Now that's a.........

Goose poop.....

You can always tell where they sleep because there's a mongo pile....

Doesn't stink, really, it's processed grass!

Gotta convince all my strawberry customers somehow....

Veggie Garden

Onions...

Fava/Broad beans (dwarf) and beets....with salad greens interplanted...

This one will be in my tummy soon.....

Did I mention we love garlic?

More photos coming as the tomatoes are growing in the greenhouse, potatoes are up, dill is planted, peas (3 plantings), beans, carrots and parsnips are in.....

Salad Greens....and Cabbage Maggots....

I love being able to make a salad from the garden....

I'm sequentially planting more carefully this year.....

Really, I'm hoping to have my own salad all winter. I refused to buy salad trucked 1500 miles to me in plastic....until I was so desperate for salad I had to....

I must do winter greens this year.....I found a new blog that mentionned chicken manure and a hot bed....I've been thinking on that all day.....I'm sure there'll be more on this at some date far in the future, like September....

So last year we planted out all our brassicas in May....

And after a couple of weeks they died....

Cabbage maggot.

My mum's solution in previous years was to.....put a MOTH BALL

under the plants when planting out.

It works.

Yep.

MOTH BALL.

YUCK!

We refused last year and lost about 2/3 of the plants. Which meant we had the right amount as my mother is slightly nuts and plants enough to feed the entire Comox Valley.....

One of my salad mix dropping....it must be a type of cabbage....And there were a basillion maggots eating its' roots.....

And in the next raised bed....a very happy brocolli. The internet is a wonderful place. Apparently if you block access with a barrier the fly doesn't lay it's eggs. (Remember my long barrier story? Same idea different bug...funny how that works) Knock on wood NOT ONE has dropped this year.

This is plastic from an old boat but inner tube plastic, felt, thick landscaping fabric all work. Cut them 5 inches square with a slit to the plant's stem.

So I hope the Comox Valley wants some brocolli this year.....

The Day of Pigs

Great excitement today....the pigs arrived....

A Farmer friend brought them in from Vancouver....
They had to be carried from the truck to the pasture.....

Apparently NOT a nice job.....Piggys are STRONG!

Can you say SQUEAL???????????

The pigs too....

Still no idea of the piggy havan (heavan is NOT the right word!) he's going to.....

Finally a calm one....probably #16 of 16

Grass, Dirt, Worms, Bugs.....COOL!

After running laps they had a piggy pile nap....

They look a mite bit sunburned eh?

Hubby was not impressed with carrying the pigs and when I said there's nothing hunkier than seeing farmer guy carry pigs to pasture....he said come and hug me. I guess the pigs pee too....

Wowza!

Remember that MONGO egg we had?
Well we cooked it today....

Cracked it open and out poured......another egg!!!!
The second egg was shell less with a membrane.....
I thought it was a yolk with an air bubble but August quickly clued in and shouted "An EGG IN AN EGG!!!"
I said I wanted to see one. (When we googled our "shell less eggs" we read about this kind of egg.....never thought WE'D get one though!)
We got one.....
I popped the membrane and the white of the second egg came out.
Sawyer had the priviledge of eating this egg...
He said the membrane was chewy.....

Slug Success

Well I know in the past I've complained about my mother....but today she really came through for us.

She showed up with a bucket of slugs. 200 of them in fact....Why she counted I have no idea. More on this later.....

We headed out to the guck tractor. And started throwing them in.

Huh! What's this??

Can you say GOBBLE, and not the turkey kind?

WAHOO!!!

Shake and Swallow, visit the water to help, slime o rama, YUMMY!

Only 170 to eat before we run out......

Oh Say Can You Say .....Slugcess??!!

