A Touch of Frost

The weather report says that it's 6 degrees outside, but the deck is seeming a bit frosty - as in, I slipped walking to the door. Why have I been outside after 11 at night in the pitch black and cold you ask? Well, Joe the wood guy - the one who said it was too wet, then called back to make sure we still wanted the wood - after I called several times with no answers - who then called after another period of silence to explain he had been in bed with the flu for a week.... well, he called at 9:30 this morning, to verify our location and tell me he would be by with wood. Today. And we would be very happy. He had to pawn his computer for gas money to go and *get* the wood. Yeah. We didn't hear from him all day, and I had begun to assume there would be another call in a few days with another reason for delay. He just left a few minutes ago, calling at 10:15 when he was turning on to our rural road. He was a funny guy, but was trying to pawn off his pickup truck (maybe) 3/4 of a cord, as being worth $200 - when I could *show* him the 2 cords of already purchased and stacked wood right there beside the driveway (minus what we've used over a few cold weeks). Really. It's. Right. There. That makes me feel a bit frosty myself. A cord of wood is supposed to measure 4x4x8, and I guarantee by the time we stack it, it will be sorely lacking. He did bring us a few stumps for splitting wood, so that will help us in our wood pile management.

Our neighbor has fairly simply said he will fell whatever trees we would like, because 'it's the neighborly thing to do,' so hopefully we will somehow barter with him to help us stock up with our own wood for next year's fire season, and get some better sun exposure on the property while we're at it. It's hard to know who to take at face value, when you've been getting the runaround. I don't like confrontation and I don't want to snub a neighbor, but I also come from a background where labor has value, and I'm willing to pay or trade with someone I like and can trust to do the work. What to do? It will be interesting to see how we manage to deal with actually getting things done and feeling like everyone was well-treated in the bargain. How many dozen eggs can you trade for felling 20 trees? In reality, I hope to ask for his help in getting the trees down, and his patience in teaching us proper handling techniques to manage cutting lengths with our own chainsaw before splitting. I see a hydraulic splitter rental in our future.

Our other neighbor actually came by to borrow milk in the dark (which is relative, when the sun is setting at 5 p.m.), and we've advised him to check back regarding the rabbits we will be butchering, and told him we'd like to have him and his family for dinner sometime. Hopefully, a 'test' rabbit will encourage them to buy or barter for rabbit meat in the future, and no real harm done if they don't like working with it.

While we were considering what trees to take down, some of them were happily shedding branches in a heavy windstorm we had this past week. Power was out all over the Island, and we just missed losing ours by a block or two. Hydro was out working on lines just down the road.

We're also preparing to *add* some trees. 2 new plums and 2 cherries, to offer better cross pollination for the existing trees in the orchard. The nursery is due to have the bare root stock in by the end of the month, so we've been digging our holes in case the ground freezes and makes that a problem. Planting fruit trees in the fall means that Mother Nature takes care of watering them in, and we just have to protect them from hungry deer and elk wandering through.

Our location options are somewhat limited, but taking down some of the evergreen trees along the property line will benefit the orchard, and so we're adding them to the existing fruit tree plantings to the southeast of the house. Adrian started a couple of the holes last weekend, hitting a layer of heavy clay. With a bit of exposure during the week, we were able to complete digging the first 2 holes as well as completing our second set of holes this past weekend. The average size is 2 1/2 feet deep, by 3 feet wide, and it took longer than you would think. At least we know if we want to work on a pond in our future, there should be enough clay soil on site to help fashion the bottom of the basin! We continued laying cardboard around the trees, in preparation for dumps of soil and alder chips. We can take our time during breaks in the winter weather, transferring that to the areas under the trees. I have daffodil and snowdrop bulbs just waiting to go into the ground as soon as some of the hugel berms are ready.

Dig!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Well, we did have a break in the weather on the weekend, but our intention to mow (okay - *my* intention and Adrian's less-than-enthusiastic agreement to mow) was thwarted by clouds and a lack of a breeze.  There were a few hours of blue sky, and the sun definitely made an appearance, but the grass remained beautifully studded with shiny drops of water. No go for the mowing.

