Its all a bit much.

I have had a very hard time keeping up with the farm chores of late. Liam is determined to not be put down at all and will not nap on most days. Pair that with the start of harvest and the sleep I am not getting and it all adds up to a bit to much. Tonight I'm going to go to bed quite early and tomorrow i'll try to get as much done as I can before it gets to hot and I run out of steam.

We are going away for a couple of days at the end of the week on a bit of a holiday. It will be nice to take a brake for a few days but at the same time I know it will all be waiting for me when i get back, but i'm just not going to think about it.

Anyways on a happier note I got to go on a little visit to a farm two hours away from ours last weekend. I went to Half Caper farm to check out her goats and talk about buying a pair of kids from her next spring. They were so cute; running around the barn and fields. I'm sold!

Planning for next spring gives me the time to prepare without putting the horse before the cart (or goat before the barn). As a bounce she raises geese and rabbits which was great to ask questions about.I have been trying to working on some sewing. I made this banner for my boys. There birthdays are coming up in the next month or so: Matt in August, Liam in September. I got the idea from Amanda Blake from Soulemama. I wanted to make something that would become a tradition for special days rather then just gifts or cake.
The first tomatoes are ripening this week in our garden. But these are not the tomatoes I was looking for! The tomatoes I planted are big and beautiful but very green. We have volunteer tomatoes popping up red and yellow everywhere. On the up side its like a little surprise to see what all the plants are producing and i didn't have to care for them at all (besides not pulling them out). The down side is they did smother my small carrot plants when i was not looking. Oh well, When life gives you tomatoes......make pasta sauce!

Long weekend.

We spent our long weekend Sunday working in the yard. The weather was nice for working outside: warm but not to hot and over cast. We got all the stuff on the list done and got to spend some much needed time together.
We picked all the onions out of our garden. Normally we would not pick them until much later but we had such a warm spring that they were all dieing back already. The shed that we were using to keep the meat chicks in is right beside the the onion garden so we fenced in the garden and let the chicken run around and scratch it up. This will hopefully add some nice nitrogen rich manure to the garden for next years crop. Plus they will eat all the slugs that have been at my basil.
My little guy got very muddy while his daddy and I were picking onions. He had a good old time munching on the onion greens, which did not surprise me as he has taking to eating spicy food with us curries and hot mac'n cheese.
I did a big cutting of our basil plants to keep the chickens from digging them up. I plan to pick the leafs, blanch, chop and put them in the freezer to add to our pasta sauce for the winter. I just finished the stuff from our CSA from last year, which i had turned into more of a pesto with ground nuts and garlic. I liked it but it was more work and I didn't find it any better when it came to putting it in tomato sauce, which is what we did most of the time. We were two months behind in putting in our garden this year so our garlic did not bulb. They look more like green onions that last of garlic. I have not come up with a plan of what to do with them yet but i think i will just leave them in the ground until I need some garlic and then chop them up fresh.

Pickles

I started making pickles with cucumbers from our garden on Friday. I have 5 quart jars so far and the plants show no signs of slowing down. I am using a salt and whey only recipe from a cook book of my mothers called Nourishing traditions, by Sally Fallon. They're the kind of pickles I had growing up: they fizz in your mouth when you bit into them (i know that sounds strange but they are very good), like a nice kosher dill pickle. A lot of books say its not safe to to make pickles without vinegar but people have been making them for a very long time and i think you must use your common sense: smell and look at them before eating.

How i made them:

Place clean quart jars in an 200* oven for 20 min. Carefully remove jars from oven and place in each jar:
-2 cloves of Garlic
-1 head of Dill or 1 tbsp Dill seed
-1 tbsp Mustered seed
-1 tbsp pickling Salt
-1/4 cup Whey*
Pack you cucumbers in the jar so they don't float while leaving 1-2 inches head space. Fill the jar with warm water, screw on lid and shake to help dissolve the salt. Store at room temp for 3 days in the dark and then place in the fridge or in cold storage. They are ready to eat as soon as there cold, but i prefer to eat them when they have started to get fizzy, after a month or so.

* I get my whey from draining yogurt in a sieve over a bowl for 12 hours in the frige. It leaves me with a bowl of whey (which will keep in the fridge for a month) and nice thick yogurt which is easier to feed to Liam and makes a nice spread in a sandwich. If you can't or don't want to use whey just add an extra tbsp of salt.