Which reminds me of a time in my young life that I remember. I was about 4 or 5 and we lived in Vancouver with a green area in front of our house. There were a lot of slugs there and I guess I must have mentionned this fact to my mom.... My mom and a friend were a bit "lit up" to say the least and they said "If you get 100 slugs we'll eat them.....shellless escargot!" So out I march (and I can remember flashes of this vividly...) and get 100 slugs in a bucket....and bring them in....My mom's version is that they slugs were crawling out everywhere....Well I guess I must have gone to bed at this point because now I only remember my mom's retelling of the story. Basically they boiled the slugs and ended up with a pot full of slime and slugs....not entirely appetizing. As the red wine was flowing they decided to BLEND the slugs and eat them on toast, and this is EXACTLY what they did. Slug Pate.

Yup that's my mother, she'll eat anything.

I have a lot more mom stories.....

Poultry Update

I thought I'd do a little update on the various feathered members of our farm family....

Big guys working on newly planted strawberry field....EAT THE WEEDS!!!! Our 14 big guys are free range on the farm. I see them walking up and down aisles munching away. We have to figure out how to fence them once strawberry season starts! They have LARGE poops. As the Manitoba Farmer lady described them to me "Processed grass with a bit of icing sugar on top" She neglected to mention they are close to dog poop size! I can imagine they might turn a few customers off even though they are not stinky at all, they are seriously JUST GRASS!

Lucy is sitting on 6 eggs in her goose barn - 2 are hers and 4 we stuck in a week later (When we found a nest in the cover crop) We've got to be careful and try and remove the two eggs that are further along to hatch out in the house and let her keep the 4 later ones.....or the other way around, we haven't got that far! We're looking forward to the goslings though!

The girls are laying 12-14 eggs a day and we are still getting a large double yolker every day, we love the eggs and at this point aren't managing to accumulate any to sell, but we are saving money on purchased farm fresh eggs.....

Broilers: The inflato chickens are inflating. They are almost 4 weeks old and are pretty big now. Hubby had to modify our brooder room - we added another 4x8 sheet of flooring and gave the chickens and turkeys each a section.

We are readying an outdoor fenced area for them to roam. We're not sure how much they will roam, but the option will be there. The soil isn't so good so I'm picturing the soil being improved with copious quantities of chicken poop, cover crops being planted in between broiler batches which the next batch can then munch down.....We built the fenced area so the tractor can get in if necessary. (Not planned, the wire fencing ran out so hubby made a modification that turned out to be a tractor gate-brilliant!) Our weather is unseasonably cold and we can't let the turkeys out until it's 20 degrees out (70)....

Turkeys: They are CHARACTERS. One sits in the feeder and eats. If we leave the top gate open they are checking out how they can escape......They have a funny gobble-cheep right now and are acting like turkeys with their wings and tails. They are inquisitive and remind me of raptors on Jurrassic park - especially with the sounds they make...I bet the developer of the raptors had heard turkeys! I can only describe it as a turkey purr! WE have to figure out where to build a permanent pen/shelter for them but the nights are still a bit cold for them....

DUCKLINGS/Weeder Geese: I LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM! My guys can munch through about 5 buckets of chopped greens a day now. They chow it down! I REALLY want them to develope a liking for creeping clover, devils thumbprint and other pesky weeds.....They are not tame, but will come for me if I bend over and talk to them. They are outside all day every day now in their duck tractor which we move every two days. They seem pretty happy! I've thrown in slugs but have yet to positively see a duck down one. EAT THE DANG SLUGS!

I call it a guck tractor - goose + duck - And truly the guck they produce in one day is amazing! Hopefully our lawn grows well behind them! It's the only part of our lawn that is mowed....with all the rain we've been having getting anything mowed or ploughed is a bit of a challenge right now!

We have a "Duck house" that we put them in at night....an old coffee kiosk we bought off craigslist and converted....This will be where the ducks are trained to go at night so we can get their eggs.....but somewhere out on the range, not on the driveway in front of the barn.....We want them to be free range once strawberry season is over....We're not sure yet about the chinese geese going in at night....must explore options!

Did I mention we're behind in the strawberry farming work?

The pigs arrive the day after tomorrow......

Housthen, we have a problem!

I love gathering eggs....have to fight the urge to beat the kids
into the henhouse every day.....the thrill of the find...the treasures my ladies
leave us everyday...warm and clean....

