The Joys of Country Life

Well, the renovations are done, and most of what remains to do is to unpack the boxes we've squirreled away in corners and closets.  The pantry room has become a bit of a catch-all, but the shelves are built, the fridge and chest freezers in place, and we will sort things out as we go.  Now my main problem is the invasion of house mice which have decided they'd like to settle in too.  They've replaced the carpenter ants which vanished, unexplained, a month ago.  Maybe they just got smart? Anyway, I've set out traps for the mice, as I have no wish for a population explosion of that kind.

The other thing we need to start planning for soon is our wood supply.  The full woodshed we saw while viewing the property was emptied almost entirely when we moved in, and I need to have the chimney and firebox professionally inspected and cleaned to make sure we're off to a good start.  I have some leads on local wood suppliers.

Two weekends ago (wow, how time flies by), we butchered 22 rabbits - a project which had been hanging over our heads as we sorted the house, waited through incredibly hot weather, and planned our butchering site.

The site is temporary, as the workshop needs to be made safe for use or may eventually have to be torn down. We are hoping to work an outdoor kitchen into future plans for the farm.  For our purposes, the location worked well enough despite some persistent, inquisitive wasps, and we completed the cull over a 2-day period.  Currently we have 12 rabbit casseroles in the freezer, as well as portions of loin, hind and forelegs, and pre-cooked, seasoned meat pulled off of the bones.  We made rabbit stock, bone broth, and a bit of extra seasoned gravy - all portioned and in the freezer for future meals. The wash buckets and much of the blood went to the King and Pink Lady Apple trees, and I decided to try saving the hides for curing later, since these rabbits were older (15 and 17 weeks) than the normal 12 weeks' cull.  In the future, I look forward to being able to use more of the rabbit offal to feed to chickens and dogs as well. Seems a good way to pay respect to the rabbit's life.

The hides are currently in the freezer, for my attention later in the Fall. From the young rabbits we brought over to the Island with us, we held back a crossbred male rabbit (dubbed 'Thumper,' born of Sweetie and Notch) whom we hope to use in our breeding program, and we sent 2 of his sisters off to start a rabbitry with friends on the Southern tip of the Island. Their 'cost' is being bartered against part of the cost to go in on butchering a local pig for the freezer!  We have welcomed 2 new litters to the rabbitry. Two sisters and first-time mothers have healthy, though small, litters of 5 and 7 kits.  They've been wonderfully calm moms and the kits are thriving.

The bees are happily foraging, and we've only made 2 inspections since we arrived due to high heat.  A family visit last weekend led to taking off the lid and removing a few bars to explain the hive, and I was so proud (and relieved) that the girls ignored the incursion.

The peach tree on our back deck had been ever so slowly ripening, and I finally harvested more than 100 peaches to put up in the freezer.  I froze individual slices, chunky dices for cobblers, and a few whole peaches with skins on, to use for whatever suits in the future. Did you know the skins of frozen peaches and tomatoes slip off easily when they're partially thawed? I still haven't unearthed all of my canning supplies, and there are a few jars of sliced home-canned peaches still on the shelf, so the freezer was the way to go. The unripe peaches were left on the counter, and unfortunately were sampled by our aforementioned "mouseguests."

The ants and mice aren't the only challenges we've had to deal with.  There is evidence that people broke into the old mobile home on the other side of the property, and that makes me nervous.  We are hoping to have livestock dogs guarding the property and our animals in the future, but without proper fencing, I am unwilling to risk having dogs that might adventure off the property and cause problems with the neighbors.  We've also been having some spotty connection with the 'Net, and then my provider was unable to contact the service guy to repair his 90-day-warranted install.  3 days without connection takes a toll when you're supposed to be attending school online.  Luckily, the modem was replaced today, and all is again well with the world.

