With both Alice (the sheep) and Liam (the toddler) feeling under the weather today, it has been a tiring day so far for Doctor Mom (aka me). Alice is behaving oddly. This began Monday evening with her refusing to go into the barn at night and not being interested in eating her grain. Normally she cannot wait to chow down on her nightly grain ration and I have never had difficulty getting her into the barn. I am not sure what is the matter with her. I notice that the sheep have been gnawing on the bark of a pine tree in their paddock and I wonder if that is upsetting her tummy. I hope she bounces back soon.
After having a very difficult time getting to sleep last night, Liam awoke this morning with a runny nose. I think he is breathing mostly through his mouth which is resulting in a major drool fest. And he has been producing some epic sneezes...you cannot even imagine - it is like being caught in a rain storm. He must have picked something up at the Speech Evaluation Clinic I brought him to on Monday evening. Sadly he did not pick up any words at the clinic but managed to pick up a bug of some sort. Lucky us.
I finally got Liam down for a nap at 2pm (third try is a charm); hopefully he sleeps for more than 20 minutes. I did have a bit of a chuckle with him this morning though. In an effort to get him to drink more liquids to flush out whatever is in his system, I mixed half apple juice and half water in his sippy cup. Liam has never had juice so I thought this would be a tasty treat. He took one sip, looked at me like I was crazy and refused to drink any more until I dumped the contents of the cup down the sink and re-filled it with plain water. Creature of habit much? Too funny.
Hopefully everyone is feeling better tomorrow.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Elderberry Smelderberry
Each year we discover something new on the farm. In addition to our black walnut tree, this summer we discovered an elderberry bush along our southern fence line. By chance, we caught the bush at the exact right time - it was loaded with ripe and juicy berries and the birds had not yet begun to eat them all up. Ian and I hate for anything to go to waste so we picked all the berries, washed them up and transformed them into several jars of elderberry preserves - both jam and sauce.
The elderberry jam was intentional; the sauce was a surprise. As we try our hand at new and different farm-related endeavours, we are constantly learning new life lessons. This one was: do not use expired boxes of pectin as your jam may not set.
After our first round of elderberry jam making - none of it set; it was all sauce. So, Ian underwent Round 2 (I will admit that I went to bed at this point) of which we had about 50 percent setting success. Consequently, about half our jars contain elderberry jam and the other half a more runny elderberry sauce. This was a lucky accident because it turns out that elderberry sauce is absolutely delicious on homemade waffles. A life lesson accompanied by delicious waffles - who can ask for more?!
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| We were not really sure what elderberry preserves would taste like so it was a bit of an adventure. As it turns out, elderberries taste similar to blueberries. |
After our first round of elderberry jam making - none of it set; it was all sauce. So, Ian underwent Round 2 (I will admit that I went to bed at this point) of which we had about 50 percent setting success. Consequently, about half our jars contain elderberry jam and the other half a more runny elderberry sauce. This was a lucky accident because it turns out that elderberry sauce is absolutely delicious on homemade waffles. A life lesson accompanied by delicious waffles - who can ask for more?!
Monday, 6 October 2014
A Little Brother for Liam
Baby #2 and I are halfway through our prenatal journey together. Ian and I went to the 20 week morphology ultrasound this morning. Baby #2 is still very shy and made the ultrasound technician work really hard to get all the measurements she needed. At one point she indicated that I may need to come back next week because the baby was being so uncooperative! He was laying in a breech position and kept himself curled up tight in a little ball. Luckily with a bit of prodding the ultrasound tech. was able to see his heart clearly and measure his abdomen.
After much hard looking and a triple check (Ian wanted to be really sure), we are happy to share that Baby #2 is a little boy. We are thrilled. A playmate for Liam and another sturdy boy to carry on the Kehoe MacLeod family name. What wonderful news!
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| You can see Baby's head in profile at the center of the photo. He is sucking his thumb. His spine is clearly visible on the bottom right. |
Friday, 3 October 2014
Sheep Appreciation Day
Alice and Abbott are feeling a bit left out in the aftermath of Violet's Carp Fair related fame. As such, I have deemed it Sheep Appreciation Day here on Gael Glen Farm to give Alice and Abbott a chance to have their attributes appreciated accordingly.
