had honestly gotten so overwhelmed that I was just pushing one foot in front of the other, work, harvest, process if possible, keep up on the chores and try and have enough energy to get the next thing done..

I, the list queen gave up writing them for close to two weeks, I just could not handle seeing all the undone things and then I was to have a weekend break, something I had been looking forward to for so long and my body just crashed.. Hubby had to take me to Emerg twice in three days, tests and more tests and all the results came back good..

I am happy that the tests came back good, the only thing they did know was that I had a unknown infection (treated by antibodics) and that my Allergies had kicked into overdrive to the point that it as acting like I was having a lung infections (which I didn’t have, many x-rays showed that they were in fact clear). I was ordered to bed rest for a week and was ordered no inside barn work for a month (thankfully hubby stepped up and that they created really good masks for when I do need to go in and do things) however I have lost of 40 pounds in the past few months, moving two full sizes in cloths, had to go buy new jeans yesterday because I am tired of needing the belt or them falling off me and to the floor.

While I certainly have enough extra that its not a hardship and its a good thing in many ways but its also a reflection of just how hard the past few months have been as I would just not be hungry and food was something that instead of being one of my biggest joys, became just something that I needed to do to get though the next meal for those in the house.

Personally I think its overkill on the barn thing but I am trying hard to follow ordered, the good things is that I will get barn rights back before lambing (they are due in marchish) and before the goats kid and milking starts and so forth.

Well, That’s my first update at the moment.. I have the Christmas tree up and the presents under it are looking fine.. mine and hubbies are all “we could use this for the farm” very practical.. but I have found some truly lovely gifts for my mom, I hope she will enjoy them.

 

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

Chickens are useful for cleaning up compost piles

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

This is the keep back hatching clutch of mixed eggs from this spring and a fine group they are, could not be more pleased with them. The purebreds are in their own group at this time and one of the hens is currently sitting on 14 confirmed eggs on day 8. We will see if she hatches anything if so they will be moved to their own area for her to raise them.

I will not be putting any extra light on the pure girl flock, they will lay or not lay is more likely and have a nice winters rest.

On the other hand my new flock of up an comers will have full light hours and I want them laying though the whole winter until spring for me 🙂

Here is a short version of a longer post I have done on keep your hens laying in winter..

Light: Yup, just like everyone else, I am going to say if you want your girls to lay thought the winter, you need to add light, but do not be afraid to think outside the box.. some folks are very successful at moving their hens to their unheated greenhouses during the winter, this helps you get every light bit you can, and keeps the heating (if you choose to heat) to a min and has the added bonus of them both cleaning and adding to the soil.  but I recommend that if you can, take your chicken light needs to solar, We have a solar powered light that collects during the day (when the birds have light) turns on in the evening as it gets dark and runs for about 4 to 5 hours on a winter charge, this is the best of three worlds, I use what natural light there is at all times, The light turns on by itself as it gets dark and the extra hours means that my birds get at least 12 hours of light even in the dark of winter and third, I am still on the same solar powered lights for the chickens and the big barn coming on 7 years, given that I got them on sale for 29..  that’s at power cost of 4 dollars per year to power a building.. if I was doing that at my local power costs.. it would be a lot more.

Protein:  that simple word that is just not so simple in real life.. you can go buy layer feed, it will have lots of protein in it.. mostly from GMO soybeans but its there.. or if you have a few chickens, you can pay though the nose for organic.. good for you if you can do so.. but most of us are on a budget.. So we are using a basic grain feed that is going to be a mix between 9 to 13 percent protein, it will get your birds though the winter but it will not be great that’s for sure..  and those lower protein will effect your layers.  So you can do a number of tricks, you can grow fodder, if you have a small flock, its quick and easy enough to do and it will increase the basic amounts to the need levels, you can hard boil and chop back a egg into the feed to increase the protein count, if you are doing small critter butchering on the farm in the winter ,like rabbits, you can give the leftover bits to the chickens and they will pick them clean, you can grow meal worms or red wiggers and once a week toss a handful to them, crickets are another choice I know that someone grows for her birds, I personally do fodder, meat scrapes and meal worms.  In a total pinch, I know folks that just toss them a handful of the dried cat food to give them that boost.

Age:  this is a great trick and when done correctly it works like a charm, keep the ages of your flock moving, if you have spring hatched hens that are young pullets that are coming into laying in the fall, early winter, they will start and as long as you meet their feed and protein needs they will continue to lay all winter, but be aware that they will take a spring break and first adult molt. but if you have older hens, they will have done a fall moult, a winter slow down and they will cover for your young girls in the spring..

