Blog

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Lambs out and about

Luckily we have had a great lambing season. Tim had his first opportunity to assist in lambing, I had a run in with our ram, but all in all it has been good. The entire flock is out and about on grass for the first week. Our eldest lamb, Friday, is just about weaned, but still enjoys an occasional suckle form his Mum, Hermoine. Friday seems to be getting the shove from Mum Izzy, as when he tries to suckle he is pushed away most of the time. Our youngest boy, Dick, is still faithfully going up to Mum Ewenice for a drink. Ewenice is such an attentive Mum, as she always lets him.

We have an abundance of wool that will be processed over the summer. It is amazing how much wool comes off of one animal. What is even more amazing is that the wool grows so fast. In only a couple of months the adults have visible wool growth.

The one down side of lambing is that we can't keep them all. Friday is already sold and will be going to his new home in the next couple of weeks. Wednesday has a new home as well. Dick is the odd man out so to speak. Really we don't want to keep him except for breeding, but we don't have enough room for two rams. We may sell him on as well. Dick is a unique little guy. His shetland/babydoll southdown/horned dorset breeding brings some very interesting genetics into a flock.

Here are pictures of our lambs.

 

 

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Eat Your Lawn?

Only if it has something more interesting in it than grass.

Come and join Alexis Burnett of Earth Tracks Wilderness School for a day of foraging, fun, and of course eating!

Location: All Sorts Acre, 10-3pm, May 26, 2012
Cost:$50

This one-day workshop will focus on learning about some of the many edible plants that are found during the spring. After a long winter it is the vitamins and minerals contained in these plants that our bodies need and crave.

We will focus on learning about many of the edible plants in our area and gain hands on experience in the process.

This class will cover how to identify both edible and poisonous plants in the field, ethical wild crafting, and proper harvesting/preparation techniques. If you have an interest in learning to forage for wild edible plants, then this workshop is for you.

Instructor: Alexis Burnett of Earthtracks

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Penetanguishene is an amazing town!

 Okay, well the entire area is pretty cool. Last weekend I had the privilege to teach a Practical Intro to permaculture course in the beautiful town of Penetanguishene. I am so grateful to Erin, Sylvie, and Jenn at the Karma Marketplace and 100 Mile Huronia. They all did a wonderful job at getting the word out, helping me through the weekend, and providing great company as well. Oh, and I can't forget to thank them for putting me up for the weekend!

The workshop took place in the Ecology garden in Penetanguishene. It's story is inspiring. In y a few short years the Ecology gardens has become a hub of agriculture, and now permaculture activity in the area. There are many rented garden plots as well as some plots that are used in the community. Many more plans for community and social enterprises are in the works at the gardens as well. It was very exciting being there. All 14 participants were eager and braved the cool winds and soggy ground. Much needed rain had arrived the day before. By the afternoon we were all hot and enjoying being outside in the sun.

Everyone came with a different experience of permaculture and a wealth of knowledge in their area of expertise. I was really blown away with the knowledge and innovation that came to the workshop. We had a great time all learning from each other during the games and lunch. the overwhelming favourite activity though was by far the sit spot time. People enjoyed learning how to begin wholistic observation.

During lunch everyone took notes of the books that looked interesting. Taking a mini-library was more than worth it! The afternoon was a little more low-key. We had covered a lot of ground in the morning. We focused more on guilds, and relationships. The final section was a practical.

Throughout the day we had to be mindful of the killdeer family that had made the garden their home. She sat on the eggs most of the afternoon while he stayed close by to try and ward off any potential threats to his eggs.

I just wish I could have seen everyone's gardens both indoor and outdoor. Yes, one participant had what sounded like an AMAZING indoor garden. Thanks everyone. I can't wait to do the next one!