Loving Life On The Island

A quick hello from Front Porch Farm!  We've been settling in and getting ourselves oriented to the lay of the land and the somewhat different pace of life here.  Things are a bit more spread out than we're used to, and although we have basically everything we need within 45 minute's drive of the house, not everything is in the same direction! Running errands tends to be a bit more time-consuming than we're accustomed to, and we do try and make our time and trips worthwhile. It hasn't been unusual to be out of the house for 5 or 6 hours as we organize flooring, painting, and 'house' supplies, purchase tools, and simply explore.  We've had to do a bit of searching for particular items we need, including a chainsaw and a ride-on lawnmower.  2 days, and almost 5 hours behind a lawnmower for my first pass on the property showed how important a lawn tractor and a gas-powered trimmer was going to be - just to maintain the property already cleared.  We now both have steel-toed boots, several pairs of work gloves, respirators with air filters, and the basic equipment we will need to see us through until the winter. Speaking of winter, we arrived to find the woodshed had been emptied, so we need to work on that very soon!

We've been settling into the property as well, and getting used to the house and garden - and the quirks that come with each.  The garden soil is oddly barren, and I've started to stockpile rabbit manure, kitchen waste and grass clippings - but have yet to site and build a proper compost pile.  The spot I have in mind is currently overrun with bracken fern and other wild growth.  I have my work cut out for me, as I think the previous owners were accustomed to throwing Miracle Grow at their plants, rather than feeding the soil.  There are some lovely (though rampantly-growing) raspberry bushes which have been keeping us in fresh fruit, and I do have carrots, peas, greens, some root vegetables and other assorted veggies seeded to the existing garden beds (which had been full of chickweed, hawk weed, and plenty of raspberry volunteers when we first arrived).  I've focused on planting for the fall and winter, so I'm seeding carrots, turnips, parsnips, beets, chard, collards, cabbage, kale and lettuce in hopes of having some small amount of harvest after the heat of summer is over.  I also planted a short-season corn, beans, and some tomato plants just for the hell of it. 

I managed to plant out my blueberry, black currant and honeyberry bushes during our first week (and then discovered I will be needing to net them off against the robins next year!). Most of the perennials and herbs which we had potted up and brought over with us have been permanently planted to the beds around the house, or to the "fenced" kitchen garden.  The fence is merely a visual deterrent, as a strong wind could currently push over many of the old posts, and the wire sags fairly heavily.  Fencing is on our priorities list, somewhat behind replacing our 20-year-old well pump and adding a 2500 gallon cistern.  We've run out of water multiple times - which we were assured by the listing realtor was never a problem with 5 adults and garden irrigation for 20 years prior..... *sigh*

On the bright side of that, we've been told that there is supposed to be an undeveloped spring in the low-lying area we are thinking of as a future pond site.  That's an interesting project for next summer - one step at a time.

We've had visits from the local wildlife - a deer in the orchard, and a cougar sniffing around the rabbit cages on one of our first nights here.  Luckily, I had just picked up net fencing from 'up-Island,' and a farming friend was on a day trip for new rabbit stock.  She popped in for a visit and gave us a crash course on setting up our own little electric net area for the bee hives and rabbit cages. No sign of problems since!  

Currently, we're working on the house interior before we unload our shipping container full of furniture and assorted belongings.  The carpet has been ripped out - all but 2 bedrooms on the second floor - and we are prepping, priming, and painting the main floor in preparation for some new subfloor, vinyl and carpet flooring, and low-flow toilets. Vinyl goes in this week, and new carpet the week after that.  We're painting ceilings, walls, and trim in advance, so that we only splatter paint where it doesn't matter. 

Where To Start? A New Beginning...

I finally have an internet connection, access to my laptop (though where my camera is at the moment is anyone's guess), a moment of time where I'm not working, eating, or sleeping, and therefore I will post a brief update on the beginnings of Front Porch Farm...

Though the planning for a move was in the works for several years while we searched for a "suitable" piece of property, we knew the actual move itself was going to be a major undertaking.  As the date of our move became imminent, we began to realize just how major an undertaking we were looking at; after all, we had turned our sixth of an acre in the city into a mini farm, with mason bees, two honeybee hives, 14 rabbit cages, various livestock equipment, assorted plant cuttings and potted divisions, a rather admirable workshop, a very well-equipped kitchen to allow for all of our food preparation and preservation, and a pantry which was sizable - despite our eating the majority of our reserves and emptying out our two small chest freezers in preparation for packing. We had arranged for a 20-foot container, to be dropped, picked up, and delivered to our new address.  There was a 17-foot Uhaul truck rented, and reservations made for the truck on the ferry trip to our new home on Vancouver Island.  I thought I had everything in hand.

