It seems all we do is talk about fences, pastures, herb gardens, temperature fluctuations, rain and no rain, mud, thrush, eggs, ducks behaving badly. I picked G up at the airport last night and we had a few hours of daylight left on the farm, but instead of going to see all of his animals all he wanted to do was walk the pastures, check out the flooding from this week's crazy monsoon, and see how much the garden and greenhouse plants had progressed. He fed me a hop sprout that tastes like green beans! Apparently you can harvest hop sprouts and cook them...sort of like asparagus but definitely green bean taste. Speaking of asparagus, ours are starting to come up!
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| Winston napping in the sun while Oakley stands guard. |
Saturday we went and picked up this 275 gallon tote. It's food grade and held soy sauce so we can definitely use them to water food crops and fill the duck pool.
We have a deep well so I'm not too worried about it drying up, but I've always wanted to collect rain water since it seems a shame to waste any of it. Also certain parts of our property are less convenient to run hoses to, so a strategically placed cistern sure could save time!
I'm keen to grow a medicinal herb garden, and we're figuring where the best spots are. We have good ideas now about what gets sun, what doesn't, what gets way too much, and where the chooks are likely to wreak havoc if we don't fence them out.
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| Slowly coming back to life...The garlic in the foreground is doing well. Five kale plants survived the winter under the hoops, and the walking oignons did as well! G ultra mulched the paths to try to keep the weeds down. Although I do need to let some plantain grow, since it's an amazing medicinal plant and can help me when I get careless and forget to wear gloves around stinging nettles. |
Our tomatoes are doing well under grow lights in the basement, and on nice days I bring them out to the greenhouse for some warmth and real light. I'm still waiting to see how much will grow in the backyard paddock, where I overseeded with a pasture mix, by hand, followed by the Flan crew. Unfortunately dock, stinging nettle and thistles are growing like crazy already.
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| 'Backyard paddock' pretty chewed up by the horses already. It's sort of a sacrificial pasture while we wait for the others to grow. It doesn't have a deep sod layer so has little protection from heavy beasts with sharp hooves. On the plus side that means there is a lot of exposed soil for seeding. |
The sheep haven't been enjoying the wet weather. On several occasions I've seen them shivering, and most nights they've dug deep nests for themselves in their bedding. Henry is still lame, and in Oakley's stall all by himself. It's so hard to hear him calling and crying so much. Glenn finally went to spend time with him last night.
Our lovely broody Tank Duck managed to hatch out one beautiful little duckling!
I pulled the rest of the eggs yesterday, after letting her sit on the rest for a week. Last night we moved her and the little one to the 'Barn Tractor' where she proceded to freak out, climb the hardware cloth with her amazing clawed web feet, and freak out little 'Oopsie' (duckling). It was getting dark so I put my LED lantern in the enclosed part of the hut so she wouldn't be afraid to go in there and go to sleep. It worked! But she's still trying to escape today.
It appears she's already forgotten how Bossy Drake attacked her as soon as she left the other coop to follow the sounds of the peeping duckling I'd just stolen from her...It wasn't pretty--I screeched at G to intervene, so he did. Tank broke free then started towards me and the duckling. I asked G to restrain Bossy since he needed his claws cut anyway, but he managed to escape from G (Muscovy males are STRONG).
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Last weekend before G left for his trip to Ontario we finally had a bonfire. Best enjoy these frog song filled nights before the bugs come...He'd had it roaring for quite a while--great coals starting to heat up the rocks around the fire, still some light from the sunset. All of a sudden a little meadow vole poked her head out of the straw bale next to us. She watched us for a while, hopped out a few feet and started eating grass, holding with her little hands like a hamster. She spooked when G threw her a corn chip, and retreated to her little tunnel. We carried on chatting and enjoying the view of our fields and then realized she was watching us again. Then she did something very odd...She hopped across the grass, right under my legs, and scurried between the warm rocks under our feet. Can't blame her really. It was a cold evening, and we mammals have to stick together!
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