More Seeds!

Ahhh, it's Sunday...gotta love Sundays. Slept in this morning, which is always a nice treat...we skipped coffee at the neighbours and hung out in jammies, getting a slow start to our day.



Well, my first seedling table is already full, lol! This morning I planted the last of the first round....21 Red Acre Cabbage and 28 Habanero peppers. (We think they are Habanero)

Here's the jar of dried peppers from last year. We bought these at a farm stand a few hours away. I dried them over the woodstove (cut them in half first), and now they sit on our kitchen counter. They are filled with seed, so I have planted them and we'll wait to see if they come up.

The cabbage is starting to come up quite nice! I counted 35 that have already poked thru!


I've just started making some bread, and am gonna head out with a cup of tea for G, who is working on his trucks....what a job!

Enjoy your Sunday!!!































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Stairwell Reno

Ugh, we have always hated our stairwell leading to the basement. It hadn't been properly finished and it had so many nicks, gouges and writing on it (used to be lots of boys growing up in this house before we bought it).

It was drab and dreary with a light fixture we couldn't stand, an exposed ledge we couldn't figure out what to do with.....here's the pic. I had already started filling in holes, etc and sanding.

The G man gave the whole stairwell a good priming and painting....he had to put up scaffolding in order to get up to the top. Then he started trimming out the ledge and wall below in pine.

Here's a close up of the wood he used on the ledge - it's from a pine on our property that was killed by the pine beetle. See the dark blue grey colour of the wood?

So, here's a picture I took standing in the basement...I love it! I think it looks awesome and it really cleans the whole area right up!

He added trim boards at the bottom and just under the overhanging ledge....he's pretty handy, my guy.

And here's a pic from the top of the stairs. The back entry to our house is basically where I stood to take this. So, when people come over and look to the right, this is what they see now.

What an improvement! Because the stairwell is so durn high, we needed something on that end wall to draw the eye....finally had an idea to pick up a garden trellis from Canadian Tire.

Now all I need is a small scatter rug to throw on the landing floor, and maybe some dried flowers in a tall vase to put on the ledge under the trellis....

I like it!

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Seed Update

Here's a new pic of my seeding room in action...the other day I seeded 42 Cayenne Peppers...yeehaw! Now I wait with fingers and toes crossed to see if they will germinate.

These pepper seeds came originally from my brother about 5 years ago....we planted some the following year and got a bounty crop of cayennes...the following year we were too busy building our last place, so I didn't seed any. The year after that, we seeded, but didn't get any crop.

Last year, we seeded again, and got just a couple peppers....so THIS year, I am seeding all of the seeds I have, and will commit to being diligent with them, so we can get a good harvest. I like adding a cayenne pepper to each quart of pickled eggs I make, so over the year, we can use quite a few peppers that way.

I was downstairs this morning to water, and lo and behold....there are TWO cabbages coming up already! Thank you!!!!

I wonder if this inspirational plaque helped, I think it did....I got this for Christmas from JP, who knows how much I love gardening, and also listens to me whine about how much more challenging it is to garden up here in Zone 3, instead of the Zone 8 I am used to....

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Working on the Barn

The G man has been working on framing in the first of two rooms down in the second half of the barn. This room will be used for meat birds, and they should be arriving the second week of June.

The area above the ceiling will be used to store hay....and there will be a window in each outside wall of the room...you can see the window opening in the picture. There will be a man door in the breezeway wall, you can see the opening on the right in the picture....

Outside, he needed to extend the "yard" a bit so that there would be enough room to have an outside run for the meatbirds. First, a tree needed to come down. We'll get that cleaned up when the snow melts some more, and I'll probably light a small fire right there and burn the small branches. The bigger limbs and the trunk will be cut and saved for firewood.

Back to the meat birds...Cornish Giants tend to sit around a lot, so it's not really that they need room to exercise...it's more that we want them to have access to the sunshine and fresh air....they'll probably get put out in the run in the daytime, if weather cooperates....

so we will put up fence posts and wire and enclose this run...it should work quite well, and the birds will have the choice whether to be in the sunshine or in the shade.

It sure does help to have an excavator on hand!

