Lately I've been busy preparing to exhibit at the Royal Winter Fair which happens the second weekend of November for us. My folks are going to tend the booth for the five days and I'll join them for the weekend. It's usually a very good venue for us and thanks to FedNor it's very affordable for us to go.
Since the CFIA requires nutrition facts labels of products these days I've been making labels for our three syrups: 100% Pure Boreal Birch Syrup, Boreal Birch Maple Syrup Blend, and Boreal Sweetened Birch Syrup. A lot of math has been involved and a lot more time on the computer. In the end I've had my labels approved by the CFIA and last night I was up late getting them printed.
I ended up buying a label printer which thus far I'm really pleased with. The labels aren't as glossy and nice as
the previous ones but much less expensive.
I wish I had bought this thing 8 years ago. After the initial investment of the printer the cost of labels will now be so much less than getting the work done through a professional printer. If the CFIA is happy with it, so am I.
In high school I had a great English teacher called Bill Wright. His favourite poem was one by William Carlos Williams and it has always stuck with me.
So much depends
upon the red wheel barrow
glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens
With apologies to William Carlos Williams....
So much depends
upon the red and white rototiller
sprinkled with snowflakes
beside the brown chickens
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 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 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.
