Deadlines and a Dancing Mixer

There is nothing like a deadline to push you to complete your pallet garden construction project.  Today I had two: Grandma Cora departing at noon to visit GG (bye bye Seamus watcher) and the threat of rain starting at midnight (bye bye good weather for working outside).  As a result, I worked like a mad-woman to get my last two pallet gardens finished in time for triple mix delivery later this week.  I am happy to report that they are done with time to spare!

I advertise this with the clear disclaimer that they are done to the best of my abilities.  I have decided that I should add carpenter, alongside goat vaccinater and sheep shearer, to this list of tasks that, frankly, I am not very good at.  I have accepted that I will never be fit to be a home builder.  Despite my best efforts, what starts out square frequently does not end up square.  It is baffling.  Any house I built would surely resemble the Crazy Kitchen.

I have made my peace my limited carpentry skills.  I can be satisfied with building chicken cabanas, pallet gardens, and milking stands while leaving the more serious undertakings to others.  To quote Ian following Sunday's aborted attempt at shearing our sheep myself (after the first snip came a little to close to Abbott's skin for my liking), "Well, you can't be good at everything."  Anyone know a professional sheep shearer?

My construction project would have been finished sooner but I encountered a few unforeseen obstacles.  Namely, I let the KitchenAid mixer "dance" off the counter while kneading bread dough.  Not only did it add a new crack to my tile floor but it brought our coffee grinder down with it.

The poor grinder smashed into a million tiny shards of glass.  Ian has been looking for an excuse to upgrade our grinder for a while now and I definitely gave him one.  Though I would caution visiting the farm until he secures a replacement - neither of us are at our friendliest without our morning coffee.

As a result of this fiasco, my dancing mixer has been relegated to the floor to knead.

This should circumvent any similar catastrophes in the future.  On the up side, my second and third loaves of bread turned out nicely.  The first one went in the garbage in case any rogue glass shards had made their way into the bowl.  Given the number of coffee beans embedded in the dough following the crash, it was a distinct possibility.

I must admit that I am looking forward to tomorrow's inclement weather to get things back in order around the house and maybe take a much needed afternoon nap.  There is nothing quite like a rainy day nap.

Ground Day

In honour of "Ground Day" (Liam's English translation of La Journée de la Terre), I transplanted our seedlings into their new pallet garden home.  It sure is lucky when the number of pots you have exactly matches the number of spaces in the garden that are available.

Life is pretty good when you can spend a beautiful sunny afternoon with your hands buried in warm dirt.  #happyfarmgirl

Halfway

Done

Box Beds, Baked Breads & Burgling Bees

It is one thing to build something with the exact right supplies, all purchased new for a specific purpose.  It is another thing entirely to build something from scraps that you have scavenged, salvaged, and re-purposed.  Still flying high from the success of my chicken cabana construction project, I decided to build a few economical pallet gardens.  With my existing box gardens almost at capacity and my big garden still a mud pie, I am in desperate need of more workable garden space in which to plant the many seedlings that are hardened off and now ready for the great outdoors.

I have had this box bed project in mind ever since I mentally calculated how much space bi-weekly plantings of peas, spinach, radishes, and lettuce would take.  Lots!  This has left me, and my trusty but rusty green trailer, with plenty of time to undertake the scavenging portion of my endeavour.

My plunder.

Today the construction began.

Liam and I stapled landscape fabric to the bottom of pallets that we found or re-purposed.
This will help stop grass and weeds from popping up in our garden.

We added sides to the box beds using discarded pallet planks that we found being thrown out.
Liam and I removed all the rusty nails and (while we could have done it ourselves)
we delegated cutting them to Papa.  Liam and I drilled them all in.

Seamus and I filled one bed up with triple mix.
We do not currently have enough dirt for the second box bed
so we will have to wait for the delivery of our dump truck load of triple mix to come mid-week.

I covered the completed box garden with plastic to warm up the soil for planting. 

While puttering around outside today we noticed lots of honey bee activity for the first time this spring.  The bees are definitely not ours (sad face) but we figured that we would take advantage of their search for nectar by putting out our empty frames and supers for them to clean up.  Storing these will be easier if they are not all sticky!

Honey bees hard at work cleaning off the excess honey.
Hopefully these bees remember our house as the land of milk and honey
when they decide to swarm later this spring.  

Amidst all of today's chaos - building new garden boxes, minding kids, laundry, grocery shopping, garage re-organization, and livestock care - I managed to sneak inside at multiple intervals to bake the most delicious bread ever.  It was fluffy and flavourful; store bought quality for sure.  Victory!

Around 5 pm, Ian and I ran out of steam.  Thank goodness Ian already had dinner on the BBQ by this point or it would have been a Carp pizza kind of night.  The installation of the hoops above the new box garden and the planting of seedlings in it will just have to wait until tomorrow.  We are exhausted.  Now if only the boys would go to sleep so we can too!