My girls love their nesting boxes.....

Imagine my surprise at this .... egg?

One poult egg, one large farm fresh and the monster!!!
The world record is only .9 cm (just under half an inch) longer than this beaut!
As the mother of large headed babes, I empathize with my poor hen.....

The Ant and The Spider

"Mummy come see something cool......and it's not an ant!"

I have a feeling the spider is not sitting on the flower he is meant to!

(Can you see the ant?)

Can you see the ant on the other side....

What trap was this ant walking in to?

August took a BAZILLION photos of the spider.....and flowers, and strawberries, and kittens, and and and...

Ignoring ALL the signs to the contrary...

Has this ever happened to you? You get something set in your mind and your brain ignores all evidence pointing or even BLARING FULL BLAST to the contrary??? LIKE ALL POSSIBLE CLUES THAT YOU HAVE YOUR DATES TOTALLY WRONG????
So we have homeschooling "Camp" this week. The boys talk about it all year and LOVE coming. The district we are registered with sets it up at a bible summer camp about 2.5 hours from our home. Kids and families of all ages registered with the district come and activities are organized every day with lots of free time and choice. There are talent shows, spelling bees, group games, movies, dancing, campfires, night games, boating, hiking you name it. It's fun. The rooms are family style dormitory.
So for the past 2 years we've gone Mon - Tues - Wed 2nd week of May, so when we get the email this year I ignore the dates and write it on our calender for Mon-Wed.
Emails come in with itineraries, I sign the boys up for the talent show, I skim emails and the boys get more and more excited. We leave Monday morning for camp leaving two woofs in charge of the farm.
We arrive to an empty camp. The boys burst out of the car with wild abandon like kangaroos set free from the zoo ready to run and hide and play in the glorious sunshine.....
Hmmmm says Don, are you sure it's today?? Kind of in a tongue in cheek kind of way....
The delayed light bulb goes on. VERY delayed lightbulb. That's me, delayed.
Oh. My. G*d!
You mean the talent show on Thursday night wasn't a typo?
The dates 19-21 NOT 17-19 mean something?
The facebook entry by their teacher-facilitator that said something along the lines of "hope the weather is good wed-thurs-fri for camp!!" I read the night before we left wasn't a mistake?
The intinerary I looked at for arrival time with the big WEDNESAY across the top was correct???
Seriously I missed a lot of obvious clues, most of which were very obvious. If you'd asked me the dates we were going I would have said 19-21 and I even told people that's when we were going, but that was MONDAY the 19th!!!
How does one's brain do this?
Sawyer wouldn't get back in the car, Holdy wailed for 45 minutes and Hubby, well, he was more than ticked. We can't afford a day off at this time of the year (farming), let alone 3 for camp.....so much to do so little little time.
The woofs tink we're nuts when we arrive home.
So many chances to catch my mistake missed....
So what have I learned....your brain can trick you.
And today, before editing this post I wrote last night, I got a Yahoo Reminder that my teacher-facilitator is coming for her "visit" today, which is actually next thursday, because I booked it in my mind for the thursday after we get home from camp (not to mention the DOCTOR and DENTIST appointments I had to reschedule.....)
LOSER
Lesson?
We are often prisoners to "cliched" mindsets even if evidence points another way, PAY ATTENTION. This can apply to a lot of life in general. Think about it.
Kids must go to school when they turn 5.
You must go to university to be successful. (I was raised this way)
Boys must have short hair.
Boys must not wear flowery purple jammies. (For the record mine do!)
Punishment makes kids learn.
My list could go on, you get the picture....

At least I could say we arrived first.

A Long Legged Visitor....

Last week we had a visitor in the very tippy top of a dead tree behind our barn.....

We think he was checking out our pond.....

Which is behind the photographer.....apparently he likes the big dog fence around the pond as he has become a constant fixture there......

I hope he eats up all the non native fish farmer guy put in the pond....I'd rather have frogs and newts!

When I finally get a photo I'll add it!