Kathi Dunphy Watercolors

Climate change: It's awful but it's giving me guilty pleasure..

2012-01-18T17:44:00.000-08:00

What's wrong with this picture? It's the freaking middle of january, it's Canada, and I'm working outdoors all day! A few years ago normal at this time of year would mean most of the four foot page wire fence disappeared under snow, and the neighborhood snowplow guys laughing on the way to the bank.

Here's our front yard today...
So there's another project on the go, involving lots of sanding outdoors, just waiting for a day like today.
Here is the view looking down on the kitchen from upstairs in our rental cottage. It's a cathedral type ceiling obviously. The plan is to create more space for the guests, especially a playspace for their kids, since up to 6 people in 24'x26' is kind of cramped. So the kitchen part will be floored over with 2x8 joists and 2 x6 t&g boards. (http://www.fundyfarmcottages.com/)

The lumber needs to be sanded to get rid of bumps and inkings, and knotholes and dings filled. I save the sawdust, and mix it with white glue or carpenters glue for an inexpensive filler for the larger holes.

Here's an edge chip glued back in place and held with rubber bands.

I use this stuff for finer cracks and nicks, thank goodness they have now come up with a human friendly type of wood filler that doesn't knock you back with noxious fumes. The reason I'm going to all this trouble is because I want an open type ceiling so that from down below you see the exposed joists. I'm going to whitewash the joists and underside of the t&g with a dilute paint/water mix so that the grain of the wood will show through. The upper side will be lightly stained and varathaned.

My trusty old old sander has seen better days. Yes, that's a vacumn cleaner bag duct taped to the dust catcher hole. The thumb button that keeps the machine running without using the squeeze trigger quit long ago. It's very tiring to keep your finger pressing the trigger constantly, but there's a fix for that! Just use a rubber band from a bunch of broccoli, wrap it around the trigger and run a large twist tie through the rubber loops and twist. With a bit of trial and error adjustment with the twist tie and rubber band tension you can find the sweet spot where you only need the slightest finger pressure on the trigger to run the machine. The rest of the squeezing is being done by the tension of the rubber band. Alas, my poor old sander fell on the deck today and the front handle snapped off. Maybe if this gets pathetic enough DH will buy me a new one for mothers day..

2012-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

What a perfect winter! A little snow for Christmas, gone in a couple of days, and now it feels like one long fall season with soft bare ground and +7C forecast for tomorrow. Very nice for getting outdoor work done.

We are lucky to have a skilled backhoe operator close by to address our erosion woes. After roadbuilding above and behind our rental cottage we have been getting an awful lot more water cascading down the hill after every rain. So much so that it would be a matter of time before the cottage fell into the hole that was growing at an alarming rate. We lined the muddy banks with landscape fabric and I built a kind of sluiceway to direct the water flow out over the eroding edge.

Amazing how he can carefully place those huge boulders with that unwieldly looking bucket.

The 10" plastic culvert was dug out of the driveway (above) and replaced with some scavenged 15" concrete pipe.

Which gave us enough pipe to complete the drainage down to the ditch along the driveway.

Come spring I think planting some low growing bush conifers will disguise the edges of the landscape fabric and make things look more natural.

That's a lotta rock! Now I'm going to go soak my old back...

Christmas Sheep and Fun With Gardening

2011-12-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

It makes me quite giddy with happiness to have green things still growing vigorously in the unheated glass greenhouse a week into december. I was able to pick 2 good bags of kale for a couple of my csa customers, with enough left for my morning omelettes. One of my favorite ways to eat kale is to chop up a handful of it in small bits, whisk it into an egg or two, with a bit of chopped onion and mushroom, and make a cheezy omelette. Yum! And so healthy. Kale is such an amazing powerhouse of nutrients.
I started my next painting..., in a bit of a hurry to get two entries ready for a January show in Saint John, with an entry deadline of next week. Here is the under painting of watercolor on toned pastel paper. This will be a mixed media of watercolor and pastel chalks.

And here is the finished and framed results, outside mat size 16x20".

Switching Gears

2011-12-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

I always loved cows, their placid demeanor and thoughtful cud chewing appeal to me. At least the cows of my past, allowed to roam in sunny pastures, grazing their natural grass diet...being contented cows. The poor beasts in factory farm feedlots today..so sad.
I have painted this pair before in acrylic but I like this watercolor version better. (matted prints are available) It's been hard to stay indoors and take up the brushes again, with such a warm fall calling me outdoors. Today it's raining and the manure spreading will have to wait , so I will begin a painting of a pair of sheep.

Amazing November

2011-11-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Since the last post the weather has been unbelievably warm, an average of 4C warmer than usual for November. I feel almost guilty for loving it so much as it must be an indication of the climate going crazy. Most days have been Tshirt weather and I'm still pulling edibles out of the garden. These gorgeous sweet cherry tomatoes are still producing in the small glass greenhouse and I've been harvesting cabbages, brussel sprouts and kale.

The winter cabbages make really good sauerkraut. Just shred and layer in a crock or glass jar with non iodized salt. Pack down tightly and cover with a weighted plate.

I use a nylon stocking to keep out any fruit flies. After a bit the salt will draw water out of the cabbage. (I had to add a bit of salted water to get it all submerged)

10 days into this I'm skimming "stuff" off the water surface, but that's normal as the cabbage ferments. It takes about 4-5 weeks to turn into delicious sauerkraut.

The kale I picked all through mid summer and fall is still producing so I have been digging it up and transplanting it to the glass greenhouse, to see if I can overwinter it.

Here it is nestled amongst the tomato plants and mulched with compost and lawnmower clippings. When the tomato vines succumb to winter I will just clip them off.

We get huge loads of leaves from our big linden trees and here is where they end up. I dump them on whatever part of the garden is in need of a nutritional boost and run over the piles with the lawnmower to shred them.

Then they get lightly tilled in so they dont blow away and by next spring nature will have disappeared them.

Here's a great load of 3 year old horse manure and leaves that went into the garden today.

But it's not all work! We are remembering to hike down to the beach while we can, to remind ourselves how blessed we are.

Jimmy waxes artistic and leaves his self portrait on the beach...

Lots to do before the snow flies...

2011-10-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots of fall chores, which is a good way to spend the sunny cool days of late october. I think I've planted about 150 garlic cloves, tucking them in to holes poked in the soft rich soil where they will start to root before the ground freezes. The first welcome green shoots to come up in april will be garlic plants.

Apple cider! At last I get to use my birthday cider press...but first I needed a way to crush up the apples before they could be pressed. I built this stand to accomodate an under - sink garberator that I found on Kijiji.

Here is the underneath view with the machine running and disgorging the apple mush into the bowl below. It works wonderfully. Even tho the garberator is designed to run with water running through, it doesnt plug up, and the consistantcyof the apple goop is fine but not too fine to squeeze through the holes in the pressing bag.

I can poke the apples down with this stick with a dowel through it, to keep it from going too far into the grinding chamber.

I made a wooden juice collection tray with a drain hole at the front. The press came with a plastic oil changing pan for juice collecting (which I found quite horrifying and promptly discarded)

Lots of delicious juice, all from wild apple trees from here and there.

The apple corral comes off for cleaning. And a couple of jugs of water poured through the garberator with the motor on, cleans the insides.

The dryish pulp left in the pressing bag got spread onto trays in the dehydrator to make winter nibbling treats for the mini horses.
Nothing really ever gets wasted on a farm . Between horses, hens and compost there's a place for all the scraps.

Seeing a lot of RED lately..

2011-10-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes, that is. In the thick of canning season here..

I learned a good processing trick last year from my chat group organichomesteadinggardening@yahoogroups.com
to cut out a lot of evaporating time when making spagetti sauce. You slice the tomatoes in half, lay out in a large baking pan and throw in a few cloves of garlic. Brush cut sides lightly with oil and roast for about half an hour at 400F or until soft and squishy. Then dump it all in a colander and let the watery juice drain out. I help it a bit squashing the tomato pieces gently. Now take the solidy stuff and either blend it in the blender or put it thru a food mill to remove skins and seeds. It's about the right consistency, thick enough to make into tomato sauce. The runny liquid that drained thru the colander can be canned for soup base but mine never made it that far...I drank it lukewarm, yummy.

These are canned chunked tomatoes, skins removed.

Pasta sauce is taking over the cupboards..

The dehydrator is working overtime..

making tasty chewy dried tomatoes.

Lots to bring in before the frost. Two wheelbarrowfuls of squash,

Two loads of sunflower seed heads for winter feed for the hens. I love the whorley patterns they make, everything fitting together so precisely. I began to love the art and design of nature when I was very small and it never gets old for me. I'm very thankful to the Designer for that.
Those racks I made last winter to start seedlings are coming in very useful for storing and drying all this good stuff.

Our last farmers market was near the end of September, after that I switched to plan B which was weekly csa boxes for 8 local customers.

They all seemed happy with their selections and as time went on and two frosty nights wiped out the salad greens and zuchinni, among other things, I was able to fill the gaps with eggs, baking, hummus and granola. I have a request for pumpkin next time...

Maybe I'll re-home this one, the strangest pumpkin(s) I've ever grown, conjoined twins!
I daydream about next year's garden before this one is finished for the year.

Here is that new garden patch of buckwheat being tilled under by our neighbor Mike. The tilth of that soil is getting better and better.

I couldnt resist throwing myself into the flowers to make a "buckwheat angel" , looked rather more like a bear had lumbered about in there...oh well snow will be here before we know it and we'll make some good ones..

In the meantime, lots to do in the gardens. The older compost is going into the raised beds, the perennial weeds are slowly being dug out whereever they've taken hold. That short grassy looking greenery in the photo is fall rye. Every time a section of garden was harvested I planted buckwheat or rye. This will make great green manure when it's tilled in next spring.

Rich as the Queen

2011-09-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Funny how certain smells can take you right back. I picked up a big box of crayons for only a dollar at a yard sale, thinking they would be handy to have for visiting kids. It was when I got home and opened the box and inhaled that crayola aroma that all the dormant grade 2 memories awoke.
Nowadays kids take the measure of each other by the brand names they sport and the aquisition of the coolest electronic gadgets. In the late 50's in Canning Elementary school, Nova Scotia, there was no concept of brand anything, we all wore hand me downs and wool socks and sweaters made by Mom and Grandma. If you wanted to be awe inspiring it was all about your crayons.
Most of us, like me, had the standard box of eight. Some of the Hungarian refugee kids had none at all. The Dutch family with kids in different grades shared a box, alternating colors each day.
Sometimes a kid would get a new 15 cent coloring book and a deluxe box of 16 crayons for a birthday and the 8 crayon box kids were green with envy. And then there was Susan. Susan was delivered to school each morning by her father in their glossy turquoise Chevy Bel-air. The rest of us walked through the village, or up or down the railroad tracks. My saddle shoes never looked like Susan's with her impeccably white toes. There were far too many adventures to be had along the tracks coming and going. The train always whistled in plenty of time to get out of the way, it was just that if the whistle blew when I was in the section with swamp on either side, the saddle shoes would pay the price. I dont think school buses had been invented at that time. And I dont remember a single fat kid. But back to Susan and what we perceived as her boring life...It was rumoured that her family owned the bank and were as rich as the queen. That was to be confirmed the day after her birthday when she showed up with the world's most extravagant box of 96 CRAYONS! AND with a built in sharpener!! The class of 7 and 8 year olds would not have been more gobsmacked had she won a million dollar lottery. She was instantly the most popular kid in elementary school. "I'll be your friend if you'll lend me your gold crayon..."
So here in my senior years sits this box of 96 crayons that once was as out of reach as the moon, and I must admit to feeling a tiny bit smug and quite unreasonably happy in the owning of them. I hope Susan who had everything gets to feel small important joys like the smell of spring sunshine on warm railroad ties. Me, I feel rich as the Queen.

Hurrican Irene aftermath

2011-08-31T19:03:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene made for some spectacular surf in our neighborhood, bringing out all the camera buffs in the area trying to capture the perfect crashing wave.

The bulldozers had to be called out when things calmed down, to push the beach back off the road where the wild surf had thrown it.

My biggest worry was the tunnel greenhouse being blown away, but with clamps securing the plastic to each of the bows it came through the high winds unscathed. And I worried about the huge linden trees crashing through the roof, but they bent with the winds and were ok.

The flattened corn however, didn't fare as well...

And the apples that still needed three weeks or more to ripen, are mostly on the ground, too green for any use at all. Will be hard to find enough later for cider. I must check my pears tomorrow...there were only four on the tree so I put a drawstring produce bag over each and tied them to the branches to protect them.

