Harvest time

We had an exciting farm first this week!



We sold our very first vegetable produce!
Just like doing other farm activities for the first time, we had to bumble along and figure things out, and of course make lots of mistakes. It was still quite exciting and definitely a step in the right direction for our little farm!

We sent off bunches of baby carrots, beets and turnips to our farming friends at Hope Farm who are running a CSA farm vegetable box. They put out a box every week to their customers with shares of their farm goodness and this week some of our produce was included!

It was pretty exciting to pick the veggies we have been planting and carefully tending all summer. When everything is underground its hard to have an idea what exactly is there.We started with the turnips and quickly discovered that they were not as pretty as they had previously looked. We pulled more and more and more trying to select the best ones. It looks like the wire worms got them pretty good. We have a lot of turnips and none have turned out the be sale-able. But know we know what we are up against and have a plan for next year.
Next we pulled beets. They varied quite a bit in size depending on where they were in the row, but they looked pretty delicious to us!
And last we pulled carrots. That was really fun! They were looking really good and it was exciting to see how much was down there! Crisp and juicy, bright colours and not a bad size. We still have lots left and a whole other row still coming up. Yum!




Thankfully this was not our very first time washing and packing produce. We have been very blessed to have Garry and Wendy from Twin Meadows Organics allowing us to visit their farm and learn from their experience! We were able to get a very good idea of how things should look and how washing and labeling and transporting looks, which is invaluable to us as we learn the ropes!



We are hoping to have a farm logo for ourselves this summer but for now we needed to label our produce with our name. We ended up using a picture my Mom had taken of our hayfield at sunrise (Thanks Mum!) and putting our name across it. It looked pretty good for a quick kitchen table label.

And off our produce went! Out into the world to hopefully be enjoyed!

We also took roughly half of our lettuce and a chunk of our kale to the food bank. Despite that, the lettuce rows are filling out again and I don't want it to bolt. We are eating salads everyday but still not able to make a scratch in how much we have. Its very nice to know that our abundance can enjoyed by others and I hope it can bless whoever receives it in the same way it blesses our family.





And here are some other farm pictures from the week:

It has been hot! Here are some pigs in the shade on a summer afternoon

I call this little guy Splash because his white marking looks like it has been splashed up his face. I liked the pig snout reflected in the mud in this picture

And a delicious load of apples courtesy of Marg's apple tree in Prince George. We are so thankful for the support of this community! They support our little farm by buying our eggs and meat, encouraging us, and even sharing wind blown fruit much to the enjoyment of our piggies!



The chicks have gone out of the kitchen. They are on (and loving) ant patrol in the yard.  Little farm girl can park herself by the hutch they are in and watch them for an hour. They are pretty comical in their pursuits to catch and keep the others away from their ant.

They get so much enjoyment out of taking dust baths. Almost makes me want to try just to see what the fuss is about...

And lastly, here is a picture I snuck of little farm girl sharing a secret with Charlie. Its not always an easy life, but it sure is a good life.

Watching things grow

This is a very fun time of year.
Matt remarked to me the other evening that we can practically watch the garden grow.

Potatoes!

We have some flea beetle enjoying our plants. As beginner gardeners we learning what we are up against in this venture

Here is an interesting observation regarding the quinoa. Its the stripe of green on the far left of the garden. Part of it is thick and green, the other part looks like it did last year: smaller, thinners and changing to bright colours. The area that looks good is where we had our garden last year. I believe it needs richer soil and it is only thriving in the area we have improved with compost over two years now.

But the garden isn't the only thing growing!

We moved our piggies with the trailer for the first time. This is something fairly important to us. The first year we raised pigs we didn't move them with the trailer until the day they went to butcher. What an ordeal, and the clock was ticking away! Finally, the last one we had to wrestle into the trailer, and with 220lbs of unwilling pig, it was not a fun time. Also, after months of loving on them and putting our hearts into raising them very best we can, who wants to take them to the butcher all stressed and worked up?
We have learned a lot since then, including the benefits of  pasturing them. We move them continually through the summer and each time we pop them in the trailer to move them. We don't have fancy chutes to load them, so really we are relying on their desire to load themselves. We try to make it a very rewarding experience and the first try kind of sets you up for future loading. 



This turned out to be a perfect first loading. A couple even followed little farm girl into the trailer before I had brought all the goodies out.
They are drowning in grass once again in their new spot and loving it!

Speaking of drowning in grass...

We had an interesting chicken moving experience.



