WWOOFers

We have had two sets of visitors on the farm in the last two weeks, and of course we put them right to work!

There is a term they use on Organic farms for people who stay and work for their accommodations. Wwoofers, which stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.

I think some of our guests may need a little vacation to recover from their time here!

Our first wwoofers were my family.
They came up to share the celebration of little farm boy's first birthday. It was a wonderful time of visiting, eating farm food and of course putting our guests to work!

We were able to eat most of our meals just from farm food.

Matt and my Dad pulled out the greenhouse and did the preliminary planning.

We also all went to the BCNE together. It was a lot of fun, but Matt's favourite part was finding this farm sign!

A few days after my Parents and Sister left the farm, Matt's parents came and also brought along Matt's cousin all the way from Manitoba. They stayed for a whole week and together we got a ton of work accomplished!



Its not quite finished but I am sure you can get an idea of what we are hoping to have built before winter.

After much planning, they laid everything out and drilled holes.

Then they showed off their juggling skills and put down sauna tubes.

 

The pigs watched from their jungle

Then they made concrete and cemented in the foundation poles.

Then they made a weight bearing center wall to help with our crazy snow load

Little farm girl drilled the final post.

Us girls, beside cooking up lots of farm food, completely reorganized the tackroom and also revamped the raspberry patch.

The tackroom was a big job! I wish I had a before picture because you couldn't even walk through it! It looks amazing now!



We had a little extra concrete after setting the posts for the greenhouse so we made a step for the door of the tack room.



The raspberries crop this year was very dismal. They needed a lot of work! Matt and I had drilled posts to expand the rows but they needed some serious weeding and thinning.



Matt's Mom and I spent a lot of time working on them. It felt like crawling through a jungle but slowly, bit by bit and cane by cane, we were able to regain some order!



We also took a walk around Ferguson Lake. It was just the right time to see all the tiny toads hopping everywhere!



You may have to look closely, but you can get an idea of what some of the paths looked like. Little toads everywhere!



And of course we load up our wwoofers with farm fresh veggies before they leave!

Besides those big jobs, we have been busy with the usual farm activities:



Harvesting, washing and sorting veggies to be included in Hope farms weekly CSA box share!

Its not too much work because we use child labour...

"Gorger" and I making a farm invoice

Little farm girl measuring pigs

Pigs hard at work dismantling the log pile

Brothers playing on the logs

Can you find the hog in the logs?

Rosie bedded down for a nap

Little farm girl found her first snake

She was pretty thrilled and named it Tangle

The chicks have the run of the yard during the day. They get into everything and I have to frequently shoo them out of the shop. They really liven up the yard and I think I will miss them when they join the laying flock.

One of the best parts of summer: A quick trip to the freezer and garden...

and a bit of BBQ work. I don't think we have eaten this well in our lives!

Pigs in mud

Once again, I don't have the time to share the little observations and moments that make farm life such a pleasure.

You can rest assured that despite my lack of blogging work, we are building plenty of calluses, muscles, and of course, wonderful memories!

I have some pictures to share of our pigs cooling in the mud on a hot summery day, but first I will share some of the things that are keeping us busy around here.



Little Farm Girl and I are experimenting with saving White Clover seed to be planted for pig foraging. The pigs love it and its usually the first thing they rip out and eat when we move them to a new area. White clover is high in protein and will actually fix nitrogen into the soil, so if we can save a bunch while its going to seed its a farming win-win. Its pretty easy to do but we will still have to actually plant it to know if we are actually successful.



We actually caught up on a lot the the usual work around here (for probably the first time!) so Matt was able to pull out the five year To Do List. Taking down the dead trees that have entangled the power lines was pretty high on the list so away we went. We actually cleared the whole fence line of trees and cleaned up all the poplars that were encroaching.



Here is Matt using the chipper to chip the trees into the box of the truck. Buying the chipper was probably our biggest farming mistake when we moved here. We have these huge burn piles in our fields and because we are in city limits we cannot burn them. Removing them is a huge expense. We planned to rent a chipper but for the amount of time we would need it to get it all chipped we discovered we could purchase our own for that price. We bought the chipper and set to work only to discover that the burn piles are only chip-able on the very top layer. But the good news is we can chip all of our fence lines and as we compost it, it should be a great addition to our garden.

Front field cleaned up. It was a lot more work than it looks like!

We piled 4 pick up box loads on the left. The chips on the right are composting well from last year, but the more rotten we can get them, the better. So they may sit for another year or two.

This was disappointing for me. This whole row of lettuce was supposed to go to the food bank this week but it bolted. They leaves are quite bitter now. A learning experience for me on veggie readiness and timing I guess...

The pigs are eating it, along with our bug chewed turnips. Pigs and gardening are a complementary combination

Salad and Carrot tops, yummy!

Carrots harvested for Hope Farm's CSA boxes, and our own eating of course!



These horses make me feel alive. Even a little bareback ride, just quickly stolen as the sun is going down. I don't know why it is, but I imagine its a God given passion. Climbing up on their familiar backs feels like a hug from a friend or putting of a favourite pair of jeans. I can't explain it, but I can sure enjoy it!



And as promised, pigs in the mud.
This is kind of how the summer feels to me. We have jumped in to farm life whole heartedly without reservations, kind of like pigs in mud. Every day we immerse ourselves in the work, the joy and sometimes the difficulties that come with farm life. I love it in the morning when I can put on my baggy, torn up farm clothes. Its like permission to dive into farm life. Climbing through barb wire in search of the biggie toad, curious snuffles from dirty pig snouts, trimming horses with a rugged hoof placed on my knee, and best of all kisses and hugs from tiny hands that have just learned to pick and mash raspberries. The summer here is short and you can bet we are not going to tip-toe around it.

I liked the contrast between Popcorn`s grubby snout and little farm girls decorated nails

They are so hard to get pictures of because they don`t give much in the way of personal space, especially if they know that you are a willing back scratcher!

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.