Beginning the Harvest

It is a beautiful later summer Sunday afternoon and I am passing the day puttering in the garden and putting food in the larder for the cold days of winter.

I noticed on a walk this week there were still many chokecherries hanging from the branches of the trees around the hay field. I had expected them to be long ago eaten by the birds. However, it has been a bumper year for fruit and maybe because of the bounty there was more than they could eat. Or, it could be they prefer the apples and blackberries. Whatever the reason, I'll happily take the leftovers.

Cole and I took a bucket, and after feeding the pigs, we picked enough fruit for one more batch of chokecherry preserves. Its Rob's favorite. If you haven't tried chokecherry preserves (mine is somewhere between a jelly and a jam) you are missing out. The fruit has a mild spicy flavor which is contrasted by the sweetness of the sugar. It works beautifully on toast or biscuits but it is equally at home drizzled over a mild goat cheese and served on a savory cracker. It makes a nice contrast when paired with venison or used to dip grouse strips in.

The first batch I made was too syrupy, I hadn't boiled it enough. I now know the color needs to turn to a deep garnet red before its ready. If it still shows pink it needs to boil longer. I re-boiled the lot and am much happier with the result.

As I mentioned the blackberries were very good this summer. I've made several forays into the woods and picked baskets and baskets of fruit. We've enjoyed blackberry cobbler, blackberry fungi and blackberry jelly. I played with a couple of different recipes including one with less sugar and no pectin.

I dug some of the early potatoes, picked some beans, pulled a few carrots and plan to cook these for supper. We've enjoyed to the garden. We still have a lot to learn. Some things did really well this year, and other crops - such as beets and Swiss chard were at best -- lackluster. I did freeze both cauliflower and beans.

Cabbage, potatoes, cauliflower, beans and carrots from the garden.

The far north-western corner of the garden is completely overtaken by the pumpkin and squash. These have crowded out the onions, second lettuce and second bean plantings. I'll know better next year and plant these well away from the main garden.

One crop doing better than last year is the tomatoes. I picked five pounds of ripe fruit over the last couple of days and now a simple tomato sauce is simmering on the stove. The house smells wonderful.

The best success story may be the garlic. It flourished and now I have 70 heads hanging and curing in the barn. I can't begin to describe how good it is. The flavor is spicy and pungent, unlike the garlic we buy in the grocery store. My stash won't last the winter but it gives us an idea of how much more we'll need to plant this fall for next year. We'll have it in the ground by late October.

Rob and I built a cold-frame earlier in the month. We filled the bottom with composted manure and I mixed in some potting medium as well. I sowed some mixed lettuce and some Mache (a hearty winter green). I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and how well the food grows. Worst case scenario the chickens and turkeys get a few greens in the middle of winter.

This is such a rewarding time of year. We start to fill the cupboards and basement with the food we've grown or collected and know we'll have plenty to feed us through the winter.

No More Laughter in the Barnyard

It is with great sadness we announce the death of “Aflac the Laughing Duck”, our little Khaki Campbell. She died peacefully in the barn a little over a year after she started her life with us.

Duck was a survivor from the very beginning. She was part of a clutch of eggs given to us by a friend. We put the eggs in the incubator with chicken eggs and didn’t realize until later that the duck eggs required a longer incubation period. We expected the change in humidity towards the last days of their development would spell the end of the duck eggs, and for two it did. But one beautiful morning we came down stairs and heard the insistent peeps from one of the eggs and Duck was hatched

She was a gregarious creature who lived with the chickens but held herself somewhat apart.

Her most memorable attribute was her laugh. Duck had the innate ability to laugh, and always at just the right moment. A pun by Ian generated a hearty HAH HAH HAH from the bird. Any quip around the barnyard was rewarded by her acknowledging laugh, even from the other side of the yard. Neighbors walking their dogs past would also generate laughter. She found humor in every situation, but it was always timed perfectly – as though she was just waiting for the punch line. Everyone who visited commented on her wry sense of humor and her wit.