So instead, we managed to get a few projects under our respective belts and chatted with the neighbors who we've been trying to get acquainted with since we moved in (it's difficult knowing which of the long driveways with No Trespassing signs out here will end at the home of someone who's happy you ignored the sign....) A neighbor from across the road was visiting the house next to us while I was out breaking up kindling, so after he stopped to chat for a bit, I unofficially invited us next door, armed with jars of black currant jam. Turns out, we live near some nice folk, both families would be interested to try rabbit meat and would love to buy eggs from us next year.  We're all currently paying $7/doz for organic free-range eggs at the store, and they see the value in paying us for our time and feed bill instead!

As the season is changing on the property, so have the chores.  The garden is basically in a holding pattern - waiting to be harvested (carrots, lettuce, beets, kale) or waiting to be top-dressed with some rabbit manure and wood ash to amend the rather lifeless soil over the winter months (shhhh... I don't count all of the chickweed seeds). Time to look at some minor building projects.

The garden came with a small greenhouse - the roof of which had not fared well during the snows of last winter. The intention is to save up for some rigid plastic sheets for the roof next year, but for now a break in the rain gave us a chance to throw a piece of salvaged heavy-duty plastic over the ripped roof and staple it in place. The plastic was from our collapsed hoop house project, and had helped in our transfer of the rabbits in the U-Haul before serving as temporary rain shelter for them when we moved.  It was definitely a 2-person job, and it isn't pretty, so I shall not offend you with a picture. At least the rain should be kept out and the tools inside will now be less likely to rust. With a bit of jinking, I think my seed starting will be possible out there, and my thrifted grow light shelves will just barely fit the table along one side with a bit of creative carpentry.

We've been making a go of collecting used, free pallets in town for some minor projects in the yard - their main use up to now being to get our firewood off the wet ground. I had set aside several of the cleaner pallets, and made sure that they all showed marks identifying them as heat-treated (HT), rather than risking they had been fumigated.

And with our handy-dandy zip ties (really, they rate very close to duct tape and WD-40 in overall usefulness), we played around with their orientation until we managed to build a 2-compartment composting area - finishing it off with some decking screws and a couple of orphaned shelving uprights to tie the back of the unit together. This is quite rudimentary I realize, but it is raised on a high spot for drainage, and has already given us a convenient spot for cage cleanings, stove ash, kitchen scraps, and several layers of the maple leaves which are finally falling. It's close enough to the house that I don't mind running out in the rain to dump vegetable peelings, and far enough away that it won't funnel rodents into the laundry room. The slats allow for air circulation, and a tarp over top of the pile will regulate the rainwater added. We've started our pile on one side; I will fork over the pile into the second chamber in the spring, and depending on how many earthworms and insects volunteer, and how well the pile heats up, we should have compost for feeding our transplants next May and June. I'll be building more bins as pallets can be acquired and locations permit, so that we can use all of the weeds, leaves, and animal wastes available to us to make better garden soil in the future.

As the grass dies back, we've also been discovering more cast-off debris in the woods. A few weekends ago, we realized there were several towers of plastic buckets fallen over and covered with leaves and brambles. We're slowly reclaiming them, and breaking down our large eyesore useful pile of tree limbs and cuttings in the orchard, to make bundles of kindling for the woodstove. They're pulled up tight to the house, largely under cover of the roof, and they can be easily swapped out to sit next to the fire as needed.

Use what you've got!

With a nice fire in the stove, it didn't bother us *too much* when the rain started up again.

Fall update

It's getting colder here now, and I hadn't factored in the potential of days and days and days of rain at this time of year - not since we were practically dealing with a heat wave and drought for our first summer at the property.  We'd only mowed the grass twice in our first three months - it wasn't growing since it certainly wasn't getting any additional irrigation from us.  Now, the past weeks of rain have brought on new growth that I want to cut for adding to the orchard beds and to the compost pile, and the leaves are coming down, and the wood is being delivered, and I have things to do in the garden and orchard.....and we wind up running inside soaking wet when the rain finally gets too bad to work in.

