U P D A T E

Not really sure what my excuse can even be... things take time?

I am going to skip the long and poorly written digression into why I can't write blog posts regularly or how missing 3 months of posting really puts holes in the story of "can we sell $2500 worth of farm goods", and just pick up where I left off. I do want this to document the progress made around the house, and lots has been made, so... behold!

First things first. Last August we had this garden. It was crazy overgrown and all the plants were perennial stuff that only had to be cut back. I saved certain areas so it would look nice, others I destroyed. Obviously I am not a flower person, but I can imagine how some people would think what I did was questionable.

Before

And then now:

 

All in all this process probably took about 15 hours, which of course  seems completely crazy. "Things take time", is the reoccurring theme though. Have you ever tried to destroy decorative grasses? Its almost impossible. Have you ever dug out 500 tulips that magically appear out of no where? The bulbs grow so deep! Other things took time too, like trimming the Raspberries. Did you know Raspberries and Blackberries have a two year cycle? One year they grow up leafy bits, which all fall off without fruiting, and the next year the lifeless, leafless stalks grow fruit! At the same time new leafy shoots spring out of the ground! Its amazing, but figuring that out and them trimming out years of dead wood takes time. Then there was adding and spreading some horse manure to try to build up the organic matter, removing the roots and junk from the old plants (still in progress), and yet to come is redoing the in ground irrigation. The soaker tubes had been left in the same spot for so many years the perennial plants had grown right through them, trapping them in their root systems. I broke many digging them out and will have to get some new ones in the next few months. I think in the end I have achieved a nice balance between easy to maintain bushes and flowers that look nice, and adequate growing space for compact vegetables. The big ones will have to go outside the fence.

Because of the picture max, in the next post I will outline the chickens!
 

Chickens!

One of the easiest ways to get consistent income seemed to be selling eggs.  Way back in October, we had already started fencing off a part of the dog run into our chicken pen.   On October 12, after Jess's Stepfather helped us finish the fencing, this arrived:

I had posted on Facebook at the time, "How hard can it be?"  In the end, I guess the answer was "Not that hard", but again things take time. Not to mention I have literally never built anything in my entire life.  This is supposed to be gentleman farming, not Owen on Homes. With our crap weather by the time it was built I had to wait a few days here and there for sunshine to stain it, and even longer to get the motivation and idea to build boxes. By January (lol) I had built it and it was ready for chickens.

We knew we wanted to have happy, real breed chickens. I had read a lot of books and articles about raising chickens, and we decided to pay for some Rhode Island Reds. They were purebred birds from a guy up the road. They STILL have not laid a single egg. Its so disappointing.  I guess they take longer to mature than we thought they did, and they were a bit younger than the seller told us they were. After I called back the seller and complained he gave us another chicken for free, and she has laid an egg both days so far! We did, however, get two Barred Rock chickens for free off UsedVic and they lay an egg everyday. It can't be much longer till the RIR start laying, so hopefully we are well on our way to a happy blended family.

The two Barred Rocks are Fake and Bake, the RIR's are the Sister Wives (Janelle, Robyn, Meri, Christine), and the new Bovan is Sprite. They eat 16% Organic lay mash, get almost daily scratch treats, as well as #1 Grit and Oyster Shell. Plus whatever they can find in their pen. We will see how the pen holds up to them over time. If it gets too decimated, we might section off another area and have them go back and forth so they always get fresh grass. The coop is on sturdy posts so we can drag it around if need be.  We are very lucky that there is an irrigation line that runs up the property, so its easy to give them fresh water everyday.

I supposed the biggest thing we learned was that chickens are real bitches. Fake and Bake pecked the RIR's endlessly for days and days, even making two of them bleed. They have established their pecking order now, and don't leave marks in each other like they used to, but holy cow. I wouldn't be surprised if we had had more chickens in that space if one of them was murdered. Now poor little Sprite is taking a bit of a beating by all six of them, but we are out their pretty regularly to protect her and yell at the other ones (cause that helps right? haha).

Our fridge is up to two dozen eggs now, and we just had our first three egg day today. We have sold three dozen so far, which is the 'farms' entire sales to date.

$12

 

The rest of the place...

The big project right now is a perimeter fence. We are paying to have that put in. We figured out our property line was a few metres over from where the original owners had ever bothered to clear, so we had an excavator come in and clean things up so we could get the fence right at the edges.  Unfortunately it was too muddy for him to continue, so we are waiting for some sunshine eventually and then will have the fence installed.  At the same time, we are going to fence the middle field, and raise two or three pigs there. More to come on that in the future. At the bottom we are still on track to either grow hay this year, or fence that as well and raise a few 'lawnmower' sheep, with perhaps one of them getting axed for meat (If Jess will let me!)  Here is what the place looks like these days.

Middle Field for pigs and maybe some of the veggies that need more space (0.33 acres). It has a winter cover crop on it planted by last years farmer who found a great oppourtunity assuming a farm lease on Mount Newton X (go Paula!):

 

 

Bottom Field, two views (1.25 acres):

 

 

 

 

And finally, this is what we have planted so far. 18 tomatoes, 6 broccoli of 2 types each, 6 cauliflower, 6 thyme, 6 basil, 6 parsley, some lettuces, and waiting in the wings are carrots, zucchini, beans, peas and 2nd direct sow of the above. Veggies are basically just for our consumption, so we didn't go crazy on them.

 

I will hopefully take some pictures our our 8 apple trees I pruned and sprayed and be able to see them blossoming soon! Stay tuned! We are also going to be looking for egg customers once our lazy RIR's start laying.