*** All information is intended for your general knowledge only. Use this canning and preserving information at your own risk.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Things I've learned about geese

The geese have become a bit of a pain around here lately. Matt and I have had to show some great restraint in not thrashing them some days. They have become the bullys of the farm as of late and have been getting into everything. They are just smart enough to get into trouble but not much more. We have had to put a baby gate up in the porch to keep them out of the cat food (which they love to eat, who know?) and today I have had to chase them out of the chicken coop and pen three time so far. Most of the cats have learned to stay away from them as the geese will try to take a chunk out of them at any chance they get. They don't seem to like Liam very much but thankfully for them they keep there distance even if they do make a big fuss about him being out in the yard. I'm sure they are eating there fill of grass but it really dose not seam to be making a dent in the yard though you would never know it by the amount of manure they are leaving everywhere.

I don't want to say that there days are numbered because I'm not sure what if anything I want to do about them. One option is to sell them now and try to make my investment back. Another is to wait till around Christmas and add them to the freezer, but I do have people asking to buy eggs in the spring if they start laying. I have read that if you don't have a gander then they might not lay at all and I'm not sure what sex are geese are because I have not had the guts to catch and hold one long enough to find out. For all I know they could be all ganders; then i'm really out of luck. Someone said that if they have brown eyes then they're female and blue eyes means males but they all have brown eyes so I don't know if that means all girls or nothing at all.

I had originally planed to put some in the freezer (for us or to sell) and keep the rest to breed for the spring.

At this point I'm not sure what is going to come first: The freezer or the eggs. I think we will have to wait and see if we can put up with there nastiness. The chance to sell them will be good for some time and I think we will have to get creative as to how to handle them before I give up.

Wish me luck!

Eating it up

We finally had a couple of rainy days this week after a lot of sun. It was not very nice weather to work outside, but it was great in the greenhouse. I had a chance to get down on my hands and knees and take a good look at the plants. I was so surprised to find the plants much further along then I thought. At the end of my time in the greenhouse it was so nice to stand back and look at how nice everything looked after it had been weeded and pruned.
One of my 3 eggplant plants has a baby eggplant growing on it and the other 2 have flowers so hopeful I will be making eggplant parm soon. Its hard to tell from the photo but the fruits almost the size of my thumb.
I had to do a double take when I first saw this cucumber. Its the first one I'v ever grown and the first thing to come from the gardens here at the farm because we are a bit behind this year. I don't know how it got so big so fast. All the other cuc's are itsy bitsy, but this one was a monster. I'm growing them to make pickles mostly so I don't want them to get much bigger then this one did.
Liam and I enjoyed the cucumber for lunch the next day. I had it on toast with yogurt spread and him straight up. I think he enjoyed his first home grown food. I know I enjoyed watching him eat it and I can say it didn't tasted to bad either.

role call

It feels like our farm is starting to fill up:

43 Chickens

12 Cats

6 Geese

And

3 Humans

So busy

Things have been so busy around here since we got back, its like i have to do everything now that i missed last week. Thankfully my brother has come to stay for a few weeks to help me get some stuff done.The day we got back one of our Americauna chickens started laying so its been so nice to go into the hen house and find a little blue/green egg with the lovely brown ones.
I started a batch of sour cherry wine this week. I got the recipe from my mom and its the first time i'm trying it. So far it smells really good; kind of like cherry pie and yeasty bread. Its bubbling away now and hopeful it will work. If it dose i'll share.
I must say that the one time i feel at peace with everything that is going on here is when i'm hanging clothes on the clothesline. It must be in the evening while Liam is hanging out with Matt. Nothing seems as overwhelming and it feels like i'm getting something done. As i'm shaking out the wet clothes the fact that the counter is coved in dishes or that i'm not sure what to do with 12 cats (oh yes ginger her kittens) dose not seem to weigh on me so much.

Holiday

We went on a nice little holiday to my parents house last week. They live about 7 hours north of us, and it was my first solo trip with Liam. The two of us went up a few days earlier with the car and then Matthew follow us up after he got off of work on his motorcycle. It was so nice to visit the place that was my home until just a few years ago. We haven't made the trip since Christmas last year when Liam was only a wee baby and napped the whole trip.My boys had a wonderful time in the hammock one afternoon. I believe we will soon have one in our yard if they have anything to do with it. I am going to have to start hunting for one at the thrift stores.
Liam, I and ante Emma went on a nice walk one of our first evenings we were there. I picked a bunch of daises and made a little flower crown for my little prince. It was a beautiful day, almost just like fall, which is one of my favourite times of year.
It was great to spend time with family and for them to see Liam who was been growing so fast.