Remarkably, the sunflowers are still upright, but they are in a garden that has a windbreak of mature trees so that surely is what saved them. All except the one accidently lopped off by the garden maid who is in this pic sharpening her scythe for a go at the alfalfa plot.

This will be dried winter feed for the laying hens, along with the sunflower seed heads. Yesterday seemed like a good day to cut the alfalfa down as there is no rain forecast for another 4 days, how unusual for this soggy summer!

2011-08-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to replace my ageing raspberry patch for several years now. If I ever needed a nudge here it is on this little bush from Corn Hill Nursery, that I planted in May.

The 12 year old plants put out these tiny pathetic berries despite a heavy manure application, (which produced the biggest healthiest weeds ever). The gigantic berries were produced on a foot high new baby plant. So why did I wait so long? Its that gardeners optimistic mindset that "next year will be better." I'm fond of this old patch even tho it has run it's course and definitely it's time to call in the tractor/tiller guy.

This is the new raspberry patch being worked up for next year's planting, presently sporting a crop of soil enriching buckwheat. I love the look of a field of buckwheat. It looks so soft and billowy, like green clouds that you could throw yourself into.(No, I havent tried that.) It will be a beautiful attractant to the bees when in flower, so that I will hate to till it under, but after all, that's the main idea.

Just to keep the farmers market customers guessing, I'm growing some English Broad Beans. When I was small I loved to pop them out of their pods, but dinner preparations could be delayed while I played with the food. You see , I saw faces, little newborn baby faces in each bean. I still see them...doesn't everybody? Is it just me?
And after involved conversations with all the little faces, after they finally landed in the pot, then there was their soft fuzzy cradle to play with. I would trace each indentation in the soft fuzzy lining of the pod with my fingertips, and inhale the lovely unique smell. We had no electronic or plastic toys, but we sure had the riches of Imagination.

Here's what the pods look like growing on the broad bean plant.

Walking in the gardens, there's always something new and different and lovely. I planted about 100 sunflowers with the idea of saving the seed heads for winter feed for the hens. They are stunningly beautiful, I always marvel at their ability to turn their giant heads from east to west so that the sun kisses them all day long.

A Day Off to Play

2011-08-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to take a day off..well half a day since saturday morning is cottage cleaning and turnover day. When the last toilet was gleaming we were off to Hampstead for the second annual organic celebration on Slipp Farm's organic 1800 acres. What a BEAUTIFUL farm!

Farmers and foodies feasted on Speerville Mill's wood fired oven baked pizza, Slipp's grass fed beef burgers and Picaroons beer. The farm was so breathtaking, rolling hill after rolling hill with a magnificent view of the river below, and the grass so lush and green even this late in summer.
I met people I hadn't seen in months and a blues performer I knew from the 1970's. I love local live music of almost any kind (no rap please) and we were treated to a non stop series of bands playing country, bluegrass, folk, traditional, blues and jazz.

And one of the most fun things for me was watching the kids run wild and free. Groups of kids climbed all over this hay wagon all afternoon inventing games on the spot, having the time of their lives without a single adult hovering about with "Get down from there, you'll hurt yourselves!" I guess most of us were from farm backgrounds and can remember the joys of non electronic active imaginary play.

There was non stop entertainment under one of the big tents, some of my favorites were The Browns with some sweet bluegrass harmonies and Tom McAvity's Hardscrabble Blues band. Tom sings the blues the way they're meant to be sung, with energy and gravelly voice. and the requisite wails and moans. It was fun to meet up again.

What a great glorious sunny day and a refreshing break from work! We'll be back next year for sure. Thanks ACORN for letting us know about this grand time!

July flown by

2011-07-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know..I've been a very negligent blogger. About 6 weeks has flown by in a roller coaster of mid summer neverending to do lists. And honestly there hasn't been a spare moment for the blog. The 3 months of gst paperwork backed up in a pile at my elbow, due today, is testament to that.

The strawberries owned me for several weeks. Twice a day they needed picking before the slugs and birds claimed them. MMMM, juicy sweet organic berries, they flew off my tables at the farmers market, I made them into strawberry cake, strawberry milkshakes, strawberry jam...every evening Jimmy sat hulling and slicing them for the freezer. Glad that's over but I miss them in all their fresh abundance.

The kids came home from Yellowknife to visit, so wonderful to see them. They buried their beloved little dog Leroy beneath our old apple tree. Always so sad to lose a faithful old dog.

Every sunday in July was perfectly sunny for our farmers market, in fact it has been perfect weather from the start. My weeks have become a predictable cycle of wednesday - make granola, thursday dig new potatoes, friday - pick wash, weigh, bag all the salad greens, chard, and spinach. Pick nasturtiums and johnny jump ups from the new flowerbed to pretty up the salads,, pick peas and beans, put the chick peas in water to soak overnite. Saturday - clean the cottages for the next tenants, make the hummus, pull carrots, beets, onions, cut broccoli and herbs. And tomorrow morning before market - pick cukes and zuchinni in case they grow a bit more overnite. Monday, Tuesday, catch up on the weeding and re planting succession crops like spinach and lettuce.
The market seems to be growing more popular every week. I really enjoy presenting good healthy food to people who appreciate fresh, local and organic.
One of my favorite vendors is Pizza Del Fuego. They pull in with this great little wood fired brick oven on it's own little trailer, and they make the most incredibly delicious thin crust pizza. My weekly lunch treat.

Avery said goodbye today after 3 weeks in St Martins. I will miss his six year old gap toothed smile. He loves his pal Stormy as much as ever. His family comes every summer from Ontario.

My birthday was mid month and I was too busy to give it a thought, but my beloved, unbeknownst to me had the whole market serenade me with a box of vendor Derrick's sinfully delicious chocolate truffles. As if that wasnt enough, when I got home I found this apple cider press on the porch! Apparently he had been trying to buy it for me from a local guy for the past 4 Christmasses and birthdays, must have worn him down.

St Martins has a Farmers Market !

2011-06-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

We thought at times it would never come together, but after many months of steps forward and back, the pieces have fallen together. Location issues, liability issues, so many complications, but that is now all behind us and what a great first week we had ! I sold out of granola, kale chips and radishes and sold the last bag of mixed salad greens to the ice cream lady on the way home. We have 14 indoor vendors and several including me, outdoors. A nice variety of products from baking to meat pies, German shnitzel and sausages, thai food, chocolate truffles to die for, organic veggies, jewelry and crafts, and artisan soaps.

We were blessed with a sunny warm day and a clear view of the sparkling Bay of Fundy in the distance.

Tomorrows market has taken 2 days of preparation, so much picking and washing of spinach and salad greens. I cant imagine how I did this in the 70's in Fredericton without a salad spinner.

Here is my new right hand man, Zachary putting the finishing touches on a deluxe compost pile, saving my creaky old back. He raked up a wagonload of grass clippings, emptied the chicken bedding/manure bin, and rebuilt the pile making alternate layers of grass and chicken doo. I think with the green/brown mix it should heat up and cook along nicely to make some A1 compost for fall.

A month of weather woes

2011-05-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

Surely we must have broken records for lack of sunshine in May. I think I remember one and a half days when it wasn't raining, foggy, drizzley or cloudy. And the slugs loved it. And they multiplied and multiplied, so my early morning ritual became don the rubber gloves and saunter thru the gardens doing slug patrol. Into a pail with salt water they went, by the dozens and dozens. I started prowling about at 11 at night with a flashlight and my trusty pail. Horrible nasty creatures, so vile even the laying hens wont eat them.

May had its good points however, like a Mother's Day visit to Corn Hill Nursery for a great lunch of real food, and a trunkful of plants, hardy roses, raspberries, black currants, and coming home, a terrific roadside sale of perennial flower plants dirt cheap.

Our next wwoofers, Armandine and Richard from France joined us and we tackled loads of garden chores, setting out tomatoes in the greenhouse when it rained,

setting out plants outside when it stopped..

Everything was covered immediately before it could be chomped on by the slugs.

A family with a 4 year old came by to visit. The little boy was impressed with all the ice cream buckets in the garden and asked wide eyed, "Wow! Are you growing ice creams?"

The little meat king chicks arrived and Freckles loved them immediately. 21 days before pickup day at the feed store we borrowed some fertilized eggs from the farm next door and put them under Freckles who had been broody for a week or more. On day 21 several were beginning to hatch and make peeping sounds, which causes a hormonal shift in the hen to change her from setting mode to mothering mode.. They all went with us in a box to the feed store where we picked up 8 chicks, a day old, and slipped them into the box. Freckles thought, "Great! Instant family!" and pushed them all under her wings. The neighbor got his hatchlings back and Freckles was none the wiser. One of the best things about meat kings is that they will eat slugs.

And now we have our last wwoofer for the spring season, Konstantin from Germany. A wonderful lad who cheerily tackles any job that comes along.

He was exceedingly cheery when we put his very first lobster in front of him! I think we enjoyed watching him figure out how to eat it as as much as he did chowing it down.

First week of May projects

2011-05-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

A huge dump truck unloaded this pile of topsoil into our prepared flower bed (sort of into). Our valiant wwoofers shoveled and raked it into place, until it was all tidy and ready to plant.

Tall perennials like hollyhock and sweet peas will go in the back, then cosmos, lilies and dahlias. There will be lots of room for edibles like nasturtiums and johnny jump ups to pretty up my restaurant salads.

We finished boarding in the roof of the log cabin and worked on the gable ends.

Tess got an all over haircut from the scissor wielding girls. She is due for a bluegrass transplant to fix that receding hairline.

Alina cleaned out the dead leaves and sticks from last fall, that were clogging up the pond.

More potatoes got planted, the weather still unseasonably cool with much too frequent rain.

The crew put together the trellis for the scarlet runner beans, which I planted this morning. They are always so pretty covered with red blossoms and alive with hummingbirds.

Dr Brian came to listen to Big Red's vitals, finding dirt in the gas a likely cause of her loud and rather startling backfiring.

There's always the never ending transplanting to do when the rain starts again.(The red ring is to pass the hose through to keep it off the plants)

The girls cut out new mesh fabric covers for the ice cream buckets that will protect the newly set out transplants from slugs, cutworms, and cabbage moths.

The fence for the meat hens was rebuilt, ready for the chicks arrival later this month.

The carpenters learned how to put on 3 in one roofing shingles.

..and posed with Prince Charming in the doorway of his new house.

Our wwoofers left today on their way to new adventures, new skills, new experiences. Whoever is lucky enough to host them next will surely feel as I do...in a world seeming to be spiralling out of control we are so encouraged by the enthusiasm, creativity and strong work ethic of these young folks, who are not afraid to get their hands dirty out in the real world .

Beginning to look like a little house..

2011-05-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

Our neighbor with a big bandsaw ripped one of our cedar logs into four pieces of quarter round, one to fit in each of the pig trough corners to finish and strengthen them. We bartered eggs , salad greens and jam. The young crew assembled the rafters as I measured and cut, and sometimes measured and cut again.

Next came the door frame which the forewoman cut too tall and the long suffering patient and polite crew disassembled so it could be cut and re made shorter.

Chain saw Brian came and cut out the doorway for the pieces to add to his kindling pile.

Next the crew gathered bags of moss from the woods and chinked all the cracks.

The trim boards and roof went on pretty fast with three hammers going. Tomorrow we'll go get a few more boards from the mill to finish up where we ran out of lumber.

Can we get any busier?

2011-04-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

Chain saw Brian from the village came and cut up our pile of salvaged cedar telephone poles and the wwoofers went to work hefting them into place and then drilling and nailing with 6" spikes through the corner boards.
By the end of the day most of the logs were in place.

Next day we sadly said goodbye to Matt and Alina who were on there way to the next host farm in NS.

Laura and I got on with some early potato planting, 4 rows of Yukon Gold and Superior. Rain drove us inside where Laura set out the green and yellow bush bean transplants that were started as an experiment in soil blocks just over a week ago.

There were enough rainy days to keep us transplanting hundreds of seedlings. Here are some heavenly smelling basil plants moving to larger quarters.

And then an email from Alina and Matt who are not having a good time in Antigonish and want to come back to us! Hooray!! So Jimmy picked them up at the bus station yesterday and we will have them til about the 7th of may.

Todays engineering problem was to get a gravity fed water supply to the greenhouse from the steep hillside behind. We gathered up scrap pvc pipe and garden hose and joined them together with plastic parts and screw clamps.