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Our Pigs

Our 3 little pigs are settling in quite well! The weather has been nice enough in the afternoon that they are staying out in their little run, rooting away.....

so here they are...there's Stubby in the front (can you tell how he got that name!). Behind him is Patches, and on the right is Whitey (at least, he is Whitey until we come up with a better name!)

Last year we got kinda attached to our pigs...Porky and Choppy. During the winter, we were determined not to get too close to our next batch of piggies...but durn it, it is happening anyway. How can we help it? They are so bloody cute!

They'll have a grand ole time living here on the farm until it's time to go to freezer camp...and yes, that is what happens. But there's lots of months between now and then, we're going to make sure they have fun in the meantime! Fresh air, sunshine, dirt to root around in, and garden veggies to eat...they'll have a good life.

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I Started My First Seeds of the Year

I took an hour late this morning to get some seeds going...last year I had some lights going in the basement and started a LOT of our own garden veggies down there. If anything, I think there will be more growing down there this year.

We are trying to grow as much of our own food as possible, and also supplement the food for the pigs and chickens as well. That means a big garden.

Root veggies do really well here, and I can just direct seed them once we can get in the garden to work the soil. Peas, beans, lettuces, chard, radish, kale, onion can also be direct seeded.

That still leaves some plants that need to be started inside, here's the list (probably incomplete)

tomatoes

pepper

zuccini

squash

cabbage

dill

broccoli

cauliflower

flowers

So today, I started 42 cabbage, 18 rudbeckia and 18 coreopsis. I'm DETERMINED to have actually flowers in my yard this year! I've always been more of a flower gardener than a veggie gardener, and it has been hard to set that aside for the last two years. We've been totally concentrating on growing Food and expanding gardens to grow more Food.

So I have ideas for 2 medium sized flower beds and 1 big shady flower bed. They are on my "list of things to do" this year, and I'm going to try to get my 4 older chickens to help me with those projects.....more on that later.

Our basement is unfinished at this point, so I have commandeered a couple of areas for starting our plants. Here's a pic of my potting area in one room.....

I mostly use Styrofoam cups to start my seeds...just poke a hole in the bottom with a pen, fill them about two thirds with Sunshine Mix 4, water them, water them again in a minute. Then put the seed in, add a bit more S Mix, then tamp it down....water again.

We also save our cream containers as well as the great cans our beer kits come in...awesome to use those for tomatoes when it comes time to transplant them!

G set up the lights for me the other day, in another room downstairs. Add a timer, a little heat and we wait and see what happens!

I'll check them everyday and water them when they need it.

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3 Little Pigs

Our pigs are here and are settling in....we picked them up this morning not too far from where we live....this is how we transported them. It's one of those big totes you can get at Walmart or Canadian Tire....G improvised a lid and we hold it together with a bungee cord....high tech, eh?

We thew a little hay in there, and fit 3 piggies in there all right....wouldn't want to try 4 tho, a little tight!



We set the carrier right in their house....then carefully tipped the carrier over, and let them out. We did that so they would know their little house. Last year, we just lifted the piglets out of the carrier and set them on the ground inside their pig run. They couldn't figure out where their house was....getting them in their house that first night involved flashlights and a salmon net....don't ask...


So, this morning they probably stayed inside their house maybe 10 minutes, then they all started inching towards the door. About 5 minutes later, the first one had stepped outside, and the other 2 followed a couple minutes later.

Next thing we knew, they were eating the food we had put down for them, rooting up a bit of dirt, and gnawing on the wooden waterer....they also each got zapped by the electric fence at least 3 times each, so we figure they have learned that one!!




We spent a good part of the day down at the barn, and the G man framed in one wall for our eventual meat bird room. We'd check on the piglets every hour or so, they seemed to spend a lot of this afternoon sleeping in their house, all piled up on each other, snuggled in the hay.

Let's just hope they are still there in the morning! We have this part of our acreage all fenced in, so they can't go too far and can't get into too much trouble....I think. Sphere: Related Content

Getting Ready for Pigs

The long weekend is here - we lazed around this morning for awhile, then friends came for coffee and we had a good talk about bees, gardening and looking forward to the last of the snow melting...our winter vacation is pretty much over and our spring season is just beginning to get underway.