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Summertime and the Living is Busy

Our chicken coop renovation is partially finished. The set-up we had for the chickens to get in and out of the barn was a bit silly. We had to move a door and put a chiar braced with wood at the gate so the sheep couldn't get in. Mr. Tufts really liked to test the chair. there was only one way to get it to stay. This was not a good set-up if we ever wanted to have a house sitter or even our wonderful neighbour bring tha animals in. (She did understand the set-up though and bless her, she mastered it!) We neede a better door for the chickens. On Sunday we spent the day building a chicken "stoma" in the old window. It now as a door with a latch and a ladder both in and out. It was perfect...to us. getting the chickens to use it was another story. the first night they just didn't get it. the next morning I had to put everyone out the door by  hand. That night, after some modifications they actually went in it on their own, with a lot of scratch to help them along. At least we now have an easy way to let the chickens in and out. next is fixing the flor and building the nest boxes. We should start getting eggs in just over a month. We can't wait as then I can start some of the art projects I want to! Our pot potatoes are finally flowering. we have been waiting a long time for this. These are blue potatoes, blue all the way through. We saved them from last years CSA diligently as I knew we would never get around to ordering any seed potatoes. We won't be eating any this year either, these are for next years crop. How exciting though. They have beautiful flowers and do make lovely potted plants. Last year we placed the potatoes in some shallow compost and covered them with straw. Some potatoes were produced but not a pot full. This year they are covered with compost instead so we are hoping to have a better yield. Of course these plants could be moved in in the early spring or autumn. Hopefully it works, but even if we only get a decent yield it will be done again on a larger scale. They do make great, lush potted plants!

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First Tasting

Acton market has just has it's third week. We were there and pleased with how it went. People came back looking for some more produce and we even found out that the jam and cakes I make can be sold there. This is great news because some regions don't allow that. It will be exciting when we have the "cool" vegetables like peas, beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I wish I had got the peas and beans in sooner. We at least have peas starting.  We ate our first cucumber over the weekend. It is a Japanese Climbing cuke. It has a lovely tang to it that is very refreshing. The lettuce is just about done and our first bed of cabbage has succumbed to insects.We didn't cover it with row-cover at the beginning of the year leaving it open to all the brassica bugs. We have another bed in the front garden that is covered growing well for market, and us. After growing this cabbage we may never grow a head cabbage again. Leaf cabbage is wonderful and it can be eaten really quickly. No season long investment in a head only to see it eaten by something. Of course the stars of the season are the tomatoes. Although it isn't a great tomato season so far we do have some coming along. The Tigerella in the kitchen garden is doing well. Others are coming along in other parts of the garden. Below is one of our yellow cucumbers. We didn't do to well with these last yer, they were Lemon cucumbers. This year is a different variety called Bothby's Blonde. They are supposed to be very good.

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Growing Up

It has been extremely busy around here lately. Everything is growing up. Lintilla is becoming brave and more active by the hour. We had our first cock-a-doodle-doo from the cockerel the other day and the lambs are bigger than their Mums. The garden is having the biggest change this time of year. Despite the cool weather and sporadic rain things are growing. The cucumbers are growing well and we even have some tomatoes. Many others have peas already, but ours went in late so we only have flowers. but the volunteer pumpkin has baby pumpkins and flowers on them. Even the apples are looking good. Our heritage Tennis Ball Lettuce is doing wonderfully. These little guys didn't start off too well and I didn't know what to expect. Now they are healthy and delicious! This past weekend was the final seedling planting weekend. It should have been done weeks earlier but it never became a priority. Now our sunflowers and tomato leftovers are in. The poor plants were producing flowers to try and grow and Tim just didn't have the heart to compost them. They had done so well in such poor conditions. the upside to this is that if we do get fruit we are going to save the seeds.I wonder if a new hardy tomato can be developed? It is nice to know that they are at least growing. We also managed to get some herbs in. We had bought them a couple of weekends ago but hadn't the time to plant them right away. We had really wanted to do a herb garden so it was a bit more work than five minutes. Luckily the herbs hung on and they are now happily in their herb spiral. The herbs are planted according to how dry they like it and how sunny. The chervil is on the north side lower down because this is the conditions they prefer. It isn't perfect as which herbs were bought was impulsive, not planned for a spiral. Like the rest of this place we will see what happens!