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.

Chicken Tractor 2.0

Our friends Julie and Will, from whom we bought our farm, were recently in need of accommodation for their ducks. When over here recently they saw the chicken tractor I made and asked if I could make them one as well. Since we had a deal in the works to buy one of their ewes, Mirabelle, we decided a straight up trade might work well. Here are a few pictures of the new tractor, which in my opinion is superior to the one I built previously for a few reasons. First, it's more sturdy because I reinforced the corners better and second, it's smaller and thus easier to move around. Theirs is 6' x 10' whereas ours is 8' x 12' and it's a bit of a beast to move each day.

Inside the Hive

Last week Erin, the owner of the beehive at our place, and JoAnne, a beekeeper from nearby, came to inspect the hive, do some maintenance and try to locate the Queen. This kind of thing is done throughout the summer in order to ensure the hive is thriving and, in this hives case, produce enough honey to last through the winter. As we don't intend to take any honey for ourselves this season the primary goal is that the colony of bees flourishes and reproduces by several thousand.

JoAnne with a frame

This is an older frame that came with the new hive to establish it

Peanut shaped comb can indicate a swarm may occur

The Queen has been found!

We scraped off a bunch of comb, and honey, that was built to brace between two frames.
As this is not ideal we took it off the frame and reaped the rewards.

Shiitake Mushrooms

Several years ago I decided to try experimenting with growing shiitake mushrooms in birch logs. I had seen a display about growing mushrooms in oak logs when down in Toronto for the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair. The display intrigued me and I looked into the possibility of using birch logs as the medium rather than oak or sawdust which is also often used. Though it isn't really done anywhere some studies out of Japan indicated that birch would work, just not as well as oak. "Shii", after all is the Japanese word for oak.

So back in 2009 Paul and I inoculated about 70 logs with Shiitake mycelium which came from a fungi farm near Toronto.

Mycelium spawn in a sawdust form, capped with styrofoam to deter infection

The work was tedious amongst what seemed like millions of mosquitoes but we got it done in two sessions with the help of a gas powered drill.

These logs were successfully inoculated in the first summer but due to their size (6"+ diameter) they never did fruit and the shiitake mycelium was overtaken by other naturally occurring fungi found within the log or bark itself. You can see in the picture below that the mycelium grew throughout the logs, visible by the white outline of mycelium.

Gladly, we did a second batch of logs in 2010, this time with much smaller diameter logs. Unfortunately, I never did take a photo of these ones. The smaller logs were the ones that eventually fruited this Spring. We had extremely wet weather in Thunder Bay in late May which "shocked" the mycelium into a fruiting cycle. This is usually done manually by soaking the logs which forces the mycelium to then propagate by fruiting and later releasing spore into the environment. Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised to go to the sugarbush recently and find some full grown shiitakes growing on the logs.

They were a little worse for wear but I cut off the squirrelly bits and we made a nice meal with them. 

Delicious, meaty shiitake mushroom stir-fry. A great surprise as I had written off this experiment a while ago!

Townline Farm, Population: 3069 (approx.)

Townline Farm
Population: 3069 (approx.)


There's been a lot going on here as of late. Most notably, the population of our small farm has exploded. This is primarily due to the recent addition of a beehive. It's not actually our hive but a friends and she's keeping it here in exchange for some honey sometime down the line. Erin estimated there are 3000 bees in this hive and it'll grow by several thousand more!

We also welcomed our first batch of chicks from the hatchery. I converted a cracked water trough into a brooder complete with heat lamp, feeders and water reservoir. There are 30 White Rock X chickens. We'll have these guys and gals for 8 weeks only. Meat birds grow much faster than laying hens apparently.

On June 17th Freckles gave birth to two beautiful lambs. The boy, a black and white lamb, who looks much like his Finn father, is named Ippi. The ewe lamb is a spitting image of her mom and we've named her Isabella (Izzy). Unfortunately these two are the only lambs that lived this year. We had a rough lambing season with a pair born way too early in April (Ewe: Hazel) and a single birthed in a breached position that took fluid into it's lungs when still inside Henny and later died. So it's been a rough Spring in that regard but we're so pleased with Ippi and Izzy so that'll do. My dad has always said "If you're going to have livestock, you're going to have deadstock", a line borrowed from his father.

A few other projects have been on the go as well. I changed a lot of the fencing surrounding the barnyard to woven wire sheep fencing and moved the best gate we have to the main gate. Now I can easily drive the ATV into the barnyard and beyond. I added little patio solar light my friend Evan gave me a while back to each post which is great for monitoring things from the bedroom window.

Beth's birthday gift, a cutting board made from a birch burl. She actually asked for this about six months ago but forgot about it so she was surprised. The wood is from a tree we had to cut down in a campsite at Neys Provincial Park back when I worked there on the maintenance crew.

Esther loves getting sheared. We know several other llama owners and having spoken with them about their experiences shearing theirs we feel quite thankful Esther is so docile. She has let me putter away at this for a couple hours two Springs in a row now. No wonder, it would be so hot with all that fleece.

Peonies are in bloom.

Dinner a couple nights ago was fantastic.
Our own lamb and some freshly cut then BBQ'd garlic scapes.

Finally got the west side rafters on the deck roof.

Chicken Run.

Spring Projects

It's been a busy few weeks here lately. We had Ella's 1st birthday party a couple weekends ago so a lot of tidying up was needed before that and my parents visited us as well. Several projects were started and/or completed during that time. 

First up, my dad and I got the perimeter electric fencing cleaned up, tightened, straightened and reinforced following a winter filled with deer traffic over and through the fence. We also buried live and ground wires under the gates so they are more easily passed through. A new deep-cycle battery hooked up to the solar panel and fencer and we're all set. I haven't seen any deer in the pasture since flicking the switch for the first time. 

Here's the solar setup:

And here's inside the tub. On the right is a little gizmo meant to regulate the charge the solar panel gives the battery, a new addition this year.

In addition to the perimeter fencing we're trying something new this year with the intention of having the sheep and Esther intensively graze the pastures better. We bought some moveable fencing that hooks right into the perimeter fencing with which we can break up the pasture into smaller sections. This way, we hope, the animals will eat all the grass in the given section and not just the best stuff all over the whole property. By moving the fence daily the sheep will have fresh grass to graze each day and should eat not only the dessert but also the main course. This should keep things like thistles down as well. All we need now are some more animals for this to actually work well!! Lambs should be here in June.

It's worth noting how well the garlic and rhubarb is growing! The garlic has been growing up slowly but surely and the rhubarb was just suddenly there, pow! It's delicious and abundant so Beth has been freezing lots of it for the winter. Regrettably we'll have to soon turn on the second freezer in the basement to accommodate everything. Boo to higher electricity bills, yay for produce in the winter. 

And last but certainly not least we've started a rather ambitious project of covering the deck with a rooftop. While my folks were up my dad and I started this and I'm really hoping to get it done quickly. We love our deck but haven't used it at all since moving here because it's way too hot to sit out on. This will help. We hope.