So around late morning, we headed down to finish off the pig house and pen. Last year we had them up at the barn...we just moved their pighouse up to the fence and they had their run, getting it all ready for us to use it this year to grow some feed for them. Here's a pic of their setup last year....

over the summer they worked and rooted up the soil, fertilized it and enjoyed it....this year we are going to use this area for a garden for the pigs...after all, they did the work :)

This will help us save some feed costs and we know from last year how pigs LOVE fresh veggies....

ok, so this spring, we are moving the pig's area down closer to our fence, towards our hayfields. The G man moved their house using his machine....we did, however, build the pighouse on skids, so that it can easily be moved using a pick up or tractor....

we are going to keep moving the pighouse every couple of weeks in a straight line towards our property fenceline. For the first couple of weeks, they will have a small area, as shown in our pics. After that, the pigs will have a run roughly 15' x 40'. Every couple of weeks, we move the fenceline, and we'll drag the pighouse.

In the end, we will hopefully have about a 40' x 60' foot garden area, already fertilized and tilled, thank you piggies! We'll use this area to plant rutabagas and turnips (piggy and chicken food).

OK so yesterday we got the T posts in and attached the wooden rails. Today we finished hanging up the fence insulators and running the electric tape. G pounded the ground rod in, and finished setting up the connections. He set the timer inside to turn on the heat lamp on around 8pm and off around 8am....these piggies will be fairly small when they arrive. They'll snuggle up nice and tight in order to keep warm, but we like putting in the heat lamp for them to get a good start....plus we tossed a bunch of hay in the house.

Over the first few days, they'll eat a bit of it, and fluff up the rest of it just the way they like it when they settle in to sleep.....

A close up of the fence tape strung, with wood fencing as a back up....we want to train the pigs to electric fence, but when they are little, they sometimes will run right through it.....don't ask me how I know that one :)

As they get older and we start moving the fenceline, we should be able to just hang up the tape and they won't go near it....

Here's the area almost complete...we may need to put up another row of fencing, we'll see how it goes....

When G built the house, he made a hatch in part of the roof. It's great for being able to throw in a few flakes of hay, plus is good to be able to ventiate the house....

And, a view of the house with the hatch closed....we're hoping the piggies will be nice and cozy in there. It worked well last year....here's hoping....

Check back tomorrow, we'll try to post some pictures of our 3 little piggies!! And a Blessed Easter to everyone!

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Too Much On Our Plate

Oy! There isn't enough time in the day....we are busy busy busy....we have 3 piglets coming on Saturday, and we still need to finish off the fencing for their new run.

There are seeds to be started, taxes to finish getting ready, changes have to be made in my trading account, a choppy market to play. Yesterday we ended up being away almost all day, and altho it was great to get away, our minds are full with what needs to be done around here.

We picked up yet another extension cord and timer, this one for the piggy's house. I'm still waiting on my Lindenberg seed order, altho I don't need those to get started. The G man hung up my grow lights in the basement the other day, and we picked up more Sunshine Mix 4 yesterday, so I can start at any time....

The great news is that G is feeling much better every single day, thank goodness! Just a few more days of operating at a slower speed, and he will be just fine. Now THAT'S the best news I have had in awhile.

Hospital food doesn't seem to be conducive to good health, unfortunately. He has lost some weight, but now that the home cooking is happening again, he is gaining his strength back. So it looks like we can move on from the stress of last week, weeeeeeeeee!!! Sphere: Related Content

Survivor

Oh man, Ozzy is rocking! Survivor was on last night (tonite is basketball apparently)....and Ozzy was all over that challenge....almost running on top of the water! What an athlete....I thought there might be a chance he would pull out the Hidden Immunity Idol.

So glad he felt secure enough not to use it....he was right! I want him to win, win, win....he sure deserves it. Sphere: Related Content

The Mangel

Over the past year, I have developed a bit of an obsession, with an elusive object....it's the Mangel....do you know what it is? Have you ever heard of it?

When we moved up here, I started doing a lot of reading about homesteading and raising animals. Now I need to say up front....I have almost zero interest in the mechanics associated with today's farmer....the huge tractors, combines, fertilizer tanks, etc. etc....

I have a huge interest in old timey farming...remember, like how they USED to do it...before the advent of heavy duty machinery, used in the hopes of higher outputs....nah, that's not for either of us.