We generally just take down all the chicken fencing, which is a predator proof electric poultry netting, and move the camper and set up over. Then we reset the fence and herd the chickens who didn't follow back in. We didn't realize quite how quickly the grass in the hay field was growing and about two minutes after letting the chickens out, they were completely gone! There was just rustling grass here and there and the occasional head popping up in a sparse area. We had to go all over gathering lost and wayward chickens. As we finished there was a suspicious rustling less than ten feet away, and sure enough, one last chicken! Now I remember why over last summer we used to move them in the evenings after their curfew!

 Here are some pictures from around the farm this week.

A gorgeous morning butterfly

I wish I could decorate my house as nice as the beauty we find outside...

Not to attract from the lilac, but notice how one flower at the very top only has three petals?

A squirrel came onto the deck during breakfast. Its was Tonka's delight to make it very unwelcome. She is still watching for it!

Love these colours!

Beep out hunting ants. No improvement to his leg but he is getting very agile by compensating in various ways.

Note little farm girls "chick purse". Its a little bag with an open top that beep rides in to his various bug catching destinations.

We fenced an area to til and plant green manures. It will be our garden expansion for next year. Right now I have horses eating down the grass. We were hoping to run pigs and let them weed it next but they are still too little to make quick work of it.



The garden is my favorite spot right now. Sun and warmth, good things growing, horses munching and chickens scratching.

And off all the good things we are growing, here are the most important ones!

I love sharing my days with these little farmers!

Dirt Rich

We had a busy and productive weekend last weekend. And fun of course too!



We started by picking up a few weaned piglets from a local farm to add to our little Berkshire herd. They are a week younger and a little bit smaller, but they are incredibly tough little things. I introduced them and they immediately proceeded to scrap with and dominate each of our little berkie piglets. After the first hour together, the black piglets would make a wide berth around the pink pigs, and even now there is little doubt about who is in charge in the pig pen.





They are so much fun. Our chores take twice as long because we end up sitting and just enjoying their rambunctious play and curiosity.




The next long weekend order of business was adding some good old dirt to the garden. That is something we are not in short supple of! We imagine this used to be a manure pile many, many years ago. Its a big pile of rich dark dirt. I know Matt is getting into a farming mindset because this weekend he refered to it as our "gold mine."



We had planned to rent a dump trailer and get all our dirt piled and moved, and do all our winter manure into compost piles at the same time. Turned out the dump trailer from the rental place had broke this weekend. We decided to use the pick up truck and unload by shovel. After the first load we looked at each other and remarked that this was going to be a lot more work than we had planned. But, we decided that if this farm fails, it certainly won't be because we were afraid to sweat. So sweat we did...

I parked the happy little farmers on a picnic blanket and load by load we made progress.

Little farm girl found her first toad of the summer. He spent his afternoon being ferried back in forth in the truck and being thoroughly loved and talked to. He was a good sport about it, but seemed to be happy to hop away once evening fell.

We wanted a good three or four inches deep and it took a lot of loads

As I unloaded the last load as Matt started to till it in

And now the garden is ready! I was hoping to have a good start at planting and seeding it too but little farm boy is teething and he needs me right now, and he is a little more important!



Here was another project of mine. I couldn't believe the terrible job I did hot lining this last year and I had to refence it all to get our sows out. I was showing Matt how ridiculous it was and he said something that really encouraged me. I was crawling around pulling insulators and rewiring and kicking myself the whole time and he came and just said " last year you were learning, now you know." Its true and its wonderful to be gaining experience even though we have to learn the hard way sometimes. If we waited until we knew exactly what we were doing with everything, nothing would ever get done!

Happy sow

Over the long weekend we also did our "Pig Haying". We bought about 4500 lbs of pig feed and moved it with 5 gallon pails to where we want it stored over the summer. Like haying, its big job, and like haying, once you do it you are stored up and set for a good chunk of time.



There is lots more fencing on our agenda too. The posts here are rotten to the point of not touching the ground in lots of places. In this spot the whole business came down under the snow.

We also moved all our various piles of hay, bedding and manure to make into compost.



We moistened it as we unloaded, and alternated between loads of our various compostable materials. Its a good sized pile already which is exciting!

And another adventure in progress. Last year we didn't get any chicks from our incubating attempts so I am not going to count my chickens...
We have a flock of our favourite hens in the barn with the rooster to collect fertile eggs from. I will candle over the coming weekend and we will see how things are progressing.



And it hasn't been all work and no play. We had guests this week all the way from Ontario! We very much enjoyed the company of Uncle Joe and Aunt Margaret and they brought us some special treats. Here are our treasured, handmade Nana socks all the way from the other side of the country!



And lastly, I accidentally broke some eggs yesterday. The one on the left is a fertile one from the chickens tucked in the barn, the other is from our pastured layers who are out on grass. I was amazed to see the colour difference! Even the whites from the pastured egg are golden!

