A Little Inspiration and a Lot of Generosity

Seamus and I spent a lovely afternoon on an impromptu garden tour and play date at a beautiful suburban garden in Nepean.  It all started as a quest to pick up some raspberry canes to plant in "Seamus' Bramble Patch".  He told me that he wants his own garden and I figured that a patch of berries might be a good kind of garden for a three year old.  Seamus was very excited about the idea and spent the morning helping me clear an area in the pond garden in anticipation of planting his own raspberry patch.

After nap we headed off towards Ottawa, thinking that this would be a quick pick up.  We ending up spending an hour and a half exploring Ms. Joanne's amazing garden oasis and play yard.

I was totally inspired by Joanne's homemade trellis using parts from TSC.  It was panels threaded together with wire and held into the ground with rebar.  She is using it to grow grapes.  I have got to find somewhere to put one of these and something to grow over it.  Joanne mentioned that we can grow table grapes in our climate.  This might be a good option.

I was also in love with Joanne's mushroom garden.  She is growing edible King Stropharia mushrooms from inoculated wood chips.  She said the yields are fantastic.  This has now been added to my to do list.  I must order some of these and get this going!

Seamus was not nearly as interested in Ms. Joanne's gardens as me (understandably), but he was fascinated by her horse tire swing.

And ever the dare devil, he rode his first zip line through the back yard!  He was ecstatic.

 

We picked up our ten canes of both golden and black raspberries.  In addition, Ms. Joanne generously offered some volunteer strawberries to add to our patch.

What a strawberry patch!

She also gave us some walking onions to plant.  These are amazing - they self seed by growing a bulb on their tip and then bending over and rooting it in the soil.

Apparently walking onions are one of the first plants to come up in the spring;
exactly when you want to see green the most!

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Joanne for gifting us with all these healthy new additions to our kitchen garden and for giving me some great new ideas on how to expand what we grow here at Gael Glen Farm.  Both Seamus and I had a fantastic afternoon.

Hygiene Routine

Charlie is a very hygienic donkey.  When the weather is warm, she diligently bathes every morning.  However, I would not go so far as to call her "clean".  You see, Charlie takes dust baths.

Yes, she rolls around in the dirt, presumably to keep parasites away. It may be counter-intuitive as a method of cleanliness, but it seems to work for her.  Besides, it is funny to watch.

How Do You Define a "Productive" Day?

Gone are the snowy days where it got dark at 5 pm and you could curl up with a good book once the boys went to bed.  I am always so eager for the warm weather to arrive, but every year I forget how much more work there is around the farm during the spring and summer.  With so much to do, I find that it is difficult to feel like I am making progress.  I can do twenty chores a day and still have twenty more on my to do list that need doing.

One trick I use to feel more accomplished at the end of a day is to, first thing in the morning, tackle a chore that always seems to be relegated to the back burner.  It is so easy to fill your whole day with the tasks of the daily reproduction of life: baking bread, making beds, doing laundry, tidying the house, child rearing, making dinner, vacuuming, watering the garden.  Somehow all these staple chores always end up getting done, sometimes at the expense of one off tasks further down on the to do list.  

As such, I find that if I begin with a "non-staple" chore, for example, painting the bird houses, mucking the barn, completing a hive inspection, mowing the lawn, organizing the kids' toys, making jelly, etc. then I end up accomplishing this special task in addition to all of the staple tasks.  This does not reduce my to do list in any significant way but, for me, accomplishing one of these special tasks makes me feel like I have had an especially productive day.

Today's special, non-staple task was weeding the vegetable gardens.  With all the rain in the forecast I wanted to be sure Mother Nature was watering vegetables and not weeds.  The gardens look so good when they are weeded.

Ian's special task was mowing the lawn.  Likewise, lawns look so good when they are mowed.  Tomorrow, Ian will drive around and pick up all the grass clippings so that I can use them to block more weeds from growing in the vegetable gardens that I just weeded.  Interesting chore symmetry today.

I also did lots of staple chores today while Ian was working.

Culturing Yogurt

Laundry

Bread Baking

Child Rearing

Our afternoon walk

Seamus, Dandelion Royalty

Making Dinner

Homemade wild turkey pot pie (from the freezer) and fresh salad (from the garden)
with a simple salad dressing of brown sugar and white vinegar as per GG.

And all the other stuff I did not take pictures of: taking Seamus to library reading group, shopping for Liam and Ian's upcoming Beavers Camping Trip, bed making, honey clarifying, kitchen cleaning, house and yard tidying, animal care....Geesh!  It has been a long - but, by my own definition, productive - day.

Summer Skiing

Weeding is a necessary and important part of maintaining attractive and productive gardens.  However, it is exceedingly difficult to do with a toddler.  Despite my valiant attempt at including him in this chore, Seamus was interested in my game of "I dig, you pull the weed" for about 5 minutes.  Then, not so much.  Instead, he dug out some ancient skis from the garage and proceeded to teach himself to ski through the dandelions.

Seamus, "I'll need to know this for the winter."  Dandelion skiing occupied Seamus for a whooping 30 minutes!  This was just enough time for me to speed weed the flower garden along our driveway.   Bye bye volunteer thistles. Yippee!

A Foraging First

If dandelions are delectable treats for chicks and honey bees, why not for humans too?  With the million dandelions currently in bloom in our front yard,

I thought I'd try my hand at making some dandelion jelly.

I picked at least a hundred dandelions blooms.

