Correction

I was informed tonight that I have "lied" on the blog recently, and so am taking this opportunity to correct that false bit of information, because I know that many of you, dear readers, were terribly troubled and lost a fair bit of sleep over the fact that Mark finished harvest on the Thursday following Halloween, and NOT on Halloween as stated in the previous blog entry, dated November 10, 2009. Also, the date of that entry is actually a bit of a trick since I originally wrote parts of it on the 10th, but did not officially post it until around the 13th, so it showed the date of the first draft.

I sincerely apologize for any stress and undue harm this may have caused (besides within this household...hahahah!!!)

Am off to 'home', West Branch for a couple days and really looking forward to it! Am also meeting up with some friends who will, by some great cosmic coincidence, be in Moncton for one night only. Can't wait!

Hope this finds you well.

-Sally

Harvest is OVER!

That's right, Mark wrapped up the last of the soybeans on Halloween, so the combine has been put away and everything is in some kind of storage. All the last minute wrinkles worked themselves out, at least long enough to finish up, which was a big relief around here.

So the next big project is the new sheep barn. We've run out of the room in the old barn, and really we need more space to be able to separate them to maximize our production a bit more. I'd like to be able to breed the ewes for spring lambing as well as a winter lambing, so that we can produce more lambs more often, thus offering a consistent product and maintaining customers who want lamb year 'round. (Note to all restaurants and businesses looking for a supply of PEI organic lamb!!! Here I am!!!) Actually I'm a while away from having year round production but this barn will be the first step in getting there and this week has been the first step of the new barn!

After much discussion it was decided that the best route to go about starting the whole project was the "West Branch/Hillbilly Method". So instead of tearing off the plywood, taking out the insulation, framing in windows, etc. etc. it was voted to just cut into the wall where we guessed that the old frames might be and see what happens. Turned out pretty darn good I'd say (guess who's idea this was!? hahah!) As you can see in the picture below, it's pretty clear where the old windows used to be.
The lower section of the barn was a dairy barn in a previous life and is now in the transition back to housing livestock, so the frames are still there, it was just a matter of finding them, and a few rat tunnels to boot. :)
So this is the result of the first cut and it went fairly well. As I write this, there are four more holes which will very soon be windows. We haven't decided whether to go with all six that are seen from the outside shot because they're fairly large windows, so that may be an expansion project for a later date (ie. not likely to get done, but let's talk about it like a legitimate possibility to make our female foreman feel good.)

These are some important before shots of the barn, which is currently used as grain storage. (Family farming is a battle of give and take- I mean you can't very well take away a man's storage space without agreeing that it necessitates the purchase of yet another grain tank, can you!?) You can see where the ceiling drops considerably, which is where the sheep barn will begin. The lower part is where the hay mow is, conveniently enough, and although it looks quite low, the general consensus is that there will be no clean out problems when it comes to getting a tractor in there. Time shall tell, and if it tells a bad story, I don't want to be the one caught with a fork in my hand! So you'll have lots of barn reno stories coming your way in the future, I'm sure. We've decided to mimic my mom's sheep barn design somewhat, with a feed alley up the middle, able to feed out of both sides, and easily separate the flock if need be. We are also building it wide enough that we hope to be able to accomodate round bales in the future, but we'll see how that goes when we cross that road. I threw in the picture of Wilson climbing his bouncy seat so that you could see just how mobile he is getting. This puts a whole new spin on life around here.

Oh my, just heard a crash...and it's nap time... Let's hope it's the cat...Ugh...it was loud enough to wake Wilson at least...

Hope this finds you well, and more awake than I feel today!!!

-Sally

Straight Ahead, sorta...

Like her dad, Lucy likes to eat the kernels of grain right out of the field, be it wheat, soybeans or barley, she enjoys a good chew on the hard little seeds. She took it a step further the other day however, when I caught her eating flour by the handfuls. Of all the things in that cupboard that she could reach, she went for the flour...My girl likes her carbs raw.

Lucy showing off the beans in their neat rows just before harvest.

Our wettest field this fall. We're hoping to be able to do something about drainage next year, although less rain wouldn't hurt either!

Soybean harvest is a fickle thing. Less tricky than potatoes, since the soybeans can really stay in the field until...well...a long time. Certainly a lot longer than potatoes can. But the wet fall has made for some anxious days, wondering if there will be enough fine weather to 'get them off' as we say. Alas, it looks like this year there will be. Mark was out yesterday, finishing up what we hoped to be the last of the beans for this year. Things were going really quite well, (except for the yields in one field, which were less than satisfactory) until Halloween night when Mark heard a knocking in the combine (generally not a great sound with any kind of machine), and suddenly (although evidently, it had been a while in coming) the main intake auger on the flex header of the combine literally snapped in two. Not good.
So Mark was using the other header yesterday, which is really designed for grains. The difference is, that soybeans grow so close to the soil, that the flex header is built to 'flex' with the hills and valleys of the rows so that more of the beans can be picked up. The regular grain header is built with a solid front section to zip through the grains which are hopefully standing up and waving in the wind at harvest. It just means slower going and possibly missing a few beans here and there. The risk of waiting until the other header is fixed and testing the weather isn't worth those few beans that may be missed.