Abbott is our ram lamb here on the farm. He is the lightest coloured of all our sheep and he has beautiful spiral horns. However, as his horns continue to grow, he can never decide whether his ears should go in front or behind them - he switches it up almost on a daily basis.
Abbott's favourite activity is literally jumping with joy. He goes speeding down the field, springs into the air and kicks out his hind legs. I have yet to catch a good photo of him in action but it looks something like this - it is hilarious.
Alice is the mother sheep of our two lambs.
Alice's favourite activities are eating and "baaing". Alice is by far the most vocal of all our sheep. She begins to "baa" around sunset and continues incessantly until someone goes out to give her grain and lock the barn door. Luckily our neighbours are happy to eat their suppers listening a barnyard soundtrack because there is no way not to hear Alice each evening. They actually think it is funny. I wonder how noisy Charlie P. the donkey will be when she arrives on the farm later this month? Soon we will have a full barnyard choir on our hands.
Abbott is our ram lamb here on the farm. He is the lightest coloured of all our sheep and he has beautiful spiral horns. However, as his horns continue to grow, he can never decide whether his ears should go in front or behind them - he switches it up almost on a daily basis.
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| It is an ears behind the horns kind of day. |
Alice's favourite activities are eating and "baaing". Alice is by far the most vocal of all our sheep. She begins to "baa" around sunset and continues incessantly until someone goes out to give her grain and lock the barn door. Luckily our neighbours are happy to eat their suppers listening a barnyard soundtrack because there is no way not to hear Alice each evening. They actually think it is funny. I wonder how noisy Charlie P. the donkey will be when she arrives on the farm later this month? Soon we will have a full barnyard choir on our hands.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
This Tree is on Fire
We are in the in-between stages of autumn here on Gael Glen Farm - the leaves are changing colour and are beginning to fall but the tree branches are not yet bare. This is a beautiful time of the year on the farm and the colours this year are especially spectacular with lots of orange, red and purple. I took a tour of our property to find the best tree colours but before I get to that I was wondering about the science behind why leaves change colour in the first place.
Two of the main components of deciduous leaves are chlorophyll and carotenoids. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color throughout the growing season. This compound is essential for photosynthesis, a chemical reaction that converts sunlight into carbohydrates. Carotenoids are natural pigments which are also present in leaves. It is the carotenoids which produce yellow, orange and brown hues in plants.
Two of the main components of deciduous leaves are chlorophyll and carotenoids. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color throughout the growing season. This compound is essential for photosynthesis, a chemical reaction that converts sunlight into carbohydrates. Carotenoids are natural pigments which are also present in leaves. It is the carotenoids which produce yellow, orange and brown hues in plants.
The colors of carotenoids are easily masked by green chlorophyll until a reduction in daylight alerts broad leaf plants that it is time to slow and eventually stop their chlorophyll production. The reduction in chlorophyll allows the golden, orange and yellow hues of the carotenoid pigments to be revealed.
I suspect it will not be long before most of these leaves will be on the ground and the trees will be bare. I am looking forward to raking the leaves into piles for Liam to jump into. This activity is one of my most vivid memories from celebrating Thanksgiving at my Grandparents' farm when I was a child. All the cousins would rake leaves into a huge pile and then we would take turns riding the BMX bike directly into the pile for a soft and crunchy crash landing. While Liam is a bit young yet for this particular bicycle variation I have a feeling he will love running and jumping into the piles of dried leaves. Fall is such a fun time of year!
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| Fourth place. Lots of purple and red. |
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| Third place. Range of colours from yellow to red. |
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| Second place. Vibrant red leaves. |
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| First place. Colours ranging from deep violet to burnt orange. This tree looks like it is on fire! |
Source: Handwerk, Brian. (2004). "Why Do Fall Leaves Change Color?" National Geographic News. Accessed: October 2, 2014 from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1005_041008_fallfoliage.html
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
From Hive to Jar
I would like to begin today's blog entry by thanking everyone who has supported us here on Gael Glen Farm over the past weeks, months and years by purchasing our produce. From first time buyers to our weekly repeat customers, we really appreciate you taking the time to buy our local wildflower honey and our free range, happy hen eggs. We know how easy it is to just pick things up at the grocery store, so your loyalty and support really means a lot to us. We love farming and producing fresh, wholesome food and half the fun is sharing it with our colleagues, friends, neighbours and family. Thanks again for supporting our small family farm and please know that we really appreciate your business.