Duck also produced marvelous eggs. The shell was like white, translucent porcelain. Her eggs were larger than those of the chickens and the flavor was little deeper, a little richer – like duck herself. I used her eggs to make my first angel food cake and it was light and airy.

She was a fan of the rain and when puddles gathered in the yard she was in the middle of them splashing and playing. As a duckling we would place her in a large tote filled with water so she could learn to swim. As much as she enjoyed the water, she was always in hurry to return to her chicken friends.

Duck loved to walk through the grass shoveling her bill back and forth looking for tasty morsels. She lived a free-range life until this spring, when she and the chickens were fenced into to a spacious park area. But there was no confining duck. She found a way to always get back to where the action was and we’d find her sleeping in the flower bed, visiting the horse and cow, or just sitting in the front yard.

In recent days she completely moved out of the hen house and relocated to the barn with the young turkeys. She seemed to like the freedom and had more leeway to come and go as she pleased.

The barnyard will be a quieter and less jolly place without Duck’s gregarious presence, but we have been made richer by sharing her brief life.

Spring Rush

The farm is a beguiling mistress. She demands our full attention and lots of money. She rewards us with evenings like tonight where I've taken the camera out and photographed lady's slippers, apple blossoms, lilacs and more. Standing in the field and watching the wind move the grass in waves I was filled with a sense of calm and peace. It was a well needed respite as it feels like we have been running flat out for the last few months. Weeks have flown by as we prepared for new arrivals and cut and split next winter's firewood.

The star attractions this season are a quartet of Berkshire pigs and six turkeys.

Pig fence.

The pigs required a huge amount of infrastructure. The pen where we housed our first two pigs the first summer on the farm has since been turned into garden space and the barn is now used for the laying flock. This meant we needed to create a new paddock for them. We're challenged here because we're perched on a slab of bedrock; this makes it difficult to drive fence posts. Rob decided to build a tradition snake fence. These take a large number of rails and Rob spent weeks cutting and limbing trees around the property and bringing them to area where we want to run the pigs. At the end of the project we used almost 150 eight-foot rails to build the pen.

Eastern Wild Turkey Poult.

My project is six turkeys. I framed in part of the big barn and hung chicken wire to predator-proof their new quarters. Three weeks ago I brought home three Royal Palms, two Bourbon Reds and one Eastern wild turkeys. They are interesting additions and they're already starting to posture. Depending on what sexes we have and how the summer goes, we may try to keep two for breeding next year.

We are raising meat kings again this year. This will be our third summer raising them and we've started 30. We took advantage of having the extra penned area in the barn and moved them in with the turkeys. It has worked out really well. This batch is more active and is already foraging through the bedding. Another week or so and we'll move them out to pasture.

We have new neighbours and we bartered four tractor buckets full of manure for an old chest freezer they were throwing away. The freezer perfectly holds the pig, horse and cow feed and is rodent proof. There's even room for me to keep my brushes for the horse.

We lost one of meat kings this week and one of our layers. Chickens can be  hardy and resistant but when one takes it into its head to die, there's nothing you can do about it. They become the most fragile creature on the earth.

Spring is here and summer is at her heels. Tonight's stroll around the fields just reminds me of the beauty lurking just outside our door.

Lilacs in the big field.

The Sap is Running

We're experiencing a temperate transition from winter to spring and as a result the sap is running. The daytime temperatures are nudging up on the positive side while the night time temperatures are dipping just below zero. I've never tapped trees before. This spring we've decided to put three taps in a few trees behind the house. Since Sunday afternoon we've collected a little under 20 litres of sap. Considering the ratio of sap to syrup is 40 to 1, we can so far expect to create a half litre of syrup.

We froze the first bit of sap we collected and the rest in my stock pot on the top shelf of the fridge. We plan to set up a bonfire on the weekend and start boiling it down. We need to figure out how to support the pot above the fire. We're thinking a rack over a fire pit. But we'll have to look for one.

