Melting

Holy Hell it's hot outside!  I can hardly stand to be out long enough to move the sprinkler on the garden, and the chickens are hiding under the trailer.  It's supposed to break sometime this evening.....let's hope so!

Add Ons

We found an add on Kijiji this morning; 2 year old hens and a rooster, free to a good home.  We picked them up at 6pm.  They couldn't find the other hen, they think she got eaten.  The rooster was HUGE.  The other hen we named Ugly Betty.  The owners said she was molting, but hens generally do that as the days get shorter in the fall.  We got them home, and as expected, the new Rooster and Captain Cluck went head to head.  But, out of nowhere, one of our hens came to his defense.  Both roosters ended up with some cuts and bruises, but it seemed to be settled.  Then as they all came in to roost for the night, new rooster went after our hens.  Now we know why Ugly Betty is pecked.  The rooster is a bully!!  We kicked him out for the night!  It seems mean, but I can't have him going after the hens, and poor Ugly Betty needs to heal.

Awaiting Answers and Business Plans

We are still waiting on an answer from the landlord.  While he ponders, I research.  We have a friend that is starting a grass raised beef business with Shawn's help (more a hobby for him, as his own logistics company is very successful, and affords him the ability to fund his extensive hobbies, though he is dedicated to making this new venture profitable)  He also happens to have some amazing contacts in the city.  I can read and plan and concoct marketing schemes to create a supplemental income, but helping him start his business may be the key to getting ours further than we thought.

He has far more pasture, and room to grow his own hay and grain feed for animals as large as cattle.  Maybe we should leave the bulk of the cattle raising to him. We have about 20 acres, an under utilized woodlot, and as it occurred to me last night, the landlord grows cash crop in the fields behind the barn.  40 acres of the stuff.  Which would significantly reduce the feed bill for pasture raised hogs, and at the same time, the pigs would break up the soil and grind in the corn stalks after harvest, eat cobs off the ground, and fertilize the fields!  Portable electric fencing would give us the ability to rotate them through the harvested fields in the fall, the woodlot in the summer, and have them farrow in the pasture around the house and barn in piggy huts.  Even my dream of having a dairy animal could be put to multiple uses, as there is no way we, as a family, can consume the amount of milk a Jersey can produce in a day.  Breed her to a beef breed.  Leave her calf on for 1 feeding a day, take milk for the family for milk, butter, and cheese, and the rest is an amazing supplement to pigs!

Shawn is a cattle man, but I think I am bringing him around to the fact the amount of land we have available, as well as the cost of breeding stock, would leave us better suited to patured pork.  Partnered with the freind with connections, we could supply both pasture raised pork AND beef.  Though I am still wanting to add in more chickens and heritage turkeys.  Shawn has decided that he can be a tough man, and process chickens himself for our family, instead of sending them out.....that might take some getting used to!

Now if the landlord would just get off the pot!!  He has been a might moody as of late, so we haven't pestered for an answer....

Eggs and Hopes

The hens are laying well, now that they have settled in.  We are getting 3-4 eggs a day from 4 hens, so while we need more hens so the kids can have some eggs to sell, at the very least, we can stop buying eggs for ourselves.  Last night we needed to put up a chicken wire fence around the market garden.  It is the chickens that have been eating the leaves off the newly sprouted bean plants, not bugs like we thought.

The cabbage is taking a hit from little beetles, though.  A friend sent me a recipe yesterday to take care of the little pests naturally, and I am going to give it a try tonight, after I am sure that the rain has passed.   Weeding is a chore that never seems to end.  We have about half weeded by hand now, with a lot of catching up to do, but we felt we couldn't weed much around the rows until we could truly tell what was a seedling, and what was a weed.

And as for hopes, it seems our landlord stopped by on Sunday while we were out, and took a look at the chickens and the market garden, and the feed back yesterday to Shawn was that they thought it looked great, so maybe they are giving weight to our request to use the pasture around the house and barn for a few heifers and pigs.  Fingers crossed!!

Chickens

The search for hens finally netted me some layers!  I waited to long to order from the hatchery, and I would be unable to get any ready to lay hens until August.  I have been faithfully checking Kijiji for birds, but they seem to be scooped up the minute they are listed for sale.  Well, my persistence finally paid off, and we found 4 hens somewhat nearby for sale.  Because of George the JRT, Shawn and I decided it might be best to get a rooster also.  So far, he is pretty mellow, and when the dog gets close, he runs away with the hens, not exactly the warrior we expected.

In the rafters of the barn there are tons of old (really old!) mink cages, leftover from when this farm was run as a fur farm by our landlord's family.  Parker hosed them out with the air compressor, and Maddie filled them with straw for chicken-y comfort.

Reading Material

I started thinking small scale farming before I even left St. Catharines.  I found a book at the libary called "The Dirty Life".  While a little granola for me (heavy horses for a big acreage, and processing your own cattle?!)  The idea was appealing to have a home based, outdoor business.  And this was the first book that grabbed my interest.  No row cropping genetically modified seed, no confined animals pushed full of grain, no huge dairy, or massive pasture operation.  Just enough of each animal and veg to supply their members.

After I read it, I was rather taken with the idea of local food, especially producing our own.  Maybe it wouldn't be business, but at the very least, maybe I could get a little more out of our garden next to the house....maybe get some chickens.  So I treated myself to a stroll through my local Chapter's, and found "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"  The author's family had moved from Phoenix, to a small farm in Virginia.  They decide to give the 100 Mile Diet a try, with most of their food raised on the farm....veg, fruit, chicken, and turkey.

Now I really got to thinking!  I joined the public library here, and for a small town, there are a LOT of books on small, organic, sustainable farming, as well as quite a few on factory farming, modified seed crops, and Big Ag chasing the little guy right out of business.  Searching the blogosphere and Facebook has brought me tons of links and reading material to stock my dreams.  I read "Chick Days", a book on chick to table (either eggs or meat), I found Joel Salatin, who speaks so well in his country drawl, about the treatment of animals and how alternative practices can actually profit both land and farmer.  I watch Food Inc, an amazing documentary.  I discoved Storey Publishing which publishes Ag books, such as Chick Days and Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich, Storey's guide to Raising Sheep/Pigs/ Beef Cattle.

 

And I am spending this rainy day finishing off these two books, which I have been alternating between.  One, aimed more at producing for yourself, and the other, much more technical, talking pasture management, fencing requirements, livestock mix, and business planning.

Now, it would just be nice, if the nice people at Service Canada would finish my UI claim for the summer layoff (they are already 2.5 weeks longer than their promised time frame of 4 weeks to process) and pay me, I can stop having anxiety attacks, and move on with the next plan....how to pay for livestock, when to get it, and who our customers will be.

Rain

At last, I don't need to rotate the sprinkler all day over the vegetable garden!  We are finally getting the rain the ground needed.  And it is a perfect rain at that,  slow and light, not flooding out the seedlings.  I hope it makes the last of the seeds sprout.  The carrots, onions, green beans, chard, endive, peas, radishes, and cabbage, have popped up out of the soil.  I am surprised the lettuce is taking so long though, and when we were weeding last night, it became obvious that the yellow beans have somehow disappeared.
We have decided that we will just reseed those, it's still early enough.  But the onions have only spouted a small portion of the 300 planted, so I am going to have to just bite the bullet for this year, and buy started plants from the garden center.

You can't really see the rain in this picture, but I think the grey sky and the lush green shows we are finally getting a little wet love from Mother Nature.