This little movie a is a great insight into being a tree, not to mention the great animation too!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
First Maran Egg!
Today we received the first egg from our Copper Maran hens. It is smaller than the older Chantecler eggs, but that is normal for the first few eggs from all breeds.
This is good as some of our Chanteclers are molting and not laying.Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Introducing Thomas, the ram
This year in many ways has been pivotal. We have added to our chicken flock, had our own homegrown chicks, and brought some animals to slaughter, with more to go soon (damned roosters)! A full life cycle has taken place here. We really didn't know how we would react to all of this birthing and dying. At times it has been traumatic (Mr. Tufts) but also fulfilling (our first lamb roast). All in all we feel that we want to continue raising animals for more than pets.
Of course this means that we had to think about how we were going to have more lambs and chicks. Well, we kind of have the chick thing covered, but the having more lambs is a more complicated thing. It seems that loaner rams are not common here, and likely they are not as common in England as they once were either. this is due to transmitting diseases between farms, not something that anyone really wants to do. So, we took the plunge an got a ram. Because our ewes are of small stature we had to make sure we did get a small breed. Of course a Shetland ram is the logical choice, so that is what we looked for. Of course we had determined what kind of animal we needed: white, male, good fleece. Luckily we managed to find the perfect ram at the right (a.k.a. as low as possible)price down near Sarnia. Tammy has been breeding Shetland's for a number of years and wanted to reduce her flock. She had a ram available that suited our needs perfectly. So we looked at Thomas and decided he was the one for our girls. Unfortunately his original home had cut his horns before they had fully turned outward so he has a few maintenance issues that we need to address. But other than that he is very good and gentle with the girls. We had Tammy deliver Thomas here as we didn't think our hatchback was a good way to bring him home. S far everything is going great and he has settled in beautifully. We have noticed that the girls are no longer afraid to go to the end of the pasture the way they were when there was just the two of them. Now we just hope he is going to do his ramly duties!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Chick update
Earlier in the year we tried to hatch two lots of chicks from our Chanteclers. None of them hatched and only a fraction were fertile at all. It was really disappointing as we were hoping for another batch of chickens. We tried one last time before winter. Once again we didn't think that any would hatch. They did. We didn't try many as the Silkies can only handle so many eggs. to our surprise four out of five eggs hatched. ONe was a Maran influenced egg as it looks like a Maran chick. I am curious to see how it develops. All of the chicks are still with their two Mums. It is a different ball-game to have mother hens looking after the chicks. The hens are really taking care of their chicks. It is so cute to watch the chicks run around with the Mums calling them back, jumping up onto Mum's back and burrowing into their feathers to stay warm. We still have a heat lamp in there, but it isn't nearly so much of a concern. Also they are already going outside during the day. If they chicks get cold Mum will warm them underneath her. I highly recommend hatching chicks with a Mum hen! We may only have another two hens from our flock, but they will truly be All Sorts Acre hens!
Are kids here much different?
British children are increasingly out of touch with the natural world, demonstrating an alarming lack of knowledge when it comes to the seasons and indigenous plants and animals. That is the verdict of a compelling new study, which highlights a ‘closeted generation' for whom outdoor activities such as climbing trees, camping and going on country walks are fast becoming a thing of the past.
The survey of 2,000 children aged eight to 12 years was specially commissioned by TV channel Eden to celebrate the launch of the Eden Inspires campaign, which aims to re-engage children with nature. The study asked a series of questions relating to the natural environment and the results provide an insight into a generation of youngsters who demonstrate a worrying knowledge-gap when it comes to the natural world. MORE
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
10 Resilient Ideas
As the planet heat ups, oil becomes increasingly hard to reach, and the global economy continues to plummet, individuals and communities are faced with an uncertain future. The Fall 2010 issue of YES! Magazine showcases communities that are improvising new ways of living in an unpredictable world.
Here are 10 creative ways to build resilience for what's ahead.
A Hand-Built Home: No fortune? No skills? No problem. How a novice builder used mud–and teamwork–to make a house from scratch.
Return of the Mercantile: How a small town in Wyoming replaced a dying downtown with a community-owned shopping hub.
Beekeeping On City Rooftops: Urban hives allow landless city dwellers to create their own honey–and may even provide solutions to colony collapse.