Do You Pine for Strawberries?

With warmer weather finally here, Liam, Seamus and I were able to prep our strawberry patch.  We abandoned our first attempt at a strawberry patch a few years ago after it was repeatedly overtaken by weeds.  Last Mother's Day, Ian and the boys gifted me with a dozen new strawberry plants.  We planted these in a sunny south side box garden in between our pear trees.  This spring we used old pine needles, raked from under some of our trees, as mulch.  This should both fertilize and keep the weeds down so the strawberry plants can thrive.  Hopefully we have better luck with strawberry patch attempt #2.

Liam really put his back into it.

Seamus was less committed.
He was more interested in licking his giant lollipop and waving his rake around.

The boys had lost interest by this point.

So, I finished the job.

Happy Goats

Martha, one of Gael Glen Farm's Nigerian Dwarf goats, has asked to take over the blog today. Who am I to protest?  I guess my post about weeding and mulching the strawberry patch will have to wait.  Over to you, Martha.

Here are five things that happened today to make me a very happy goat.

#1 Someone left the gate unlocked, Mellie and I escaped from the chicken run and ate a bunch of leaves and grass in the backyard before anyone noticed.

#2 I took my first selfie with my favourite human.  She let me stand on her back to pose.

#3 My human family members worked together to build and install brand new salt, mineral, and baking soda feeders in Mellie's and my side of the coop. Luxury.

Seamus wants to know if his tongue is as long as mine.
I have no idea.  I've never seen my tongue.

#4 Liam and Seamus gave us GOAT SNACK (so yum) and played with us on our play structure.  It was SO fun!

#5 I am the Queen of the Castle and you're the dirty rascal.

Best day ever.  Martha out.  Mike drop - goat style.

Plotting the Next Great Escape

Martha and Mellie: "How to escape?  Where is the weak spot?
Keep looking.  I know we can find it!" 

Like the crafty penguins in the kids' film Madagascar, Martha and Mellie spend their days plotting their next great escape.  As far as I can tell, they are not trying to go some place in particular, just anywhere they are not supposed to be.

I seem to be able to contain Martha and Mellie in the chicken run - if I barricade the gate so they do not push it open and squeeze through - but beyond that, I am not sure their containment is possible.  They wear dog (goat?) tags with our address and phone number in case they ever really get away.  

This spring and summer I would like to let them (and the hens and ducks) out into the bigger run to graze and forage.  However, first I need to figure out exactly how they are escaping what seems to me to be a pretty secure enclosure.  Oh, the stress that a zookeeper must feel!  Just image the ruckus that would ensue if Martha and Mellie were man-eating carnivores.

Today Martha revealed at least one of their tricks.

A staple holding the fence to the gate must have come loose.
Martha exploits this defect by squeezing under to get out into the backyard.
Emily waits patiently for an unsuspecting chicken to follow suit.

The gate is an easy fix.  This, combined with a few wheelbarrows full of gravel under the fence line to bring the ground up past the bottom of the fence wire, and I am hoping that the larger paddock will become goat-proof.  Admittedly, I have my doubts.  I am not so naive as to think my goats won't outsmart me.  Escapism is their specialty and they seem very committed to their conviction that the grass is indeed greener on the other side of any fence.

A Fowl Mood

Having just returned from putting a very cantankerous Liam on the school bus, I collapse emotionally exhausted (it is 8:49 am) into a kitchen chair to commiserate with Ian about how Liam's current bout of disagreeable behaviour is putting us both in a foul mood.  Ian, staring woefully at the white abyss that is our backyard, turns to me with an alarmed look, "I think Emily has got a hold of a chicken!"

It is common knowledge around the farm that Emily has a poultry murdering alter ego, though it has been years since her last foul fowl rampage.  Knowing that every second counts when Emily goes over to the dark side, I bolt from my chair and race through the snow in my bare feet in full hen rescue mode. When I arrive at the coop, Emily has the hen pinned to the ground and is in the process of ripping out her butt feathers.  I pull Emily off (she is a tiny miniature schnauzer) and the little monster does not even pause before launching herself again at the cowering hen.

I am very aggravated by this point.  I pick up Emily but the scruff of the neck, herd the traumatized hen back into the coop, and carry Emily back to the house (yes, still in my bare feet, in the snow) to be put in bad dog time out.  The hen was not seriously hurt aside from missing some butt fluff.  This is a better outcome than our last Emily attack, perhaps because she has many fewer teeth after her adventure in Ogdensburg.  However, I am sure the poor chicken will be psychologically scarred for life.

Upon release from time out in the powder room, Emily promptly asks to be let back outside.  When denied, she throws up a pound of chicken feathers onto the kitchen floor.  This is all before 9 am.  The day does not improve.