Random farm news (from the last four months…!)

Garden

We finally planted most of our seeds and transplants over the last couple of weeks (mostly between the 10^th and the 20^th). This year was the latest we ever started planting! However, we know that our Lord will look after us, and he always gives a planting time and a harvest time. It did test our patience when it seemed this spring was even more extreme than the last two. We are glad that we are going with more trees, berry shrubs and other perennials which are more resilient and hardy in general.

However, our “fun” experimental trees didn’t fare too well this winter. We had long periods with little or no snow cover, which caused the frost to go deep. Our two figs died, and most of the pawpaw and persimmon trees. The fig trees normally had just been dying back to the roots and regrowing the next spring. However, this year their roots died as well. Even the hazelnuts, heartnuts and mulberries got some frost damage this winter though they are supposed to be winter-hardy here. Thankfully, most of these are making a comeback, though.

Our best-looking bushes at this time seem to be red and black currants, gooseberrries, sea buckthorn, elderberries, aronia berries, and Saskatoon berries. Some of these have grown over a foot already this spring! We hope to have a few of these berries at our farm market stand this summer.

Farm market stand

We are opening the farm stand this weekend. This year you can get our healthy snacks at the farm stand, as well as the usual soaps, free-range eggs, and flowers. The first vegetables won’t be ready for at least several more weeks.

Beef

We have some grass-fed beef available again, from our oldest cow. We don’t know her background, but for the last three and a half years she was raised on only pasture and hay with no grain or drugs. Old cows are less tender, so we made mostly ground and some stewing beef. However, the flavor is excellent! Be sure to try some.

We were hoping to get the soup bones, but since we didn’t specify that we wanted them back we were too late to get the ones that were from our own cow.

Calves

We bought two baby calves at the livestock auction which didn’t survive. It is a lot of stress for them to be taken from their mothers at a couple of days of age, then be trucked to the sale barn and all that. They almost always get sick a day or two after arrival.

We bought another pair of calves the next week, and tried more remedies this time. One of them did still end up dying after a day or two. However, the other one is happy and healthy, and is growing fast.

We’ve learned a lot of things now that we want to implement next time we buy baby calves. We plan to start giving them a homemade electrolyte mix right away when we get them, along with the probiotic mix, bentonite clay and DE we had been giving them with their milk.

Second, we will always try to keep them apart for the first week or so. We think we lost the healthiest one of the first pair because he was infected by the other one who was sick. The bottle will now always be washed between calves. This sanitation was what we believe saved the calf that we still have.

Finally, as soon as they do get scours (calf diarrhea) we will give them blackberry root tea, which is apparently an old-time recipe with sure results. We tried it with the last sick calf but we started too late, I guess. He was already quite sick when we began the treatment. Since so many people have had good success with blackberry tea when given as soon as the first signs appeared, we will definitely consider this an important treatment. Especially since we always have lots of wild blackberries around the farm.

Another calf complication!

Around the same time that we lost the first two calves Jesse found the calf from our Guernsey/Jersey cow had almost strangled himself. We normally tied him to a tree or stake for the night so we could have the milk in the morning. After milking he was released for the day so he could get what he needed (and then some). Anyway, he somehow got tangled in the rope and almost strangled himself overnight. We released him and covered him with a blanket since he seemed to be in shock. After an hour in the sun he revived, got up and walked around a bit. Since his leg had also been severely chafed, he was quite sore. Later he went over to his mother and finally broke his fast. We are very thankful that he survived. He was such a vigorous, young calf – it was hard to see him down and wonder if he was going to die.

His leg has gradually been healing, and it looks like he should be totally well again soon. Always lots of things that can happen when there are animals around..

Sawmill

The boys’ latest mechanical project: We bought an old home made band sawmill that the boys are restoring. We hope to start milling some lumber later this summer for building projects around the farm and for sale. At this point, the mill seems to be back in running condition – even the old engine, which Jesse has managed to get going after it had sat unused for a long while. Now we just need to set up the blade sharpener and we’ll be able to mill some trees into lumber. We have some windbreaks that need to be thinned somewhat, so that will yield our first logs.

Incubating

A friend gave us an incubator, so the boys of course wanted to try hatching some eggs. We have always wanted to try the French Canadian chicken breed called Chantecler, so we decided this is the time to start a flock of them. We got some Chantecler eggs and read all we could about incubation. The first batch of eggs did okay; about two-thirds of them hatched. We probably could have gotten a better hatch rate if we had kept the temperature more stable, but the original incubator was very finicky. We finally bought another used incubator with an automatic egg turner which is what we finished the hatch with.

Now, the first 22 chicks are happily eating, growing, and scratching. We should be able to get them out to pasture in a week or so. (At the moment, they are still in a corner of our living room!)

We just got a new batch of eggs on Saturday, which are now incubating. The “new” incubator is much easier to regulate and it has an automatic egg turner. This way we don’t have to open the incubator so it doesn’t cool off every time we need to turn the eggs.

Turkeys

The baby turkeys arrived from Ontario on Tuesday. It always seems like such an expensive package! They are happy to finally be home. And we’re happy to be able to give them the best life. It’s easier for us to give the turkeys a good environment, because we get them when it’s nice and warm, so they have no problems associated with cold.

Well, that’s some of what we have been busy with. Hopefully you won’t have to wait so long until the next update. However, I guess the long silence meant we were still busy! And since the rain appears to have stopped, I will leave off and get outside in the green world again.. see you soon.