March on the Farm

We are now eating greens daily out of the greenhouse – kale we pick every few days for our green smoothies, and asian greens and arugula we pick for salad every other day or so. The greens have exploded in the last few days; I hope we can keep up with picking them before the leaves get too big and bitter (particularly the mustard greens). We are very happy to not have to buy grocery store salad anymore. This afternoon we just prepped another bed for planting. We pulled out a bunch of old arugula from last fall that had gone to seed, and will plant a bunch of seeds tomorrow.

The strapping is finished on the ceiling of the other house now. Orrin is also halfway through constructing the baffles along the inside of the roof. He and Jake have also spent 3 or 4 days logging trees up on the ridge, and dragging them down to the house. They think they have a day or two left to have enough logs for siding the other house. We hope Jake's dad will come in the next month or two to mill them.

We hired an electrician to do the wiring, which was done about a week and a half ago, and then the wiring inspector came a few days ago and approved the electrician's work. Next up – plumbing and re-papering the outside of the house.

This morning, Orrin, his dad and I were clearing wood out of what will be the main garden area. Orrin had felled a couple trees in the fall, and today he was using the chainsaw to cut the branches off and cut the trees into rounds. We pulled the branches out of the garden area and piled them in the woods where they will break down, and piled the rounds up for firewood.

It's been an interesting spring. The bulk of the snow melted about 2 weeks ago, along with the ice on the pond melting, and we had quite a few days of warm-ish weather. The last few days we've had a bit more snow (an inch stuck one day then mostly melted the next day), and pretty chilly days. The pond has been freezing at night and then thawing during the day. There were two ducks on the pond for a few days that have disappeared now. I hope they (or another couple) return and have ducklings here. I think that would be really fun for Oliver (not to mention me!) to have a duck family around.

We've seen a bit of wildlife in the last couple of weeks – an owl in a tree one morning after we woke up. It's pretty neat how far they can turn their necks around. Then another day we had two hawks circling overhead. They make such an eerie sound! With spring other birds have appeared, as well – robins, chickadees, and woodpeckers. At least, those are the ones I recognize!

February on the Farm

Very exciting news – the greens that we planted in mid-January in the greenhouse started coming up about a week and a half ago! I think 7 of the 9 types of greens have started germinating. The asian greens were the first to come up, as they can handle the coldest temperatures, and just looking at them today, they look much more vigorous a week and a half in than the greens that we had planted back in September. This is probably due to the fact that we were given some manure compost from friends a while back, which is adding nutrients to the soil.

Looks a bit bare; most of the greens are under the row cover

Also exciting – since Orrin finished putting up a couple walls on Gigi's shelter, she has seemed much more content and hasn't tried to make a run for it since I last wrote about it in mid-January. Yay!

Orrin has been creating new areas of pasture for the animals, by cutting down saplings in the areas that would have been pasture before.

Orrin's also been working hard on the other house, with occasional help from me, and now pretty regular help from our friend, Jake. He and his wife and son (older than Oliver by 2 months) will be moving into the guest suite in April. His assistance will improve the odds of it getting done in time, since I can't always help out. At this point, all but one of the windows have been framed, the interior walls have been built and placed in their correct spots (there was interior framing already, so some of it just needed to be moved around to go with our design, and some of it was newly made). They are now working on adding the strapping in the ceiling, and other preparatory things needed to put the vapor barrier in place.

We had been eating greens out of the greenhouse until around mid-January, at which point we ran out of large enough leaves to pick. We left a few leaves on each plant, so that they would be strong enough to start growing when the temperature and daylight allowed. It seems like that time has come already. Orrin just picked a bunch of fresh kale, arugula and mustard greens from under the row cover, the first bunch in about a month and a half. Next year we'll be better prepared by having more plants, and more mature plants, to get us all the way through winter on fresh greens.

A sight for sore eyes - fresh greens in February!

Lots of snow this year, the biggest winter for both Orrin and I since we were kids – Alaska for me, interior BC for him. It's been quite an adjustment. It's definitely a winter wonderland, but we've had some logistical challenges. With a half-mile driveway, we had to hire someone to plow it. The first person we hired is a neighbor with an old farm tractor that could handle a small amount of snow. But once the big storms hit, he couldn't plow it very efficiently – it would have taken him all day to plow the driveway. We then found another neighbor with a plow truck. He's done a great job and been pretty reasonably priced. People have suggested we get our own truck to plow in the future, and believe me we've thought of that. But our goal is to decrease our vehicles, not increase, so we decided that it makes more sense to hire someone who already has the right equipment. That way we don't have to pay for the maintenance and insurance on another vehicle, and could possibly trade plowing for veggies or meat.