We ran the pipe about 150 feet up the ravine where the water tumbles down for about a week after each rain, and anchored the top end under a rock in a small pool.

RUNNING WATER!! There's a shut off at this end. I fill 2 big totes and then we have warm water for the watering can to do the tomatoes, beans and other plants that don't like cold water from the hose that draws from the well.

The crew.

Maintenance never ends with an old house and barn. Jimmy had to replace the cellar cover which was rotten and collapsing from the winter snow load. How pleasant to finally have some warm days to putter outside.

The garden is slowly taking shape with hardy transplants going into the soil. The girls are setting out kale seedlings with cardboard collars around them to deter cutworms.

The very productive past week...

2011-04-22T19:34:00.000-07:00

The past week since the tunnel greenhouse went up has been very very busy. I'm so lucky to have these energetic young folks pitching in. They have been working on various farms cross Canada for nearly a year and have picked up many competancies. Its fun to watch them working together intuitively, anticipating what comes next and creatively solving construction problems. They did a bang-up job of this sturdy fence intended to keep chickens, deer and horses out of the new greenhouse garden.

At 19, I would have loved to be doing what these two are so good at. I always loved playing in the dirt.

And then a day off, to go exploring the nearby Fundy Trail. This time of year the trail, along beautiful wooded coastline, is only open to hikers and bikers. They made it in to the 15km point thru some wicked uphills. http://www.fundytrailparkway.com/

Meanwhile Jimmy has been plugging away at next winters woodpile and has it all stacked very precisely (that's kinder than obsessively) in about a week.

Alina and Matt went to work finishing the chicken run that I started last fall. The chickens free range when there's somebody home but this will mean I can let them out safely when we are away.

Next was a redesign and strengthening of a chicken litter designated compost bin, to be placed strategically near the back door of the henhouse.

The new improved version should stand up to the horses using it for a scratching post.

The hen girls are in favor of any new opportunities for scratching about, having thoroughly turned over the kitchen compost pile many times.

Another job crossed off the long list on the fridge is stocking up on sawdust for horse and hen litter. Jimmy took "the kids" to the nearby mill and they filled enough bags to last till fall. Funny, when we were their age near the end of the '60's, we believed "Don't trust anyone over 30". Now anyone under 30 looks to us like fresh faced kids. How perspectives change with advancing years...

Finally it was dry enough for tilling one of the gardens. Matt ran the big tiller

and Alina ran the small one which is so handy for getting into tight spaces and corners.

We got all the leek seedlings planted. Since you want as much below ground as possible to get a blanched white lower stem we plant them by making an 8-9" hole with a T shaped dibble. We drop the seedling into the hole and just flick in enough dirt to cover the roots. As the plant grows up out of the hole over time the rain will wash more dirt in until the hole is gradually filled.

On wednesday, Laura arrived, another young wwoofer from Germany who has to be finding east coast NB very chilly after working in California! We did some preparation work on the front yard flower bed, covering the grass with cardboard to smother it, in preparation for a load of topsoil.

Today we started on the framework for a log cabin as a storm shelter for our little stallion, Prince Charming. Matt and Alina figured out the leveling of the 2x10 pressure treated base.

Laura prepared the corner posts by pre drilling for the spiral nails.

Four "pig trough" corner posts fastened in place..

leveled both ways, and braced in place, awaiting the chain saw guy to come tomorrow. This safety worry wart wont have one of our own...scared to death of the things.

The high tunnel greenhouse is finished!

2011-04-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

The next step in constructing the tunnel greenhouse was to bolt the purlins in place, two parallel rows of pipe that will strengthen the structure and provide a place to tie up tomatoes and cucumbers.
The excess pipe is cut off and the cut end is covered with duct tape to protect the plastic from sharp edges.
Next came the scary part - putting on the plastic shorthanded with a 30 km wind blowing...but it went on remarkably easy. The ends are gathered like a bread bag and jammed between two t-posts.

We started lacing with strong army cord from one side to the other over the top, wrapping the cord around the bolts at the bottom of the bows. So the plastic is sandwiched between the bows and the cord.

This way the plastic sides can be pushed up and held in place by the tension of the cord, for access and ventilation.

This is my "TA-DA" moment.

What a pleasant place to work!

You can see why they call this style a caterpillar tunnel.

A wonderfully constructive day...

2011-04-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday here was the beginning of the new high tunnel greenhouse: 18 posts, cut to 3 feet long, pounded 2 feet into the ground. (Thankfully we have no rocks in this garden.) The posts are manufactured for chain link fence and come in 6 ' lengths. The pieces that will form the bows are 10' lengths of top rail for chain link fence. It takes 2 pieces to make a bow.
Here are our new friends Alina and Matt from Germany who have come to help for a while. They are "wwoofers" and our first guests from the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms program. This is a volunteer program where the hosts provide room and board and the volunteers work several hours

a day learning new skills and techniques in a variety of farm situations. This energetic couple of 19 year olds started out in BC last july and have wwoofed their way across the entire country since then. We are very lucky they chose us! Nova Scotia is their next stop.
Here they are figuring out how best to bolt the bender to the picnic table.
The straight pipes are slipped around the bender, and pulled into shape bit by bit until they have a consistant curve.
Next the ends for the top of the curve are fitted together, drilled through and bolted.

We made 9 bows, and then inserted them with some strenuous pushing of the bottom ends towards each other, into the waiting posts.

Our neighbor Wayne came by and got involved in working out the bugs. Here the connectors are put in place to carry the ridgepole, which is 4 lengths of the same straight pipe .

The ridgepole is drilled and bolted at each 10' joint. The connectors are tightened on the ridgepole with the spacing between the bows at exactly 5 '. After some adjustments to get the ridgepole straight, holes were drilled through the posts and bows and then bolted through to hold everything together. And here's where we finished up today, very pleased with the progress we made. Two days of rain are coming so perhaps wednesday we'll get the next steps done.

Steps forward, steps back...

2011-04-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

I really really very much dislike raccoons! This was only part of the mess they left at our rental cottage, the rest was all over the yard. They have been served notice. Further criminal acts will result in deportation.
Spring is very very slowly unfolding with its many chores like

making slip covers for the ratty deck chairs. Painting new signs, and re painting old ones to delete the B&B info. We've had some nice sunny days, altho way colder than I'd like. Warm enough to get out my little red sports car....
The conversation went like this: She, (lusting after the garden stuff in the Veseys Seed Catalog) "Ooooh, look , a non tippy big wheeled , 2 wheel barrow. I couln't tip this, and it would be easier on my back, and I could mix cement in it and yada yada ya..."

He, (sensing an opportunity in the inevitable) "If I got you that now for mother's day would I be off the hook then?"
I love my new wheelbarrow, bless his heart. What a treat after the last two battered single wheelers rescued from the side of the road. I call it Little Red as the 1978 troy tiller is Big Red.

More projects are started, to finish after the ground thaws out. Here's a big flower bed going in the front lawn. I need more space for edible flowers like nasturtiums and johnny jump ups to put into my restaurant salad mixes. They add a lovely splash of color against the greens.
And here's all the fencing to go around the garden where the high tunnel greenhouse will be built. I wish that last aggravating patch of snow would go!

And here's Mother Nature's April Fool's joke today, heavy snowfall warning! (sigh...)

Fun with chickens in Fredericton

2011-03-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

My friend Lorraine and I and 5 travelling hens recently did "Meet a Chicken Day", a couple hours drive inland to Fredericton. There some valiant souls have been trying to get their city council to at least think about allowing regulated backyard pet hens in the city. It would have been nice if the opposition had shown up because they couldnt help but fall in love with our girls, like everyone else did. About 30 people came and listened to Lorraine and I profess our love for our feathered friends, talk about care and expectations, breeds and such, and then folks asked loads of questions. The hens visited whomever they chose, and sometimes settled in laps for a nap. A reporter did a positive article for the paper next day which was followed by a pro urban chicken, pro sustainability editorial. The council

has put a roadblock in the way in the form of a $250. fee just to look at making an exception for one person to try it for a year. Other sustainably minded cities (Over 500 across North Americain the last couple of years) Have charged $5. to $25. for a license, changed their bylaws and implemented rules such as no roosters and 3 or 4 hens max. Moncton has done a pilot urban chicken project that has been successful and their experience has gone ahead it seems with more open minds.

We had a crazy busy day, fitting in a visit to the wonderful Boyce Farmers Market where I found some favorite cheeses and schnitzel, then on to the Acorn conference (Atlantic Canada Organic Regional Network) where we got to talk to all sorts of growers doing all sorts of creative organic pursuits . I was given a cool Eat Locally Grown t-shirt by the Johnny's Selected Seeds guy. Finally on the way home, we made a visit to see my month old new baby granddaughter...

Isn't she beautiful?

We have dirt !!

2011-03-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

The snow has been melting for 4 glorious days, finally , after countless snowstorms, roof shovelings and driveway plowings. A winter we'd all like to forget. Four days ago there was no sign of this post for the electric fence.

I got quite excited when its tip appeared out of the snow and must have checked it's progress through the window a dozen times a day. One of those "light at the end of the tunnel" moments. So the whole mess has dropped about 9 inches, with anywhere from 2 feet to 4 feet to go.

This was March 8th of 2010, much more civilized, with nary a speck of snow in sight. The sun has done it's best around the coop and today the girls were estatic to find real dirt to scratch in, indulging in some serious group dust bathing.
I'm watching them quite closely because some predator has been coming around at night and has shredded the fly screen on the coop window, trying to get in at the chicken dinners.

Thing One is looking out at me taking the photo of the clawed up screen.

A lovely day to putter in the greenhouse, listening to the blessed sound of snow water dripping.

Seeds and celebration

2011-02-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

Our anniversary was last week so to celebrate we went to St Andrews-by-the-Sea for a great lunch. I had the best seafood chowder while the carnivore I married had what looked like half a raw cow on his plate. He enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed the very chocolatey cheesecake that I just couldn't say no to. Then, groaning somewhat, it was off to Seedy Sunday...

This is an anual event we were checking out for the first time. Gardeners who save their seed or have leftover seeds from last year bring them along and everybody helps themselves to whatever they like or want to try. What a good idea! I met all kinds of interesting people into organic gardening and sustainable living. Some were doing farmers markets, some supplying weekly csa produce boxes, and everybody, like me, cant wait for spring to come so we can get at it.

Back at home it was back to work to try to keep ahead of the latest snow dump. We have an enormous amount of snow. Most of the horse fences have disappeared so its a good thing they stay near the barn.

One thing a snow bank is good for, I found out is butchering a chicken. Or what I thought was a chicken til it grew up into a rooster. The bird is cooling in the snow all the time I'm processing it and of course no flies. Much nicer than doing it in the summer.

The last rooster, cooked in the oven was tough and stringy so this 5 pound guy, after a rest in the fridge for 3 days, went to pressure cooker camp. Twenty minutes later he's in the large crock pot for most of the day and smelling really good.
From one rooster we got three chicken pot pies with cornmeal crust, a plate of breast meat for sandwiches and in the freezer, two containers of stock plus meat for future soups or stews.

Some things started, some things finished...

2011-02-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

As the snow piles up deeper and deeper I spend more time thinking and planning for spring and summer. Its my sanity preserver I guess, I've never been a winter person and this is just too much winter.

This porcupine looking wooden gadget was the result of a pleasant day's puttering in the workshop whilst hiding from the latest blizzard. It's a bunch of quarter inch dowels cut an inch long and glued into a scrap of plywood made the right size for a standard bedding plant tray. One quick press and voila! Little holes evenly spaced an inch apart in the potting soil, awaiting seeds to be dropped in. It saves an endless amount of time and the seedlings come up looking ever so neat and precisely laid out.
Another project out of the way is the painting I began before the last blog post. I wish I was not such a procrastinator, the trouble is it's easier to go up to the studio and cut mats for next summer which requires no
thinking, than it is to work through all the planning that goes into each stage of a watercolor. Maybe that's laziness plus procrastination.

One of the considerations we've been turning over this winter is the fact that we're not getting any younger and by the end of the last two summers we've been completely worn out with 7 days a week of non stop work. Something has to give. And we've decided that after 10 years of running our B&B that's enough of that. I feel positively euphoric at the idea of no more extra cooking, cleaning, laundry, bedmaking, staying up past bedtime waiting for latecomers, and and having to get up way too early for earlybirds. The thing I will miss the most tho, is meeting wonderful people from all over the world. The adventurers who show up with their worn copy of "The Lonely Planet Guide" in hand, the art buyer from the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art who gave me amazing insights into my favorite painting, Rosa Bonheur's "The Horse Fair", but most of all the children.