Our 2014 wildflower honey has been selling like hot cakes. As such, we thought you might be interested to know how we get our honey out of the bee hives and on to the table where we stir it into our tea, spread it on our toast or use it in a myriad of other creative ways.
The honey extraction process begins just after Labour Day by placing an escape board on the hive between the honey supers (where the honey is stored) and the brood boxes (where the baby bees are raised). The escape board allows bees to descend from the honey supers into the brood boxes but not to go back up again. The idea is to get as many bees as possible out of the honey supers before we remove them from the hive. This way we are not swarmed by angry bees when we try to take away the frames full of honey. An escape board is placed on a hive in the late afternoon and it usually takes two days for most of the bees to leave the honey supers. It helps when the nights are cold because this gives the bees an incentive to descend in order to keep warm by huddling together with the other bees in the brood boxes. An escape board should not be left on a hive for longer than two days because then you risk the bees figuring out how to weave their way back through the maze and return to the honey supers. Bees are smart creatures!
After all of the honey supers are removed from the hives, we begin extracting honey from the comb. This is done first by removing the layer of wax the bees use to seal the honey into the comb - this is called uncapping. These cappings are where most of the beeswax that we harvest comes from.
After all the honey comb in the frames is uncapped, we place the frames in our 12 frame honey extractor. We are so lucky to have this extractor on loan from a very generous farmer friend who had it gifted to him when he already had one. This special piece of equipment makes harvesting the honey infinitely easier and we are so appreciative to be able to use it.
After the extractor is full of uncapped frames, we turn it on and it spins all of the honey out of the comb.
The honey then drips down the sides of the extractor and pours through the spout, through a filter and into the bucket we have placed at the bottom. Check out the short video below of our first pour of the season.
We then transfer the honey into re-usable mason jars, label them and store them in the deep freeze. Freezing raw honey is the best way to preserve it.
We also cream some of our honey as well as harvest cut comb honey. However, both of these are subjects for future posts. Harvesting honey is a sticky but sweet endeavour.
Our 2014 wildflower honey has been selling like hot cakes. As such, we thought you might be interested to know how we get our honey out of the bee hives and on to the table where we stir it into our tea, spread it on our toast or use it in a myriad of other creative ways.
The honey extraction process begins just after Labour Day by placing an escape board on the hive between the honey supers (where the honey is stored) and the brood boxes (where the baby bees are raised). The escape board allows bees to descend from the honey supers into the brood boxes but not to go back up again. The idea is to get as many bees as possible out of the honey supers before we remove them from the hive. This way we are not swarmed by angry bees when we try to take away the frames full of honey. An escape board is placed on a hive in the late afternoon and it usually takes two days for most of the bees to leave the honey supers. It helps when the nights are cold because this gives the bees an incentive to descend in order to keep warm by huddling together with the other bees in the brood boxes. An escape board should not be left on a hive for longer than two days because then you risk the bees figuring out how to weave their way back through the maze and return to the honey supers. Bees are smart creatures!
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| This is the bottom of the escape board. It is a maze that does not allow bees to return to the honey supers. |
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| We cut the cappings off with a serrated knife. |
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| These cappings are left to drain and then the wax is melted down and the honey is filtered and stored. |
After the extractor is full of uncapped frames, we turn it on and it spins all of the honey out of the comb.
The honey then drips down the sides of the extractor and pours through the spout, through a filter and into the bucket we have placed at the bottom. Check out the short video below of our first pour of the season.
We then transfer the honey into re-usable mason jars, label them and store them in the deep freeze. Freezing raw honey is the best way to preserve it.
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| Our 250mL and 500mL jars. |
Tuesday, 30 September 2014
You Can Tug My Feathers for a Price
Liam's new favourite activity is "feeding" the chickens. In reality, this equates to tugging on their feathers and then tossing grain in the air in their general direction in order to get them to come close enough so he can tug on their feathers some more. We are continuing to work on the concept "gentle and soft" so this is very good practice.