Picking up chicks

Our order of 30 duel propose meat chicks came in on June 22nd with 2 extra. They were so cute and little. I know they wouldn't stay like that for long. Right now they are about 2 weeks old, almost covered in real feathers and are running around in a pen in my laundry room. They are going to have to go outside soon as I am getting sick of the smell and bust. We are planing to slaughter them ourselves so we can learn how. We have some extra hands to help so I think we should be OK. We are going to let them grow for about 11 weeks so that brings the big day to around mid September.
We unpacked then, showed them where the water and food was and left them to grow big and fat! So far things have been going very well and we hope that continues.

My weekend

The weather was very nice over the weekend. I spent two days in a dressed that I dyed with onion skins. I loved the way muddy boots look with a frilly dress. Just thought I'd share.

I planted two hanging baskets of strawberries over the weekend and they're doing very well. They are sending out a whole handful of runners and I'm hoping to have a nice patch for next year. I also got the rest of the potatoes and the broccoli planted as well as half the green house. I know we are a bit late but I figure better that then never.

I tried a new bread recipe this week. Its No knead whole wheat bread and I have to say that I was sceptical. I love to knead bread and I thought it would not be the same but I really liked it. It makes a really nice bread with large bubbles and an almost gummy textured that dose not crumb easily. I think it would be really toasted on a grill pan with brochette or in an onion soup. I'm going to make it again next week with roasted sausages.

Picking

Un-known to us one of the fruit trees off to one side of the property is an early cherry. Matt was scything the grass around the small greenhouse and noticed that one of the trees was covered with ripe peach coloured cherries. We went out and started picking. Matt and I took turns sitting with Liam while the other picked. We sat under the tree nursing and watched the geese circle around us eating the tall grass in-between naps. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the cherries we picked. I'm think about making a pie or crisp, or maybe just freezing them all for the cold winter when a cherry tart would make me smile.Whatever I deicide to do with them I have a feeling that I'm going to get very good at pitting them. We have at least another basket worth of cherries that are not ripe yet from this tree and two more trees that look like they are going to ripen a bit later.

All my little seeds have grown up

Its now time to start moving my seedlings out to their permanent homes in the garden and small greenhouse. I had a lot of success with seeds this year to the point that there are some plants that I have to many to deal with. The only seeds that didn't sprouted were my Stevia plants. So far I have transplanted all my cherry tomato plants into hanging baskets that I plan to move into the small greenhouse with the peppers and the rest of the tomatoes. We purchased the majority of our seeds from Greta's Organic Garden and had about a 99% germination rate. I highly recommend the seeds from Greta's and I think I'm going to get more seeds from them next year.

New summer clothes

I made Liam some new clothes this week. I found the cloth in a remnant bin a couple weeks ago. The shirt is call The 90 minute shirt and the pattern for the shorts is the same that I used here, but shorter. I have to work on the pattern a bit because I found it a little tight in the arm pits and wide in the neck but it worked out well for a first try.

Its been a big couple of weeks for Liam. He is sitting up very well now, pulling himself up and standing every chance he gets and he just cut his first tooth! Its so much fun to see how excited he gets moving around but I must admit I'm having a hard time keeping up with him. He is into everything: dumping the cat food, climbing into the broiler in the stove, trying to eat the stereo. My baby-proofing is going to be tested under fire.

Up in arms

On Sunday the geese got there first outing. Matt set up a small pen for then outside around the raspberry patch. We picked them up one by one and moved in are arms, which was met with lots of chirping and a few hisses. They spent the afternoon eating the tall grass around the berry plants and were more then happy to follow me back into the porch that night with no more then calls from me. Every morning since they eagerly walk through the backyard and eat there fill of the ever growing grass.

Its been a very busy week on the farm, it feels like so much has happened since my last post. My sister has come to stay for awhile and help get some stuff on my To Do list done. The weather has not been cooperating with us, we have had 100km winds and rain for several days now. On Friday one of the trees near our house split in half and fell 10 feet from our front door, i am very thankful it was not closer. But even though it has been less then nice outside many things continue to flourish: The geese are now larger then our rooster and show no sign of stopping. They have almost eating they way though a 12kg bag of food in 3 1/2 weeks along with a big basket of cut grass everyday. There true feathers are coming now so by the end of the week i hope to be moving them outside into the pen i have yet to finish, but hope to.
Our cat Sadie had her kittens in the barn this week. Two are caramel coloured, and one is black. We moved them into the sun room with the geese once the weather turned nasty and they are nomming away happily on their momma .
I put up a proper clothes line all by myself this week. Its really satisfying to see all the clean diapers lined up in the sun and they smell so good. My home made laundry soap is working great and is something like $.05 per load instead of $.50 for Nature Clean, which I used to buy( i use Nature Clean's stain remover soap bar instead of Zote) There are all kinds of flowers coming up all over the place, the old owners planted a lot of bulbs that are now everywhere. There is a big field of dandelions that i am planing on making into wine in the coming week. I will post more about wine as i do it.