I also wish we'd had some snowshoes going into winter, to make it easier to walk around the house and other areas of the property. We were pruning apple trees last week, on a beautiful sunny day, and I was sinking into the snow above my knees. At this time of year, used snowshoes seem pretty expensive. I'm hoping they won't be as expensive if I look for them in the spring or summer. But a definite must around here!

We've had a few nice days in the last week or so that have really gotten us itching for spring. We planted some garlic in the greenhouse today, hoping to have garlic a little earlier in the summer than when the rest of the bulbs will be ready. We've ordered quite a few vegetable seeds, berries, and fruit and nut trees this year, and look forward to creating the garden beds, planting seeds, and expanding the orchard (currently just apple trees) once the snow is gone and the soil has warmed enough.

Yesterday we built a small greenhouse out of pine saplings that Orrin cut down, and scraps of plastic from the main greenhouse. We put it over the compost pile, so that on sunny days the snow will melt faster in there and give us quicker access to the compost. We'll need it in the greenhouse when we start planting the bulk of the veggies, both for what's seeded directly in the ground and for what will be transplanted.

Even in January there are things to do

By the middle of last week, we had finished prepping the one bed in the greenhouse that didn't have any existing greens in it. We planted Smooth Leaf Spinach, Osaka Purple Mustard, Stir Fry Blend, Pac Choi Da Cheong Chae, Oriental Greens, Purple Mizuna, Arugula Adagio, Winter Mesclun Blend and Mache Vit (corn salad), all from seed. Then we put a layer of row cover over half of the greenhouse soil (including that row), and will hope for the best. Our planting guru is Eliot Coleman, who lives in Maine, so our growing conditions will be similar to his – and he plants year-round in his greenhouse. I'll let you know!

Orrin also put a roof on Gigi's shelter, and she seems to be a happier cow. He's trying to acquire some old boards off of a neighbor's old barn, which he will use to build the sides of her shelter. Hopefully later this week he'll be able to get those.

It has been very cold here lately (currently about -15C), and it's been hard to motivate to do projects outside. Orrin started to frame windows inside the other house a couple days ago, and has almost finished the first one. It took a few hours, but now that Orrin's starting to get the hang of it, hopefully the remaining windows will go a little faster.

In our own house, we spent yesterday organizing, and Orrin created some temporary shelves in the office area to make spaces a little more efficient. There is very little storage in this house, so we will be building storage as we have time, but our main priority is to finish the other house. I was able to finish unpacking the last two boxes of books onto the new shelves, and feel so good about having less clutter around here.

Another Adventure Brought to us by Gigi the Wonder Cow

Lots of excitement around here in the last week! We got about 6” of snow in the first week of January, and then in the middle of this past week we got another 1' at least. I guess I'm giving myself away by giving measurements in English instead of metric, but you probably already knew I was American! Anyway, major blizzard conditions Wednesday afternoon and night resulted in lots of snow and strong, cold winds. We were also without power until Thursday early evening. For whatever reason (we will never know), Galloping Gertie (Gigi)and Beef the calf, actually broke through the electric fence Thursday afternoon and high-tailed it off the property once again. Orrin found them that afternoon, after tracking them for a couple of hours, and managed to bribe them back to the top of our driveway. Gigi balked and wouldn't be steered home, so he left her there and headed home before it got dark.

Friday morning he went back out to the end of the driveway and they had disappeared again. He tracked them for several hours without finding them, and eventually called Zane for some assistance. The snow helped them follow her trail, but it was a lot of work to walk through because it was so deep. They found the cows at a neighbor's, a couple miles away at least, and started to head them back home again. Unfortunately, Gigi got spooked at one point on the trail, possibly because it was a bit of an uphill, and it was a little more enclosed section of the woods than she seemed to like. She ended up getting away from them, and heading back in the opposite direction again. Orrin was pretty beat from trying to track her and bring her home most of the day Friday, so he and Zane headed back to our place. We got a call a while later from the neighbor that the cow was partial to, and they let us know that they gave Gigi and the calf some hay to try to keep them in a known spot for the night (their second night out).

Saturday morning Elva and Zane came over. We called the neighbor to confirm that the cow was still there – she was – then Orrin, Zane and I hiked back over there, while Elva stayed with Oliver. Fortunately, the neighbor's had driven through the trail with their ATV, which made our walk easier on the newly-packed snow. We met up with the neighbor's halfway there, and they gave us a ride on their ATV's as far as they could the rest of the way, escorted as well by their 3 border collie's.