Libraries have these old time books, so does http://www.amazon.com/ You can also buy some on Ebay http://www.ebay.com/

My wonderful local librarian, Mary, helps me a LOT by bringing in these types of books...I go online and find them, then phone her up or drop her off a list with the ISBN's and a few weeks later she is calling to let me know they have arrived! Ya gotta love librarians...they are one of my favourite groups of people!

An excellent book is American Farming Techniques...plus the Robinson's "Have More Plan" available online in a PDF file...

Anyway, back to the mangel...I kept noticing it being brought up as a good source of livestock feed....easily grown anywhere you can grow beets.....hmmm...where we are ANY type of root crop grows really well. So I did some more reading. The more I read about it, the more I wanted to try growing them. If we could find a way to store them, they could then be used to feed our feeder pigs when they arrive late March or so. Farmers of old call the late winter/early spring the "hungry gap", meaning it is traditionally difficult to provide livestock feed from your own land.

Some mangels reach 20 lbs at harvest time....you can dig them up with a pitchfork. Half or more of the actual mangel grows above the ground, which hopefully makes it a bit easier to harvest. You can also turn pigs into your mangel patch and they will clean it up for you.....

Mangel seeds are not that easy to find tho, at least not in Canada. I found some in the OSC catalogue so ordered some. But they didn't have them, so I kept looking. A friend nearby heard what I was trying to do, and referred me to Jim at www.prseeds.ca I gave him a phone call, sure enough he had some in stock, and sent some out to us....so we finally got the elusive seed!

As the gardening season progresses, we post our mangel trials and see how we do...maybe next year, we will be able to convince other small livestock farmers to give mangels a try!

For more info on mangels, just pop over here to Homesteading Today, where we were having a lively discussion about exactly what they are, where to get seed and more.

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=234995&highlight=mangel



And to tide me over and give me more hope for spring, here's a pic of our vegetable garden early last August....

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Our Barn

One of the reasons we moved here was to have some acreage, way out in the boonies, raise a few animals and have a Huge veggie garden.....

Since there wasn't a barn here, we had to build one. We tossed around a few ideas...we wanted it to be inexpensive but solid, custom built for what we would use it for (pigs, laying hens and some meat birds, livestock feed storage).

So we thought and thought and thought some more. One night after a few drinks (funny how ideas flow better when the wine is flowing), we had a bit of a "Eureka" moment....how about a barn built in two stages? This would spread out the cost over a couple of years, it would enable us to move our laying hens down there and get them settled in, plus we could get a couple of feeder pigs.

Putting pen to paper, we came up with a "half barn".....since we also would need a place to store either extra vehicles (da G man has a bit of an addiction that way) or our future tractor, we would end up with two sections with a breezeway in between. Sounded perfect. And so we began.

G excavated and poured footings. Then he stuck those saddle thingies in the concrete. We got some logs from when the barn next door was taken down, so he used those for the posts. He hewed out the bottoms and put them in place. This is what the first "half barn" looked like with the rafters up.

He cut all the wood (except for those logs from barn next door) to size with his sawmill....see back a few posts for more info on the mill). Then came the strapping.....here he is trimming the strapping.

Oh and look how green everything looks down the valley behind him....oh I can't wait for all the snow to melt, and things will start to green up.....aaaaaaah, almost there!

Next came the metal roof, I think it took us four hours to put it on, it is not that hard to do....until you get to that last sheet, that one is a bugger!

Here's a pic from the other side....you can see the chicken coop starting to take shape.

Ah, now things are starting to come together...by the way, those fence posts you see will eventually be two separate runs for my layers. Two so that they can run around in one, while a bit of rye grass or alfalfa is growing in the other. Ultimate goal is to have greens growing in either run, and rotate the hens between them. This will allow them to nibble a bit, and when it's eaten down, they get moved to the other run.

See the 2 little tiny doors? One on the side and one on the front (with black tar paper). We can just close off whatever door we like, and choose the run we want them in. Upper hole is for the window, one on side and one on front.

OK, so here it the "half barn" early last August. This pic was taken from our porch. This is pretty much the way we thought the barn would stay until the following year, except we wanted to finish off the siding.

Chickens on one side, and our 2 piggies on the other.