Reclaim, Repair, Rebuild: How the rebuilding boom improves communities, benefits the environment, and even creates jobs.Making Fruit Public:Art-infused activism to bring city fruit to the public..
Get Off The Grid: A pioneering town in Germany pulls off clean, reliable energy with stable prices.
Sunshine on the Menu: Come for the food, stay for the art at New York City's first solar-powered restaurant.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Deer and Murder at the Sit Spot
Part of the teaching in both Kamana Naturalist Training and the Coyote's Guide to the Art of Mentoring is having a Sit Spot. A Sit Spot is literally that, a place you sit out in nature somewhere and notice. It isn't about knowing the names of everything, just noticing with all your senses what is going on. Ideally a Sit Spot should be visited regularly throughout the seasons. The longer the period of time you are at one Sit Spot, the more you get to know the place and the place gets to know you. 
So I, Jennifer, have found my Sit Spot. It is in the riparian part of another field behind the soybean field behind our land. It may sound like a long way, but it is only perhaps 300' away from our pasture. This field is an overgrown, lush, place with swaying goldenrod and a trembling aspen grove that has lost almost all of its leaves at this time of year. At the south-easternly edge there is a cedar wetland full of overturned trees and ribcages of tree trunks that have been lost to the water. There is a fair bit of old farm detritus around, but right now it is hidden by the long grass and field peas.
The exact place of my Sit Spot is almost in the middle of this riparian field. Creeping through the middle of the field is an aspen grove that keeps expanding. Dotted around the edges of the grove are some stray black walnut trees let over from some squirrel's summer harvest. My tree is between the cedar marsh and the aspen grove. It is a comfortable spot that I can look out over a large area but remain what feels slightly hidden from others.
Often our dog Beauty and I go this route and in the past have stopped and looked around. She was with me today as well. Having a dog along is not necessarily great when you want to sit quietly and look, listen, and feel, but if I pet her constantly she will settle and be good. Having her along on this day was good as she was the one who directed me to my tree. I thank her for that as I am not sure I would have seen it.
We sat under our tree Beauty and I. She panted long and hard as she had just had a great sniff though the undergrowth. Her bell was pulsing to her panting so I turned it arund onto her back to muffle the sound. Off in the distance over the cedar marsh we heard a loud raucous racket. In the distance were a murder of crows flying around and around over the trees. Some would fly, caw constantly then land, and it seemed another group of crows would pick up where they left off. Around and around the crows went. Beauty thought this was quite fascinating. The wind started to pick up and every now and then I could feel a mist of rain through the walnut above me. Some inquisitive chickadees came a little closer, and one almost flew overhead. They didn't make much noise.
A group of crows is called a murder and this murder was moving closer. Slowly the crows all circled closer and closer. Suddenly they all took to the air and let loose their yells all at once. The sky seemed darker, more shrouded for a moment. Almost as quickly as they all exploded the crows settled down again. They had made their point and were satisfied for the night. A suitable roost had been found. A small bird then landed on a dead cedar tree at the edge of the marsh. Maybe it was a chickadee, I couldn't tell. It perched their for a moment, looked around then flew off into the brush beneath it.
the wet mist was now turing into small drops so I thought it was time to go. I wasn't really dressed for rain and I had chores to do at home. So we continued on our usual walking route. When crossing from one field to another we had a little detour to look for a couple of sticks. Beauty was very quite. As we were turning the corner away from the marsh, I heard a swishing in the bush in front and to the right of us. I really didn't know what it was so I stopped and made Beauty sit. In a brown and white flash a deer exploded out of the bush and through the soybean field. Even Beauty was surprised as she didn't move while the deer passed by. Once she realized what happened she bolted. She didn't get very far as her lead was on and it was short. We then went home to do chores.
I have to say, my first Sit Spot experience was pretty amazing!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
New seed swap and buy website
Last week we recieved an e-mail from our contact form. Now half the time these are just a form of people generated spam, but we do get some good ones too. Anna-Monique send a really good e-mail. She and her family started a website called Seed Living (seedliving.ca). It is a swap, buy site for anyone that produces open-pollinated seeds. So really small farmers and gardeners can actually distribute their seeds in an economical fashion. It is almost like Etsy for gardeners.
