Jack & Jill

Meet Jack.  He was a rat.

He was a big rat.

Jack made cute tracks in the snow.

He burrowed under the chicken coop.

And he chewed holes in the nest boxes.

Jack was a pain in the butt with a weakness for peanut butter.  Jack is dead.

Upon his demise, Jack's heart and internal organs were cannibalized by his nest mate.  How savage.

Watch out Jill.  We are coming for you.

Just Keeping Busy

This is how I feel when it is time to clean out the Tupperware drawer.

But at least all the sorting and matching kept Liam occupied so Seamus and I could do some laundry.  Please note that Seamus dressed himself today "in layers".  Perhaps this is why I have so much laundry to do in the first place?!

Meanwhile, Alistair has been preoccupied with his new skill of independent standing.  He pretty much keeps himself busy standing and falling, standing and falling, standing and falling.  I have a feeling that he will be walking before we know it!

Just keeping busy here on Gael Glen Farm.

Launderette Brew House

Except for the two rounds of snow removal outdoors, today was an inside day.  Anyone else ever hope that they never have to encounter the underneath of their laundry machines?  Meet mine.  Yikes!

That is what happens when you permit your laundry room to double as a brew house.  Sticky spilled malt plus dryer lint is a wicked combination.  Not to worry though, a little elbow grease did the trick.  You could now eat off of my laundry room floor.  Just saying.

Let it Snow!

So, we are supposed to get a lot of snow.  I mean, a lot.  Some sources are predicting up to 50 cm.  It will be the worst storm of the season, they say.

What does this mean for us here on Gael Glen Farm?  We are pretty well stocked with food - our pantry could see us through the zombie apocalypse so a snow storm, even a severe one, will be a piece of cake.  We have a working generator in case the power goes out, a well stocked medicine cabinet, and enough grain and hay to feed our livestock for a week at least.  With our good quality snow blower and three snow shovels, I think we are set.

All that is left to do before the storm hits is to muck out the animal barns.  It is a lot easier to wheel barrows full of dirty straw on paths of hard packed snow than it will be in knee deep fresh fallen snow.  Time to get to work!

Once again Seamus was my very best helper and Alistair was accommodating by napping for much of time we were at work.

I am happy to report that by noon all three barns had been cleaned out and fresh, dry straw had been spread out for the animals to bed down on during the storm.

Seamus is currently out for the count enjoying a well deserved afternoon nap.  He stuck by my side all morning to help with every step of the farm chores.  He is truly the hardest worker of all of us here on the farm.

Meanwhile, the snow has started to fall.  It should be interesting to see how much accumulation we actually get.  I have a strong suspicion that we are in for school bus cancellations and a snow day tomorrow; combined with another school strike on Friday, it is looking like tonight might be the start of our weekend!

A Mini Loaf, a Teeny Egg & a Whole Lot of Sap

In preparation for the inclusion of artisan bread in this year's CSA baskets, I have been experimenting with different flavour combinations.  Today I worked on my coffee & cocoa rye bread.  It took longer to rise than I expected but the final product was gorgeous: a miniature rye loaf in a super chocolatey colour.

The hens decided that producing small things should be the theme of the day and so someone laid us this teeny, tiny egg.

Seamus is very excited to use both the special bread and egg in his breakfast tomorrow.

Maybe he is finally tired of eating popsicles and ice cream for every meal!  Or else, he just expects to be extra hungry in the morning from expending a whole bunch of energy this afternoon helping Daddy and Mr. Steve collect our first batch of maple sap.

Apparently the maple trees did not get the hens' memo that today was about small stuff - they have begun producing sap like crazy!  Out of the 30 taps we put in on Sunday, the guys collected 9 gallons of sap today.  They also added another 16 taps.  It looks like maple syrup season is in full swing here on Gael Glen Farm!

What do you think of coffee & cocoa rye french toast drizzled with fresh maple syrup for breakfast?  Any takers?  I bet Seamus will be on board.

Cleaning House

With the feeling of spring in the air, Seamus (who is home from school recovering from surgery) and I cleaned out our bird houses to make room for this year's mamas and babies.