A few days ago we spent almost an hour feeding the chickens. Liam was delighted. Delighted might be a bit of a stretch to describe the chickens' feelings about this event, especially those that bore the brunt of the feather tugging. However, all the chickens were good sports and those that ventured close enough got to eat a lot of snack grain. Perhaps this made enduring a bit of feather tugging worthwhile?
Bee Update:
I did another hive check today to see how the three new queens are doing. They have been in the hives for four days now and I had to go in to make sure that the worker bees had released them from their cages. A queen bee is introduced to the hive in a little white cage with a candy plug.
Over a span of three or four days, the hive acclimatizes to their new queen and the bees eat through the plug to free the queen. The next step is to wait another week to give everyone a chance to settle in before I do a thorough hive inspection to make sure each queen has begun to lay eggs. So far, so good.
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| Tug |
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| Tug |
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| Toss |
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| Tug |
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| Tug -- and repeat... |
Bee Update:
I did another hive check today to see how the three new queens are doing. They have been in the hives for four days now and I had to go in to make sure that the worker bees had released them from their cages. A queen bee is introduced to the hive in a little white cage with a candy plug.
Over a span of three or four days, the hive acclimatizes to their new queen and the bees eat through the plug to free the queen. The next step is to wait another week to give everyone a chance to settle in before I do a thorough hive inspection to make sure each queen has begun to lay eggs. So far, so good.
Monday, 29 September 2014
Caught Red Hoofed
Somebody has been eating the bark off the trees in the back paddock. This is really bad for the trees and can kill them so it was important to curb this undesirable behaviour right away. As a temporary fix I surrounded the tree trunk with fencing and barricaded it with patio furniture until I could get my hands on some chicken wire to protect the trunk properly.
It was a mystery which ovine was the guilty party until yesterday when I caught the two lambs red handed (or red hoofed as it were) with mouths full of bark. Violet had pushed her way through the cast iron chairs and had stuck her head through the gaps in the fence while Abbott stood on watch. Sadly, he is not very good at being a look-out since I made it right up to them before he noticed I was coming. Neither lamb looked particularly guilty at getting caught and both pranced over to me asking to be petted.
I have since secured a roll of chicken wire and have proactively fenced around all the important trees in the back paddock. Donkeys are reportedly renowned bark eaters too so I figure we might as well get this chore done now since we would inevitably have to do it once Charlie P. arrives in a few weeks.
It was a mystery which ovine was the guilty party until yesterday when I caught the two lambs red handed (or red hoofed as it were) with mouths full of bark. Violet had pushed her way through the cast iron chairs and had stuck her head through the gaps in the fence while Abbott stood on watch. Sadly, he is not very good at being a look-out since I made it right up to them before he noticed I was coming. Neither lamb looked particularly guilty at getting caught and both pranced over to me asking to be petted.
I have since secured a roll of chicken wire and have proactively fenced around all the important trees in the back paddock. Donkeys are reportedly renowned bark eaters too so I figure we might as well get this chore done now since we would inevitably have to do it once Charlie P. arrives in a few weeks.
Sunday, 28 September 2014
How We Fared at the Fair
For us, the Carp Fair is like the farm Olympics. It is so exciting to find out how we fared in all the categories we entered. It is also fun to calculate our final prize tally of gold, silver and bronze place finishes to see how we did overall.
I am pleased to report that the Kehoe MacLeod family of Gael Glen Farm had a very respectable showing at this year's Carp Fair. We placed in exactly half of the categories we entered, with six 1st place finishes, five 2nd place finishes, six 3rd place finishes, one 4th place and one 5th place finish.
First Prize
1. Outdoor Decorating Challenge
2. Grapes
3. Marigolds, larger than 2"
4. 9 day pickles
I am pleased to report that the Kehoe MacLeod family of Gael Glen Farm had a very respectable showing at this year's Carp Fair. We placed in exactly half of the categories we entered, with six 1st place finishes, five 2nd place finishes, six 3rd place finishes, one 4th place and one 5th place finish.