It is a pay what you can site so everyone can have access to good, open pollinated seeds. We are thrilled about this because this year we actually made an effort to save some seeds. Not many mind you, but some and we have far too many to plant on our own. No-one should eat that much cabbage!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Our first chicks!
We have had our first homegrown chicks hatch today. So far we have three happy and healthy chicks. Hall and Oates have been co-sitting on the eggs. They seem to be quite happy to share the responsibility of being a Mum. I have just helped a fourth chick out of it's shell which it had cracked open a few hours ago. The brooder coop is all set up and ready to be home for a while. This is so exciting!
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Big Dig
This past season we have had some successes and some no so successes. One of our no-so-successes has been our nightshades. Namely our tomatoes and potatoes, our eggplants seem to be okay but we don't have a lot. Like last year our tomato and potato plants got late blight. This is a nasty "water mold" that makes the plants turn brown and shrivel up. The fruits or tubers do the same thing so they have to be picked before they are affected. This year the tomatoes were really ad and fast. Our potatoes have not been quite so affected, but we thought it best not to take any chances. Despite having to harvest early, we seem to have enough potatoes until next season. We both estimated that the full trug would be around 60-70 pounds. 
So out I, Jennifer went to finish digging up the potatoes. There is something magical about digging up potatoes. Knowing that this one small slightly squishy, wrinkly, and multi-legged lump of starch that made it through the winter can become a mound of beautiful, delicious, healthy and long lasting potatoes is much like a caterpillar to butterfly to me. I love the anticipation of finding out how many potatoes I am going to find, like partaking on an archeological dig again and again.
Now we only have the equivalent of around 70' of potatoes, but when there is a ton of mulch over them it can get tiring. This year was a bit of an experiment (code for can't quite remember what was done in the first place) as there were three different types of potatoes in the same bed. There were also some planted in parts of the forest gardens...the extras that didn't fit into the beds. All together I think there were five different varieties.
The first big job was to move the wilted and withered old hay that we had used as mulch. this job was somewhat sad because a nice little world had been created. there were pill bugs, wood lice, ants, millipedes, centipedes, earwigs, slugs, and many, many spiders both on top and below the mulch. On my digging journey I did discover that some voles had had some dinner parties featuring my potatoes as the main course. There was one handsome fellow among the mulch. He was special, I could tell by his house. Mr. Grass Spider had built an impressive home in the nooks and crannies of the mulch. Another, less sophisticated Grass Spider had made a home not too far away, but it was not nearly as nice as the fellow's house below. I did make sure to give them a shake to let them know that danger was on it's way.
There is a lot to know about growing potatoes and I know barely any of it. I would have never thought that different varieties would behave so differently. this is my own ignorance, because I know how different tomatoes can be. By harvesting all the rest of the potatoes I have learned a few things about what I wanted in a potato that I had never even known!
length of time to maturity: it was really interesting to see which potatoes had a lot of tubers on them and which didn't. The blue ones did better than a heritage variety which averaged two tubers per plant; barely enough to make it worth planting. The winner had several good sized tubers on each plant even now, a month earlier than I would have normally harvested.
depth of tubers: some of the plants required me to dig quite deep to get at the tubers. the worst for this was the blue ones. The best were almost at the surface of the soil but stayed beneath the mulch.
distance of new tubers from original tuber: having to dig around in the soil a foot from the original plant is a bit of a pain. Having the tubers close together reduces the risk of putting a tine through a spud and pointless digging to try and fins that one last starchy lump. The best plants literally had all the new potatoes all clumped together so digging was really easy and satisfying.
After I had dug up all the potatoes it seemed like a good time to just wander around the gardens. This is probably one of my favourite activities. Great joy comes from just wandering too see what has changed in a small space. Sometimes I am just amazed at how fast a community can change. One my travels through the garden a garter snake made her presence known. She wasn't that large so I suspect that she may have been one of this years young ones. I had seen one last year, but was not sure if any were still around, now I know. I guess our big rock is a good hibernaculum. While inspecting the heavy and healthy climbing cucumbers I narrowly missed stepping on a leopard frog hiding from the sun's heat under a cucumber leaf.
After collecting all the potatoes, cucumbers, beans, and whatever else I could find that needed to be picked I headed back up to the house to sort and cure the potatoes. Looking into the trug, I saw there were a good number of potatoes of various sizes.We managed to finish off the voles leftovers.
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