Rob started cutting next winter's firewood. He's targeting some ash, particularly ones with crooked trunks, he'll cut a bit of birch and some maple as well. It was when he was cutting the maple that he realized how much the sap was running. We have to bring the poplars we cut last spring up to the front field to arrange for getting them sawed.

We heard geese flying overhead yesterday, so I feel like Spring is on its way.

I started this post a couple of weeks ago, so I need to update the sugaring story.

This weekend past I boiled the sap. I made a big fire and burned up a bunch of the brush we've collected from clearing around the barn and run-in. Once the fire we was going well I placed my big canning pot full of sap in the middle of it. Three hours later the water had evaporated and I took the remaining liquid into the the house to finish. At the end of the day I ended up with two 250ml jars of syrup and an immense sense of pleasure.

My seed orders went in the mail today. I have seedlings started in the basement and we're planning on purchasing pigs, meat birds and turkeys this year. It will be a busy place this summer... and I'm looking forward to all the challenges.

Smells Like... Spring

What a difference a month makes.

The last time I posted we were suffering a cold snap (one of several). This week however feels like we're on the cusp of spring. If I was tapping trees this year I would be starting now. Not that I know much about the process but this week the daytime temperatures are nudging above freezing and the nighttime temperatures are dipping to about minus 10. From what I've read that seems to be just about right for ideal sap flow. We've decided to wait another year as we still haven't set up a outdoor work area where we can boil the sap. Not having a kitchen fan, I don't want to introduce all  the humidity to the house.

I can smell the difference in the air. I took the dogs for early morning runs both Monday and today. This is possible because it is now light before seven (another bonus). What snow there is is hard pack and in the early morning I can walk on it without breaking through. There's lots of bare ground and you can smell it starting to warm up. It's earthy and fresh. This morning was perfect -- bright and sunny, crisp and without any wind. If this keeps up we should be able to get the block of ice out of the stock tank and begin using it again. It froze solid earlier in the month... we just couldn't keep up with breaking the ice

It's been so nice I've taken Joe's blanket off for a few days. He doesn't love having it on, so I'll leave it off until the weather turns again. He is already starting to shed.

Dahlia has a thick lush coat and I'm sure we'll soon be seeing her shedding. Her horns are really starting to develop and are big enough to use as handles. They're also big enough to leave a nasty bruise if you don't move out of the way quickly enough. I found this out the hard way the other night and I'm now sporting a three-inch bruise on my thigh. A sound reminder to keep my eye on her and not the dog. On another cow note, Rob believes she may have had her first heat cycle. We'll need to watch and see if we can track as we're thinking of breeding her this summer.

The Cold Snap

Frost on the porch window.

Nova Scotia has been suffering a cold snap this week. There is nothing like caring for large animals to fully appreciate temperatures dipping below -20. With the wind chill, there were several nights this week where the mercury dropped to -28.

Our horse and cow have a three-sided shelter and thick winter coats to protect them from the cold. Joe also wears a light waterproof blanket which blocks wind as well. We have a good foot of hay an straw on the floor of the run-in and I've seen Dalhia nestled in there chewing her cud several mornings and evenings this week.
The biggest challenge has been keeping the water ice-free. Thursday morning Rob had to use the ax to cut a hole in the big 100 gallon water tank. We were lucky and filled it last weekend when the temperature was 10+. Unfortunately the plug got knocked loose and overnight all the water drained out. By that point the temperatures had begun to drop and we had to fill it using buckets because the hose and tap were again frozen.

The chickens have a heated waterer and heat lamp in the coop. Overall they have been coping with the cold weather, although a couple of eggs froze this week before we brought them into the house. The hens haven't been foraging much, so several times I've taken them vegetable peelings which they seem to appreciate.

In the house, the hot water tap froze in the kitchen and we finally broke down and turned the electric heaters on. Even though the fire was roaring in the wood stove, the heat seemed as though it was beaten back by the cold seeping in and only the immediate radius around the stove had any warmth.
The wind has finally dropped and today is a balmy -10. I can live with that, but I'm looking forward to a warming trend promised for next week.