As we had a group of friends help us with our final packing of the container, I began to have some serious doubts about being able to find room for all of our remaining belongings.  Thinking it was best to be safe, I consulted with the ferry regarding our reservations, and called UHaul to upgrade our truck to a 26-foot model, actually measuring 34 feet from bumper to bumper - the largest truck I could legally drive without a commercial license.  The reservation was necessary, because we would be transporting the beehives and rabbits, and we therefore qualified for priority sailing on BC Ferries.

The weekend before our move, Adrian had finished his last day of work, and now the packing continued with our undivided attention.  The UHaul was picked up soon after the container was hauled away on Monday (full to the brim thanks to the hard work of many awesome people), meaning we had until first thing on Wednesday to load the remainder of our household goods, the workshop material, and finally the livestock just a short time before we pulled out of the drive.

By Monday evening, it had become glaringly apparent that there was simply not enough space to fit all of what had at this point become known somewhat disparagingly as 'stuff.' I lay awake that night, while Adrian got a few hours of rest, trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do to make our deadline for the new owners to take possession of the house.  It would have been difficult to go back to the buyers and ask for extra time - but added to that, we had the complication of a ferry ride to get where we were going.

Tuesday morning, I woke Adrian with the declaration that we needed a second truck.  It was 6:30 in the morning, and I had no way to contact any reservation desks, but we started the day - Adrian with a bit of rest, and me with fraying nerves and an upset stomach.  As soon as I could, I began to make calls to find us a truck - any truck really,....to find that UHaul had nothing available, and Budget wasn't even answering their 800 number (silly me, heading into an end-of-month holiday long weekend!).  I finally managed to put my name in for a truck with a company I had never heard of, and which required that the truck be returned to the Mainland.  At that point, we were happy with any additional moving ability, and so began the story of Adrian's 5 ferry crossings in 3 days......

We picked the truck up early on Tuesday, and with the help of a couple whom we ourselves had just helped move (karma!), we managed to completely fill our second, 16-foot moving truck, park it out front of Adrian's parents' house, and recommence the loading of our original, upgraded 26-foot truck.  That may have been one of the most stressful experiences of my life.  The day seemed to go on forever, and after our friends had left for the night, Adrian and I continued to move boxes as darkness closed in.  We lay on the floor for an hour and a half around 12:30, then started to load everything that we could fit into the truck in a desperate rush, maneuvering in the hives and the rabbit cages, knowing that we had to be at the ferry at 7:15, a half hour before departure.

We made it with four minutes to spare.

On the closed commercial ferry deck, I opened the back of the truck to give the rabbits fresh air, listened to the sound of annoyed bees and watched as, one at a time, bees stumbled towards the light of the open door, and took flight inside the ferry.

Crap.

I couldn't do anything about the bees, since the hives were wedged in well back of the rabbit cages, blocked from rabbit messes by a wall of plastic, and surrounded by all of that 'stuff' we had managed to squeeze under, around, and over them - so I spent the 2 hour ferry ride cracking the door for the rabbits, and then closing the door when too many bees started to find their way out of the truck. When we arrived at our new home, we very carefully unpacked the rabbits and found that the lids of the hives, though tied down, had tipped and shifted during the drive, allowing some bees to go exploring.  We lost some of our girls, but an inspection shows no damage, and brood in both of the colonies.

The 26-foot truck was emptied on Wednesday, and returned to a local dealer early Thursday.  Adrian took the ferry over that afternoon, to bring back our 16-foot truck, which we proceeded to unload that night in order for him to return in on Friday.  His 5th trip on the ferry was him bringing over our pickup truck, and he got home after eleven.  Then, we slept!

Front Porch Farm Is Going Legit

We are in the midst of packing everything left in the house, and are due to re-pack our 20 foot container this weekend before it's hauled away and shipped across to the Island.  We need to take our boxes and assorted belongings back out (the stuff we needed to remove from the house in order to 'stage' it for sale), get all of our bulky furniture loaded in, and then somehow put all of the boxes back in amongst the furniture - as Adrian called it, "giant, boring tetris."