With hay in hand, Orrin, Zane and I started leading Gigi and Beef back home, one of us in front of the cows and the other two behind. For most of the trip she was fine with it, jogging up to grab hay when she wanted. At one point, though, we got to the same place where she'd turned around the day before, and again she turned around and started heading back in the opposite direction. I couldn't entice her back with hay, so Orrin and Zane tackled the calf, to keep him from going with her. Once he started crying, Gigi came running like she was possessed. That got her passed the hardest section of the trail, and we managed to get her home without much more trouble. Phew! Much of the walk back with her had been at a pretty quick pace, either walking fast or jogging. By the time we got her back into her area, I was totally wiped out. Orrin and Zane set up some fencing in a small area around her shelter to keep her contained, as we weren't going to give her the chance to bust out of the electric fencing again. We've been waiting for materials to finish building her shelter (the roofing and siding), and should have that tomorrow. Hopefully completing that will help her feel more protected from any future storms, such that she won't try to get away again.

We thought our last couple of days were going to be spent planting seeds and finishing prepping to lay out row covers in the greenhouse, but our priorities were quite significantly diverted for a bit! We hope to get back to that in a couple of days, once we're done completing Gigi's shelter. We are glad to have her back!

Once again, Gigi has taken it upon herself to help us get to know more of our neighbor's. Thanks, Gigi!

December on the farm

Fortunately, nothing nearly as stressful as losing cows happened in December! It has been a busy month, some of which was getting work done around the farm, but mostly involved lots of family gatherings.

This month a cow shelter with feeding trough was halfway built, greenhouse endwalls were constructed, including building doors for the endwalls. Orrin and his dad are out there as I write this, finishing up the second endwall door. We cut lots of wood this month, after realizing that the wood that we had been burning in our Kachelofen is not as dry as it needs to be, so Orrin had gone in search of a dead, dry tree on the property. He found one pretty close by, and Elva (Orrin's mom) and I were entertained one afternoon as Orrin and Dave (Orrin's dad) used come-along's to fell the tree in the right direction. It had been leaning pretty heavily over the pond, but they managed to re-direct it so that it fell in a place they could more easily cut the wood (which would not have been the pond!). The big cracking sound that trees make when they come crashing down is pretty impressive, and this tree did not disappoint. Additionally, Zane has drawn up some plans for the second house for us, and we hope to start framing in windows soon, to get the ball rolling there.

Orrin's parents are in the area for a total of 4 months (one of which is now past already), so they've been helpful with coming over occasionally to help us work and take care of Oliver. We also had my parents visit for about 5 days. We celebrated an early Christmas with them, and enjoyed some really delicious dinners while they were here.

We hosted our first Solstice Celebration, having a bunch of family over for a nice meal, and plan to make this a new holiday for us, as we look forward to longer days and our first growing season on the farm.

I'm happy to have had a few minutes to jot down our last month of 2010 on the farm, and hope you all have a fabulous holiday season with your families and friends.

Just Another Saturday Night in the Sticks

Yesterday Orrin was working in the cow enclosure, building a winter shelter for them. He purposely left the gate open to see if they would go out and wander around a bit. Turns out, they did. They walked out and happily ate grass that they found around both houses (mostly there are old weeds and trees in their enclosure, so the grass was much more welcome). At one point, Orrin lured the cow back into the pen with some hay, but when the calf didn't follow, she turned right around and left again before Orrin had a chance to shut the gate. A little while later, the calf decided to make a break for it, and started trucking down the driveway. The cow wasn't going to be anywhere the calf wasn't, so she quickly went in pursuit.

At this point it was about 5pm, and Orrin ran into the house to tell me they were heading down the driveway. He grabbed a flashlight and a handful of hay and ran after them. Oliver and I jumped in the car and took chase, hoping we could get around her, and then stop her from going any further. I did get around her, and stopped her from heading down the part of our road that is more populated, but she headed the other way, down a rough one-lane track only usable by ATV's in that section. There was only forest in that direction for several miles, before one would reach the next community. Oliver and I sat in the car for about an hour blocking the main road, as the sun set and visibility went to nil. I kept the headlights on low, and kept hoping to see the cows heading back towards me (at which point my plan was to start honking to get them to re-direct back down the driveway instead of try to get past me). Unfortunately, the plan never happened. I called Zane around 5:30 and let him know what was going on, then called him back around 6 when there was still no sign of Orrin. I didn't really care about the cows by now, I just wanted to know that Orrin wasn't lost or hurt in the dark woods.

Shortly after 6pm, I decided to head back to the house to get a bunch of warm clothes, as Zane was heading over, and we thought we'd walk down the old track to go see if we could find Orrin. I had just finished throwing clothes in the car, and started driving back down the driveway when I saw the flashlight heading my way. Orrin had made it back in one piece, but without the cows. He and the cows had headed through a swampy area and were almost to Farmville when darkness came, at which point the cows decided to stop running.

Once Zane and Dave (Z & O's dad) showed up, we all drove around to the south side of Back Cornwall Rd, and Zane and Orrin headed out into the woods and down the road (back in the direction of our house) to find the cows. Orrin hoped that they would have stayed put for the night, but unfortunately that was not the case. Between the darkness and the steady snow falling, they were unable to find them.

