Home on the Hill

It's been snowing for the last week or so.  That's great as we will need the moisture come August. The snow is getting pretty deep. Last Sunday I basical just got up and started to plow.  The diesel bill is going to be a doozy this month.  Mind you I have been rooting for moisture.  January had rain.  And then late in Jan the start of February we have been getting snow.  All good for the water table come August.  This will be the ear of the well as we are going to put in at least one and probably two.  Fortunately we know where the water is and if we can dig wells using a small excavator all will be golden.  Basically we want to split the House, Garden and Livestock waters into their own, separate sources.  Had a tenant who was going to move into Grandmas but didn't in the end.  They did a whole lot of work cleaning the place up and we want to keep it that way so we gave Boose the cat a promotion from green house duty and mov...

Exactly.  What happened this year?  The well ran dry. For the first time that anyone can remember our spring fed well ran dry.  It was an extremely dry summer with very little moisture following a winter with far less snow.  Nothing says work like having to truck water in.  And pack it to the animals.  It happened just as we were transitioning from mud to ice.  The well has made a comeback but we are still taking usage waste prevention measures.  Like " if it's yellow let it mellow ".  Next spring will bring the start of water year where we explore separating the house water from the animal and garden needs.  Eave troughs to collect any rainwater that falls for the garden.  Changing three toilets to the low flow type. The biggest project just might be a water line from our pond down to the barn connection.  That's a whole lot of digging but we will be assured of water.  Hopefully a lot of snow and a wet spring will...

I can tell 'cuz I have to have the truck in four wheel drive to get it around my driveway. We are transitioning to Berkshires.  The Royal Pig.  Here are a couple of princesses having a late morning nap.  Having found a plentiful supply of nice gravel on the property we built an all weather road to the loading ramp at the barn.  Had some scary moments trying to extricate the skidsteer from the late spring mud bog that was there previously.  Now, with the addition of a new gate customers can drive right up to the loading dock.  Makes loading piglets a whole lot easier.  Mind you with the P.E.D. scare down south and now back east in Canada we may have to re-think our bio-security procedures. Of course any road bulding job requires a supervisor..  The road goes to this loading dock.  This is just the graded underlay before the gravel was applied.  20 loads of gravel and a road that won't suck your gumboots off when you walk on it....

We are having a very strange weather pattern.  It's deep January but the temperature is only around 5C ( 41F).  We've had over a week of fog.  The old timers say they have never seen anything like this.  The ice fog precipitates and turns the most mundane of objects into graceful art work. I think it is astonishingly beautiful. The tree's become studies in black and white: We're prepared for snow.  It's not really a bother.  But the warm weather causes our carefully plowed kilometer long driveway to turn into a sheet of ice.  Ice that at times has a film of water on it.  Treacherous.  I tried six times the other day in our 4X4 truck equipped with brand new studded winter tires to make it up a right angled hill.  I succeeded on try number six, and it was touch and barely go. Today we've got some snow coming down. If it keeps up it will add weight to the already ice covered trees.  Fortunately the ice on the trees a...

It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog. It's not that I haven't been up to a few projects this year its simply that l been doing updating on various social media and not aggregating it in this blog. We've just come out of our first cold snap- a couple of weeks of -20, with its usual pipe freeze ups. A trial run before the deep chill of late December through February. However,  I was reminded just recently that "only fools and newcomers predict the weather." We've been here coming on 10 years now,  so we're still newcomers.  I think it takes at least two decades before were living in the Blomquist place- but what the heck, we're not going anyplace. I think there comes a time when a Homestead needs to make a decision about where it is going. We seem to have reached that point. Expand the farm,  or shrink it back to a hobby farm.  Our worry was that we wouldn't be able to sale what we could produce.  Thankfully, so far that...

To get to the tractor!  Scratch for delectables, feel grass between their toes,  build up those drum sticks, fertilize the field - lot's of reasons really.  And they are all important to building a plump, chemical free, juicy, tasty freezer filling chicken. Need I say more? Here's the Chicken Motor Home.  They quite liked the ride down the road, over the gate, and into the pasture. The Chicken Tractor: the pile of wood is just waiting for the wood storage balcony to be built. Always great to sit around and admire our handiwork after the project is done! Last night we stood on the balcony transfixed with the light show surrounding us. Spectacular against a backdrop of dark purple. Great streaks of energy criss crossing in mesh patterns.  Walls of light.  The darkness punctuated by sizzling bolts seemingly giving Joseph's mountain some primordial shock therapy. Acupuncture by lightning.  A blood red glow low to the Southwest,  not the ...

Just finished the summer version of the Turkey Palace.  It's set in about a quarter of an acre behind a stucko wire fence. They sure seem to like it.  Next year were considering a Turkey Tractor, a mobile big enough to cart over our pastures. While Jo was in Britain some erstwhile volunteers and I whacked about 60 chickens.  Most of them Cornish Giant meat birds that we grew in a Chicken Tractor, ala, Salatin.  Thing I've learned: Lots of help is required Water temperature = 147 and it's critical A prewash speeds the process First time I've tried that on such a scale.  Went so well were about to do it again with another fifty.  Astonishing birds.  I have never seen anything grow so fast.  They are delicious also.  We had our first one three meals ago.  A nine pounder.  We let them grow a little large.  This was a load of hay, 100 bales that Brother Tom and I pulled into the yard.  It's waiting for the ha...

Haven't been posting anything for a while.  A combination of moving to different technology - tablets and hand helds  and having my Laptop getting a keyboard replaced.  All nice and spiffy now. But the spell check is not working in Blogger so that should make it interesting. Been wondering about the whole farming thing.  Attending a lot of of courses and reading the farmers messiah, Joel Salatin.  He's been an amazing inspiration.  Here's our new chicken tractor based on his design.  This one has adjustable trailer wheels cuz I was too lazy to build his simple lift and puller.  I will do that when I build some more tractors.  This one comes with a built in spilt feed cleaner!     As you might be able to tell.  This lot's about ready for some processing.  I am getting an urge for baked chicken!  Had a couple of roosters fall prey to what I think was a fox.  Last night all the dogs and I slept out on the veran...

Back from a trip down south.  While I was away one of our Sows decided it was time to bring forth some new piggies into the midst.  So Jo-Ann, with the help of some friendly neighbours got to handle the event. Fortunately, we've kept track of all the breeding dates of the five sows we currently have and can figure out when they should farrow.  Job last before I left was to get Peg the Pig into a farrowing stall we had built.  In a hurry we just screwed a pallet across the back of a stall to make a safe area for the little piglets.  Complete with heat lamp it makes a pretty comfy place with no danger of the Mom laying on the piglets. We lost five of the litter of eight.  A pretty tough blow.  The cause seems to be that the piglets got away from the mom and got too cold.  The culprit is suspected to be too much hay. Picking up from that tragedy we have been building new stalls with farrowing rails.  We're waiting for the next fou...

It's April 6th and I am sitting at our kitchen table at 8:30 in the morning.  It's a struggle  to see the trees at the Southern edge of our front property due to a blinding blizzard.  This has been going on for two days now.  A couple of days ago we were congratulating ourselves over getting through another winter and planning on putting away the long johns, and how it looked like the balmy days were here again.  Plus 10 temperatures.  Mother Nature may have taken slight at being taken for granted. The three bird feeders off the front balcony are filled with Juncos, their feathers all fluffed up against the driving Eastern snow.  It's only -5c but it seems a lot colder.  It's certainly long john season again.  For a while anyway. The snow will put a bit of a damper on the pig feeder project.  I was hoping to get that done before my trip to the coast. It was mud season a couple of days ago so I built a couple of pallet walks ...