One more reason to love ducks : LOL, no really, ducks are so good in so many ways, when the hens hit that hard winter slow down.. no I will not lay for you if they are older, the duck hens are out in crazy cold but sunny temps and she will start laying weeks before the chicken will stop looking out at the snow and giving you the eye, that says, make it stop and put another layer of fresh hay out there if you think, I am going to even think about going out of my hen house.

Farm Gal Tip of the Day – Give your girls hay once or twice a week, just a touch will do, they will use it like bedding but not before they find every bit of seed head, and good stuff in it. It will give you a bit of color in your winter eggs a well..  Do you not just love how eggs change all year long in color and texture a bit.. from pullet to spring, to summer to winter eggs, good cooks know that they are not the same

Posted in Chickens, Life moves on daily | Tagged , | 3 Comments

New Ram for the Sheep Flock and fall overview

Posted on September 2, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

After having a couple of the cutest Black Lambs born this year, I decided that we would at least for 2018 get a Black Hair Sheep Ram for the breeding season.. So we will be breeding with Onyx this year, he is a young ram and I will not have a clean up ram so it could be interesting.

I am breeding late this year, I am keeping the females without a ram till Mid-Oct so we should be able to push our lambing season further into the spring then we normally do but we are still breeding our Milking Goat Juno for the earlier kidding and milking time.

All the lambs are reserved as is Yearling ewe’s..  They will head to the butcher right around the second week of Oct, so I will only have them for another six weeks.

So we will head into fall with a flock that is a third of the size of normal for us..  We will have our old girls 9 coming ten years old already Bubble and Mocha, our young yearling ewe Babble, our lovely two year old female Maude and then we have our prime girls between three and five, Spot, Tandy, Tawny and Tully..

I have not had this small of a flock for about ten years on the farm but I think it will be a very good thing for the coming years plans.  It means that we are going to be able to move the expecting girls to the croft(little barn) for the winter instead of needing the big barn for them. The big barn will be for the horse’s and for Jack and Crème the male goats and for Onyx the Ram.

We are not getting a new calf to start raising till next spring, we will be butchering our pig in the next month and so its going to be a very quiet year in the big barn and a very busy winter in the croft 🙂

Posted in sheep | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Sun came out -Bojangles

Posted on September 1, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

The boys are steady and lovely.. they poke their heads around the big barn when they hear us in the main yard and if they think there is even a chance we will be heading pasture way, they are up at the main gate, even if its just for a hello, pat and scratch on favorite spots.

Caleb has been getting his feet cleaned x amount of times and he has it all figured out.. come out, get them done, get a cookie per foot.. good deal.

Bojangles does not need his done as much but he waits nicely for his and so its part of his routine right now as well.. they both get some grooming when the evening fresh hay goes out.

And that’s been pretty much it for the past while with Reno mode in full swing, I had Farm Helper #3 ask if she  could come riding this week and so Bojangles got a nice ride-workout this week. He has been riding out with Caleb and playing follow the leader and he is gold at it.

But he was ridden out alone and he was not quite as happy about it, he settled and it was all good and it ended on the high note etc. It made me realize that I had been slacking on ground work with the boys. Caleb has had enough ground hours put into him that he is very steady as it goes with me even if off for a while.

Bo has been such a good boy when he is following caleb that I didn’t realize that he needed to be pulled out and worked with a bit more on his own.  Today we worked our half day reno Friday and while my homework list is long enough (reno related) over the long weekend, I am planning lots in the garden, canning, some butchering and in general being a home body and does that not sound wonderful! Maybe even hit the river and do a touch of fishing..

After lunch was done and the hounds given their run, I grabbed the gear needed and went out an Bojangles and I did 45 min of ground work.  I love this horse so much, he is such a good boy! I am just in love with my wonderful herd of two good old boy’s!

Posted in horse | 4 Comments

Elderberry Season is on us!

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

O Elderberries, those amazing fruits of the Elder Bush, while they are not safe to eat raw, the dried or cooked berry or juice is amazing for our health. One of the things I have heard time an again is that it takes forever to pick the tiny berries off the stems.

One of the best ways to do it by hand it to freeze the berries first and then rub them off while still frozen and cold, then they can be processed and or easily bagged up for the freezer again for use in future baking, drinks and so forth.