The little horse lovers, the bold ones, the shy ones, the ones who let me read them bedtime stories and begged for "just one more". The families who came back year after year..how many times have I said to gangly kids on the doorstep "Oh look how you've grown!" And the special moments I've been priveledged to peek in on...sending a child into the henhouse with a basket and watching the delight spread over her face as she spots the eggs. I guess they will still drop by, but it's a little sad that the sleepover is over.

Where did january go?

2011-01-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

The month has flown by. I've been occupied with preparations for next summer mostly, cutting mats for our prints, building this and that, trying to get things out of the way before gardening season. The mesclun lettuce mix I planted a month ago under lights is outgrowing it's tray so today I transplanted these babies into the earth bed in the greenhouse. Beautifully warm in there with the bright sunshine streaming in, a perfect antidote to january's deep snow.

The leeks started at the same time are looking good, and four types of onions seeded last week are unfolding themselves from their trays.

I got started on a watercolor painting at last. First I wet the paper and gave it a wash of dilute yellow ochre because I was thinking of the scene being in early morning warm light. I sketched out the scene and covered the light areas that will be the highlights, with masking fluid. Then came wet sloppy colors that were alowed to blend and merge.
When all was dry, stronger but still loose and wet colors were applied to the background.

Next came the shadows and local colors of the wharf and the boats.

Then I rubbed off the masking fluid, tidied up the edges and deepened shadows. I lifted off color to create the third building in the background and added some foliage texture. I hope to finish this in a few days, adding seaweed and rocks to the foreground and reflections on the water.

Portrait of Riley

2011-01-06T16:35:00.000-08:00

I loved this photo of my son's fiancee the moment I saw it because it captured a moment between them in a wild and beautiful place not far from here on the Bay of Fundy. This pair is all about the outdoors, enjoying nature, camping , hiking, skydiving, adventures they squeeze into their busy hard working lives. I wanted to help remember this special day so the pic became the inspiration to the only painting I got done before Christmas.

This started out as a watercolor on toned pastel paper then evolved through charcoal, conte, and pastel. I wanted to capture this lovely lady's adventuresome windblown spirit along with her sort of 1940's glamorous look she pulls off without even trying.

I am having the same battle of procrastination I face every winter in getting back to painting...can't seem to focus on it when there's other things to "get out of the way first." I'm sure the only reason I finished this portrait was the looming deadline of Christmas. So since the end of the tourists in november I have been having a prolonged slate clearing exercise, cutting hundreds of mats for next summer's print sales at our shop. Tomorrow I'll clean up the studio and then I should be out of excuses.

Dreaming of springtime...

2010-12-30T16:34:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over and the days are getting longer, so I'm dreaming of next season's garden and starting seedlings. For years and years I've needed some kind of indoor growing space with good lighting so I'm not constantly carrying seedling trays from the daytime sunny greenhouse to the house at night for protection from cold. Veseys Seeds sells a deluxe 3 tier lighted steel stand for $629.00 plus tax and shipping..a bit out of my league, so finally I got around to building one. For about $80.00

Which could be done a lot cheaper but the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store was out of fluorescent light fixtures, and I was impatient and bought them new. The 2x2 frame was $11.00 and the 5/8" plywood pieces came to about $10.00 The dimensions are 4'x20", 5'8" tall. On the back side I pinned one of those foil emergency blankets to reflect light back towards the plants and after things are up and running I'll put another on the front. Also some angled white deflectors made of flashing will go on the top of each light fixture.
Every home should be blessed with a friendly handy neighbor who can be called upon to do tricky and dangerous things like plumbing and wiring. Here is our multi talented Jean-Marc from down the road doing an efficient and safe job of wiring up the unit for me.

I have a new toy to play with, it's a soil block maker. It will make compressed soil blocks, 4 at a time. A standard plastic plant tray will hold 50 blocks. From my favorite seed nursery, Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine.

I'm experimenting to find the right mix of compost, peat and soil for them to hold together well. Each block has a dimple to receive the seed. Today the first leek seeds went in, as I just had to plant something! With the sun shining it was T shirt weather in the greenhouse today, perfect for playing in the dirt. If the weatherman is being truthful we are in for a milder than average winter, so I hope to get little leeks into the garden in late march.

Yes, I'm steamed...letter to the editor yesterday

2010-12-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

The other day I was fuming about a letter to the editor in our newspaper, The Telegraph Journal. It was by the president of Monsanto's canadian branch, extolling the 'virtues" of genetically modified crops, and how we should be breathlessly awaiting the gmo apple and pear that won't turn brown when cut. Since I prefer my fruit the way God designed it and am horrified at the idea of frankenfish, and the disappearence of non gmo seed diversity I get really steamed about this bio-meddling. Since Michael Taylor has worked alternately at the top of both Monsanto and the FDA it's little wonder there is no required independant safety testing for gmo products. Add to that monsanto's powerful lobbying against labeling requirements, we in north amerika are entire populations of guinea pigs. If you eat processed foods you are consuming gmo's in corn, soy, canola, sugar in sugar beets and the myriad of products made from them. Following is my response Letter to the Editor yesterday, Telegraph Journal, Saint John, NB :

Lorne Hepworth, president of Croplife Canada, a branch of Monsanto, paints a fantasy picture of a biotech industry with a sordid history of putting profits ahead of health. This is the company that brought us dioxin and PCB's that now contaminate the far reaches of the earth.
Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, has documented 65 serious health risks from genetically modified (GM) products of all kinds. Among them:

* Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce;
* Sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn reported worldwide;
* Fertility problems, abortions, premature births, and other serious health issues, including deaths, among buffaloes fed GM cottonseed products in India
* Allergies among British children went up 50 per cent with the introduction to Britain of GM soy;
* The advent of "superweeds" requires ever-increasing loads of the toxic herbicide, roundup, to be sprayed on GM crops. Peasant families routinely exposed to roundup sprayed on GM soy fields in Argentina are seeing a 25 per cent to 30 per cent increase in childhood cancers and birth defects.
*Six European countries have recognized the dangers and do not allow GM crops to be grown within their borders.
No one knows the full extent of what happens to the end product when you splice in new genes, and then eat that product for several generations.
Consumers seeking to avoid GM foods can download the Non-GMO Shopping Guide and look for the GMO Free Project label on store products. the website of The Institute for Responsible Technology is a good education on the dangers of gmo's and for an in depth look at tremendous problems worldwide caused by Monsanto, watch "The world according to Monsanto", a documentary found on http://www.documentaryheaven.com/

And on a happier note, here are some lovely healthy non-gmo greens and herbs in my greenhouse this morning.

Christmas is coming...but it's not winter til the garden is frozen...

2010-12-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

Christmas wood working is a good way to pass the time when its blowing a gale outside and driving rain and sleet. My sawdusty workshop is cosy with a wood stove warming all but the corners, and I can make lots of mess and it just makes it all look that much more productive. This little wagon is 11"x16" and just needs a piece of sisal tow rope with a wooden ball on the end to finish it.

The blocks and wagon are sanded smooth and oiled with cooking oil. The fun part is playing with all the pieces before they are packed into the wagon for the new owner.

Winter has held off long enough for one last garden tilling 2 days ago. We spread 2 truckloads of leaves on the new garden plot on a rare windless day and got them tilled under before the next round of rain. They should break down more quickly mixed with the garden soil than they would have piled up dry in the compost pile.

With the weather so unsettled I keep alternating indoor and outdoor chores. Here is batch of granola bars just about cool enough to munch. Tomorrow if the wind settles down we'll go find a Christmas tree to bring home before we have snow to wade through.

And since this blog started out being a place to post my watercolors, here is a little one I did recently while longing for warm summer sunshine. It's a doorway of one of the famous waterfront buildings in Lunenburg, NS. Details of this and our other works are on our new art site http://www.saltydogarts.com/

The Everything Good Cookie

2010-11-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm going to see the 'kids" and my toddler grandson soon so today was a baking day. Whole wheat rolls and banana bread, and Nana's 'everything cookies". Everything good goes into them. And Connor devoures them because his smart parents have given him good food, fruit & veg right from his first solids. Must remember to take him some of my greenhouse tomatoes. Here is the Everything Good Cookie recipe :
1 1/2 cups organic dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, chopped apricot etc.
1 cup water or fruit juice
2/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1tsp real vanilla

2 cups organic whole wheat flour,( part white if you like) Soft whole wheat flour is for muffins & cookies, hard whole wheat is for yeast breads.

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup freshly ground flax seed

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cloves

2 cups organic oatmeal

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1 cored and chopped fresh organic apple

Simmer dried fruit and water/juice til raisins are plump, about 15 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid. You will need 1/2 cup of this. Top up with water if needed.

Heat oven to 375F. Mix oil sugar eggs & vanilla. Stir in reseved liquid. Blend in remaining ingredients. The batter will be quite wet. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet bake 8-10 minutes til light brown. cool. (This is a very adaptable recipe, I have used up extra shredded carrot and zuchinni in these cookies, also coconut, chopped pineapple.) Put in cookie jar. They get fuller flavored after being in a covered container for a while. Now gather some up and go visit your nearest grandchild!

Maybe I should pick my tomatoes....

2010-10-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

Damn, I wasnt ready for this yet. Always in denial at this time of year, my garden fork with snow on the handle is where I left it, sticking in the patch of weeds I was digging out of the garden. Looks like this is an inside day, I am baking trays of acorn squash which, when cooked I can scrape the squash off their skins and freeze it.

Yesterday we went to an auction on the trail of a pony model troy bilt tiller, but having a look underneath I could see where the transmission fluid had been leaking out of the seals in the tine housing, the tines were

worn and needed replacement and judging from the big hairdo on the girl on the maual cover I guessed it was made in the mid 80's. So I didn't feel too bad when someone else took it home for way too much money.

We got this magnificent solid walnut table for just $100! I am SOOO happy with it. Wonderful condition and the center leaf kind of telescopes in underneath when not in use. Our other amazing buys were this pretty wicker seat chair for $10. and two small tables made of the most beautiful wood, for $40 and $60. Now we have a perfect excuse to go to the next auction in search of dining room chairs to match the big table.
Auction shopping has been my antidote to feeling really sad and heartbroken over losing my sweet but dumb golden polish hen. She tended to wander about in her dazed sort of way, apart from the flock. She didnt know enough to avoid open places like the other girls and sometime while I was indoors she disappeared. I imagine a fox grabbed her. There were no telltale feathers, nothing. I have been obsessively checking on the silver polish, but thankfully she has learned to follow the other hens. I have started an outdoor fenced run to protect them when I cant be outdoors.

Gardening - Phase 2- Winter

2010-10-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

We have had several frosts in the last week so its time to switch gears and prepare for the winter garden. The sweet million cherry type tomatoes have been SOOO prolific, but they are slowing down now so I've yanked half of them out. The growing bed is being sweetened with loads of leaf mould compost before the next crop goes in. Standing on the horse barricade across the chicken door are my two supervisors, the Polish Girls. They have been watching the wormy compost with great interest.

They wandered in to the greenhouse, to see where the worms were going no doubt. Remember those wild haired creatures in "The Cat in the

Hat" book? Thing One and Thing Two? Thats what I call this goofy pair. They are quite irresistable, friendly and docile but not too bright. I have to hunt for them at dusk to put them to bed as they cant figure out how to get back to the coop. Maybe they just cant see anything.
Some treasures turned up in the compost as I was digging out the bin.
These round sprouted things were avocado pits I threw into the compost in early summer. I potted them up but dont hold out much hope for them.

These gigantic potatoes grew from potato peelings. Wow, there's a testimony to the growing powers of good natural compost.

So now the baby greens that I planted in early September are moving into the greenhouse bed where they will feed us fresh salads all winter. Here is a shovelful of arugula about to be transplanted where the tomatoes came out. They are neighbors to green and red oak leaf lettuces, parsley, rosemary, lemon tyme, and kale (so far) Perhaps I'll leave the rest of the tomatoes in there as they are, just to see how long they will produce. Fresh homegrown tomatoes would be lovely with Christmas dinner.

Cascade tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Fall Diversions

2010-10-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

I was going to title this post fall chores, because I've been going from job to job, for weeks bringing in and preserving a wonderful harvest. It's more of a privelege than a chore really, when I think of all the crops under water from our prairies to Pakistan. I feel lucky to have interesting and varied days adding to our food security, and when it gets tiresome theres always something different to do, unfinished projects like shingling the chicken house.