It did not even make a dent in the dandelion landscape so not to worry, there are lots left for the bees.  Ian looked at me like I was insane when I came prancing inside proudly with my bowls of dandelions.  He was thrilled I was picking them voluntarily as he hates seeing them in the lawn.  If I had played my cards better, I could have probably bargained a date night in exchange for picking them (knowing I was planning on picking them anyway) but sadly I did not think of this until after seeing the look of equal parts jubilation and bewilderment on his face.

After soaking the petals over night,

I used the dandelion infused liquid plus sugar and pectin to make jelly.

It jelled up nicely and the result is truly delicious.  Tangy and floral.  It was a hit at breakfast this weekend, though Liam told me that he is having a hard time convincing his friends on the school bus that dandelion jelly is really a thing.

Sorry. Your Flight Has Been Cancelled.

The baby chicks have outgrown their trailer brood pen in the garage and have been re-homed to the tiny coop outside.  In advance of their move, Liam and I made the coop comfortable and warm with dry wood shavings, fresh food, a bigger water container, and a new heat lamp for night time.

Before they were allowed to move; however, each chick got her wings clipped.  We are trying to reduce the risk of anyone taking a joy flight out of the coop given Emily's poultry killing affliction.

Before

After

I did the holding and Liam did the clipping.  He clipped every single bird perfectly.

The birds were a bit apprehensive about their new home initially.

But before we knew it, they were out free ranging.

The many dandelion greens that fill their pen are currently a huge hit.  The chicks think these are the tastiest snack ever!

Goat Bonding

So, you leave your company unsupervised and this is what they get up to....

Martha and Mellie think that Charissa and Jeff are both super fun and deliciously fashionable.  They have sampled a variety of new zippers, ties and cuffs over the past few days.

There is nothing like a goat love nibble to melt hearts everywhere.

Cooperative Cultivation

Planting Day has finally arrived!  The May long weekend in Ottawa signals the (probable) end to the risk of frost and so it is time to get our main garden planted.  This is a huge job, especially with two trouble making boys running amok.  Thankfully, Charissa and Jeff picked the most wonderful weekend to visit (aka be put to work on the farm).

They do not seem to be particularly bothered by being delegated a myriad of farm tasks.
In fact, I think they kind of like it.

Amazingly, between the six of us, we managed to plant all of our hardened off seedlings as well as do some transplanting and direct sowing.

There was lots of teamwork involved and everyone did their part.

Ian planting peas in a very straight line.

A Seamus and Uncle Jeff collaboration.
Seamus: "I do it!"
Luckily Jeff is overflowing with patience.

Auntie Charissa and Liam are transplanting pros and extremely good cooperators.

Seamus going rogue: "What should I plant next?"

THIS!
Getting down and dirty.
We would not have it any other way.

Weed, water, supervise?

 Such a productive day.  As an added bonus, the rain started at noon and will continue all night giving our plants the thorough soak they need to get established in their new homes.

A Bread and Butter Kind of Day

It was a quiet day on the farm in anticipation of a very busy weekend to come.  In the morning we did some preparatory baking since we will be spending most of the next few days outdoors.

We made authentic sourdough bread.  It is still not as good as when I "cheat" by adding some commercial yeast but I am not ready to give up quite yet.

Recipe:
300 grams white flour
200 grams whole wheat flour
180 grams fed starter
1 1/4 cup water
2 tsp salt

Process:
Autolyse for 40 minutes, 10 minutes of kneading in the KitchenAid at speed 4, 8 hours bulk ferment at room temperature, shape into a boule, proof in fridge for 36 hours, bake in dutch oven with lid on for 30 minutes at 500 degrees F and with lid off for 10 minutes at 425 degrees F.

The crumb is still too dense for my liking. There is room for improvement.

And what is bread without homemade butter?

Luckily we managed not to eat too much of either the bread or the butter, leaving us with lots left for Saturday's lunch.  With that job done both Seamus and I took an afternoon nap - ah, luxury.

Bare Hoofed and Pregnant

Today was shearing day on Gael Glen Farm.  The morning began with locking the sheep in the barn for the day since I was not at all confident that I would be able to get them to go back into the barn before dark if they got even a whiff of freedom.  Charlie was not impressed at being separated from her family.

She spent the entire morning staring at the barn,
communing her misery with the sheep through the closed door.

By lunch time she had given up on the sheep and sought out a new family unit.

Will you be my new family?

Luckily for Charlie, Mr. Ross, our friendly neighbourhood sheep shearer, stopped by the farm in the mid-afternoon, on his way home from the Sheep Shearing Festival at the Canadian Agriculture and Food Museum.  As always, he came with a trailer full of bleating ewes and hilarious stories about the time he accidentally sheared the teat off of an enormous beast of a sheep.

Mr. Ross hard at work.

We got a beautiful fleece from Abbott.

I am a handsome beast!

In order to get their winter coats off, the poor sheep must endure being put in the most undignified positions.

The advantage of this; however, is that the sheep's tummy is clearly visible.  Low and behold, both Alice and Violet have developed an udder!

My ewes are pregnant!!!  Woohoo!  And not only pregnant, they are VERY pregnant according to Mr. Ross.  He felt around a bit and declared that Alice is carrying twins and Violet a single.  Based on the date we got Loki, I am expecting that we will have our first ever set of lambs in the next few weeks.  I am beyond excited.

Don't I look beautiful?  Bare hoofed and pregnant!

Now that we have proof that Loki did his job, it is time for him to move on to his next set of ladies.  We have placed an ad on Kijiji and hopefully he finds a comfortable new home sooner rather than later.