As unbelievable as it is Moog is back! Our WONDERFUL neighbour Yarrick has just returned her to us. He found her in his lawn. He lives beside the pond and noticed her. He recognized that she wasn't native to the area and called around. It was a long shot but he thought he would try us to see if we knew about a turtle. Thank you Yarrick! It is nice to have Moog home. If only she could talk.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The gardens are growing!
This time of year is great! It is when the garden is just beginning to express it's full potential. We have eaten our first cucumber as seen on Tim's head. The first squash are really coming along and the lettuce seed forest is almost ready to get seeds from.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Our Home Aquaponics System!
This past May we went to visit the urban farm Growing Power in May. Growing Power specializes in vermicomposting and aquaponics. Vermicomposting is composting with worms and aquaponics is a hyrbrid between aquaculture and hydroponics. They are pioneers in this area and Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power has been at this for 18 years. The farm is 3 acres smack in the middle of the city. It now has many sattilite farms all over the region that employs many people. Growing Power has a number of programs to help revitalize the inner city. 
Both Tim and I learned a lot in our weekend in Milwaukee. It gave us the skills to come home and start doing a similar thing here. Imagine being able to eat fish guilt free, knowing it was sustainably produced and not full of harmful chemicals. Tim has written about our experience at Growing Power and I have written about our own mini-aquaponics system here.Thursday, July 22, 2010
The 50 Percent Rule
Our little chicks from May hare growing into large, free-ranging, self-sufficient birds. The Copper Marans are actually better at foraging that our Chanteclers are it seems. They are also a bit more flighty than our Chanteclers, but I am hoping that will change over time. This batch of chicks is our second so things were different this time. Much of the obvious stuff is still interesting but not as novel. It has been interesting to see the difference between this batch of chicks and the Chanteclers from last year. The Marans seem flightier and much better at foraging than the Chanteclers. The hens seem to stick together a litle more and the roosters have become sexually active much earlier. When laying starts it will be great to see how the eggs develop. I have read that Marans are not good layers, so we shall wait and see. The one cliam to faim they do have is being the James Bond egg of choice.
Of course when you get straight-run or unsexed chicks the general rule of thumb is to expect 50% of them to be male. Our batch was no exception. Out of our 27 chickens, it appears that 13 of them are cockerel; last year we only had four males in our batch of 16 chicks. We will be keeping two of the cockerels for breeding and perhaps one of our farming friends will take another couple. Having extra cockerels is a good thing as we will have lots of free-ranged, organic, pastured chicken in the freezer for the winter. Out of the nine birds we will have for the freezer it appears we will have already sold a couple.
On another note we also tried to hatch some eggs this year. Knowing that we will need to replace our Chantecler hens in the next couple of years we thought it would be a good idea to try our hand at hatching. Almost 30 eggs were collected at different times. They had been selected for the best shape, colour, and shell quality. We bought a simple incubator and started the eggs. To make a long story short none of them hatched. Out of the 30 odd eggs only four were fertile and out of those four only two chicks were formed. I am not sure what happened to the four fertilized eggs. We even tried to hatch some eggs from the other cockerel we have under our silkie that went broodie. She also had no luck as the eggs were once again: infertile. This means we may well have to get a new cockerel for next year. If we replace our two current Chantecler cockerels that means we will be keeping them. We are going to try again in the autumn to have some point-of-lay hens for the spring. Let's hope one of the boys performs this time.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Gone but not forgotten - Moog
It is now official...Moog is gone. She has been gone almost a week and there is no sign of her. Last Wednesday she was in her pond for the day. I checked on her about six o'clock in the evening and she was fine. When I went back a couple of hours later she was gone. She had left a vague trail to follow by means of a broken catnip stem, and a hole that looks as though she would have laid eggs, but after that it went cold. A Moog hunt went on until 10:30pm or so until there was just no point any more. We have been looking for the last few days but still to no avail.
At least we know that her last final days will likely be spent in a pond two houses down with all the trappings of turtle heaven. Moog is a red-eared slider turtle and not native to here, which means he probably won't make it through the winter. At least her last days will be free and I am sure she will enjoy them. There is an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach about letting a non-native species out into the ecosystem. It wasn't deliberate, honest! We miss Moog terribly and are looking into getting another turtle that needs a home. If anyone out there has one let us know. We love you Moog, have a great life.Friday, July 16, 2010
Hedgerow Harvest
Dog walking can be more than just exercise! I remembered to take a container with me to collect the black raspberries on the trail. It is very exciting knowing that my jams this autumn will include foraged fruit! Soap berries are the next harvest!
Monday, July 12, 2010
California Becomes the First Cage-Free Egg State
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, has signed A.B. 1437, a bill backed by The HSUS that requires that starting in 2015 all shell (whole) eggs sold in California must cocaliforniachickensme from hens who were able to stand up, lie down, turn around, and fully extend their limbs without touching one another or the sides of an enclosure. In other words: California will become a cage-free state. More... Best buds: number 8
Most of what we do here revolves around being, useful, practical and functional. For us that also includes happiness and beauty. Cats figure into a large part of the happiness part. Barncat was a stray that someone had dumped earlier in the year. She was hanging around and looking quite skinny. She had been someone's pet as she didn't behave like a feral cat. She was befriended and we fixed her up.
It turned out that she just loves dogs and thought Beauty, our dog was going to be her best friend. The two now pal around together both inside and out. We had not planned on getting another cat, but she brings so much joy to our dog we just had to. Barncat is a great mouser to boot!Saturday, July 10, 2010
Pick an Organic Pepper
This is the first pepper of the season. Incredibly hot and humid weather for the past week along with yesterday's downpour has helped along the peppers. We haven't had much luck with peppers in the past, but hopefully this year will be better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)