Winter is Waning

It's been a long time since my last post; just one example of how time slips away. This has been a long winter. We got our first snow before Christmas, which is unusual these days. Then it was a winter of deep freeze and extreme thaw. It's been a challenge in the barn yard.

This year we built an insulated box for the big water through and painted it black. The hope was it would hold enough solar energy to keep the water mostly thawed. It might have worked if we had any amount of the sunshine throughout January and February. We had weeks and weeks of endless gray days with no sign of the sun at all. So it was back to plan B, chopping ice out of the opening and filling with hot water. It works fine with only two animals... in future years we may need to look at other options.

We overwintered turkeys this year. A broad-breasted white, two royal palms, a bourbon red and eastern wild. The broad-breasted white, a congenial hen, lost all the feathers on her back and chest around early January...just when the mercury dipped below minus 10 Celsius and stayed there for weeks.

Miss Maple in her red sweater.

I found a couple sweaters at the second-hand store and adapted them for her to wear. Miss Maple looks stunning in red. The challenge was keeping the sweaters on her. The boys found it very attractive and we finally ended up moving her to the chicken coop because she was getting scratched by their constant attention.
She's only just now starting to show signs of growing her feathers again. We hope to hatch a few turkey eggs this spring and raise our own.

Here are a couple images of the toms; they are quite handsome when they're all puffed up:

Royal Palm



Bourbon Red

Last fall I built a cold frame and planted Mache; a hardy, cold-tolerant green. In January, during one of the mild spells I harvested some and took a couple pictures as well. It was wonderful to have a crisp, fresh green during the deepest part of winter. The cold frame spent a lot of time under snow, so I didn't take advantage of the greens as much as I wanted. I am excited about using to get a jump start on the spring planting season. I expect in a few more weeks I can start some spinach or chard in it.

Cold frame in January with Mache greens.
 

 I already have the seed catalogues out and I'm planning this year's garden. The garlic did well last year and is already in the ground. This year I'm going to try kale as my new crop. I really like the idea of having some cold-hardy greens to eat late into the fall and the early winter. I'm planning on experimenting with row covers and other season extenders.

We take possession of this year's pigs in a month. The meat chickens are already ordered and we're looking at potential mates for Dahlia the Dexter cow, who turned two in February and is ready for breeding.

Last year's pigs. Berkshires are extremely friendly and very tasty.

2014 is shaping up to be another busy season on the farm as we continue to move forward on the path towards self-sustainability.

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.

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.