My sweet neighbor invited me to help pick a gift of his beautiful grapes. I thought they looked so pretty in the baskets...one batch of grape jelly done, more grapes waiting in the freezer.

Wild apples are everywhere. I'm turning them into sliced apples for the freezer for pies and apple crisp, dried apples for munching and cooking with, apple juice, applesauce, apple jelly.

I found a short cut this year to doing spagetti sauce. You slice the toms in two, add in some onion and garlic cloves, brush with olive oil and roast in the oven til soft. Dump into a seive til the watery liquid drains thru. Can or freeze that for soup base. Separate out the skins & seeds. The sauce is most of the way there.

Next I dump the sauce into the crock pot and let it simmer and cook down til the consistency is right. Add salt & pepper to taste, some fresh chopped basil and oregano, yum!

I can only stand so much indoor work on a nice sunny day, so I'm getting on with painting the trim and doing more shingling on the greenhouse/henhouse. I've been working on some 3D designs in the shingles and the diamond patterns I'm especially pleased with because anything mathmatical with geometry is a really huge challenge for me.

The hinged barricade across the chicken door is to keep the nosy horses out, when the door is open for the hens to come and go. The greenhouse vents have two large hinged doors on the inside. I plan to add plywood winter doors up there on the outside.

Where did summer go? ..a late summer summary

2010-09-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

     The best growing summer ever...albeit a bit dry, but lots of heat for the tomatoes and peppers. I sold loads of salad mix to the local restaurants, greens can be a challenge in hot weather so this was a summer to experiment with different varieties. The green and red varieties of oak leaf lettuce became the basis of my salad mix, augmented with spinach, bulls blood beet leaves, arugula and various mesclan mixes. Seeding every 2 weeks gave me a constant supply of fresh baby greens.
     I started a new garden for next year, had a tractor mounted tiller come in and chew up a piece of the pasture, which was then limed, manured, and seeded to buckwheat as a green manure.
     The blossoms were so lovely and the bees flocked to them, but the buckwheat had to be tilled under to fertilise the soil before it went to seed.
      Trusty old Big Red, vintage 1978, chomped his way through the tangle of buckwheat, and once mixed with soil the plants began to break down quickly.

Darrel came back for his horse and chicken fix.

It's such fun to watch him having such a great time with the animals, and they really seem to be drawn to him.

Avery came and said his goodbyes to the horses, and then was on his way back to Ontario. I miss his frequent visits.

The weather forecasters had us thinking hurricane Earl would blow us all to kingdom come, so we tied down everything important.

In the end it veered off to Nova Scotia but we did get a welcome rain out of it.

We had record breaking high temperatures in late august and the hottest day ever was Sept 1. I'm so thankful to live on the coast as no matter how hot it gets here, its always hotter inland. Counting my blessings these busy end of summer days as I'm up to my elbows in ripe tomatoes, canning, making pickles, preserves, and freezing summer's bounty.

Avery

2010-08-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

My favorite small visitor returning each year to the farm has to be Avery, from Ontario. I met him when he was two and was amused to see him confidently leading our white mini Stormy, the length of the pasture. Avery talks about Stormy all winter and when his family comes back to their St Martins cottage each summer he cant wait to get here to see his favorite little horse.

The first time he rode Stormy as a 2 1/2 year old he was hooked. I did his portrait at four astride his best horse friend.

This year the inevitable happened. Avery grew too tall to ride Stormy. Sad news, but he was excited to learn that he was now big enough to drive his special horse . We hooked up the cart and Avery was in heaven, learning the reins, the whoa and the go of it.

He came this week with a huge concern. He believed that the koi fish in our pond had to be lonely since he was the only fish. He had to have a friend and Averys parents got no peace until a trip to Saint John was made to find a goldfish. Not just any goldfish. It had to be the goldest goldfish in the tank. And so he turned up clutching a plastic bag of water and "Goldy".

He was on a serious mission that had to be seen through. He worried about the water temperatures in the bag and the pond being the same. We submerged the bag for half an hour and then, the great release!

Such a focused (his mom used the word obsessive) and thoughtful little boy, a joy to know. I am priveleged to be one of his friends.

Perspective

2010-07-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

I think the world is being run by a lot of lost crazy people. Dictators threaten their neighbors with nuclear weapons with all the concern for the aftermath that people would have for a snowball fight. As a news junkie I am grateful for the power of nature to pull me away from harshness and volatility"out there" to a place of wonder, predictability, and mystery just outside my door. Three magnificent linden trees stand in front of our old house. I suppose they were planted when the house was built about 180 years ago. Every midsummer they burst out into yellow blossom and at the same time thousands of wild bees turn up from heaven knows where. As dependable as the sight of the canada geese soaring over the house in spring and fall, they bring the hope of continuity for this old world. Spring was very early this year and the trees have flowered 2 weeks ahead of usual but the bees knew and came at the right time. The yard hummmmms with a constant loud drone of their busyness. I can sit on the swing beneath the tree and feel as if I'm in a hive. I can feel that all is right with the world, at least this small part of it. Nature gets it right, and is a great teacher if only people would listen.

I have this quirky idea that aggressive and belligerant leaders, hyperactive wild kids, and sourpusses of all types would gain a whole new outlook if taken out of an environment of concrete, asphalt, steel and plastic and immersed in nature. They'd have to follow my instructions though..."Sit! Stay! Be quiet, Inhale deeply and Listen....."

For Darrell

2010-07-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

I often wonder why I do this. Every day people turn up here: "We wanna mini horse ride." "Sorry" goes the spiel, "We retired the horses from rides 3 seasons ago, they're getting old, and so am I. Disappointed looks. " But you can go in and pet them if you like. No theres no charge." Which requires supervision.... "Those 4 are fine but not that one, she doesnt like petting. Dont pull on his tail please...dont put your fingers in his mouth like that please. Please stop chasing the hens...would you mind shutting the pasture gate behind you?"
   So yesterday we put up the large CLOSED sign and went to the city for errands and the next batch of meat chicks. Arrived home to find a woman with toddler on hip standing in the pasture, her 5 year old sitting astride Casey, free as a bird 10 feet away.
    She got a lecture (restrained for the child's sake) on the meaning of "closed" , on liability issues, on the idiocy of placing a child on an unknown unrestrained horse, (thank God she picked Casey who is next thing to comatose) and the impropriety of her attitude of entitlement, at which point she rather huffily departed.
     A cup of tea was in the works to soothe my indignation, but I wasn't to have it , in rolled another car. Two middle aged sisters and the husband of one of them, Darrell by name. They worked together to get him situated in his wheelchair and one of them explained to me about his stroke. Darrell was highly excited. I whistled the horses over to the low gate where he could reach them and feed them carrots with his one working hand. Darrell appeared to be lit up by his own personal sunbeams. He grinned and cooed and poured out his love for those little horses, each one in turn and Chloe, the 3 year old returned it, licking his hand over and over for the longest time. Chicken Little wandered over and his delight was multiplied. We worked out a one armed chicken hold and Darrel posed for pictures between burying his nose in her soft feathers and expressing his immense gratitude.
    I felt humbled to be in the presence of such a flow of love and laughter from one with every right to bitterness, whose mobility and independance had been stolen away. I couldn't wait to give him a copy of my children's book, Nana's Chickens. It was like I gave him a million dollars when he recognised Chicken Little on the cover. The last image I have of him as they backed out of the driveway is his joyful face mouthing the words of the story as his one good hand turned the pages.
     I know now why I give chunks of my day away to strangers. I do it for Darrell, who gave back so much more in return.

Ahhhh summertime!

2010-07-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have never been in a kayak before. What a fun quiet happy way to enjoy the water and a lovely sunny day. We paddled under the covered bridges, had to duck under one as it was close to high tide at the time, and around the harbor where the lobster and scallop boats tie up.

Back to work with lots of weeding waiting for me. The first cauliflower and broccolis are ready. More salad greens seed goes in as the cauliflower plants come out.

Those cute little fuzzy meat chicks that

hatched on may 11 have turned into lumbering top heavy frankenbirds who live to eat and lie down. I call them the gorbies, which doesn't insult them at all, greedy things.
These three are the survivors (for a few more days) Their buddies are in the freezer. I butcher two at a time, first thing in the morning before any garden customers show up, altho I was caught the last time by some very curious people who wanted to watch. Kinda creepy. Sparing the reader the graphic details on this site, I would refer anyone interested in the process to the absolute best detailed copiously illustrated chicken

butchering site ever : http://www.butcherachicken.blogspot.com/
Here are the latest two unnamed casualties on my kitchen counter, ready for their freezer bags. They are averaging about 4 and a half pounds dressed out. I will miss the others when they are all gone next week because they are the only birds we have that will eat the slugs I collect from the garden.
The new girl Lola is settling in with the flock. She is a pretty Buff Orpington, and a large size that none of the others will give any grief to. She got her name from her yellow feathers

(if you remember that dumb Barry Manilow song, "At the Co-pa, co-pa-ca-ba-na, and something about Lola with the yellow feathers in her hair and some mayhem that ensued...)
Well, anyway she appears to like her new digs in the Coopacabana.

Organic Market Garden Update

2010-06-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

Here we are at mid june and things have greened up beautifully since the last garden post. I 'm enjoying the walk each day through the vibrant dappled greens along the path to the berry garden. I'll be putting out the Organic Market Garden sign at the roadside this week. The Salmon River B&B & Restaurant of St Martins has become a regular customer, going thru an ever increasing amount of mixed salad greens and herbs every few days. I mix together several types of mesclun and oak leaf lettuce, baby beet and arugula leaves, and some baby spinach. The owners tell me that the customers are loving their new healthier menu.

So far I also have ready swiss chard, a wee bit of broccoli, onion tops, chives, cilantro, sage, tarragon and chervil. The usual villans have shown up with their destructive appetites: brassica and arugula loving flea beetles, slugs and snails.

Bottomless ice cream buckets with a mesh top are just the best thing for wind and chewing bug protection, and pushed down into the soil, they also foil the cutworms. These cauliflower plants are now big and strong enough to withstand the flea beetles so they can lose their buckets to the tender squash and cucumber transplants. I use a pile of sheer curtains I found at the Re-store as row covers for the arugula and turnip, otherwise there would be nothing left. The hoop houses described in an earlier post have had a succession of crops since housing the baby chard back in march. The radishes have come and gone, now the hoop beds are sheltering a second planting of arugula and some tender beans.

Scarlet runner beans are finding their way up the poles. Their blossoms make such a bright splash of color in the midsummer garden, and how the hummingbirds love them. I put the beans through my bean frencher and sell them that way, all thinly sliced and ready to steam gently and enjoy.

Some of the potatoes planted under mulch are beginning to blossom. I so look forward to the first dinner with new baby potatoes, there's nothing like it!

Giant Tess, the swamp lady is at her usual haunt by the pond...lazy sod never does anything useful, but demands an all over haircut every few days, Such a high maintenance creature she is.

Finally Canadian

2010-06-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

I've been a landed immigrant in Canada since I was a child in 1957, crossing the Atlantic from Britain on the rolling and pitching SS Newfoundland. Its been a wonderful adventure in a terrific country, but I never went for actual citizenship I guess because I'm a procrastinator with an aversion to paperwork. After 9-11 there was suddenly a requirement for a $50. plastic card to identify all the dastardly immigrants which I found quite insulting after all my tax paying years. Renewable at $50. or more every 5 years. So I got the card because I had to, and then we had occasion to cross the border into Maine, wherupon the opportunistic american border guards fleeced me for $6.00 because I had a british passport. No explanation given for such discrimination. When I asked the Canadian side about it the man was completely unaware of the fee.

So with a stupid $6.00 rather arbitrary toll cutting into my fun at Mardens Discount Everything in Calais, ME, I decided that's it, the last $6.00 the buggers will get from me. So I paid my $200. to the Canadian government (It's the principle of the thing) and a year of aggravating paperwork later, Im waiting for my swearing in ceremony that was promised in may, and I see in the newspaper to my dismay, a photo of the said ceremony attended the day before by a large group of colorfully clad happy immigrant/new citizens fresh off the boat so to speak. "Wait a minute ! I've been here since 1957! How could you not invite me to the party??" Paperwork screwup, I got lost in the mail somehow. So the nice people at citizenship & immigration scheduled my own private swearing in ceremony yesterday. I am now a fully fledged Canadian Citizen. Take that america!

Chick chick here, chick chick there, here a chick, there a chick, everywhere...

