Paddock Measurements

Used one of those rolling measure things hubby borrowed from work; but couldn't find a clipboard in the 30 minutes I had to do it between when he came home and when the sun was going down.

Now to sort out what fence we're buying...

KSCC Saving Patterns

Despite my desire to grow our own healthy food, and live out in the country with the clean and quiet air, I'm about as far from a Luddite as you can get. I'm a huge nerd and really couldn't cope without my high-speed internet.

I love free-use, open-source software like Firefox. If you're still using I.E. you have no idea what you're missing! Firefox is free to use and download, very simple to navigate, and unlike internet explorer, you can remove it later if you don't like it.

Mine has an extension on it called Scrapbook. It works sort of like your bookmarks do, but it saves the entire site. So you can go and visit it offline later, or if that site goes down you can still access the information. I use this all the time for my KSCC patterns. Saves me from printing out tons and tons of patterns (gotta save the forests!), and I never loose a pattern because someone forgot to pay their server fees.

If you don't want to add Scrapbook, you can print patterns and crafts "to file". You do this by going into print, then select "print to file" instead of whatever printer you use. This allows you to save the pattern as a file on your computer. I believe windows always saves the file as a ".doc" but if you've got the option ".pdf" is the best because it's the most used. 

For paper patterns I always back them up in the computer with my scanner. You don't need an expensive or fancy scanner if you're mostly doing documents (although I have digital copies of my old photos too). That way I don't have bits of paper floating around to loose, spill coffee on, have the kids doodle on; and they are way easier to find! I just name all my patterns with something descriptive like "knit page boy hat" and use the search function when I feel like making one later.

Just remember if you're saving patterns for your own personal use you're not going to have any problems. But you've got to check copyright rules before distributing them to friends (even if you're giving them away for free) and you should never charge people for something you got for free even if you put it on a disk or something.

The end of Hen & Pen

Penny died last night, she'd be acting a little funny the last few days, just not around as much as normal. Not showing up for her normal struts around the yard with Teddy, wing in wing (almost).

Lesson we learned: we should have eaten them when we had the chance.

They didn't live long past when we had that conversation, and they ended up being kicked out to the barn instead. If the meat birds had gone in when they were supposed to both these ladies probably would have found themselves on their way as well.

So, no more naming the chickens, and we're going to keep buying dual purpose because the layers we have now are going into the pot when they are finished laying.

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.

Ask McDonald's® Canada to take WSPA's Million Egg Challenge

"Crammed together with five or six others in tiny cages, hens aren't able to stand up, stretch their wings or even lay their eggs in a nest. They live their entire lives in a space no bigger than a sheet of notebook paper."

In a tiny little cage is no way of a chicken to live. Chickens love to bask in the sun, roll in the dirt, and hunt for bugs. Free-range may be stretching it a bit for commercial productions; these birds live and die to feed us, so let's at least afford them the chance to move around.

Helmans has already switched to free-run eggs. You can help by emailing McDonalds to make the switch (link above) and purchasing products from companies who make positive changes towards supporting animal welfare.

Bye Bye Manure Machine

Hey there is something missing here!!

This dangerous, no longer useful apparatus is completely out of the pasture! I'm so glad too, I was really worried about Maddie hitting his head off it one day, especially as they are coming into the barn past it now.

There is tons of delicious composted manure underneath the machine. For whatever reason, the land all around the manure machine is very poor, compared to the rest of our pasture which is very rich. There is lots of clover, showing poor nitrogen in the soil, and the soil is very hard and compact. May be there is a high sand or clay deposit here under the soil compared to the rest of the pasture. Either way, it means I've been breaking my back spreading all the black gold from under the old machine out all around it, which the chickens are very happy about.

Hubby had to slice the whole thing apart with the chain saw so we can get it out of the field. It took us about 3 hours start to finish with the boy's help. I definitely feel I can sleep better at night knowing this is gone! One more off the T.D.B.W. (To be done before winter) list!!

Although it's a neat piece of old farm machinery, even if this had been in good condition I wouldn't have wanted to keep it. It took up a large part of the pasture, and it was dangerous for the horses. There is still a large section in the cow part that we haven't removed yet & that dump cart itself. 

Belle, Cancer & Friendship

In the Field

Horse-lovers, you've got to listen to the first article in part two. About the man with brain cancer, his seizures, and his beloved horse Belle.