But then in September, the parental units all came along for a holiday....which to them means work...us, we take a holiday we lay around, go for lunch, sightsee...not these 4 (we had both sets of parents here at the same time). These people like to work...keep busy is their motto, none of this hanging out on the porch for them.

So my Dad got busy doing firewood (he LOVES to split and stack firewood, he's kinda crazy that way)...Dad likes two things, working and coffee, and not neccessarily in that order. Anyway, the G man and his Dad figured well why not put up the other "half barn"? Well, why not indeed! Hop to it, fellas....and so they did.

Check out the posts and bracing....

There goes the strapping, then comes the metal roofing...

TA DAH!!! And the outer shell is completed before the snow flies....even storage for this winter for G's old beauty!

Here you can really see the breezeway between the two "half barns"....we are loving the way it is turning out. There will be a couple of rooms for meat birds (where the truck is parked now), plus we will design those rooms so if we eventually want a cow or horse in there, we can easily accomodate them. Plus we will have a feed room. We will close in the upper portion and use it for hay storage, etc....Cool, no?

Total cost was just over $1000.00. $500 for metal roofing for each half....one 50 lb. box of spikes, and some concrete for the footings. The windows we found at our local "mall" (read dump), man door and insulation for the coop was given to us by friends who were doing a clean up at their property....ya gotta love it when u can do it cheap!!

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A Few Pictures

We've got a lot going on behind the scenes up here, so here's a short note and a few pics!


These are just a few of the horses that were in the field next to us...they were so beautiful! We'd walk down into our meadow and feed them carrots over the fence. I could sit on our porch and watch them run in the field, I loved that!


I love horses....from far away. Up close, they scare the wits out of me. I have only ridden twice in my life, and both times were....well, let's just say it wasn't good.

And that's all I gotta say about that!




This is the creek that runs through our property...at this point, we can only get down there in the wintertime. The rest of the year, it is either too wet, or the canary grass is too long, and we can't see where we're going. One of our long term plans is to get these fields cleaned up, freed from the willows. We'd like to get the hay off the fields, but that is for another year. There is always too much to do here!










If you live in Canada, you have surely heard about the pine beetle, which has been attacking a huge amount of the pine trees in BC. They have been trying hard to curb the migration of the beetle over to Alberta. No clue on how that's going....


When we moved here, we had maybe 50 - 60 of these diseased trees on our property. I think we have 3 left to take down, then they will be gone.

A lot of people here are using it for firewood, and yes it's great, because it's all dry already, even when still standing. You could cut it in January, buck it up, split it and bring some in the house and toss in your woodstove...just like that!


They say heating with wood heats you twice....once when you fall and buck the tree, stack the wood...and the second time when you actually throw it in your stove and enjoy the heat...food for thought!

G also uses the pine for sawing into logs with his sawmill (see previous post). The pine has a deep blue streak running through it, and some people call it "denim pine". They are developing a market for it, and a friend who has seen a kitchen with denim pine cabinets, says it is absolutely gorgeous!

We have it on the ceiling in our living room, I love the way it looks! Sphere: Related Content

UN World Food Program - Play This Game!

A poster over at HomesteadingToday put up a link to this site. You do a vocabulary test, and for every correct answer, they donate 20 grains of rice....cool! I played for a bit tonite and donated 1900 grains....I'll challenge ya...let's see who can do more!

You can play for 1 minute, or 5...I don't know where it ends...but give it a click, and help donate to this needed program!


http://www.freerice.com/index.php Sphere: Related Content

Pigs Like To Drink Out of the Tap

These pics are from our piggies last year....we had 2 of them, and they were a great source of entertainment for us.....

Pigs LOVE drinking from the hose...

We're getting geared up for our new batch of pigs to come, they should be here in about 3 weeks....gulp. Winter vacation is coming to an end!

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What a Bunch of Chickens

Well, it's the weekend. Neither of us is feeling very well, a touch of the flu, it seems....G is comforting himself watching Clint's Palerider....

It's been sunny today, so for awhile I was hanging out with my girls....doing some temporary (read Band-Aid) ditching down at the barn. I took a couple of pics.

We have a big melt going on here...water water everywhere! Dare we begin to think that spring is on the way???


