Castration Station

Q: How many people does it take to castrate a ram lamb on Gael Glen Farm?
A: Two doctors and an engineer.

With Auntie Heather (aka Dr. Heather) down to visit for a few days, we figured that we should put her medical expertise to good use.  Given the pending sexual maturity of Cobalt and Lego, Heather's experience with testicles (she does vasectomies on human men after all) was of particular value to us.

Our ram lambs needed to be banded and given that we have a medical doctor on hand (much more useful than a doctor of philosophy for these sorts of things), we put her to work.  If you do not count being poked in the stomach with sharp horns, getting kicked a few times, and getting Heather's finger caught (briefly) in the banding machine, the procedure was a resounding success.  We are certain that we caught both testes below the elastic!  Woohoo - it sounds easy enough but I can assure you that it is not.  Once the lambs figured out what we were trying to do, they were experts at sucking those bad boys back up into their abdomen.

Despite some initial discomfort post-banding, both Cobalt and Lego were almost immediately back to their old tricks.  All that is left to do is wait for the scrotum and its contents to dry up now that the blood supply is cut off and the whole thing will fall off in a few weeks.  Thank you Dr. Heather - another job well done!

A Grate Day

With our garden going gangbusters, we are trying to incorporate as many vegetables as possible into each meal.  Today cabbage, carrots, and zucchini were on the menu!

Who can resist fresh, crunchy coleslaw with a zesty oil and vinegar dressing?  By popular request, the recipe is as follows:

1) Finely chop or shed cabbage, carrots and celery.  We sometimes add sweet onion too.

2) Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the cabbage mixture and let sit.

3) In a small sauce pan add 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup + 2 tbs oil, 1 1/2 tsp mustard powder, and 1/2 tsp salt.  You could also add celery seed if desired.

4) Heat the vinegar and oil mixture to boiling and pour over the cabbage.

5) Toss and let sit until serving.

Since we were on a roll grating vegetables, the boys proposed making a batch of miniature zucchini muffins for dessert.

A successful transition from garden to table.  Delicious.

A Farm-Free Summer Holiday

As much as I love living on a farm, it is nice to be able to take a vacation from goat escapades and chicken shenanigans every once and a while.  My parents' cottage is the perfect place to escape.  It is close enough that I can come down once a week to prepare our CSA baskets and check that the animals are treating our farm sitter Weston nicely.  Yet, it offers all the amenities of cottage life such as fishing, swimming, and marshmallow roasting (when there is not a burn ban on, of course).

We had a lovely time at the cottage - thank you Grandma for hosting us!  Also, thanks to Weston - our farm sitter extraordinare - everything and everyone at home was in tip top shape upon our return.   We were even privy to a lovely FB post by Weston's mom while we were away showing him loving on various members of our farm family.  Let's face it, if I am not there to spoil Charlie, the next best thing is to have a responsible and gentle Charlie sitter who will do it for me!  Thanks a million Weston - we appreciate it!

A Portrait of Her Majesty

I am happy to report that thanks to the very kind Beekeeper Jim, my apiary is back up and running at full capacity.  My hives are strong, healthy and queen-right.

There are a few ways to know if your hive has a queen.  The most obvious is to spot her during a hive inspection.  Though admittedly, this can be easier said than done.   In a strong hive there are thousands of bees milling around.  Locating one bee on a frame containing hundreds can be tough.  Furthermore, queens often have a preference to remain hidden and so tend to make a run for it when you pull out a frame for inspection.  This can make it very hard to spot her royal highness.

However, I have one hive with a particularly cordial queen bee.  She is especially friendly and comes out to say "Hello" each time I go into the hive.  Today she was even so kind as to pose for a photo.

Can you spot her?  Queen bees are larger and have a longer pointy body than regular honey bees.  Also, instead of yellow furry backs, they have a shiny back back - beekeepers sometimes refer to it as her black leather jacket.

It is very exciting to spot the queen in a hive but if you cannot see her, you can look for evidence of her presence.  The best indicator is to see the eggs that she had laid in the cells.  An egg looks like a tiny grain of rice standing upright in the middle bottom of a cell.  If you have eggs, you have a laying queen, so as long as you do not accidentally squish her majesty when you put the hive back together you are good to go until the next inspection.

Ripe Red Raspberries

Our raspberry plants are really producing!  The boys are forever circling the patch looking for the next ripe berry to pop into their mouths.

In order to secure some berries for my CSA basket this week, I was forced to get up at 5:30am to beat Liam and Seamus to the harvest.

This week's CSA basket: raspberries, zucchini, parsley, kale, chard,
lettuce, red cabbage, mint, basil, chives, peas, yellow beans, beets,
thai dragon peppers, homemade red pepper jelly and of course, farm fresh eggs.

There is nothing like the taste of ripe raspberries.  They were Dad's favourite and are easily mine too!

Bye Bye BBQ

Our natural gas BBQ bit the dust.  In fairness, it was a well-loved hand-me-down that did not owe us anything.  We dragged it out to the road side and a blue truck came by today and took it away for free.

But what is summer without BBQ?  So, we decided to kick it old school with our ancient charcoal grill.  It should be noted that this BBQ has also seen better days, as evidenced by the flames that occasionally shot out the bottom (much to the delight of the boys).  Beggars can't be choosers though, right?

Hot Hot Heat

I am not a hot weather person.  Unless it is accompanied by a pool-side lounge chair with a good book and an ice cold pina colada, on a kid-free beach holiday, 30+ degree weather is not welcome.  It makes me more ornery than Charlie on farrier day.  This is my explanation for my abrupt break from the farm blog - a protest of the "extended stretch" of "record-breaking" "sweltering" weather (if I can quote the news from the past week).  Thanks to a combination of getting air conditioning installed in our house (thank you Ian for agreeing and Mat from Home Climate Pro for doing the installation - seriously, our house was 34 degrees C) and the heat wave finally breaking on Friday (it went down to 11 degrees C last night - yes!), life can now return to normal.

As much as I was not thrilled about the ridiculous heat, the vegetable gardens loved it.  With the combination of my daily watering and the heat, the veggies doubled in size in a week.  Unfortunately, so did the weeds.  When I finally took a good look at everything on Friday the garden was a disaster - a verifiable jungle of craziness.

Today, with the help of Ian (husband extraordinare), my brother Kyle (weeder and support system extraordinare) and Daphne (teenaged kid minder extraordinare), we had all of the vegetable gardens back under control in four hours.  Granted, our work hours combined totalled 12 hours of weeding and 4 hours of kid watching, but who's counting?

I am not sure we have ever had all the vegetable gardens ship shape at the same time.  Now is the time to run garden tours if there ever was one!  So here is the virtual tour...

Top to bottom: lettuce, radishes, chard, basil, onions, zinnias on the side.

Top to bottom: cabbage, marigolds, peas.

Top to bottom: raspberries, cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts.

Left to right: eggplant, beans, turnip, broccoli.

Left to right: peas, beans, carrots, beets, corn.

Sweet corn.

Left to right: kale, potatoes, onions, hull-less pumpkin.

Squash patch.

Left to right: tomatoes, cucumbers.

Left to right: zucchini, garlic, zinnias.

Beans flowering.

Corn tops.

Pea pods.

Kale crown.

Cucumber flower.

Any cabbage patch kids in there?

A beauty of a cabbage.  Coleslaw here we come!

A row of marigolds in memory of Grandpa Ed.

Parsley patch (with one rogue weed right at the front that I will pull tomorrow!).

Sweet basil.

It feels so good to have the garden back in working order, especially since the weather network is calling for a return to hot weather starting tomorrow.  Is it Fall yet?