Haying

Getting the hay in this year took forever. It was a particularly bad growing season for hay (cloudy, humid, rainy) and the cutting season was much the same. Many people, our suppliers included, didn't get their first cuts in until August and we got our hay in September! The quality of the hay is fair given the circumstances but the end product is more of a maintenance food rather than a growth food.
In any case, the day we pulled the hay off the field came suddenly and thankfully I've got great friends that came to help out. Erin and Justin came on the first collection day and we got all the hay off the field while my neighbour Gordie drove his truck and trailer. Things went rather well in the field and we got the big wagon tarped off before the rain hit. Later on, Gordie drove myself, Justin again, and another pal from work, Kevin, back and forth between our farm and Aspen Croft as we loaded the loft with the remainder of our winter feed.

A mid-August photo of an attempt to bring the livestock to more quality forage on and around the septic field during a poor growing season. The kids here learn very quickly that their parents are quite right when they warn, "Don't touch the electric fence."

Shearing Season

Shearing the sheep, llama and now alpaca is definitely one of my favourite seasonal chores. It's hard work and can be frustrating but for some reason I like it. It's tough to do well and as this is my third year it's becoming easier. I've now honed my technique for wrestling sheep to the ground and onto their backsides but placing my thumb in their mouth (in the gap between front and back teeth) and contorting them rather easily to their bum. It looked tough to do but now that I've got it down it's amazingly easy to bring a large animal down. Following is a short video on the shearing season.

Spring Time

Spring was long in coming in these parts. As mentioned in the previous post our syrup season ran very late, which meant lambing season started just when we were cleaning up at the sugarbush. Lambs come when they're ready no matter what the weather is like. Our first lambs arrived on May 24th courtesy of Hazel, a two year old ewe. Last spring she had two stillborns on a blustery cold day in April. This year she had triplet boys and they're all doing well. One of her lambs, Julio, is now being fed by bottle as he wasn't getting what he needed from mom.

Later that same day Freckles had her own set of triplets and suddenly we had three times as many lambs as last year. 

A quiet period followed until June 3rd when Mirabelle birthed her lamb and a stillborn ram lamb. Oddly, three weeks prior she went into what appeared to be labour showing all signs such as not eating much, spending time on her own in various corners. In retrospect I think she was indeed in labour but for whatever reason she didn't actually birth the lambs and one made it later on while the other didn't. Her single lamb is doing very well now though and has lots to eat! 

On June 6th the lambing season came to a close as Henny had her set of triplets! In all we have ten lambs; six rams and 4 ewes. 

A couple weeks passed without incident until last weekend when I noticed Freckles seemed to be in pain. It turned out to be mastitis and it came on rather quickly. What I think happened is her lambs were feeding so aggressively that they cut her udder with their teeth (she has scabs on her teats) and due to the pain of open sores she wouldn't let them nurse. When a full udder doesn't get emptied infection sets in and that's called mastitis. At the best of times it's a tricky balance getting feed right when ewes are nursing in order to produce enough milk but not too much. Freckles' lambs were growing really well and she's a terrific mom so it's too bad this has happened. Anyhow, we had the vet out and Freckles has been on painkillers (Flunazine) and antibiotics (Borgal) for a week and likely more. I was stripping the milk out of her udder for a few days until it hardened so much that I couldn't get nary a drip. Poor Freckles didn't look like she was going to make it but the drugs seem to be working now and she's been eating but isn't herself otherwise. 

Meanwhile this has meant I've had to bottle feed her lambs: Jerry, Jolene, Jasmine and Julio (Hazel's lamb). This is the year of "J". 

At first I was feeding them with a single bottle one at a time. I was getting to work late and up at night too late so something had to change. I started feeding them with four bottles in my hands, but this was difficult. 

Then I mounted six baby bottles onto a scrap piece of 2"x6" and lashed the bottles in with a strand of clothesline. The result is the multi-milker, until I come up with a better name, and it works amazingly well.

Birch Syrup 2013

What a strange spring we've had here...again. Last spring was so warm (hot even) that we lost all the snow in early March and the bush was so dry we decided to not have a syrup season. This was followed very soon after by an epic flood on May 28th, 2012, go figure.

This spring was more like, well, winter!

We had snow up until May 10th and the last snowfall occurred on May 7th I think it was. In any case winter held on for a very long time this year which resulted in a difficult birch season. With such heavy snow this winter all our main sap lines were buried prior to the sap run which meant we had to hang about 1000' of new lines to transport sap from the back of our bush. 