We had a fitful night of sleep, wondering where they had ended up, and hoping that they would not be accidentally shot by a hunter mistaking them for a deer. In our area we have seen quite a few hunters this month, and thought that could be a possibility.

Orrin headed out around 6:30 am this morning to drive back to the last place he had seen them. Oliver and I woke up a little before 8 am and I tried to reach him on the cell but there was no answer. Around 9 am, a man dressed in hunter's clothes drove up in his ATV and asked if we were the folks missing a couple cows. I confirmed that we were, and he said he had just seen them on the south side of the swamp, on Back Cornwall Rd. After thanking him for the information, I walked back into the house to hear Orrin leaving a message on the machine. I managed to grab the phone before he'd hung up, and asked if he'd seen them. He hadn't, so was happy to hear the update.

He called back a little while later, having located them, and was trying to lure them with hay back up the road towards home. At the swamp, she decided she didn't feel like going that way right then, and turned back towards Farmville! I called Zane again, and he and Elva came over. Elva stayed with Oliver, while I grabbed some apples, carrots and more hay, and Zane and I hopped in the car, planning to get to the end of the driveway, and then walk south, in the direction of Orrin and the cows. Halfway down the driveway, once again there was Orrin, with both cows! I pulled over, parked the car, and grabbed some hay. With Orrin and Zane coaxing them from behind, I somehow ended up leading the way, trying to stay ahead of the cow and giving her hay once in a while to keep her interested, as the calf trailed along beside her.

Shortly thereafter, we had the cows back in their enclosure. Phew! Such a relief. Orrin met several of our neighbors on the other side of the swamp, and they were all as helpful as they could be. The man in particular who came to tell me that he'd seen them was incredibly kind, as without his information who knows how much longer it would have taken Orrin to find them.

The moral of this story: don't trust that a little bit of hay is enough to get a 1000 lb cow (and her calf) back into her enclosure, because if she doesn't want to come, there's no forcing her. Leave them there in the first place!

November on the farm

It is hard to believe over a month has passed since I last wrote here. Nobody appears to be paying us, and yet we are so busy working around the farm. Not to mention the time it takes to look after a little one. Oliver seems to be figuring out some new thing every day, and it is getting harder and harder to keep up with him!

So much has happened in the past month. We finished planting the rest of the garlic, for one thing. Then the greenhouse parts finally arrived a few weeks ago, and within a few days we had the frame up, with the help of Zane and a friend, Jake. We've continued to tighten things up, attach the various pieces to the frame that will hold the plastic, and build the endwalls. We hope to gather some folks together on Monday morning for a couple hours to get the plastic on (we've been told "the more people the better!").

We built an A-frame shelter for the pigs, out of wood from an old deer blind that we found on the property, and we plan to build a shelter for the cows soon, as well.

We've also acquired 3 pigs and 2 cows in the last couple of weeks. We got both types of animals from two different farmers locally, who sell at the weekly farmer's market. The pigs were about 10 weeks old when we got them, two boys and a girl, and are a heritage breed called Berkshire. The cows are a mama and bull calf, and the mama is pregnant with next year's calf. We plan to keep the mama cow to breed, as well as the gilt (female pig), but the other's will be food at some point, so we won't be naming them. We think we'll name the cow, but haven't come up with one yet.

I've had some interesting emotions associated with getting these animals. I was immediately intimidated by how big the cow is (Orrin thinks she's about 1000 lbs), but in the week that we have had her I have seen how docile she is, and am not as scared of her as I was at first. Also, the only thing keeping her in her fenced area is a thin line of electric wiring. Fortunately, she's respecting the wire and has stayed put (the calf has gone under the wiring and gotten out a couple of times, but goes back to his mama at the end of the day, so we're not worried about him being out as long as she's inside). The cow has also cried a fair bit this week, we think because she misses having other cows around, and she cried a lot when the calf got out of the fence and she couldn't go with him. I felt bad for making her sad! It hadn't occurred to me that she would have emotions too, and be lonely. With the pigs, I have found them to be very cute, so I'm hoping they lose their luster as they get bigger, since we are going to be eating them. I think the idea of eating these animals is a bit of a challenge for me, but I like meat, so I will need to come to terms with it.

It is really starting to feel like a farm, now that we can look out the window of the house and see the animals up on the hill.

We are also starting to think about getting to work on completing the other house. Orrin has been finding some great deals on windows, doors, sinks, a wood stove, etc. through Kijiji, so we are gathering the pieces we will need. Once the greenhouse and cow shelter are complete, we will be more focused on getting windows set and siding on, to start.

We want to name the farm at some point, but inspiration hasn't come yet. We may not feel ready to name it until next year, after we've been here for a while.