In the midst of all of this planning and misplacing of the packing tape, we have become the new owners of a small 4x4 truck.  We're very excited to have the ability to haul and tow farm and life-related items in the near future, and now we won't have to worry about the weather come winter. Vancouver Island's temperatures are far milder than those I grew up with in Ontario, but we are down a rural road after all.  It's good to be prepared.

And there it is, sitting beside our lovely, much larger transport container! I think it's a great compromise in size, and I foresee lots of things that we will now be able to do at the property, without needing to hire someone - moving livestock, hauling building supplies, getting loads of wood for the woodstove, moving equipment..... makes me feel like we're heading in the right direction.

We Bought The Farm!

Our buyers finally signed on the dotted line last night, so our move to Vancouver Island is a go for the end of this month.  Front Porch Farm will be located in Cassidy, B.C., and we're thrilled!

We need to have our bees inspected per the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, and we just found this weekend that our artificial swarm, which contained 3 potential queens, has no brood but lots of pollen, nectar, and honey.  The original colony had brood, but minimal stores.  There seems to be some confusion.....

We took a chance, and pulled a top bar with the youngest brood we could find, and placed it smack in the middle of the potentially queenless hive.  Maybe she just hadn't made her mating flight yet?  We have fingers and toes crossed that when we do our inspection this weekend, we will either find evidence of new brood, or note that the bees have adapted one or more of the introduced potential queen cells.  It "should" be possible to tell if they've expanded a cell for the development of a larger queen.

Along with the bees, we'll be moving 32 rabbits in 8 cages (we have 3 moms with their litters).  On a ferry.  In a UHaul. Never a dull moment.

And Then There Were Two

Springtime brings a burst of new life to the garden, and the beehive is not exempt from the exuberance of nature.  Having seen several swarm cells in the making, we decided it was worth our effort to attempt splitting our hive - instead of risking the loss of a large part of the colony in a swarm situation.  A 'swarm' cell is a queen cell formed (like it sounds) in preparation for the natural process of swarming.  They're located, facing downwards, along the edge of the comb - an indicator that the hive is feeling that it needs to expand in response to growing numbers, or the increased availability of food sources.  They want to move, but they're preparing properly.  An 'emergency' cell is a queen cell that is formed around an existing young egg that is 3 or fewer days old, and therefore still capable of becoming a queen.  These cells normally protrude out of the face of the regular brood comb, to provide more room for the larger queen developing within.  These cells normally indicate that something is wrong with the hive or the existing queen - or perhaps that she has been killed. The colony reacts to the loss of her pheromones and attempts to make a replacement.

The trick here, is to convince the growing colony that there has been a swarm, leaving space for expansion and a queen still in charge - they can essentially continue on about their business.  This is achieved by removing the new queen cells, and placing them, along with attached nurse and worker bees, into a new hive body along with stores of honey and pollen - it's called an 'artificial swarm.'  The additional trick here is to leave the original queen in the original hive body, which can be nerve-wracking when you cannot find her!

At this point, my research indicated to move the original hive away from it's location, and replace it with the new, smaller colony hive body.  Foraging workers will return  to the location that they left from originally, and should help to ensure that there are enough foraging bees going out to gather more stores to bring back to the new colony as it adjusts to its new home.  The original hive 'should' have plenty of workers, and some will become replacement foragers and orient on their new location on the way out - so that they return to that location. Of course, there's always the crossed-finger hope that the bees will cooperate.

Knowing that we were getting close to the time where swarming might become a possibility (queens take 16 days from the time they are laid until they emerge), I headed off to Rona, where the nice guys in the lumber yard made a bunch of cuts for me.  The fellow who helped us with supplies for the chicken tractor, and who cut some top bars to size for me last year remembered me.

I picked up some 2x12 spruce boards, some 5/8 inch exterior grade plywood, and a piece of pine shelving....doesn't everyone do building projects in their gazebo?