It all sounded good in theory and was going fairly well, until after four rounds and a full tank, Mark went to unload into the gravity wagon and the unloading auger (technical term hahaha) wouldn't engage. SO, once again, things are at a stand still until that is fixed (the project for this wet day). Also, yesterday we found another flex header for parts, so project number two is putting the 'new' intake auger into the 'old' header.Mark unloading into one of the gravity wagons (when the unloading auger worked!)

Lucy liked the handmedown Eeyore costume, but the head was a little heavy, so she opted for the witch (because that meant she got to wear the plastic green fingers).

We survived another Freetown Halloween, by which I mean to suggest, we are still eating all the candy left over from our seven trick or treaters. Yep, seven. So while I try to pretend the left over chips and mini chocolate bars don't exist, Mark is doing his part by consuming them as quickly as possible for the both of us. Lucy is still working on a candy apple she got from a neighbour. Hilarious to watch that process.

I forgot to post this picture back when it was relevant, but didn't want to miss an opportunity to show that I got something from my garden that will last through the winter. (Seems like most of what I plant is just to be enjoyed while it's fresh, but that means that I end up buying fresh veggies in the winter from who knows where. Those peppers have all been chopped and frozen by now and although I don't love green tomatoes, I managed to find something to do with all of them.

I was doing my annual 'kids in leaves' autumn photo shoot that was going pretty well until a chicken rudely interrupted! She was pretty curious and pretty photogenic too. My family at home probably thinks I'm crazy posting pictures of a chicken, but I feel confident that I've got readers out there who appreciate an up close profile of a regular ol' laying hen. Haha!

Here's your daily dose of happy.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

-Sally

Call Before You Dig!

Lucy's vantage point for the whole event. Needless to say, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

This entry is mostly for the benefit of my family back in West Branch who are keeping close tabs on our basement-water situation over here. I mentioned that a guy was coming to put in some sort of ditch to help run the water from the backyard, away from the house and down to the road ditch. The day they came to have a look, Mark, being the prudent man that he is, began to dismantle and move the playset and sandbox that take up residence in direct line of the ditch. My garden was also in direct line of the ditch, but I, being the...er...more relaxed girl that I am, didn't worry about my perennial bed of asparagus (my three year investment from which I harvested maybe 12 spears this spring, for the first time!) and my large patch of gladiolus bulbs until one morning at 8 am, I answer the door in my housecoat, glasses still on, child in a diaper at my side, to a man driving a dozer through my hedge.

So, while he was backing up, ready to push again, I was running around like a little rat, trying to snag all the gladiolus plants that I could. You can see at the feet of my shadow in the picture above, that I managed to get most of them. (By this time I am dressed and decent by the way).
Below, is what is left of my hedge, although as Mark said, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. We actually still have quite a bit of it left.

This is the final product in the backyard and although it's a poor representation, there is quite a nice slope running from the house into the ditch now. And the ditch runs right down to the road, out in front of our front flower bed.
The asparagus and a few glad bulbs were not the only casualties however. I picked up the phone after the dozer left to discover that somehow, the line had been cut during the whole process. Right where the farthest chicken is, in the above shot, our phone line ran just under the surface of the ground and underwent a bit of a nip and tuck you might say. Thankfully Aliant came just a couple hours later and fixed it, but who would have thought our phone line would be in the BACK yard!? As far from the road as you can get really. Now we know I guess?

That's all for today. Just a yard work update for the Wilsons in West Branch. The next step is that they same guys are going to bring out a back-hoe to dig up the dry well and depending on what we find, we'll likely drop a large pipe down to it to be able to check the water level and potentially drop a pump down to get the water out of the hole and away from the yard. Here's hoping!!! Will let you know all the misadventures of that trial as well!

Hope this finds you well.

-Sally

Showing off the sign and the fam

Ever since we had Wilson, and then when we got the new sign, we've been saying we needed to get new pictures, since all of our old ones only have Lucy in them. So, finally, the other day on the spur of the moment, in the snow/rain and cold wind, we decided that since we had the skills of Bobby Jo Hickey of Old Mill Photography, we decided to update.