2010-05-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Wow, where did 3 weeks go since the last post? Lots of things happening here, both good and bad. Here is Freckles with her adopted babies, 7 meat chicks. I timed her setting so that her borrowed eggs would hatch the same day we were to pick up the meat chicks from the feed store. She never noticed the switch.

Chicken Little hatched out a batch of little layers also and gladly accepted the crew from under Freckles, so now she is mothering 10 of them. The yellow ones are from the white rocks and the dark ones from the ancona. All fathered by our white rock rooster, Fancy.

They grow so fast, here are two of Little's bunch a week later with real feathers. One flapped into this visiting boys' hood, prompting fits of giggles.
In the not so happy news, two of the horses got inside the garden fence one night, the wind blew the gate shut behind them, and thats where I found them in the morning. Everything that was up and growing was pretty much stomped into oblivion, except the plants in the hoop houses, cold frames, and covered with ice cream buckets.

I had quite an undignified hysterical meltdown...but I'm good now. (sigh)

Not much time for painting with all the outdoor work to do, (and re-do) Here is a recent watercolor of Atlantic Puffins that we have made into prints and cards. I love birds of all kinds.

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

So busy, so many projects and blessed with wonderful weather to be outdoors. There hasn't been frost since the 3rd week of march and the garden is up and growing. We're eating lettuce, spinach and radishes so far. We got on with this wooden pathway the last two weeks. It leads through a swampy bog to the far garden where the raspberries and blackberries grow. Carrying a full tray will be easier now with no muck to wade through. When the willows leaf out I'll tie them in a tunnel over the bridge.
I tilled up the floor in the older greenhouse today, holding my breath so I wasn't breathing the gas fumes. Love my little mantis tiller! Its now full of sweet million tomato transplants. Sweet million are my favorites, sweet brilliant red tiny tomatoes borne in symetrical pairs along a long branch. They will have to be tied up later as they almost reach the ceiling of the greenhouse.
Giant Tess has had a new coat of green this spring. She came through the winter somewhat patchy

so she had some mud/compost/lawn seed daubed on which has filled in quite nicely, it grew well everywhere but her bosom which she insists on baring to the elements. She will be getting cement hands to replace the clay pair that keep eroding away with the rain just as soon as I find a tall man with large hands whom I can talk into putting said hands into a bucket of plaster of paris, to make moulds for the concrete.
Lately I scored the BEST recycle/trade ever! I got this wonderful useful cap for my truck essentially free. Actually the fellow traded me for three bottles of jam. I know it's really good jam, but I did get the better of the deal.

Plants are blooming everywhere, tulips, daffodils, and over by the pond, I think these are marsh marigolds.
The greenhouse is so full, I have to make some more cold frames to get the cukes and peppers and other warmth loving stuff out into the garden. It gets pretty chilly for them when a fog rolls in here. Once the greenhouse beds are somewhat clear of transplants taking up space, more tomatos are going to be planted into the bed. Looks like a job for this week.
Ha! I just did a double take at the truck photo...it looks like the greenhouse/chicken house is loaded on the wagon...

Here's my son and daughter in law in Fredericton getting into the garden spirit. Over the weekend I helped them get a raised bed garden going, 3feet by 10 feet.They will be amazed at how much good food can come out of such a small space.

Ok...the grandson is only on this post because he's gorgeous...

Exploratorium!

2010-04-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend my friend Lorraine and I packed up some of our chickens and set up our display along with 2 dozen other hands-on educational exhibits at a large arena in Saint John. "Exploratorium" was put on by an alternative private school and we imagined it would be a rather small affair, so we were pretty amazed at the crowd of 4500 to 5000 people who showed up to pet a chicken, among other things.
     Good thing I had 3 petting friendly chickens to alternate or after 5 hours they would have had their feathers loved off! The funny question I kept getting, as a child would spot a hen on my lap, was "Is that a REAL chicken?"
Kids love chickens. They love to stroke their soft feathers, touch their beaks and toes with a fingertip, and sense their gentle natures. The entire afternoon they were lined up 6 deep, 10 deep, hordes and hordes of kids all wanting to touch. I began to notice faces I recognised, kids coming back a second and third time. I suppose for many or most it was their first encounter with real live friendly chickens.
     Fancy, the rooster let off a cockle doodle doo every few minutes which startled and delighted and elicited fits of giggles.
       So many inquisitive happy kids, I had a wonderful time.

Just had to paint this...

2010-03-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

When I saw this photo of 8 month old Millie I was inspired to paint her. It's such a typical "What have you got for me?" expression.
I put Fancy, the rooster in behind her, just because he's a great looking rooster and I'm very fond of him. The lighting was tricky because it's inside the chicken house with a window on each side. So basically I made it up as I went along.

Acrylic, 11"x14" Title - "What ??"

I love my chickens.

Hoop houses on the first day of SPRING

2010-03-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

Crazy warm weather this past week, wonderful to be outdoors doing projects and gardening. We haven't had a drop of rain or snow in this part of New Brunswick for a month or so. I have never been able to till before the middle of april before, climate change is being so kind to me. So I've been building raised bed/hoop houses to get hardy plants out as soon as possible.

They are made of 2x6, 32" wide and 8 feet long with hoops made of 72"long scraps of pvc pipe, 3/4 or 1" diameter. At the Re-store I scored a great pile of large sheer curtains for a dollar apiece and sewed them into fitted covers to go over the pvc piping. That will keep the abominable little flea beetles off the plants they like to devour and also provide a bit of wind protection.

I've been saving cardboard to put between the rows to keep the weeds down.

The covers are held in place by 3" pieces of pvc pipe split end to end and pried open to use as a sort of clamp that snaps over the cloth and hoop.

A peek inside...here are rows of little chard plants set out in the first bed, with radish seeded in between. The flea beetles love radish leaves, so this year when the plants emerge, the bugs are out of luck.

At night I pull a strip of plastic over the rows to protect from freezing, altho the lettuces , spinach and chard in there can stand a bit of frost. If the temperature gets really low (what used to be normal) I can throw some old comforters over the top of the plastic.

Rain is coming tomorrow, so I can at last settle to some indoor work, knowing the whole garden is tilled and the first plants are growing. It just blows me away that its only March , here in zone 4b!

Grafting an apple tree

2010-03-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

My most treasured books are a 4 volume set of Audels Gardeners and Growers Guide from 1928, reprinted in 1935. Volume 3, "Fine Fruits for Home and Market , together with practical and helpful illustrations - Useful and valuable tables of requirements ", opens with
"In the abundance of the yield is the joy and glory of the husbandman." All in the most elegant of fonts.
I love the illustrations, simple clear line drawings and photographs of farm workers wearing cow-paddy caps in magnificent greenhouses or with horse drawn field equipment.

The section on grafting prompted me to have a try at improving the two wild apple trees near the garden. They are young trees that have lately started bearing some really poor fruit, so I had an idea I would try to graft some scions from an abandoned yellow transparent tree just down the road.

The manual gave several methods so I tried them all, with a few additions such as bolstering a diagonal join with a small screw.

The challenge was to keep the grafting wax liquid enough to apply , with a cold wind blowing.

The bigger branches, I lopped off with my reciprocating saw.

Of course I dont know if any of these grafts will take , but out of 7, even a couple would be rewarding. Time will tell.

Signs of SPRING!

2010-03-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Sign # 1 : The urge to tackle really awful renovation projects. Here I am just a blur of scraping, scraping, trying to get that 10 year old wallpaper off. Someone please render me unconcious if I ever think glue + wallpaper border again.

The sign of a very true friend...one who will help you strip wallpaper , without being paid. I put this on to cover the previous owners horrendous green paint. Now I can't stand the busyness...there's such a LOT of it ...sigh.

Sign #2: Too much solar heat in the greenhouse. Time to open those summer vents at the top of the wall.

sign #3 : Other half doing yardwork. A lot of kindling blows down each winter off the big linden trees.

sign #4 : Happy hens who want to be outdoors pecking and scratching all day long now that the ground is all bare. Fancy, (the rooster at the back) one of last summer's chicks, has grown up to be such a handsome fellow.

sign # 5 Seedlings popping up, mmmmmm the earth smells so good!

Is spring here?

2010-02-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, warmer temperatures and very little snow means I want to do everything outdoors all at once. Here is a project that killed two birds with one stone... I never liked that expression but cant think of another one that fits. The alder bushes we cut a year or so ago are back in full force and I needed another compost container handier to the back door of the chicken house for the floor cleanings. Voila! Now those pesky alders are doing something useful being a compost bin. Some nipping, some hammering and some weaving, out in the fresh air, and it didn't cost a cent.

Indoors, the cloth diapers for Haitian babies has taken over the dining room table, floor, chairs...looks like a sweatshop in there the last while. Yesterday some ladies at the Vineyard church pitched in and in a couple of hours we had over 60 made. There was a great donation today of plastic pants, and here is everything packed and ready to go. I have 115 diapers jammed in a suitcase with nooks and crannies filled with onesies and sleepers. As far as I know they are travelling to Haiti with a journalist from the Montreal Gazette who will return to that country in a couple of weeks.

We are soooo lucky to live in a peaceful and relatively prosperous place.

Going thru a lot of wood...

2010-02-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

We're in the second week of a bitter cold snap so I am working on projects that can be done near the wood stove. This is a pile of garden aprons in the making. I sold six last year in our shop at the harbor so being an optimist I have eight in the works for next summer.

I've had some donations of flannelette sheets and receiving blankets, so the diapers for Haiti project is ongoing, with the piles of diapers growing daily. I like to jump from one project to another so the day stays interesting. I was surprised at Shoppers Drug Mart yesterday, when I asked for diaper pins and plastic pants the young sales girl looked at me like I was from Mars. Okaaaay... the pampers generation, right. Its going to take some hunting to locate some pins and pants.

I am feeling SO organised today. I sorted out all my seed packages into an old empty photo album, with little tags to identify what is where. Usually they live in a tangled together mess in an ice cream bucket. Today the onions and leeks went into the potting soil, as well as some oriental vegetables and greens I've never tried before, like corn salad, arugula, and radiccio. Next will be some perennial flowers, butterfly bush and others. The spinach and radish planted in early january in the greenhouse bed is doing well . I have made a hoop and plastic tunnel over the bed with pvc pipe. During these cold but sunny days the bed absorbs a lot of solar heat to be released after sundown. At night the 4 layers of plastic are pulled over the hoops and a couple of quilts thrown on top, to get the greens thru safely to the next day. Yesterday I figured we had saved enough from not having to buy organic salad greens all winter that I could treat myself to a rotating salad washer/spinner. Nifty!

Diapers for Haitian Babies

2010-01-27T07:15:00.000-08:00

Some readers in my local area may be interested donating materials or time to the Diaper Project, cloth diapers made from recycled materials for the babies of Haiti. Even if we give money, which is crucial in the aid picture, some of us are left wondering what practical hands on use could we be? I heard about this project from a lady in Saint John, NB and thought, I can do this in the evenings instead of watching tv, and it would be a lot more satisfying. The first step I think is to gather in materials, then recruit some volunteer sewers. Maybe a cutting/sewing day at the school? Im thinking packages of 10 diapers with one set of pins and 2 sets of plastic pants. Drug stores or large chain stores may want to donate the diaper pins & plastic pants. Here is the poster I'm getting ready:

Homemade laundry soap...cheap, cheap, cheap!

2010-01-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

I just found out how to make laundry detergent and it's so easy and SO cheap to make, I wish I'd known this years ago. With all the bedding and towels we wash in the summer with the B&B and cottage rentals this is going to save a bundle. I found the borax and the washing soda side by side in the detergent aisle at the superstore. The bulk barn had the laundry bar soap.
The recipe :
1 bar regular people soap like dove or 1/3 to 1/2 bar laundry soap
1/2 cup arm&hammer washing soda
1/2 cup borax powder
Bucket or container with lid. This makes a bit over 2 gallons.

Grate the bar of soap and put it in a saucepan. Add 6 cups of water and heat it, stirring occasionally, until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and borax and stir til dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups of hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. let the soap sit 24 hours and it will gel. Use 1/2 cup per load.
For HE machines use 1/3 to 1/2 cup depending on load size. Works fine in cold water.
The cost of making this 2 gallon batch is under $2.00 The big manufacturers are making a killing!