First Prize
1. Outdoor Decorating Challenge
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| We made the local newspaper! |
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| Our fancy plaque that we do not get to keep. :( |
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| We wonder if the other two entries were disqualified? |
5. Display of honey products
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| My display before judging |
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| Proof that I won! |
6. Samples of beeswax
4. Ale
5. Lager
Second Prize
1. Carrots, longer than 5"
2. Jalapenos
3. Other hot pepper (chili peppers)
5. Lager
Third Prize
1. Apples
2. Carrots, shorter than 5"
3. Red peppers, sweet
4. Pears
5. Berry honey wine
6. Apple cider
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| See our sad looking pears on the right? |
Fourth Prize
1. Honey, light coloured
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| Yay, we placed! |
Fifth Prize
1. Maple syrup, extra light
Our highlight item was winning 1st place for our beeswax which came with a $20 prize! I was also very happy to place in the honey category (even if it was 4th). This is a competitive category with lots of entries and it is won every single year by the same two people who always take up the top two spots. It is pretty much my goal in life to beat them in the honey category. Though this year I did beat them in both the beeswax and honey display categories, which is something, but some day I will beat them with my honey!
Our major disappointment was that we did not do better in the pickling area. Happily, Ian won with his 9 day pickles which justified him spending nine days making them! I also thought that our display of three herbs was really nice in comparison to the other entries so I was disappointed that we did not place here; maybe the judging panel did not consider spearmint an herb?
Our biggest surprise was placing with our pears and apples. As you can see, our pears are in a sorry state. Not only does my pear tree refuse to produce normal sized pears - I get these miniature pears instead - my pears were ripe really early this year so I tried to preserve them in the fridge for several weeks until fair time. This was not particularly successful and I ended up having very few green pears to choose from for submission.
Likewise, the apple trees in our orchard are very young and are not yet producing full sized apples. It was also not a particularly good apple harvest year for us. The apples that we submitted came from the wild apple tree near our back compost bin. We are shocked, not only that they placed, but that they actually beat out other entries!
Overall, we are very pleased with our results and really enjoyed attending this year's fair. We loved the petting zoo, corn dogs and free chocolate milk. We even had a chance to speak with an exhibitor about how to clean and begin preparing sheep fleece to be made into wool. This will be handy information come spring when we shear our sheep for the first time.
Thank you Carp Fair for another great year and we are already thinking about how to improve our entries for 2015!
Friday, 26 September 2014
Roasted Roots
I am happy to report that our preparations for the 2014 Carp Fair are complete. All of our entries have been submitted and everything was judged yesterday. I cannot wait until the weekend to see if we won anything. We submitted the following items:
- Field pumpkin
- Field squash
- Apples
- Grapes
- Crab apples
- Carrots, longer than 5"
- Carrots, shorter than 5"
- Green peppers
- Red peppers
- Jalapenos
- Other hot pepper (chili peppers)
- Pears
- Parsley
- Display of 3 herbs (spearmint, thyme and Cuban oregano)
- Marigolds, smaller than 2"
- Marigolds, larger than 2"
- Echinacea flowers
- Dill pickles
- Bread and butter pickles
- 9 day pickles
- Icicle pickles
- Dill beans
- Pickled beets
- Blueberry jam
- Crab apple jelly
- Honey, light coloured
- Maple syrup, extra light and light coloured
- Display of honey products
- Tea biscuits
- Tomato soup cake
- Berry honey wine
- Apple cider
- Ale
- Lager
- Aloe vera plant
- Miniature tomatoes
- Samples of beeswax
Lots of entries, huh? It took us a ton of time to pull it all together, and to package and label everything. Luckily my mom was able to come over and she helped a lot. She did the flower arranging for us and I must say all that of our flower entries look mighty fine. She also helped me with my honey display which now looks much, much better. I think we might have some winners here!
Since we submitted in both carrot categories, it required me to pick all of the carrots remaining in our gardens.
As such I had a carrot surplus and was able to make roasted carrot, squash and pumpkin soup. The great thing about this is it made a bunch extra so I could stock the freezer with this hearty meal to pull out on a snowy winter day. I am thinking maybe for lunch on Christmas day after my annual afternoon snowshoeing excursion.
We will report back on the outcome of the fair on Monday's post. Keep your fingers crossed for us! In the meantime, we will be enjoying our roasted carrot soup with some fresh homemade bread. Hopefully, you are having something healthy and delicious for lunch today too!