And for those who are curious of how to tell if an egg is fertile. Each egg has a circular dot on the yolk called the blastoderm. Its pretty obvious on the golden yolk.
If you can make the picture bigger, the blastoderm on the yellow yolk is at about 8:00 on the circle
If its just a circular dot, like on the golden one, its not fertile.
If its looks like a bulls eye, which you can vaguely make out on the golden one if you expand the picture, its fertile.
I guess that is your farm fact of the day!

Spring Time Update

Things have been crazy busy around here. We have had a stretch of amazing weather recently and we have just crammed it full of spring time activity.
I was walking around yesterday thinking there is pretty much work to do on every square inch of the property! This has been a good lesson in priorities for us!

Anyway, this is what we have been investing our time in this week.



This week was little Farm Girls birthday! She requested a piggy theme for her birthday party and this was the cake that we made. I used the Quinoa cake recipe again. You honestly can't tell that its made with quinoa so everyone can enjoy it.
I told her she could pick any meal to have for her birthday dinner and the only thing she wanted to eat was eggs with meat from her "best pig, Scritchers." I had just run out of our usual cuts but I didn't want to disappoint so she ended up having pork jowl for her birthday dinner...

One of the piglets, nicknamed Popcorn because she pops and leaps, made a guest appearance at the birthday party. Unfortunately she was a bit of a party pooper.

And this week we had a farm visitor/ farm hand. My friend Stephanie stayed with us. We had a lot of fun together and I also put her right to work! Here she is enjoying a puddle in the hay field.

This is what I have been enjoying. The riding ring is dry and the horses are getting lots of work all of the sudden! Little farm girl got a riding crop for her birthday and has been delighted to try it out. Tex still is not keen to get moving, even with a crop tapping on him. It frustrates little farm girl, but I figure its a problem that I am happy to have!

I have been playing a lot with little filly. I did some work with her the other day and figured out exactly where she is at and where I would like to go with her next. She has a great attitude and lots of random skills from over the winter, now she just needs the important things! I have discovered that if I get up around 6:00 in the morning, I get a bit of time to myself to work with the horses. But, with little Farm Boys usual 4+ wakings during the night, it has made me into a bit more of a zombie than usual. I am not sure how often I can keep it up and still form complete sentences.

I have been having way too much fun with the three ponies. I line them all up and work them as a trio. Its a pretty cool feeling to have three moving in unison! Tex and Charlie remember everything from last year and are keen to work. The first time I did it, little filly was in the middle and she was licking and chewing with her lips for like ten minutes straight. Generally when horse do that they are digesting a thought. It must have given her a lot to think about! I have had some excellent moments with all of them working together, but if the center horse slacks off I can't seem to cue it back into action without disturbing the horses on the outside. Its got me a little frazzled, but I betcha I can figure it out by the end of the summer!



And we finally invested in a purchase that has been on our list for a long time. We would like to eventually work out a no till system, but for now while we are learning and breaking ground, we are going to use this.



This has been keeping me busy. Our lawn is very weedy and an increasing portion of it is just hawkweed and bare dirt. The soil needs a lot of work in itself, so before my garden leaps into action and while manure is still very scoopable behind the hay barn, I am spreading some into the lawn.



This was an experiment last year. We pastured chickens on the lawn in one of the worst spots to see what the effect would be. There was not the difference that we had hoped for, but as you can see in this picture (right in the center, towards the bottom) there is a circle of grass that has shot up through the hawkweed and is nice and green. This was the spot right behind the camper where the chicken impact was the heaviest. Maybe if we can get our soil a little better as a whole it will be able to compete a little better. Its all a learning experience...



Seeds coming up. This picture is of the broccoli, or maybe the cabbage. Its exciting to watch them grow!



These little critters are 4 weeks old now. Commercial pig operations usually wean at about 10 days old! Both our sows have small litters so they are not being drained by the nursing. I think we will watch the sows and how they feel about the matter. I notice this sow lying on her belly a little more, and when she gets up she will get a bunch of little piranhas on her belly. I would like to be able to put the sows back together when we wean so I think we will wait another week so the other litter hits this age too.



They are starting to think of me as the goodies lady!





If the pigs don't finish their grain overnight, we give whats left in the morning to the chickens. I will sprinkle it in a rows and jokingly say I have swath grazed the chickens. I didn't bring any this morning, but they were all hopeful.



Here is our garden plot, awaiting the weather to warm a little bit more. Its was below freezing last night here again. The front right quarter was last years garden. All the rest was pig rototilled last fall and they did an excellent job of clearing the sod. We are going to till compost in next and make some raised beds again by hand.

And here are my lilac leaves ready to join the world. I am loving spring time!