Here's just a couple of the results, along with our new profile picture to the left of this post.
Things are relatively quiet here. Had a nice day of warmth here (for a change), carved a couple pumpkins and laid around in the sun like old barn cats. It was nice. The long range for this week is looking nice, so Mark is hoping to get in to the soybeans, but no one is holding their breath.
On the home front, we had a company (and conveniently family friends) come to look at our back and front yard to tell us what we had to do to keep water away from our basement this spring and the first move is going to be them coming in with some sort of heavy machinery to dig a ditch from our backyard, down the side of our lawn, out to the road ditch. This is to help get rid of the snow that accumulates on the backyard with no where to go.
This doesn't solve the problem of what we think is the dry well filling up because there's not enough grade to the road and the water has nowhere to go. The house should have been built up farther off the ground to start with, but there's not much we can do about it now. And apparently, not much we can do at all in fact, except suffer. When the guy is here to dig the ditch, he's going to dig up the dry well, check it out and see if there's anything that can be done to improve the problem. I really don't care what it takes, because I am NOT sucking water out of my basement again. Last spring, I had a 16 month old, a big pregnant belly and spent three days in rubber boots, with a shop vac acting as an extra appendage. A great way to ring in the spring!

Anyway, gotta try and catch up on some sleep. Wilson is STILL getting up for a mid night snack every night, and no matter how quick it is, it breaks up a good night's sleep pretty nicely.
Hope all is well wherever you are!

-Sally

A Moose on the Loose- and I don't mean Mark

Photo by Alanna Jankov

It's been so long, which means that once again, I have lots to say! A lot has happened since my last post, although here at the farm, things are running at a pretty even keel while we wait for it to dry up a bit (along with every other farmer on PEI) so we can begin soybean harvest. It has been a good opportunity for Mark to spend some time getting things working A-1 before combining again and finishing up some of those little jobs that get put off.
We sent our last batch of chickens for this year and have just a few left in the freezer. It's been a really great year and we don't anticipate having too much difficulty selling what we have left. While they're not a huge hassle, it has been nice to not have to be out in the fields on these cold cold mornings filling water buckets and feeders. (Mark will probably snicker at that comment, as I very seldom found myself in that position this summer; it was mostly he and Wendell, but I can sympathize can't I!?) Looking forward to next year and having the first bundles of little yellow puff balls huddling under the heat lamps again.

Some big excitement around here has been the release of the annual Federation of Agriculture's "Faces of Farming" calendar which showcases farmers from the across the Island. The photographer was here in the spring while the lambs were still cute and took some pictures of Lucy and the sheep but we never heard anymore. So when the calendar came out we were delighted to see little Lucy Bernard on the front cover with this shot;Photo by Alanna Jankov

And then this was December's picture;Photo by Alanna Jankov

Although I love them all, obviously, my favorite of the ones they took is the one I put at the top of the post. I couldn't be prouder! Especially because it's not contrived at all, Lucy really is that comfortable around the sheep and loves being in with them that much, which is so great. Anyway, if you want a calendar and can't find one, or are "from away", let us know and we can make sure you get one.

In other news, Mark and I took some much-deserved time away from the farm and kids and went to a wedding of some fellow NSACers down in beautiful Sherbrook, NS. It was quite a drive, but my parents were kind enough to meet us in Aulac to take the kids which saved us a lot of time there, and then we were able to take our time, using some back roads to get us there. It was the most perfect weekend for it because despite of heavy rains on the way down, the drive back was sunny and perfect. The colours of the leaves were amazing and it's always nice to go somewhere you've never been before. The wedding was nice and it was good to have some laughs with old friends. On the way home we stopped at a favorite place of mine; the wentworth waterfall. I'm not sure the real name of the place, but it's obviously gaining recognition, since when we stopped in there was a steady stream of people, cameras in hand. Off one of the dirt lanes as you drive along the old Wentworth highway, up a little trail through the woods, is the most beautiful waterfall. It seems like too often, I just say, "Oh we don't have time today, we'll see it next time." But it's really worth taking the old way, when the water is running hard and fast like it was over the weekend.

Finally, after a great night away, we went to my home, West Branch, NB to see our kids and my family and have Thanksgiving dinner! West Branch always has some interesting story on the go and this time was no exception. There has been a moose taking up residence with Mom's sheep for a week or more now and I was glad that it was still around when I got home. You can easily spot it in the field along with Mom's llama and flock of sheep.

My brother was able to actually touch it and over the weekend, a couple of my nephews went down to see her and she let them get pretty close, as these pictures prove. If you can't tell by now, she's not exactly normal. Apparently she has some kind of brain disease, and she's not in very great body condition, but evidently she is still functioning in other ways because a bull moose has been around, sniffing and following pretty adamantly. My mom saw the two of them courting around the pasture until she noticed only one and found the female hiding up in the sheep feedlot area. Typical, my brother said. haha. Anyway, we'll see what happens with this story, as Mom says the sheep don't really mind her, and now she obviously knows her way around the place.

Well, that's enough excitement for now, from here. It's good to be back on red soil, even if the frost was the heaviest it's been last night, and the air has a very distinct, "goodbye autumn" feeling to it.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

-Sally
Moose photos by Daniel Shortall and Jake Wilson- thanks!

The Boy Is Back In Town

Tis the time of year when the air gets breezy and crisp, the leaves begin to turn, and hormones get all a flutter; in sheep at least. I had been negligent in finding an appropriate ram for my ladies and as usual left it to the last minute, but also as usual, things have worked out really well. In the past, I have always stayed with a purebred dorset ram to maintain my purebred lines since I figured it was a benefit to have the option of selling registered breeding stock as well. I'm yet to use that option and right now, my organic lamb is worth more in a freezer than in a show ring, so I decided to branch out and look for a ram who would bring some helpful/valuable characteristics to my lambs. I've been considering the North Country Cheviot breed for some time, but have been wary of thier tendency to be a bit...er...wild. My little dorsets are so calm and easy going that I have no trouble in handling them, but I've seen how jumpy and crazy cheviots can be. I've also seen the meatyness of them and figure that they may bring a faster growing lamb to the flock. They're also a maternal breed, are hardy and make good use of pasture so if I choose to keep some females they may be a good addition to my flock.
ANYway, enough justifying! My mom shopped for a ram for me at the annual sheep sale in Truro back at the beginning of September, but apparently Quebec buyers were there in numbers and the prices were going high. Good for the farmers, not so good for me. So I began a desperate search. I really wanted to rent a ram rather than buying one, primarily because I would have to house him all winter and due to the fact that Lucy enjoys getting right in amongst the flock and I don't have great trust with rams, I'd have to keep him separate. I also wanted to try breeding something other than a dorset, but didn't know if I wanted to do it more than once, so didn't want the committment of potentially having him for more than one season. Renting a ram however, has its own share of problems due to never really knowing enough about an animal and what sort of history it has, what kind of problems it might bring, etc. Particularly in an organic system where I don't have the chemical tools usually used to treat things like ticks for example.

Anyway, long story short, a girl who bought a bunch of spring lambs with the intention of breeding them, figured she wouldn't need her ram until much later this fall and I wanted an early lambing, so in exchange for trimming his feet (or rather, Mark trimming his feet), I've got a big beautiful, 3 year old, North Country Cheviot ram in my flock these days. I checked his tattoo as we unloaded him and according to the Canadian Livestock records he was originally owned by the late, great Allison Stewart, a locally reknowned North Country and Suffolk breeder who just recently passed away. The ram has perfect North Country character in his face and is truly the picture of fine breeding lines, or at least I think so. Judge for yourself.

Notice he's the king of the hay mountain there. We don't trust him, but so far he's been too interested in the ladies to even notice us.

The green on his chest is the breeding marker we rigged up. We didn't have a marking harness, which is the most common way to mark the ewes who have been bred, but wondered if a little vegetable shortening and tattoo ink would do the trick and as you can see from the green bums of some of the ewes, it's working! As of today I think there are 10 green hind ends, and he's been here for only a week so far. I'm a happy shepherdess these days and look forward to seeing what kind of floppy eared little lambs show up in February!

In other news, we attended Open Farm Day once again and once again we're glad we did. We only made it to one spot this year as accomodating naps, kids and thier accompanying accessories is no small task, but we made it a good stop none the less. It was a breezy day so fittingly we went to Kool Breeze Farms in Summerside, who always make it all about the kids and each year they get more and more creative. There is the annual scarecrow contest and then out in the field there are big hay creations.

Although its a bit blurry I love this giant hay spider. I used Mark as the size comparison. haha.

This is a picture of Lucy checking out the scarecrow of "Boomer", the Island weather man, a celebrity of sorts.

Finally, we attended the afore mentioned Organic Harvest Meal last night and I'm still recovering today. What a spread! It was the first time that they did a sit-down meal versus a buffet and it was sooo good! I can't decide what my favorite part was, but somewhere between the organic beer, the savoury soup served in a pumpkin, the apple deliciousness and the keynote from What-Would-Ralph-Do-Martin I'm pretty sure I got drunk on amazing food and some good laughs. Worth every penny for sure! I didn't bring my big 'ole camera, but I'll include a picture of Wilson who looks like he is having as much fun as I did last night.
Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

-Sally