The shelving board is what we use to build the follower boards (the boards that define the left and right boundaries of the colony in the hive body).  Each follower board is attached to a top bar for placement in the hive.

The hive body is built out of 2x12 boards to fit the follower boards (ahem, at least that's the intent - the final product isn't perfect here, but the bees don't seem to mind).

We attach screening to the bottom of the hive body, for ventilation, and prepare an additional board from plywood to attach in the winter to help maintain the interior temperature (see hinge attachment at the bottom of the picture).

Paint the inside of the hive with linseed oil, or a linseed/beeswax mix - I was in a time crunch, and was adding existing, familiar comb, so I used the linseed oil on its own.  The linseed is a preservative for the wood, and a few drops of lemon grass oil can be added to the hive body to encourage the bees to feel at home.

The plywood top (with salvaged 1x4 edges) was painted with exterior paint to protect it from pooling rain, and the whole shebang was moved into place and leveled.

Prior to moving day, I did an inspection of the original colony, marking the location of swarm cells and those bars that contained mostly honey and pollen - it made it easier to pull what was needed for the transfer once we started swapping things about, and meant less stress all at once for the bees.  My mother looked on, unconcerned, from a few feet away while we completed the split as quickly as possible. We were impressed with her curiosity.

Here, the bars with newly-laid queens, and one older queen cell showing royal jelly have been moved into the new frame.  My hope was that the first queen to emerge would simply kill off her younger rivals and assert her control of the hive. There are frames of food on either side, and several empty bars for expansion. The followers are to either side of the new colony - with the screws visible.  The original move was just 9 bars, but within 3 days I added a couple of extra top bars for expansion, as the foragers continued to return to the original hive site and swell the numbers.

We need to do a full inspection of each hive this weekend, weather permitting, to make sure that there is evidence of a laying queen in each, and then I need to have an official government inspection of the hives...

before our whole household makes a move - to Front Porch Farm.

Tax Season and Cherry Blossoms

View from the upstairs window last week

Today was a full day of tax submission and garden work, and as I sit here typing, Adrian is being wonderful and making a scratch dinner for us.  He and I muddled through our returns until the sun was a little more bearable this afternoon (and I do apologize to those of you who are frowning at my complaint of too much sun), clicked on the scary "are you sure everything is correct and you really want to file this?" button, and then we escaped outside to a sunny day.  While Adrian caught up on rabbitry cleaning with his headphones in, I listened to the birds, weeded, and then seeded some lettuce, cilantro, and bronze fennel to the beds from seeds saved last year.  I also checked over my potted plants to see what continued to show signs of growth, and saw that our original planting of saved seed potatoes are starting to poke their heads out, the snap peas we planted (3+ weeks?) ago are about an inch and a half high, and volunteer strawberry plants are coming up strong along the edge of the raised beds.  Throughout our chores, the evergreen clematis scented the back yard. 

The currants and the blueberries are close to bloom, but I'm leery of setting out the mason bees yet, as our temperatures have not yet stabilized above 14.  Not ready for full-time outdoor residency either, the tomatoes and a few other starts planted to flats are hardening off out on the deck during the day, learning how to cope with the big bad world. 

Black Currant bush with blossoms forming and a few already opened

The Asian pear is just about finished flowering, while the Bing and Ranier cherries are opening blossoms in a lazy progression and the apple tree blossoms are still tightly-furled promises of pink flowers. The bees were buzzing around my head (and occasionally bouncing off it) working on collecting pollen for the now-expanding hive. This past Tuesday's inspection showed considerable pollen stores and honey prior to capping.  Workers were hauling out debris and dead bees, and working on building comb as well.  There was brood in various stages, including an almost full comb of drone cells, which I believe is in the expectation of mating flights soon.  There was no evidence of a queen cell, and I will check again in the next few days.

Ranier Cherry

The perennials have gone from a slow start to a lush growth, and the mulch we used to top up the beds after a heavy weeding make everything green really pop. We've eaten kale sprouts and stinging nettle over the past two weeks, and today it was time to harvest some of the overwintering parsley which has started to put forth some growth.  Tabouleh for dinner!

 Sprouts and Stingers

 

Pretty green parsley