Alpacas!

A way back in 2003, while teaching English in South Korea with Beth, I saw an ad for alpacas in a Canadian Geographic magazine. The ad touted these animals' pleasant demeanor, ease of care, and hypoallergenic attributes. I'd never raised an animal before, excluding Brandy the family dog, which we  gave away due to everyone being allergic to her. But alpacas really appealed to me then and I decided I'd like to have a few in the future. Not knowing much about camelids I read a bit about them while still in Asia and received an information package from Alpaca Ontario. The only previous experience with these types of creatures was in Argentina where I saw a few Vicuna's from a distance while travelling in the Andes. 

Vicuna - a relative of the Alpaca

A bit later when Beth and I were travelling through Mongolia we took the opportunity to ride a Bactrian Camel. These are relatively rare compared with the single humped Dromedary camel.

My interest in alpacas grew once back in Ontario and I visited several farms to learn more about them. Without any land, job, sense of permanency anywhere at the time, the interest waned for a few years until we bought this farm.

As luck would have it though, this place came with Esther, our guard llama. 

She's a great animal. Though very timid, standoffish and temperamental at first, we've developed a pretty good relationship and she now follows several voice commands. My hope is to one day outfit her with hiking bags and go for a trip nearby. She's a big girl and could likely carry about 80-90lbs without any difficulty.

In spite of now having a llama I am still interested in having alpacas and just recently was able to purchase a couple females from Hilltop Oasis Alpacas, which is actually just down the road a bit. In 2006 I helped these folks with shearing and have been in contact since then. These two females came up for sale as the farm is trying to breed for different coloured animals. So Domini (fawn) and Ivanka (white) are here now and we expect another shortly as Ivanka is pregnant, due on the 24th of August. 

 The overall intent of keeping these girls is simply to have a pair of nice, friendly and cute animals around. Their fleece will be sent away to be processed and we'll receive it back in the form of socks, skeins of yarn or other items to be sold locally. Though they won't be major money makers for the farm, as I have no interest in becoming a breeder/shower, they'll be fun to have around. They hum to each other quietly and are always side by side.
When asked, "What does an alpaca say?", Ella is already quick to respond with an enthusiastic, 'Hum'.

So far they have been a lot of fun to watch. They have added a different dynamic to the flock/herd here and seem to be forming a bridge between the sheep and Esther. They like Esther and follow her around, despite the fact that Esther hasn't quite warmed up to them yet. The sheep are fairly aloof about the alpacas, which is to be expected.

It's fun to see a dream come to fruition after such a long time. It's been nine years since I decided I'd like to raise alpacas and now here they are! We feel lucky everyday to have the space and freedom to do what we want out here in the country.

Broilers

We got our broilers as one-day-old chicks on June 12th. They were teensy tiny little things then but they've grown tremendously in the nearly 10 weeks since. For the first few weeks they lived in an old, cracked water trough meant for the mammals.

From there I put them in one of the lambing jugs in the barn until they grew feathers. At the point it was warm enough outside to move them into the purpose built chicken tractor. Following our friend Brendan's recommendations we fed them a mix of broiler grower and poultry grower and gave them as much as they could eat in 45 minutes, twice per day. Then we watched them grow, and grow, and grow!

The chicken tractor was perfect for these guys and gals. It has been easy to move each day and the wheeled feed trough was terrific. It allowed me to quickly get these birds their food each day while minimizing escapees and providing feed evenly amongst the flock.

The watering system needs tweaking for next season. No matter what I did the threads on the automatic waterer always leaked and drained the bucket of water too quickly. The birds weren't happy about it and it's crucial that they have as much water as they need. So eventually I switched back to the good old fountain waterers, which worked fine but were a pain as they need a level place to sit.

So next weekend we face the grim task of slaughtering these birds and filling the freezer with chicken. My neighbour Scott has volunteered to help out, in exchange for a hand with butchering his pigs later in the fall - a good trade.

At this point I'm not sure what the total cost of keeping this flock has been but we will surely enjoy having the chicken all winter. 28 birds should last us a while.

Garden Abundance

Although this summer started off very wet, the growing season has been great for our garden. We held off planting a lot of our veg until drier days but despite the shorter season our produce is looking great. 

A few photo's of the garden and harvest thus far. 

Beth harvesting garlic

Drying the garlic for a couple weeks

View of the garden from the barn loft

Beth and her garden

An adequate pea crop

Cabbage

d'onions!

Squashy Slope

Prize winning squash?

The squash, as seen above, have been a bit of mystery to us. Beth started a whole bunch of squash, of different varieties, in the basement under a fluorescent light in the Spring. We planted them all later once we had warmer, drier days and a couple months later they are all the same type. It looks like a cross between a hubbard and a zucchini, except they're huge!

Haying

 Bringing the hay home is an annual event. Timing is everything when harvesting hay and this year it was particularly difficult with all the rain we've gotten. We buy our hay from Julie and Will at Aspen Croft Heritage Farm. Eventually, the hay was able to be cut and we lucked out with a few days of dry weather which allowed the cut hay to dry sufficiently in order to then be baled. In preparation I cut a new doorway out of the side of our barn to allow my new (really old) hay elevator in. I bought this elevator from a farmer friend Larry, who hadn't used it in years. The electric motor needed to be remounted as did the wheel but it worked perfectly.

 I also cleaned out the loft completely and snugged the hay mow tight against its frame. This was previously the access point where pigeons would enter/exit the barn. With the door shut on them finally, the loft is pigeon free.

Julie and Will were kind enough to deliver the hay in two loads. The first came one Sunday afternoon and the second a couple Sunday's after that. So much for rest on the Sabbath! My folks were up for the second delivery so my dad helped unload and my mom took some photos of the process. 

Beth got into the action once Ella went to bed for the night!

Three hundred and twenty five bales later and the loft if full and we're ready for winter. 

Even now, a few weeks after we got the hay all in, when you walk near the barn you can catch the sweet aroma of the hay in the loft.

Ella absolutely loved the Aspen Croft tractor while it was parked at our house. 

Shiitake Explosion!

Since my last post about the Shiitake logs I have moved the logs to the farm. Now I've got better access to them and can manage the mushroom production better. Truthfully, I've not done much with them but this didn't stop the Shiitakes from going through a significant fruiting cycle. I think what happened with them is that they were "shocked" on the road trip from the sugarbush to the farm and that, along with a significant amount of rain, resulted in another, bigger, mushroom harvest.   

Most of these shiitake's were too big to sell, had major squirrel damage, or had become moldy, which was rather unfortunate. The good ones though were harvested, dried slightly and brought to our local food co-op, The True North Community Co-op. I was really happy to have this outlet ready and available with such a glut of mushrooms on hand. We also added our syrup to their shelves. 

These mushrooms were delicious and full, though somewhat overgrown. There has been great interest in the community about the shiitake's so I'm happy it has finally worked out. At $15/lb retail these could help us eke out a bit of profit from the farm. More realistically, any money made will help pay for feed and supplies, but that's okay with us! It's been a fun project thus far and though I gave up on the idea a while back I'm pleased to now find myself interested in mushroom cultivation again and seeing the fruits of past labours. Good things come to those who wait indeed.