Winter gardening and composting

2010-01-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

A lovely warm day above freezing yesterday to gather seaweed on the beach..there never seems to be time in spring and summer and I read that seaweed composts quickly so a new project is evolving. After gathering up a trunkful of free fertilizer we brought it home and hosed it off thoroughly because apparently the salt residue is not welcomed by the plants. I decided rather than have it just freeze outside for the rest of the winter, to make a temporary compost pile in an unused corner of the greenhouse. I layered the seaweed with cleanings from the chicken house floor, the contents of the kitchen compost bucket, and handfuls of soil for the benefits of all the busy little microbes. I have a feeling this might get smelly but time will tell, its just an experiment and something to satisfy that winter gardening call.
I'm reading Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest, a wealth of information on cold weather crops in a variety of unheated structures. He has great advice on freeze proof crops like corn salad, spinach, etc, and a lot of greens I've never heard of but am ready to try. E.C. has his farm in Maine, zone 5, which is only half a zone warmer than southern New Brunswick so his ideas should work here, I think. He makes plastic tunnels inside his greenhouses to give the winter crops a double layer of protection. They are made of polyethelene sheets stretched over half moon shaped hoops made of 3/4 inch pvc. The plants grow more slowly in winter, my august planted mesclun has never bolted to seed or become tough and bitter like the summer crops will do.
My initial idea was to try and have fresh greens til Christmas but heck, why stop now? Today I planted some sugar snap peas, some spinach and radishes, just to see if they will germinate in January.

Sinless guilt-free no fat cheesecake, YUM!

2010-01-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

The best way to enjoy today's raging blizzard, imho, is to make a nice cup of tea and settle in with a good book next to the wood stove, while savoring a delicious piece of cheesecake. I love this recipe because its mostly fat free and I feel like I can indulge myself and persuade guests to have another piece.
The recipe:
Crust - 2 cups graham cracker crumbs and enough canola or olive oil mixed in so you can press it into a large springform pan ( probably about 1/4 c oil)

Filling: 1 cup sugar
2T lemon juice
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 8 oz (250 gram) blocks or tubs of no fat cream cheese
1 cup (250 g) tub of no fat sour cream (or substitute cottage cheese)
2 egg whites
1 whole egg
1. Pre heat oven to 325 F Coat a spring form pan with non stick cooking spray. Press the crumb mixture onto the bottom and part way up the sides of the spring form pan. Bake at 325F for 10 minutes. Allow to cool.
2.In a mixing bowl combine cheeses, sour cream, lemon juice and sugar. Use a hand mixer or even better a food processor, until smooth. Add the 1/4 c corn starch , mix in for a minute. Add egg whites and egg. Mix briefly till eggs are combined.
3. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the prepared crust. Bake 55 minutes or until the center is done.
4. Remove from the oven, run a knife around the edge and let the cake cool at room temp. Refridgerate at least 3 hours. Take off the springform side and put your favorite topping on.
I use a canned pie filling like blueberry, cranberry/cherry or make my own with any frozen berries.
To make your own, thaw berries, combine about a half cup of sugar with about 4-6 T cornstarch. Mix into the thawed berries and cook on the stovetop till thickened. Cool and spread onto the cooled cheesecake.

Our Christmas card to you, 2009

2009-12-20T05:47:00.000-08:00

Wishing all the best to all of you out there for 2010! Love, peace and happy hens to all.

Freeze proof chicken waterer

2009-12-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

Today's post might be useful to other chicken keepers in cold winter climates. I've been pondering how to keep the hens water from freezing overnight. Some people use an outdoor heated dog dish with the waterer placed inside but that's quite costly with shipping to Canada.

I made this contraption with some leftover floor tiles and I think it will work splendidly. My friend with the right drills cut a hole in one of the side pieces, a snug fit for a trouble light fixture. Then I cemented the pieces together with mortar, holding them in place while they set with a picture frame clamp. So the bottom and sides are one unit. Then another whole tile sits on top and the waterer on top of that.

Here's Fancy , the rooster checking it out. ...goooo fancy....go towards the light...!

The finished product. Theres quite a bit of heat coming through the top tile and I'm using a 40 watt bulb. I'm thinking a 25 watt might do. I'll only need this on the coldest nights anyway. The chicken house is very well insulated and in the daytime if its sunny out, they get lots of warmth with the window open from the adjoining greenhouse. Speaking of which, we are still enjoying salads daily from the bounty in there. So far, just covering the greens at night with 4 layers of polyetheline and 2 quilts has kept everything going and growing.

Yum!

Just ducky

2009-12-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

Another in the acrylic bird series. This compact little guy is a Ruddy Duck painted on a 6x8 canvas board.

In winter, Ruddy Ducks inhabit shallow, protected, saltwater bays and estuaries along the coast or ice-free, inland lakes and ponds. Breeding habitat is freshwater marshes and ponds with marshy borders mixed with open water.
Ruddy Ducks are often found in tight flocks. They forage by diving under water and straining mud through their bills to find food. Like many small-winged ducks, Ruddy Ducks must get a running start across the water to become airborne. I've only seen them in photos but I think they're just downright cute.

Readying for Christmas

2009-12-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

This time of year Jim and I are tossing about ideas for the homemade Christmas card. This year's creation is still in the fine tuning stages, it's always fun and each year we tend to either collaborate or take turns as the inspiration strikes. This one with our mini stallion Prince Charming was the card of several years back. At the time there was constant controversy about stifling political correctness stealing our Chrismas traditions, and with the majority of the letters to the editor steaming with indignation, we thought it would be topical and fun to compose a poem on the inside of the card to add our own protest to the mix. It was our most popular card ever judging by the feedback, but try as we might, we can't find a surviving copy anywhere. And because we're old and forgetful neither of us today can remember a single line of that inspired Christmas rhyme. Merry Christmas everyone! Happy Hannukah, happy wintertime, happy Everything! Let the public squares be resplendent in Christmas trees, manger scenes and menorahs. Just let everyone be happy.

Chickadee-dee-dee, 4"x6" acrylic

2009-11-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Four days of rain ahead so I should be able to get on with some painting without outdoor distractions. I'd really like to get back to watercolors, but I have these blobs of acrylic on my sta-wet palette that I dont want to waste so I hope to do a few more favorite birds, and learn some more about the acrylic process.

From this reference photo I painted this little chickadee imagining him in the light from the front window, as they flutter about our bird feeder near the end of the day.

Painting again

2009-11-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Feeling better today! The antibiotics started to take effect on Friday and I've been working on this acrylic off and on since then. It's a real mood lifter to be able to do something constructive after laying about for so long.
Gisela and Peter, our B&B guests from Germany, if you are checking in with this blog you'll recognise the photo you took that I used as a reference for this painting.
Today its pouring down rain, the tail end of some southern storm, but I'm not bothered a bit. I'm thankful for a pile of books by a nice warm fire, for feeling more chipper, and for modern medecine.

Ramblings...

2009-11-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

I've been a negligent blogger of late, with really nothing to say since being laid up after another surgery, Oct 28th. Feeling worse and worse, today I came back from my Fredericton Dr with 2 different antibiotics to treat infection. He says I should be feeling better by friday, so I am hopeful. My husband and I went to the Saint John emergency 3 days ago, me to see what all this increasing pain was about and him for an infected foot wound . We were shocked to be treated with unwashed hands by numerous nurses and doctors, with the place crawling with H1N1 sufferers. I feel a rant coming on, maybe a letter to the editor. Thousands of Canadians and Americans die needlessly every year from hospital aquired infections including staph, e coli, mrsa etc, due to the sloppy hygiene of their professional care givers....

On a lighter note, on the way home today, my drug befuddled brain was contemplating the strangeness of the English language and its perplexing inconsistancies. We put on a pair of shoes, a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, a pair of gloves, why not a pair of bras?

Scrambling to catch up...

2009-10-27T16:53:00.001-07:00

Gardeners are such an optimistic bunch...no matter how discouraging the passing season has been, next year will "always be better". Here are next summer's garlic cloves going into their new raised bed, amended with 2 buckets of super wonderful compost. My visions of tall green garlic plants with their artfully curling scapes are basking in sunshine, unlike this past summer's monsoon season... well at least with the raised bed they cant wash away.
A little more work on the greenhouse/chicken house. I've really got to figure out the eaves before I can go much further with the cedar shingles. The last few days I've been cutting glass to double the small windows between the doors, and caulking every draft I can find.

These are the plywood doors high up on the inside partition wall that will stay open during the summer to let out the excess heat in the greenhouse. Below them is the window through to the chicken house which can be opened on sunny winter days to let the heat through to the hens which hopefully will make them happy enough to lay.
My max/min thermometer is indicating that the greenhouse is about 4 degrees warmer inside than outside in the dead of night.
The lettuces, parsley and leeks are all thriving and I'm deeper into winter denial with each passing day....

Still sawing and hammering...

2009-10-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Too busy building to keep up with the blog... I've made good progress the last few days and by dark tonite got all the holes closed in. I've been blanketing and plastic covering a row of lettuces in the garden, seeded in mid august, to protect them from some killer frosts and at last I was able to move them to the new greenhouse bed.(Wow, I should have cleaned that last window before I started taking pictures!) It'll be interesting to see how warm it gets with the sunshine forcast for tomorrow.

Unfortunately the frost went right through my old leaky single pane greenhouse last week and killed off my sweet million tomato plants with a couple hundred beautiful tomatos hanging on them, sigh.

The chickies have moved in to the adjoining winter coop and are all getting along well. The have figured out how to find the roost and they put themselves to bed each evening at 6. All I have to do is close the door. Clever birds!

Building progress

2009-10-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

A week post surgery and I'm beginning to get some strength back, thank heavens. I can just putter at little things, but with some help the greenhouse, chicken/garden shed is coming along nicely. All the plywood scraps we accumulated over the summer from yard sales and freecycle have gone into the shed walls. Today I hired an energetic teenager who transferred 2 truckloads of compost from the bin, and a few wheelbarrow loads of soil from the garden into the greenhouse planting bed. It is 4 feet x 13 feet and will give me lots of room for spring and fall gardening.

As soon as the roof is finished I will transplant some lettuces started mid august , from the garden to the new bed. I'm hoping they will be ok in there til near Christmas.

The sweet million tomatoes in the old greenhouse are coming on faster than I can eat them, and I eat them like candy, so sweet and delicious. They are doing much better than my poor beaten up outdoor tomatoes.

The little chicks seem to have turned into miniature chickens the week I was gone.

Its like they doubled in size when I wasn't looking.

I think the one eyeing the camera with its head sideways is a little rooster. He seems more assertive than the other two and is quite the little character. He is strong enough now to grab an entire piece of bread and run with it, with the other two in hot pursuit. We call it Chicken TV.

Out of commision..

2009-09-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I've been on an unplanned vacation this last week, my building projects, garden harvest, dozens of things interrupted. It seems my gall bladder went into some kind of hissy fit last monday night, didn't like the lovely steamed cabbage I had chowed down on. So off to the hospital by ambulance with my insides in an uproar, intense pain, and a diagnosis of "It's gotta come out".

Free health care is a wonderful thing, and I hate to think what this would have cost us without medicare, but...timely delivery would be wonderful also. I got hooked up to an iv and put on a standby list for surgery and waited and waited and waited whilst people kept having car accidents and clogging up the operating rooms. In the photo its friday night and I just got the news I was on my way.

So now I'm home and kinda shocked to see on the bathroom scale I lost 14 pounds from not eating for nearly a week, holy cow that iv fluid must be light on calories... Now I have a free pass when I get my appetite back, for cake and cookies and ice cream!

Building up and tearing down

2009-09-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

My little greenhouse I built 12 years ago is rotting and will never make it thru another season so here comes it's replacement. I was given a pile of sliding patio doors, thermopanes, so the building is designed around them. This time I'm using pressure treated lumber so by the time it wears out I'll be too old to lift a hammer anyway.

Today I'll work on the right side which will be the winter chicken house/garden tool shed. The window in between is to let the warmth of the winter sun in the greenhouse through to the chickens.

On the raccoon war front...I am losing badly as evidenced by the devastation in the nearly ripe corn. It seems another family has moved into the vacumn created by the removal of the last five. They are driving me crazy, I'm finding the trap sprung every morning with nothing in it.

The little chicks are 3 weeks old now and entering their gangly teenage stage. Momma keeps them close to the house or in the shade of the big trees away from danger from the skies. They are so entertaining to watch them learning their chicken things.

Gotcha!