You can of course also dry them, they will cost you a pretty penny to buy a small bag of dried berries, which makes sense because it takes a ton of them once dried down to make up that 6 oz but they add amazing color and flavour to winter teas.

However I don’t typically process smaller amounts, I tend to process 50 to 100 pounds worth of them and I do freeze some because even I at times need to do them later in the winter when I have time as long as I have room in the freezer but when I want to do them fast, the video above while not the best quality will show you how I do it.

I made this wee video on the fly, as in I was talking to hubby while working away and he said, you should put that up and so we took it, it’s real life, the table is covered, and so forth. Maybe someday I will make a pretty version of this but for now.. real it is..

What is your favorite way to use Elderberries?

Posted in Canning | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

Monday.. This and That.

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

I was going to do a detailed post but I realized that I had to many small updates that it just made more sense to do a this and that post.

So lets get the sad news out the way first.. Its been a very hard summer on my farm cats, we have lost a number of them over the past weeks.  I don’t know what got them to be honest, they are just gone. These two were regular house-yard-croft cats,  stick close to the house up to date on vaccines and altered females.. (no chance of a walk-about looking mates or off hiding for kittens etc)

Both my hubby and myself were sad when blue passed away from the longer term after effects of having been stepped on by the horse as a kitten, but at least we knew what happened.  We find it very hard that we have lost our little Meow-Meow, she was a true sweetheart of a cat and I still find myself calling for her and checking roads and asking folks around me to keep a eye out for her.

The other one that is now on the missing, gone list is our much loved Freckles, I know that folks would have loved to have taken her home, she was a middle aged and knew the farm very well, she never let strangers touch her or pet her or pick her up, she was very much a “us” love bug.  We have also had two more of our “farm” barn cats going missing. Five farm cats in one summer, we have never had a year like this and I want it to stop.

We have been calling all the outside farm cats into the croft in the evening with a shake of a kibble in the bowl and then locking them up at night and calling in the house-farm cats in the house at night as well.  Since we have started the new locked up routine so far we have not had any more missing purrpots.

So my mom who is moving here later in the fall, will be here by oct at the latest took a fall and ended up breaking her elbow, cracking her wrist and also giving herself a hair line crack on her knee (of course the one that is the replaced knee) and is doing well all things considered but it certainly has set her back in a lot of ways. She had a cast on her elbow and arm for two weeks and then got it off, the knee is so swollen that its in a brace an with the walker etc  The doctor says that the arm is healing well but that the knee will take a full year to properly heal.

Hubby’s mom has been having a rough go as well, she has been in an out of the hospital over the past months and is currently in at the moment..  I hope that we hear news soon.

We have had enough rain this year that the pasture keeps on growing and we will get a second cut of hay which is great, not sure on the volume for that second cut but at least its going to happen.

I have been able to get my hay booked for the coming year, its gone up in price (no real surprise there) and this year its going for .10 cent a pound so a 650 pound round bale of hay will cost 65 dollars and a big 850 pound square bale.. yup 85

That’s a pretty good size jump over normal but close to being in line with prices from last year and the truth is that there is a lot of very poor quality hay out there at the moment so even if I need to pay more as long as I have enough, I will take it.

The garden is very hit and miss.. some things have produced very well, all the soft fruits and some hard fruits are having amazing year, but the main gardens.. somethings are at least 4 to 6 weeks behind and only time will tell if the frost’s come early, on time or late this year. I am having really nice pepper crops but poor tomato crops, I have a outstanding potato crop but no corn. I have a few types of squash doing well and I have more doing poorly..

My best crop of the year is my bean.. pounds and pounds an more pounds of green beans to put up.  I still am having more then many of the others across the valley, I have gotten lucky, I have not had mid to later summer floods like others have, nor have I had my gardens flattened in the last few bigger storms with hall. so for that, I have been blessed so far.

We are hitting fall temps, low 20c in the day and single digits in the evenings already, which will tell the plants to start switching gears from growing to putting that fall push on.

Well, I had better get back to work this morning.. For my friends in Texas, and area, I am sending you a heartfelt.. stay safe and I hope that you and yours will be safe!

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged | 12 Comments

Fire’s and Farm Sales..

Posted on August 26, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

After chores where done yesterday. It was time for a fire and a wee drink of some fine sherry after it was done we switched to coffee for the rest of the evening. It was truly a fall evening. It had reached 20’s during the day but it is not cooling off majorly in the evenings, only getting to plus 8c last night.