Tapping day was particularly memorable as May 5-6th were very warm but we still had two to three feet of snow on the ground. T-shirts and snowshoes those days and boy was it a slog! I was happy with how smoothly the tapping went with my new drill. I finally decided to upgrade from a brace and bit to a new 20V Dewalt drill. I charged the batteries with a 700W Eliminator throughout the two days and the system worked perfectly. 

Tapping each tree took a fraction of the time and with Paul and Mike placing buckets ahead of me we were able to do 645 trees in two days.

Back in 2011 we had a lot of snow as well which forced us to collect sap in a different way. Previous to that year we used the ATV and a sap trailer to collect from all over the bush. But with so much snow on the ground we couldn't use the ATV at all and ended up carrying our sap tank around and pumping from various locations into the main sap line. This winter I made a sap tank sled that I've dubbed the sap rickshaw/rickski. It's made of a pressure treated wood frame, downhill skis from the Sally Ann, a couple old hockey sticks and a Krazy Karpet. It worked wonderfully for hauling buckets as well.

This year saw a number of technological advancements aside from the drill and sap hauler. We also started using reverse osmosis this year which meant we needed a power source from a generator. 

The generator then allowed for the use of a refrigerator, pressure washer and wet-vac for cleaning the evaporator and sap tanks. It also let us charge two Eliminator battery packs throughout the day which then meant we had LED lights in the sugar shack and an HD TV that picked up the hockey playoffs!

The sap run was brief this season. After tapping we had four solid days of flow then the temperature dropped again freezing the whole bush, stopping flow and freezing our sap lines. We lost two days like this then resumed the season for another 6 days. The last few days of the sap run were very warm and as a result the sap changed and was no longer good for syrup production. 

In the end I can't say the season was a tremendous success but certainly not a failure. We tweaked all the new systems and I think we'll be very prepared for next season. The reverse osmosis was amazing this season and it significantly reduced boiling time which made the end product lighter and better tasting. Time to prepare for next year! 

Thursday Nights

 Thursday nights are spent washing eggs. Now that I've got a system down it doesn't actually take all that long, perhaps an hour and a half. If we were ever to have more than 30-40 hens we'd have to come up with something better. But with this number of birds, our mini-fridge in the basement works perfectly.

We keep the eggs in a small fridge all week until Thursday.
Then we wash with them with
warm water and dish soap. Rinse with warm water. 

Drip dry for a few minutes. The eggs on the ledge are for us
(cracked/weird) and the eggs in the basin are not for anyone
(broken/eaten/really weird).

Towel dry.

Into the cartons then into the fridge until sold. 

This is Skunkii, visiting from JoAnne and Jay's. He's here to service our ewes. We expect lambs for the end of May.

 Here's one of Ivy and Nina. She's getting bigger and more cute with her fluffy face.

 Ippi and Izzy. 

And a nice sunset from the other night. 

Winter on the Farm

Winter poses a variety of challenges even for a small farm like ours. Though our goal has never been to receive an income from the farm, it still needs to operate like a business and generate profits from some parts that pay for other parts - feeding us along the way. With this in mind we've been trying to keep up egg production this winter. A lot of hobby farmers put their layers in the freezer come winter as it's not worth the hassles. I might agree in some ways but it's nice to have a relatively steady (albeit tiny) income from eggs sales which will eventually go toward our hay purchase in the summer. Our two lambs will go to slaughter soon and we hope to sell some lamb to friends and coworkers then. Here are some of our solutions to the obstacles that winter provides.

Lack of Light

As anyone who has kept chickens would know, chickens need a supplemental light source starting in the fall to encourage egg production. The pituitary gland behind a chickens eye is stimulated by light which creates a hormone that eventually reaches the ovary via their bloodstream and kicks egg production into gear - amazing! So with two incandescent bulbs on for several hours at the start and end of each day, these ladies are showered in light for 15 hours/day. With this we've been able to keep the chickens from molting and maintain pretty solid egg production. These girls were 18 months old when we got them at the end of September so their egg-laying days are numbered anyway. Overall this fall/winter, egg production has been rather good from our 40 - then 35 (cat attack) - now 32 (1 drowning in the big water trough, 1 egg eater was "offed", 1 skunk attack) hens.


Frozen Eggs

As Christmas mail volumes have increased at work (I'm a letter carrier) I've been getting home later in the day. This means the eggs aren't collected as soon as I'd like so two problems have resulted. The first is that the eggs have been freezing and second is that the chickens aren't coming outside due to the cold and then get bored and end up eating their own eggs. This is a strange behaviour that can be difficult to change as I understand. Our neighbour Edie gave us some egg-like rocks she found on a Lake Superior beach last summer and I've added those into the laying boxes in hopes that a harshly unsuccessful peck at the "egg"will discourage further attempts. Otherwise, I've loaded the two end laying boxes and all of the lower laying boxes with straw in hopes that some insulation might help with egg freezing. Usually we get a lot of sunshine in the winter and this is less of a problem as the barn is south facing but this hasn't been the case this winter thus far. All this put together has resulted in cleaner eggs and more of them so some moderate success.