I know it might be a while yet before the birds return but it was such a beautiful blue bird sky kind of day that we could not resist getting ready for their arrival.

In addition to dreaming of birds returning, we were also wondering how our honey bees are faring.  We trudged through the snow to check out the hives and found our bees happily out and about!  There were bees flying in and out of each of our five hives!  Everyone is alive!  That is thrilling news.  While winter is surely not over yet (we are scheduled for another blizzard in a few days), it is truly a cause for celebration that all of our ladies have made it this far.

I also must admit that it is lovely to have Seamus around to be my trusty helper again.  After all the time we spent together last year, I truly miss having him with me during the day as I go about my farm duties.  I am looking forward to when Alistair can walk and talk so we can spend more time enjoying the outdoors without me having to lug him around in a baby carrier and keep up the lion's share of the conversation, though I do appreciate the enthusiastic "Da!"s that he has started adding to my running commentary.

The sun is shining, the bees are buzzing, it got up to 15 degrees C, and I got to spend bonding time with my favourite Seamus.  It is a happy day here on Gael Glen Farm.

Going with the Flow

I was very much looking forward to tapping maples trees today and beginning our maple syrup adventure for 2020.  What I did not anticipate was having to do so with two very surly children.  Despite saying that they were excited to go "mapling" as a family, Liam and Seamus were in terrible moods when it came time to go.  

While the IPAD does keep our children quiet by lulling them into zombie-like comas, I firmly believe that little boys (even those who are medicated and recovering from surgery) still need to go outside.  Otherwise, their energy bottles up and they start acting even crazier than usual when you take the screen away.  

 

After the past several days of consuming vast amounts of Paw Patrol, Ian and I found ourselves strapping two very ornery and attitude-laden hooligans into snowshoes for our maple tree tapping adventure.  

As I am sure you can imagine, it was a disaster.  We were only on the second tree and we already had fighting over the tools, lost parts, temper tantrums, blackmail attempts and lots and lots of crying.  Sigh.  By tree eight, I had to strap the boys back into their car seats in the van and wait for Ian to finish the tapping by himself (I expect enjoying the newfound serenity of a forest minus two very crusty kiddos).

Alistair was in excellent spirits, as usual.  He is seriously the most easy going kid.  Why can't we all be like Alistair and just go with the flow?

I wonder what obnoxious children are going for on Kijiji these days?  I am considering placing an ad.

Unusual Predators

They are after us!  Based on the fresh tracks in the snow that appeared yesterday, it seems that we have something stalking our farm family.

My best guess is that it is a red fox.  It seems that every spring we are destined to have one unwanted foxy visitor.  Unfortunately for us, this fellow has come earlier than usual so our perimeter fences are very short due to high snow drifts and some of our gates either do not close or do not open yet.

The tracks I found.

The gate to the small chicken run is iced open, which means that the hens and ducks were stuck in the coop today on lock down in an abundance of caution.  The hens and ducks did not seem to mind.  It is better than being lunch, I suppose.

Lucky for us, the predator did not breach the fence line that Ava guards into the goats' paddock.  While she could not look more nonthreatening, apparently she did her job and kept her herd protected.  Maybe there is hope for her after all.

I took Ava on a perimeter walk to mark the back paddock as her territory.  The gates to the far paddock are snowed shut so this involved catching a feisty Ava and heaving her over the gate while I climbed over after her.  I would not want to have to do that everyday - she is huge and wiggly!

Needless to say, everyone outside is locked up tight tonight.  There will be no fox snacks courtesy of Gael Glen Farm.

Sadly for us, our farm family are not the only ones currently under attack.  As it turns out, the very hens I am so eager to protect from our foxy visitor are producing butt bombs that are highly toxic to Baby Alistair.

Does she look lethal or lovely to you?

After several instances of itchy hives, Ali and I visited an allergist today to confirm that he is allergic to our delicious farm fresh eggs, both the yolks and the whites.  This is sad news indeed, though he will hopefully outgrow it.

And so we conclude the day with foxes after our hens and hen eggs after our Alistair.  I feel like we are living the Gael Glen version of "all around the mulberry bush" with foxes and hens circling our baby instead of monkeys and weasels running around a bush.