We had sat and relaxed by the fire as the evening darkened, the coy-wolf pack started talking right across the road, three adults and a couple very excited young ones from this year. We took the time to make sure that the flock was safely in the barn, as we had lost a lamb this past week but tracks appear to show that it was a bobcat that time, not the coy-wolf pack. The camera’s are up and hopefully we will get some night shots on what is checking out the barn area for sure. Regardless the flock is getting tucked into the barn at night.

The stars came out, the moon sliver was hiding behind the tree’s and the coals where lovely and in need of roasting marshmallows over 🙂

Today after a bit of time on the farm and morning chores, we headed off to a local farm sale and I was after these amazing stacking bins for holding garden produce in the cellar

Ten of them in total, so well built and just perfect to meet the needs of expanding the space for holding squashes and so forth in the house over the winter..

Farm sales are a hurry up and wait type thing, I found so many fun things that I would have loved to have added this or that or at least bid on it.. but given that my mom is coming with her household, it made little sense to do so..

I had also hoped that maybe one of the shotguns that was for sale would go for a good second hand price but all of them went right past my top price I was willing to pay, the gentleman who got them all thought they got a good deal on them, I figure if they hit the same price as a current new one, then its not such a great price but I expect from what I could see that some of them where collectors an they were older rifles. Some of the others were even black powder ones..

What I did come home with was three new rain barrels.. each one holding 55 gallons of water or use for grain-feed etc. Did I ever get a good deal on them. If you buy a new rain barrel (food rated) at the store, its 80 and up. If you buy them second hand in the city, they are around 50..

I got each of mine for 3 dollars.. grand total 9 dollars, with tax 10.20 Outstanding!

The rest of the day is evening chores and some garden puttering and maybe a second primer painting on the upstairs hallway and then maybe another fire, just because I can and its so delightful.

Hope you all had a productive and also taken time for yourself over the start of the weekend!

 

Posted in Critters | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Reno’s are on the go..

Posted on August 25, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

There is so much in this photo that I love, I know its not perfect but o my.. so as you can see the shelves are coming along, the lovely pine wood has been picked, the drywall and first mudding is up on most of them, the glass has been ordered, the foyer has the glass pine door in (and let me tell you that was a afternoon of AHH! because the 2 by 4 warped and so it was a lot more work then you would think to hang that door but both the inside an the outside foyer walls are on second mudding and the ceiling is ready for me to prime paint 🙂 the new subfloor is installed and waiting to be tiled.

Then on this side the built in counter is in place as it the new flooring under it, and I was able to save my awesome wooden doors from a different project.. it will be a four door counter, two matching wide and long and then the two you see already. It will hold all my big canning pots and so forth 🙂 No more up and down the stairs to the cellar. The top will be tiled to match the floor and you can see the two tiles, it will be a turned pattern. so I will have a huge new counter to work with as well as all that amazing extra storage.

So this is the other half of dining room, so the back wall of the foyer and the new walls around, the little wall on the left is the front wall of the new pantry, you can see the new flooring that will go in it as well. The freezer will be put on rollers and moved into the pantry area and then shelves will be built on both sides to the roof and above it as well for lighter items and then there will be sliding doors in front of it.  the ceil is on final touch-ups and then I will prime painting it and then final paint 🙂

Half the walls are on second coat and a few are still on single coat but soon enough (next week ideally) we will have the painting done and then we just need to finish the floor in there and that room will be done.. someone is coming to put in the new thermal window panel which is the only thing that window needed for fixing.

We have also been working on the deck and its a good thing that we got enough done for the new fridge-freezer combo to be delivered and the still newish (but not working well older fridge to be taken away) Its bigger then my other one was and I know that it will be a good thing to have the smaller freezer in the bottom as well.

 

Posted in At the kitchen table | 2 Comments

Homesteading Event – Quick View

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

After doing a reno work morning and early afternoon, I ran around getting the last bits of this and that together for the big homesteading day event.  While we had X amount of seats booked, only about a 3rd of them showed up for the event. Most of the time folks where seated on tables around me, but the nice thing was for some things I could get them come in nice an close to see the cheese forming in that class.

Regardless the day was great! everyone had a good time an the information, laugh and learning flowed which is always the goal for me!

Rabbit 101 was a huge hit and while everyone went home with a copy of my Personal favorite rabbit hutch design, and lots of tips.. we also had some good laughs when I was using my stuffie rabbit to show a few things including a proper fall off LOL

Big Thank you to the ladies that all donated to the door Prize table.

 

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment