It hit the fan in PA & Horse Professionals.

For those of you who haven't read the s*** hitting the fan all over the horse world Kelsey Lefever link & full affidavit link.

Basically this woman promised trainers that she'd find homes for lots of OTTBs which were given to her for free (number undetermined, she allegedly claimed more then 120) then turned around and sold them to slaughter for a profit.

I think most horse-lovers are well aware of the slaughter debate and firmly sit on one side or another, but everyone agrees that what this person did was despicable. She is facing criminal charges for her actions.

Having personally taken on a to-a-good-home kinda horse, and fully understanding how much his former-owner loves him, and cares for him, and cares where he ended up (and keeps up with his highly uneventful new life, Hi Sarah!) I can not comprehend Lefever's actions.

I get that there are too many horses out there for them all to find good homes in our current economy/culture. But to look someone in the eyes, promise them you'll find the horse a good home, then in cold-blood do the exact opposite, it is inconceivable to me. 

So, I'd like to re-post my article "HK 101: Is my equine professional a real professional?"; remember I got duped by someone I thought I could trust (thankfully everyone is fine & none the worse for wear).

As well as, again, encourage everyone visit Need You Now Equine, even if you're not currently looking for a rescue/project horse, maybe someone you know is.

Eat it or Love it?

The debate has been brought up again recently with ads like these:

Appearing in the TTC, what is the difference between eating a dog when we all eat pigs? (The creators of the ads are promoting vegan lifestyles).

May I offer this as an explanation?
Yes, the pot-bellies are very cute, now, while they are young. So were the tiny little meat chickens, very "cute". Human beings are not going to all switch over to a vegan diet tomorrow, so my argument is that in the mean time we need to push for better education of consumers and welfare for the animals we eat.

You want to live a vegan lifestyle go for it! But be aware that our omnivorous lifestyle may be far more environmentally sustainable. We produce our own organic foods, breed the animals here & slaughter locally. Do your research for yourself before climbing on your high-horse. You can't listen to the propaganda the big "animal welfare" groups are spitting out, because it is as bad as the propaganda from the big meat sellers.


So why should be eat pigs when we don't eat dogs? Because a dog isn't going to eat you if you knock yourself unconscious and fall in their pen.

A pig is a pig is a PIG. And while I don't actually like pork all that much, we still eat it on occasion. Is it better that it's coming from a huge factory farm kilometers away? Or from a small breeding group in our backyard?

While our two still don't have names, we aren't planning on eating them. Pot bellies do make good meat pigs because they are very lean, and easy to raise on small amounts of land.

http://www.windridgefarm.us/potbellypigs.htm

Has great info all about raising pot bellies for meat, and what the differences in the meat are.

I hope I never come off as being up on my high-horse, I really don't judge anyone who chooses to buy their meat at big grocery chains. We used to do it, and between supply still would. If you compare prices you may be very surprised that buying conventional farm-gate meat can be a lot cheaper then buying from the store.



I am very passionate about our farm, so I will talk your ear off about why I think all meat/production animals should be cared for with respect and under organic principals.

Big, Small, Hobby?

So what kind of farmer are you? Are you a hobby farmer? Or a small-scale farmer? What's the difference?

Hobby Farmer
Means you don't make a profit. You're probably not sinking too much money into the farm (or hopefully you're not!), you may be selling a few animals, but mostly you keep what you like to have around. You may or may not have a balance sheet but if you do it's most likely in the red. You're growing things for fun & your family.

If you keep a pair of chickens in your urban backyard or have some patio potatoes, you're a hobby farmer. 

Small Scale
Made a profit last year? Welcome to small-scale farming! Whether you focus on one animal or have lots, small scale farmers care about a bottom line. You may not be living off the farm, but you should be making something even if it only covers hydro. If you're trying to make a profit, but loosing your shirt, it still counts.

You may have show animals or not, be more of a breeder then a farmer, or not; but if you've got livestock you're a small-scale farmer.

Medium Scale
Quit your day job? You're a medium scale farmer! You should no only be clearing income, but should be able to keep yourself employed above the poverty line ($25k a year in Canada). You may have lots of money invested in your business, but the size of your land does not dictate where you sit. So you can be a medium scale farmer on 5 acres of land, or 200 acres.

Large Scale
Living more then a little comfortably off the farm? Supplying grocery chains? More then one farm? Hundreds of head? You're a large scale farmer. And maybe that's just me sitting here on my little tiny farm, but I'd say if you're clearing more then 100k a year. This is the big times.

And large scale farming does not equate to "Big Ag".

Big Ag
Control inputs for more then a hundred thousand food producers?
Create so much waste that the back end of your production can be called a natural disaster?
Been featured, legitimately, on some animal rights group's propaganda with your normal practices?

We don't like you.

Bio Security

Now, I've made it no secret to anyone I've talked to in the last 4 months how ridiculous and unfair the quota rules are. Before I start on another rant about that, here is something the OMFARA is getting really right.

You can get a biosecurity booklet with all their info at: www.agbiosecurity.ca or www.healthybirds.ca.

I tried printing & posting my own sign from
the site, it lasted one rainstorm despite
the protective sleeve

Most of the information is already available on heathybirds.ca (which is really worth checking out of general bird health information, even if you don't live in Ontario). The booklet is a nice reference, although I'm not sure how long the "weatherproof" sign is going to last. 

Biosecurity is really important to the backyard flock owner for a few reasons, not the least of which are

• Even though BigAg productions pose a far greater threat of producing and spreading big scary anti-biotic resistant diseases, we don't want to be passing around avian flu or west nile either, and those are ones small flock keepers are good at spreading around.
• You don't want to your birds getting sick & loosing your time and money investment into them
• It's the law. As I mentioned before, it's illegal to free-range in Ontario because you need to limit access of wild birds (and other animals) to your flock. (Of course there are ways to limit wild birds when your birds are ranging)

Most of the bio-security stuff you're probably already adhering to because it's common sense. Other things are as simple as having a hand-sanitizer bottle in your chicken coop (you can pick up a pretty big bottle at the dollar store). The log book is just in case there is an outbreak, so they can track back who has come to visit, and you only need people who have chickens (or who have recently been around chickens) to sign it.

Keeping your coop, waterers, feeders, and bedding clean will keep your birds healthy and make your job a whole lot more enjoyable. I also really believe in the principal of making the inspectors (should they ever show up) happy by showing we're making the effort and they are going to leave us alone. 

Are you sure those are meat chickens?

If I had a dollar for everyone person that had asked that, well, maybe that would be the best way to make money farming. 

Our birds grew more slowly then your typical meat birds. It wasn't a mix up at the hatchery as we first suspected, although it's possible we weren't feeding them enough around the 4 months mark (my bad!). Quite simply the reason our meat birds don't look like meat birds, is because we let them live.

Out scrounging around

They had a chance to run around, enjoy the sunshine, scratch in the dirt, get into the cow poo, and choose whether or not they wanted to interact with any of the other chickens at any given moment. In return I have a whole lot of chicken poo to clean up around the farm when they are gone, but the grass is richer for it. We lost none to heart-attacks and broken legs despite them getting far older then they are supposed to. They greatly reduced the fly population around the farm, and provided tons of soil aeration to a few spots that really needed it. As well as entertainment for the kids.

For next year we are going to confine them to certain areas, probably with electric netting, just to keep the poo off the lawn. We also have to do this so that we can get a better feed conversion rate, unless everyone wants to pay $10/Kg. I hope we never have to go to an indoor system, to me this seems a far fairer way to raise chickens.

Following me into the barn for dinner

Their date is set for Wednesday. We're all very excited and should be enjoying our first roast chicken from the farm within just a few days. We've already had a ton of friends and family asking for chickens, in fact I doubt we're going to have enough as everyone would like. I certainly hope they all enjoy them too.

Quite honestly I think I'm going to miss those feathery little white bowling balls running all over the place. When they weren't getting directly in my way, or the cockerels trying to bite at my legs, they were quite a nice animal to have around. I'm looking forward to next April when we'll have a fresh crop of little yellow fuzzy bums.

How much is that Moo in the window?

Wondering how much it's going to cost you to add more livestock to your operation?

You can start with local online classifieds, but generally private sellers charge a lot more for their animals. If you want to go the auction route, it can be a little more "exciting", you should bring someone along or educate yourself about how to determine age and health of the animals you're interested in. However, the payoff is that the animals are generally far less expensive.

You can get online auction reports, check you local auction websites. Of course there is no harm in just going to have a look for a few minutes without the intention of buying anything (just leave your pocketbook at home...)

Ontario Cattlemens Association has links to a few reports.
Ontario Sheep also does.

For small scale operations, try looking in "off" seasons or when sales seem low. Keep an eye on what is going on in the market, it can save you hundreds of dollars. Lots of people try to get rid of "extra" animals before winter so they don't have to feed them.

These Amazing Little Ducks

NAP - Micro Livestock

I found this while looking up good dimensions for the nest boxes. What I found was some more info that makes me loves these duckies even more!

"For years, some Canadian farmers have sworn that few muscovies took care of all fly problems on their farms. In 1989, Ontario biologist Gordon Surgeoner and Barry Glofcheskie decided to put this to the test.
"Starting with labratory trials... put a hungry five-week-old muscovy into a screen cage with 400 living houseflies. Within an hour it had eaten 326. ... it took flypaper, fly traps, and bait cards anywhere from 15 to 86 hours to suppress the populations that much."

The whole book is well worth a read, and you can download for free. You don't even have to register, just give your email & name and "continue as guest" by following the prompts. 

Muscovy are fine to go free-range because they are aggressive towards predators, they definitely have sharp-claws you don't want to get the wrong side of (although mine are fairly tame birds). They can fly, but tend not to fly far or away from the farm at all. Ours travel in a little pack all over the farm looking for tid-bits and bugglies before returning to the coop every night. They do like to swim in the livestock tank, but Muscovy are known for being more tolerant of not having a swimming area then other ducks. Although they do splash around in the chicken's water, they don't usually make that much of a mess. Their poops are not as wet and dirty as other ducks. They are also very easy keepers, our boys are HUGE. They produce tons of eggs they are supposed to be quite delicious. 

Plus they wag their little tails when they are happy and barely make any noise at all.

Fly control & all that in one adorable tasty beautiful little package!

Grazing Corn

OMFRA video, about planting corn to have your sheep graze late fall/early winter.
Very interesting, hmmm...

You'll hear a lot from anti factory-farm people about how corn is bad & unnatural for animals. Humans have been feeding corn, and other grains, to farm animals for centuries. It is a good way to keep weight on the animals over winter.

The "problems" with corn are really more related to the factor-farm mentality and feed lots, where the animals are confined in a small area and fed corn to increase their weights right before slaughter. This adds a lot of the lovely fatty marbling that is so popular, but not a lot of nutrients.

Feeding entire stalks like this would be a good way to feed your animals for a few cold months, reducing feed costs (hay) for animals that don't need it (like the horses do) to be healthy. If you watch the video you'll noticed that there is a cow & llama in with these sheep.

Now, we do prefer the taste of grass-finished beef; it is a lot stronger tasting, more beefy, then what you get at the store; there is also some research that shows all that grass puts those good Omega3s into the beef. Something corn-fed cattle definitely don't have.

So, food for thought, either way.

Cross-bill

This is how his bill lines up, I'm just
holding his jaw up so he'll close
his mouth for the picture.

While some species of finch have actually evolved a cross-bill to eat conifers cones (i.e. pinecones) this is a major disadvantage to a chicken.

This is one of our little EE babies, he was already slated to being culled just because he's a cockerel (yeah, I feel a little bad for the boys, but we've already got 3 roosters waging cockadoodle-doo wars around the yard). Not really sure what you do with a bantam cockerel you have to cull, there isn't much too them.

He does eat just fine, he's definitely smaller & a little lighter then his hatch mate, but watching him run around you'd never notice there was a problem.

My research shows that people keeping adult hens with cross-bills will trim them so that the chicken is able to eat more normally, or provide them with wet food.

The absolute rule with these guys is that you do not allow them to reproduce. In fact I won't be allowing his mom to reproduce because it's a bad genetic flaw. It's quite possible the rooster also carries a recessive gene, and if any other of his chicks show the same problem it'll be a matter of culling the roo.

It is possible that cross-bills can be caused by a spike in incubator temperature, but these guys were hen-hatched so that's not possible & I haven't been able to find any scientific back-up to that claim.

Small Farming in Ontario

Small Farm Regulations - pdf
Farm Start.ca - original site

The is the singly-most helpful file I have found as to quota rules, and regulations. It gives a quick overview of everything you need to know to sell your small-farm produce in Ontario.

UK Pigglet Castration

So I found out a few days ago, that it is against animal welfare laws to castrate pigs in the UK. I thought these seems a little strange, so I decided to look into it.

I can't recommend not watching the video if you are squeamish, because I'm not and it made me a little ill.

When we castrate the goats or the cows* it's  an elastic band over the entire scrotum and it cuts off the blood supply to the testicles, they die & fall off. Relatively painless, especially when done young, and easy to do.

(*funny story there, I swear my husband said our boys had been done, turns out I heard him wrong. I thought things were starting to look a little... developed back there. This just means we have to change our plans a little as to when the second cow will finish.)

After watching the video, I understand why the UK banned the practice of pig castration, especially for piglet over 7 days without anesthesia. This has become such a big issue in the EU, fast food chains (like McDs and BK) have pledged not to sell pork products from castrated pigs. Overall, this is an easy one for farmers, they send the pigs to market before 1 year of age, before hormones become a problem; there maybe a small percentage of pork lost to boar taint, but they are also saving on labour.

I am a little concerned that so far my research shows that organic/free-range/grass raised etc farms tend to castrate pigs because they have to keep them around a little longer. So I'm going to have to do some more research before we get pigs (hopefully next year).

We don't purchase a lot of pork products because I disagree so strongly with many of they ways pigs are commercially raised. They are intelligent, social animals, and don't deserve the inhumanity with which we treat them. 

Urban-Proof Roosters

The ultimate solution for urban chicken keeps: sustainable, sound-proof, environmentally sound coops! There are lots of urban areas were chickens aren't allowed, and there are lots of people out there trying to change these rules. There are also lots of people skirting the law by stuffing their neighbours full of lovely home-laid eggs!

Having a few hens in your yard usually doesn't cause much trouble. Hens are usually very quiet, actually they make lovely cooing noises. You can definitely keep hens & have them lay eggs with out a rooster. But if you want a sustained flock, and higher egg production you're going to need a boy. That early morning crowing can get on the nerves of even the most egg-loving neighbour.

This is a great solution:

http://permaculture.org.au/


Built like a straw-bale house, this is the type of insulation we're considering for our coop. Luckily our roosters are back from the house awhile, I you really don't hear them until I set them out in the morning. At which point they like to start crowing battles, but by then it's a more civilized hour of day.

Winter Bale Grazing

I was watching FarmGate the other day (don't laugh at me! nothing was on ...) and they started talking about winter bale grazing.

The fields in June before the animals got here

To summarize, feeding cows in an intense area and then spreading the nutrients out on your fields in the spring only re-captures about 1% of the nitrogen in the grass for the following season. Also you've got a hard-pack of manure that takes a lot of labour/heavy equipment to clean out. Versus feeding the cattle out on the pasture during the winter disperses the nutrients from their waste around the field (so you don't have to use gas/labour to move it) and the field recaptures about 34% of the nitrogen. Making a huge difference in the quality of the grass available to the cattle in the next year.

The suggestion is that you could leave the bales out in the field right where the baler spits them out (provided you had a lot of acreage to work with!) and feed the cattle that way, greatly reducing fuel & labour costs.

So... I'm going to have to adjust my plans a little bit! I was really thinking more about big hooves stomping on the ground, but as I learned it's really only going to be an issue in the spring when it's really wet (plus our fields are really well drained, so it may not be a big issue at all). If we fed the cattle by placing their bales all around the field instead of in just one location we wouldn't have anything to clean up in the spring and the whole field would be fertilized.

There are other issues, such as, that the area under the bales can become snow-packed from high traffic and warm up more slowly in the spring. Also if there is a lot of hay left over it can make it very difficult for the grass to grow; and you can be spreading lots of weed seeds into your field.

Also if we wanted to place all out bales out at the beginning of winter and use electric to keep the animals confined to a few bales at a time, the horses couldn't go out in the field at all from the time we placed them (since cow hay is generally not suitable for horses). Buying and placing the hay now would save us by having the bales delivered all at one time, (that also means paying for an entire season of hay at once) and make it easier to get them out in the field.

Last, but not least, my hay guy has dropped off the face of the earth, so I also have to find more hay first.

Either way I've got some more thinking/planning to do before the snow!

Garden: The Ignored Garden is still a Fruitfull One

Everyone can vegetable garden. Everyone.

Zucchini (left) Spaghetti Squash (right)

I've had a few years of practice, so I'd like to think I've accumulated a little knowledge of what I'm doing; but this year I had no time to fuss with the garden, no time to weed, no time to tend plants or deal with mildew on the squash. I've only had time to gaze at it fondly as a I walk past to do other things, and promise the tomatoes to take better care of them next year.

However, look what the garden gave me.

Spaghetti Squash (left) Green tomatoes that
were knocked off their stems (right), beans (back)
got too ripe and I'll save them for seeds.

I think this is my best year for tomatoes! We've got bucket-loads of them just waiting to turn ripe. Or I did, until the turkeys got in there...

The one thing I didn't get any of was the peppers and cucumbers I planted, they were smothered by weeds and stayed too small. They were also the plants we bought from the nursery; all the ones I started at our last placed, abused by leaving too long in the pot, then threw in the garden hoping something would happen... they did the best!

The cucumbers are too hard to transplant, but I moved some of the peppers indoors under lights in hope we'll have a mid-winter bounty. Most of the plants succumbed to an early freeze when issues with the fence conflicted with me having the time to cover the plants. If I had been able to just throw some plastic over them, I'd probably have been able to get a harvest as that really extends the season well.

I've seen tons of people with beautiful veg gardens out on the patio of their Condo, or grown indoors under lights in the winter, or using the square-foot method in a tiny urban garden. If you've got $3 for seeds, you can do it too.

I never liked zucchini or tomatoes or broccoli until I grew them in my own garden. They do not taste like anything you get at the grocery store. Maybe it's the work and effort you put into them, but really I think it's just that they are grown properly.

Growing Forward 2: My responces.

Sorry for the long, boring no-picture post today, but I thought this was a really interesting and important thing to be involved in. Even if it took a good chunk out of my afternoon! I do think it's good to write down your thoughts and philosophies from time to time, gives you pause & reason to consider what you feel is really important. Even better to do it in involvement with the civic process and hopefully influence positive changes.
Everything with a little O beside it was my response.

Garden: The organic way.

 

Our farm is what I would call "Pesticide Free" because we don't have the capital for organic certification or all organic feeds (nor do we produce enough now, to make it a sensible investment) . The animals that do get feed are mostly the chickens & horses. We will be giving the momma cows some grain over winter to keep their weight up because they are pregnant, but the babies are always going to be grass fed/grass finished.

Also, our neighbour sprays. A lot. I have no control over what he chooses to do on his own land, and have no plans to ask him to stop, since he was here long before us. So we're going to have some pesticide drift over onto our property. Drives me crazy, but again, really nothing I can do about it. That would also prevent us from ever achieving organic certification if we wanted it.

However, I can say I'm never going to go buy something that isn't organic to spray on my plants. In fact it would have to be a pretty bad infestation for me to go buy anything all. Sacrificing a small portion of the harvest to our insects does not irk me in the least. I try to promote healthy predator populations, and if we do have a problem there are many very simple home-made organic solutions. Things like spraying milk on mildewing squash, which work very well.

Cook: Home-made is Best

I usually go with the processor method, but mine
is busted, so volcano it is!

If you've never had home-made pasta you just don't know what you are missing! It's much easier to make then you think it's going to be, and is very high reward!

There are 2 methods I use to make the dough:

The Volcano

This is where you place your flour directly on your counter-top, then make a little depression in the centre and put your eggs in that. Then use your fork/finger to incorporate the eggs and flour and create your dough.

The Processor

This method is much faster and easier to clean up! You can put all your pasta ingredients into your food processor, then just quick little pulses to combine it all together. As long as you don't over-work the dough it will remain soft and yummy.


Rolling it out.
Once you've let your dough rest you need to roll it out flat.

The Rolling Pin

This method is really labour intensive, and again, messy. You start from the middle and roll outwards, turning the dough as you go to stretch it nice and thin. You can use a pizza cutter, or just a knife to cut out the pasta.

Pasta Press

I had quite the epic journey to find my pasta press! Apparently a lot of home-cooking shops don't sell them. If you're lucky enough to own a Cuisinart mixer you can get an attachment pretty easily, but a free-standing reasonably prices pasta press was very hard to find. I ended up paying about $40 for one that mounts to the counter, the bracket broke within the year.

The press was definitely worth the money though! It's much easier to create nice thin pasta and the back part of mine cuts spaghetti.


I really recommend everyone try to make pasta at least once, because the taste is going to turn you!!

Cats are for Lovin'

Peaches after her bath on her first day
She was covered in fleas, full of worms, and has
a nail so grown over it had gone into her pad

Seems very appropriate after the "commercial kennel" seizure story from the weekend.

Cat Crazed doc was on CBC and is viewable online, it's a great watch if you love kitties.

I feel very strongly about how we should make spay/neuter clinics available to everyone, paid for through licensing programs. I really don't mind paying the $15 to have our dogs licensed each year, especially knowing they will be hand-delivered back to us if they ever strayed.

I also feel people should take responsibilities for all their feral kitties. The dressage barn I used to work as, as much as it seemed a little nuts at times, did an amazing job of caring for their colony of around 8-12+ cats. They remained at that low number because of TNR, and feeding the cats regularly. 

You can get a special TNR rate at some vets in our area, I believe the cost is around $80. Yes, that is a lot of money for something you may not feel you have to pay for. Especially when you're caring for 5, 10, 15 cats. But I've also been to many barns where they don't control the population and having 100 un-managed cats running around isn't healthy for anyone, including your livestock. You need to either maintain what has decided to make your barn home, or find another humane solution. 

By contacting your local cat shelter you may even be able to find TN ferals or barn cats at a very discounted rate if you're willing to provide a home. These cats are very difficult to place because of their natures and are a drain on the shelter's resources.

We picked up our kitty Peaches from a barn that does not control their cat population. On top of having been pregnant with Oscar around 6 months of age, both cats have both mental and health problems. Even being managed in a loving home, they are not "normal" cats.

Have room in your heart/home?

Photos by the Toronto Star

 
I'm not in anyway personally affiliated with this story, just that I heard it on the news, and it is relatively close to us. I want to pass on this information so that we can all help these dogs.


PawsRUs Kennel near Shawville Quebec has had over 500 dogs & puppies seized.

People have know about this kennel for years.
Canadian Goldens.com forum has a posting back from 2004 by a woman named Lorie Gordon. The Ottawa Citizen carried this information about what happened. Basically Lorie purchased a Labrador from PawsRUs in 2002(?) who developed a heart murmur and hip dysplasia and had to be put to sleep. PawsRUs gave Lorie a golden retriever as a "replacement" dog, and that dog either came with or developed sever mange, and also has problems with epilepsy.

Both hip dysplasia and epilepsy are well known genetic problems with these breeds of dog, and responsible breeders preform genetic screening to prevent breeding animals who might pass on these problems.

PawsRUs sued Lorrie Gordon for liable in 2006 for calling the "commercial dog breeder" a puppy mill online.  PawsRUs won a judgment for $14 000. It seems Lorrie Gordon has appealed, I'm not sure what the trial date is (conflicting unreliable information online) or what is happening.

I want a pound dog seems to be right on top of the story.

Montreal Dog Blog is actually involved in the rescue.


On Friday PawsRUs had over 500 dogs and puppies removed from their property. A lot of the dogs reportedly have skin and respiratory problems. http://www.hsi.org/ conducted the raid, and would be the best place to start if you want to help.


This story is still developing, but if the animals are won in court, eventually over 500 dogs are going to need new loving homes.

Listen: Podcasts

The Bottom Line

Was a great podcast done by Dr. David Suzuki (a very well known Canadian ecologist) very smart, and I really learned a lot from the one on soil bacteria. I really hope they are coming back to do another season!


The Self-Sufficient Gardener/Hunt Gather Grow Eat

Done by the same person, they are wonderfully researched and very thoughtful. Lots of information on gardening, raising livestock and living sustainably. If you've got one area of interest it's pretty easy to search through the records, you won't be disappointed.

Growing your Grub

Great organic gardening information, lots of expert guests. Market gardens and small farm information too.


Ontario Today - with Ed Lawrence.

Every Monday for 30 minutes, Ontario Today has Master Gardener Ed on to talk gardening and take listener question. There is a reason they have many international listeners, and just celebrated Ed's 30th year on the show. I really miss when they had him on for a full hour!

If you've got any more you'd like to suggest, I would love to hear them! I've always got podcasts on while I'm cleaning/organizing/cooking around the house - just makes the work go faster.