The snow in the pics is deceiving...we don't have quite that much everywhere! But every time it snowed, we would shovel it out of the way in their run, so at least they have a bit of yard! Even on days it is quite cold, they do still like to come out for a bit, and sit in the sun. And it is sunny here a lot. I throw some hay down, so it isn't quite so wet...throw some scratch out and they can have at it. Often I will close up their door, so they have to stay outside for the afternoon. Then on the other side of the coop, I can open up the man door and the nesting box doors, and ventilate their coop.









Anyway, here are some of my girls...I have begun to develop a big appreciation for the chicken. I got my first ones when we moved up here. G laughed at me because I only wanted 4.


I figured I better start small, lol....he would laugh and try to ge me to up that to 6, but I was adamant!


Those 4 are still with us, and as far as we can tell, they are still laying. I have a small project in my mind for those 4.




You know, a chicken doesn't ask for much. A bit of food, some source of constant water, which is very important. A little scratch thrown down for them as a treat. Whenever I add some hay to the floor of their coop, I throw a bit of scratch down there....they like scratching for it, it keeps them busy plus it helps to aerate the litter....which is important for their health.



They produce something for us pretty much every single day. They also come running when they see me coming their way...never mind if it's because they hope I am going to toss them a few tidbits.



This year, we are expanding our garden, and will be including things like collards and mustard, also a lot more swiss chard and lettuces. We want to start providing more of the feed for our animals.



I have been reading over at http://www.lionsgrip.com/chickens.html . What a great website! Lots of chicken information, and I am currently working my way through the sections of feed recipes. Head on over there if you want some good info on raising chickens. Sphere: Related Content

Our Poor Truck

We had a truck, I really liked it.... it was nice.

Then, this happened....it was not good

No one was hurt..except for the truck...he was hurt pretty bad...yeah, things weren't gonna be the same for him anymore

So....what are ya gonna do? You know sometimes life hands you a lemon...ya gotta make some lemonade!

Here's our Cariboo Convertible, so to speak...handy for hauling wood and stuff around the property..saves time cuz ya don't even have to open or close the doors...or windows...

yeah, here's the latest - the G man is switching out motors from our old beauty to our new (but old) truck.....sigh...


our poor truck...sniff sniff

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Thirsty Thursday!

Well, it's Thursday....around the Valley, we call it Thirsty Thursday...we're headed over to friends in an hour for a beer, maybe 2...do some visiting, then come home for hot openface chicken sandwhiches smothered in gravy, yummmmmmy!

All this followed by Survivor at 8pm...go Ozzie!!!!

(I love Thursdays)

PS I am thirsty Sphere: Related Content

An Old Barn

Here's a picture of an old barn that used to be just down the road. It was supposedly over 80 years old. Over the years, one of the owners made a kinda of weekend getaway out of one part of the bottom floor.....

It's not there anymore, but I have always really liked the look of it, am glad I got this picture!

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My Husband Just Sat on Porch and Watched!

I should have added to that post just below, that the G Man just sat on the porch drinking beer and watched me saw all those logs. This is after I put the whole sawmill together!!!



Nah...that was actually his post, but I told him I was gonna take credit for it, since he didn't put his name anywhere on it :) Sphere: Related Content

Simple Sawmill Setup

Since we moved here nearly 2 years ago we have been taking down lots of trees, dead pine from the mountain pine beetle.

Most people in the area have written off the trees as firewood, which is a real shame, because a good percentage of the wood is great for milling into usable lumber.

I started out with my Husky 2100 saw with a 36" bar. I fabbed up a simple jig / carriage on steel V wheels. I then mounted two pieces of angle iron on my car trailer. To hold the log in place I drove a bunch of nails through a 2x4 and mounted it with the nails pointing up. I used 3 of these to accomadate different length logs.

So far I have cut lumber to build the barn, (still not finished). This includes square posts for the main structure, 2x6 for framing walls, and 1" boards for siding. I also cut the boards for the rafters and strapping, and lots of 2" boards for hog fencing.

So far the barn we are building has only cost us for the tin roof and some spikes and nails. Oh and a few gal. of gas for the saw.

There are a few tricks to make the mill cut good. Filing the chain properly is the key to getting a nice finish and a efficient cut.

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