2009-08-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

Finally after trying for over a week to catch the mama of this family of five, here she is. What an intelligent and wily critter!
Every morning I would find the bait gone and the trap sprung, and upended as her signature. I tried tying the peanut butter sandwich in place with multiple wraps of baler twine, only to be foiled repeatedly. She got every last crumb without ever stepping on the incline plate that would drop the door. Finally she was caught with a McGyver contraption consisting of a plastic container of peanut butter tied to a string that went up through a pulley and connected to the door dropping device. I dont feel all that smart since I was outwitted by a rodent for 10 days.

Baby chicks!

2009-08-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

What an anxious, engrossing time waiting for three eggs to hatch...We could hear peep-peeping from inside the shells and little tapping sounds like trapped miners signalling for help. At last a tiny hole in each egg and a small beak partly visible.

Mama hen was patient with us, letting us check the progress and then tucking the egg back under her feathers to keep it warm.

It took about 10 hours until all three were hatched. Amazing how active and adventurous they are already, on their second day. Hard to get any work done today, they are such fun to watch.

Bye -bye bandits

2009-08-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

What a cute little face! But not so cute when they are ransacking my corn patch. This is captive number three from a family of four (that I know of) Three raccoons in five nights, they will go anywhere for peanut butter sandwiches. From here they go for a trip to an uninhabited wooded area with a stream, so I hope they are re-uniting and happy in their new surroundings. One more adult to catch, the push is on, with the corn a week or two from mature. Really hoping another family doesnt move in til the season is over.

Chicken Little aims to be a mother hen

2009-08-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Chicken Little has gone SOOOOO broody. For two weeks she wouldnt get off the nest, she would hop onto any new laid egg and claim it as her own, chirruping and complaining when I would put her out of the henhouse.

Along with this new behavior was a lot of feather fluffing, strange exotic dances and sudden leaping into the air with frantic wing flapping.She kept up a continual scolding "book, book book" sound. She refused to be a part of the hen social scene. No scratching and digging, no lolling about in her dust bath. The compost pile lost all its attraction and she could not even be tempted with wiggly worms held in front of her beak

So we relented and took a day trip along with Little in a carrier box, to find her some fertilised eggs. The farm where I had bought some of the other hens just had three eggs that hadn't made it to the fridge yet. So we slipped them under our little obsessive-compulsive and she was a very happy hen.

Little is very devoted to her adopted eggs. They are from a flock of white rock hens, like our Serena, but I'm sure Little wont mind. Hatching day is the 25th or 26th of august.

Each morning I make her get off the nest, covering the eggs with a warmed towel, so she can stretch her legs and have a gigantic poop. She wont mess in the nest at all. When I put her back in after a few minutes of her strange rituals, she is SO attentive to those eggs, hooking her beak around them to push them in under herself. Then she fluffs out her feathers and settles down until the next interruption.

This is all amazing to me, how animals and birds know just what to do with no instructions or experience to go by.

Yes, we have water...

2009-08-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

To all our friends, neighbors, B&B and cottage guests, and assorted well-wishers : our 6 week water crisis mystery is solved . Two cottages and the main house on one well. 1,000 feet of underground pipe from the 260 ft deep well at the far cottage to the main house. After trouble free years, suddenly not enough water..."Yer well musta caved in " says the plumber. Ditto say the well drillers. They drill down to 600ft. "Now you gotta get twice the horsepower pump , bigger piping and heavier electrical to get the water up." So we do that and we keep running out of water. "Well she's gotta be leakin unnerground somewhere." The backhoe is called in and digs up 3 locations where joints were made. Plus he digs a 7 foot hole in the garden to find the old well that used to feed the main house. Eventually the plumber comes back and finds the joints are fine. The well guys come back and air pressure test the underground pipes in all directions. They determine we are losing water at the main house. We shut off the incoming valve and sure enuf the well fills up overnite. A week later the plumber is back and discovers that if he shuts off the valve in the basement that leads to the barn the pressure guage holds steady.

SO... the barn is shut off till the next excavation, everyone has water enough, the well guys are $14,000 richer, the backhoe guy nearly a thousand, and several hundred for the plumber , and the whole problem could have been fixed for under a thousand by fixing the leak in the barn line in the first place!!! And my hair would probably be a darker shade of gray without the most stressful summer I can remember.

Thank God the weather has dried up here! We had a record breaking 195 mm of rain thru july and the coolest july on record also. The garden has struggled with lack of sunshine and warmth but its responding wonderfully to the change.

Chicken Mural Finished Today

2009-07-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

What an on again/ off again project this as been, with SO much rain the last month.
Here are Buffy and Serena checking out their finished portraits.

The girls are having the run of the front lawn lately and they stay within about 100 feet of the henhouse, enjoying themselves with their scratching and pecking and bug hunting chicken pursuits. They seem to get a lot of pleasure from digging bowl shaped depressions in the lawn to take their siestas in.

Here is Serena, looking like some unfortunate road kill, but in reality is in the throes of dirt flinging, feather dirtying , chicken ecstasy.

...which culminates in a quiet nap, if one could just be left alone.

Clover heads, purple or white are popular on the lawn buffet, must be some sweetness in the nectar they are after.
All this entertainment, and 3 or 4 eggs a day now!

Painting again

2009-06-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

Its been so long since I picked up a brush...and this big white surface has been beckoning me for weeks, to paint a mural. Its on the chicken house and will be portraits of my five hens as if the viewer is looking into the henhouse. I started by drawing each hen from photos, on separate pieces of paper and moving them about until they all fit into the background.

Then the design was transferred with carbon paper to the coop.

The dark floor will be mostly covered by painting in the straw litter at some point.

I might get this finished tomorrow or the next day if it doesnt rain. Gee, I look at these pictures and wonder if I'm at the "dotty old lady" stage of life.

Its a fun project, and it gives me something to think about besides worrying about the poor Iranians and their horrible government.

Hammock making

2009-06-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been learning how to weave a hammock and I'm quite pleased with the way they are turning out.

Here's my first one in progress on the weaving frame up in my studio. Not much to it : 2 dowels and a 2x4 and a book of instructions. And a LOT of rope, 600 feet in one hammock!

At first it looks very confusing and I had to unravel a few rows when I caught my mistakes, but now I can weave and talk at the same time without any boo-boos.

This one is finished and hanging in the ceiling of Salty Dog Arts, our shop at the local wharf.

Its made of a soft non-cotton military cord, uv resistant and impervious to moisture. I opted not to use cotton as my research told me the squirrels like to chew it up for bedding.

The stretchers are 5 foot birch cut from the hillside behind our farm. They look beautiful finished with a few coats of linseed oil.

It's a cosy fit, designed for 2 adults.......

(Sigh... if we just had time to lie in it!)

Newest addition : Chicken Little

2009-06-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

I couldnt resist this goofy looking little hen at the Petitcodiac "Wings and Whiskers" sale. She is a mutt, part silkie and probably part banty.

I traded 3 jars of jam for her and what a sweetie she has turned out to be. I named her Chicken Little because she is the littlest of the flock and she has a startled 'The sky is falling" look about her.

My former favorite, Buffy, a Buff Brahman who was the lowest on the pecking order because she was gentle and small, now has someone smaller than herself to pick on, and oh boy is she showing a mean streak!

I have moved the big hens to the barn for a while so poor little Little has only one at a time to get used to. This could take a while because it was a week before they stopped bullying Buffy. Little must think I am Mommy because she runs to me and tries to hide herself in my clothes, what a funny little bird she is.

The original black hens, a few posts back , enjoyed their retirement for over three weeks without a single egg forthcoming, and sadly have gone the way of all non laying layers.....

Enough said about that..

Their replacements are Serena, a large White Rock who is moulting and can be excused for not laying right now.

And Sonia who is an Ancona, a breed originating in the mediteranian.

Sonia is high strung and flighty with tail feathers like a roadrunner. I dont know what her excuse is for not laying yet. The Rhode Island Red, Rudy, and Buffy lay their predictable egg a day so hopefully the others will take note. The chicken house is full, Ive gotta quit before I turn into one of those warped collector people and the neighbors start talking about me.

Garden progress

2009-05-29T16:46:00.001-07:00

Welcome welcome greens! Such a long wait since last garden season for fresh picked organic salads..

The garlic will be sending up scapes soon..

I'm still planting, it takes a month or so to get everything in. Now Im down to the warm weather squashes, peppers and tomatoes that all need protection for a while yet, from our sometimes chilly ocean breezes.

We have voracious flea beetles which love to munch on cabbage family transplants and turnip and radish seedlings. The cloth is thwarting them so far...this is a long patch of turnip that we grow for winter feed for the horses.

A peek under the cloth shows all is well so far...

The broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage transplants go under ice cream buckets with the bottoms cut out, and a fine mesh over the tops. The center is cut out of the plastic lid to hold the mesh in place. This works wonderfully, protecting the little transplants from wind, flea beetles, and cabbage butterflies. They stay in place till the plant begins to outgrow its confines, at which point it's big and tough enough to be unappealing to the bugs.

The tomatoes are going into the ground under their plastic hotcaps, where the'll stay till they outgrow them and hopefully it will be warmer then. These used to be expensive in garden stsupply stores but now you can get them at the dollar store. In that end of the garden is my windbreak of recycled storm windows. Sure it looks like Dogpatch, but hey it works!

The peppers and little sweet million tomatoes get planted right into the greenhouse soil for the summer where they thrive in the heat and humidity. I love to be able to pick their fruits well after frost. Still have a bunch of transplants to go out, at this point they are all in individual 3 or 4 inch pots so I dont have to hurry anything potbound. What a lot of interesting , rewarding, healthy hard work!

A week of Firsts...

2009-05-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

First radishes...

First egg!

First flowers around the pond...

First Rhode Island Red....

But the best first of all...ta-da...a grandson born to son Cody and daughter in law Sherin. No photos yet, but I'm going to visit in two days.

The new hen, Rudy arrived 2 days ago and has laid 2 eggs, putting to shame Mariah and Dorothy who are still slacking off after 2 weeks. So much for the theory of "stressed out due to change of environment". The black hens were quite jealous and possessive of their food and water when Rudy arrived, and behaved like playground bullies. They got the sharp points of their beaks rounded off, so they couldnt do her much damage.

The wood is all put up for next winter...we need more roof!

Happy hens

2009-05-12T15:06:00.001-07:00

Two chickens have moved in to the new chicken house, Black Maria and Dorothy. They have had a remarkable week from a hen's perspective...when I found them they were living in a battery situation, each in a one square foot cage, standing on wire mesh, indoors, barely able to turn around. They couldnt walk properly at first, with their legs going every which way like intoxicated fowl, and being intellectually deprived they couldnt figure out the ramp or what the roost was for.

So after crawling in the cage for a few nights and shoving them up the ramp, they caught on and now they go merrily up and down just for the fun of it. They learned how to scratch and dig and discovered worms , and now I hear a kind of anticipatory chirruping that translates "Heads up, the worm lady is coming!"

They have been very entertaining all week, but are yet to lay a single egg. Could be they feel they are in some chicken spa with gourmet food and dust baths and on vacation from work.

There is room for two more, but I'm holding out for a poultry show and sale in June where I hope to find a pretty speckled Barred Rock.

Rest in peace Baby Taylor

2009-05-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

The tragic death of a newborn baby found dumped in a snowbank a few months ago near Moncton, NB has touched many in the province. He remains unidentified and police have named him Taylor after the road he was found on. Today was his funeral. Tuesdays paper had a story which upset me greatly, and prompted the following letter to the editor, published today . (click on the cutting to enlarge)

The To-Do list

2009-04-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

The spring chore list is gradually getting whittled away but its not getting any smaller because new chores keep getting added to the bottom of the page. Like this one.

The first load of next winters wood arrived today, yes the first load, theres more to come. This is my right hand man's chore. I once had a wet heavy chunk of maple land on my ankle, followed by a trip to the emergency room, followed by my hero announcing he would do all the wood piling henceforth, bless him.

Today the first of the potatoes went in, we should be having our first taste of tender new taters by late july. The cloth is covering rows of turnip and radish to protect the leaves from the voracious flea beetles. They also love broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower which they chew to resemble lace so they all need protection until they get bigger and tougher. I found this fine net type material cheap at a Fabricville sale last fall.

All the leafy stuff is in now, chard, spinach, onions, 5 kinds of lettuce, onions, and the garlic is up 6 inches.

In the corner of the photo is my other right hand man, Big Red. My Troy Bilt tiller I bought new in 1978, the only piece of machinery I have ever truly loved. He has some new parts mind you, (my favorite ever Christmas gift from Mr Hero was new tractor tires for Big Red)

We are off to the farm auction today in Sussex to scout out some laying hens and look at something besides a chore list.