Chicken Sh!t




Another issue with winter, again with the chickens, is that they don't like to venture too far. Starting in the fall these "free-range" ladies weren't getting much further than the barnyard and once some colder weather set in the furthest they would get was into the part of the barn where the sheep, llama and alpacas eat and sleep. Unfortunately, the quaint little scene of chickens mingling with the mammals is incredibly frustrating because the chickens will invariably end up perching atop the manger and sh!tting all over the fresh hay. Obviously, no one is interested in chicken excrement flavouring on their hay and
it goes untouched and thus wasted. So with some fencing I picked up at the free store (dump) a few months ago, I put together a bit of a chicken yard for the hens. They don't use it as much as I'd like them to but if I'm able to keep some wasted hay or straw on top of the snow they will come outside and get some nice fresh air. I usually dump kitchen scraps into this fenced area instead of in the barn and that gets the hens outside at least for a few minutes.





Hydration Station

Keeping all 43 beings out there well watered in the winter is a bit of a challenge. My friends Brendan and Marcelle at Sleepy G Farm have this great setup with a frost-free outdoor faucet conveniently located near their chicken barn. That is definitely the way to go but before we invest in such a thing I use a good old toboggan to haul water out to the barn. It's good practice for the syrup season to lug buckets of water up from the basement everyday! In order to keep the water in liquid form I've got a heating element in the big trough and an aluminum covered element that sits under the water fount for the chickens. Both work rather well, though our electricity bill does reflect this additional load.

With all these extra issues in mind we're contemplating whether or not to continue with egg production for the rest of the winter. The mammals are relatively easy to take care of in the winter. All they really need is a constant supply of hay, water and shelter and they're happy. Ippi and Izzy will go to the abattoir soon so hay needs will decrease a bit. The chickens on the other hand are a bit of work. Feeding, watering and egg washing take up a fair amount of time and though I really like having them around it may be more economical to keep hens just in the Spring/Summer/Fall. If we end up putting the layers in the freezer, eventually destined for the soup pot, I'll be sure to first freeze many dozen eggs worth of blended eggs into ice cube trays to enjoy for the rest of the winter. I've done this in the past and when cooked they're almost as good as freshly scrambled eggs, but without the trip to the grocery.

Some of the livestock we acquired over Christmas....

And a pic of Nina.....

Ella saying hi to the sheep...

 





And finally, another tricky thing about winter is keeping kids' mitts and boots on. We use duct tape to seal them to Ella's coat. It works rather well.

Sugar Shack Addition

Last spring as the syrup season approached the weather turned very strange and it became clear that we wouldn't be able to tap the trees. We had 25 degree days in the second week of March, which melted all the snow, dried the soil at the bush and we felt it best to simply not have a season. In the end I'm glad we made that tough call as it would've been a tough summer for our birch trees and further stress from tap holes would not have been good. So we had a break from birch syrup production for a year, a bittersweet experience. 

Unfortunately, I had just laid out a good chunk of cash for a reverse osmosis filtration system which will aide in making our syrup production much more efficient. The unit went in the basement and construction of an addition to the sugar shack, in which the RO unit would be housed, was put off till this fall. So last Saturday construction began.  

The week prior I bought and had delivered the lumber needed for the project. As is usually done I hauled the wood in using the ATV. After many loads, the materials were safely stored in the shack. 

This past Saturday, Larry Bockus and I headed out to get the addition started. We got the floor on, posts and beams up and one rafter cut to serve as a template for the rest of them. The following day, Dave Sr. and I continued on. He drove up to Thunder Bay on short notice to help out and with major rain destroying the highway at Wawa, dad was forced to take the long way round Superior through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota! He made it though and put in a few days of hard work out there.

By Sunday, we had the headers, rafters and strapping on, ready for the steel/plastic roofing. 

I took a vacation day on Monday and we got the steel on.

On Tuesday, after work, we took to the OSB sheathing. To get it into the bush we made a travois, the suggestion of Dave Sr. (aka MacGyver). It worked really well! 

By Tuesday at about 6:30pm the project was done! Fast work, I'd say. I'm glad to have this up as now I can get the plumbing for the RO in place and insulate the room so the family can spend the odd night out there this winter. Thanks to Larry for helping to get the project rolling and a big thanks to Dave Sr. for making the drive north to help with this! There's not much better than building something with your dad.