I got creative this week and painted some chairs. i have had them for about a year but was not a fan of the colour (they were forest green). Now they are set up on our deck with with a salvaged teak table so i can see them from the kitchen sink when i do dishes.

10 Chickens

1 Rooster

5 Cats

3 Kittens

6 Geese

3 Humans

Nifty threads

This week i thought i would have a hand at embroidery. I had some plain undershirts of Liam's that i thought would look nice with a little something on the front of them. It took a little bit to get the hang of it, but once i had it it was a lot of fun. I can't wait for it to be warm enough for him to ware.

New pen

Over the weekend Matthew and I put our heads together and built a new pen for the baby geese. We decided to move them in to the sun room at the back of the house, because I was tired of the small from there pen. We wanted to make it big enough so it would last them until they get moved outside. After the geese are moved i am planing to clean it and then put day old meat chicks under the heat lamp in there.

New homes for geeses

Over the weekend Matthew and I put our heads together and built a new pen for the baby geese. We decided to move them to the sunny room at the back of the house, because I had become tired of the small from there pen.

One week old

Our six French Toulouse goslings are now one week old and growing like weeds! We have 4 "tufted" and 2 plain. At the present they are hanging out under a heat lamp in our laundry room. I have to start working on their outside house very soon as they are out growing their little box.The plan is to raise them till the fall, keep 1-2 breading pairs for next summer and put the rest in the freezer (which will be hard because they are very cute right now, though i guess it will be easier when they are grown and i am hungry). With any luck we will be able to keep a cycle going for years to come.

Oat bread

I have started making a new kind of bread that has been a big hit around here. Its called Country white bread and it is from Whole grain breads by machine or hand, by Beatrice Ojakangas. I have been using a local, organic unbleached hard white flour (wow what a mouth full) and organic brown sugar. I also like to brush the top of the loaves with water and press on some flaked oats for a nice finish.

Makes 1 loaf

1 c warm water

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp brown sugar

1/3 c oat flour

2 2/3 c bread flour

1 1/2 tsp yeast

Put water and yeast in a bowl and let sit for 15min. Add salt, sugar, oat flour and half the bread flour. Beat and then let sit another 15min. Slowly add the remaining flour until you're happy with the consistence. Knead about 5 min. Put dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise about an hour. Punch down, shape into loaves and put into a greased pan. Slice top of dough and put oats on top. Proof bread then bake in a preheated oven at 375* for 30-35 min.

-Enjoy

Minty meringues

I had a go at making meringue yesterday and it went really well. I made Martha Stewart's Peppermint Meringues with Chocolate Filling, but with my own spin. It was wonderful to go out to the chicken coop and collect eggs not more then 15 minutes before whipping them into a stiff white foam. I piped the cookies onto a backing sheet, baked, and then dipped the bottoms into melted semisweet baking chocolate! YUM YUM YUM

Rolling and shaking

Our little Liam has been on the move this week. Not only can he now roll from his tummy to his back but vise versa and is almost sitting up for a minute before falling over. I fear it will not be long before he is crawling away, so this is the perfect time for us to start baby proofing the house. We as parents realize that "no" must be said sometimes, but we are not interested in chasing Liam around the house the whole day ripping things out of his hands. My plan is to move things we do not want him to touch or are unsafe up out of reach and to move his toys to floor level. Turning our house into a happy baby zone is going to take some time (a lot of our electric plugs don't even have face plates let alone baby covers) and we don't have much time but in the long run i think it will make everyone a whole lot calmer.

The new girls in the hen house!

This week we have some new arrivals to our farm. My mother came bearing four Rhode Island red chickens to add to our flock. They are sisters to some of our girls(from the same batch of hens as ours from last summer). She had twenty-one birds and only enough room for fourteen in her coop this winter so we have some lovely new ladies to help round-out our seven into a wonderful eleven! I was a little worried about introducing the new chickens to the flock as we have had some trouble with the trio we bought a few weeks ago, but its almost as though they were there all along. With no more then a few feathers flying and a few squawks, none of them seam any worse for wear.

11 Chickens
5 Cats
(soon to be more as Ginger is due any day now)
And
3 Humans

Beautiful birthday

Yasterday was my 22nd birthday. It was wonderful. My mother came to stay for a few days and got to spend some time with Liam, Mathew and I. It was a wonderful gift in itself; i missed her very much and it was great to have her puttering around the house. We made a chocolate cake with cream cheese icing and on Monday night Matthew brought use all out for dinner. At the moment i'm waiting for my present from myself to be ready for pick up: Four day old Toulouse geese!