The mushrooms started to spring up everywhere in mid-October, and though there are many new appearances each week, the main flush is starting to look a little worse for wear - in some instances being grazed or trampled by our deer.

The kits were getting some time out on the grass before it just got too rainy for us to leave them outside on the wet ground. They'll be 9 weeks this weekend, and the kits out of Spot and Anna are huge! Well, huge compared to some of the other kits we've been breeding. I'm trying to make up for the lack of play time with plenty of assorted greens brought to them - and apple slices too, from those apples too affected by scab to be easily processed. We've dehydrated 6 full dehydrator loads of apple slices for the winter months, which will work nicely with a bit of chicken scratch and some sunflower seeds for a burst of inner warmth for the bunnies on the coldest nights. The best apples have gone to the pantry for fresh eating, and slightly damaged apples are now being chopped, dipped in sugar/lemon water, and frozen in portions for small apple crisps throughout the winter. *Next year* we'll look at steaming some apple juice, or renting a cider press, or think about making more applesauce and apple butter.  For now, we have a supply of canned sauce from our apple trees back in Surrey.  Hopefully our care in the orchard will reward us in the years to come

After weeks of frustration, trying to lock in a delivery of firewood, we have about half of what I believe we will need for the cold season.  Luckily, our woodstove is in good shape, and the winters on the Island are not quite as harsh as elsewhere in BC.  The temperature hasn't ducked too low, so we've slowly been learning how to manage the heat output - our chimney sweep assured us that each stove has a personality and we'll be pros in no time. We scavenged some pallets to keep the wood off the ground, and started to stack the 2 cords we had dumped in the driveway....before the rain returned.

It's a work in progress.....

Of note, we finally had enough blue sky to do a full hive inspection.  We went into our secondary hive, which we artificially split from the main hive last spring, and sadly verified that there was only one small section of older brood, and no evidence of a queen. Their stores were all over the hive, and located largely towards the back side of the box. Much like we transplanted honey to them on our last month's inspection when they seemed to be struggling, we decided to try and help them replace their missing queen.  We found a frame in the strong hive that had evidence of eggs laid within the last 3 days, and transplanted it to the middle of their hive. Luckily, Adrian got a visual on our queen, so we could be sure we didn't move her with the brood.  If the girls don't manage to hatch a new queen within the next couple of weeks, they will not make it through the winter.  If she emerges, she may not be able to mate at this time of year. We figured it was worth a try.

Our original colony is settling in for the winter, and the queen has cut way back on laying brood.  There are no drones left in the hive, and they are set for honey and pollen, given their smaller numbers. I removed a couple of largely empty frames, to encourage them to tighten up their stores, and with the bottom board put on last week, we may not go back in to the hive again unless there is an emergency.

The Reveal

We're heading in to winter, and have hosted some friends and family at Front Porch Farm this summer and fall as we finally got ourselves sorted.  Everyone has liked the bright new paintwork and neutral flooring, and now it's just the nit-picky things that go in to making final decisions about what fits where and how rooms will work for our needs.  We're quite pleased with the results of our decisions and efforts, and thrilled to call this our home. There are still a few boxes hiding in cupboards, and tools to be (neatly) returned to the workshop - which itself needs an overhaul.  The kitchen will be a winter project as we strip wallpaper, try and clean things up with some paint, and figure out a way to keep the old cupboard doors closed until we can afford to replace them.  For now, I've been asked for some before and after pics...

Almost all of the carpeting came out, due to age and stains.  The carpet in the living room required extra attention, because the underlay was glued down.  We painted all of the main rooms and hallways, and primed and painted the plastic faux wood walls to either side of the woodstove to make the room brighter.  We also replaced the fan, and are on the way to deciding on art placement and getting blinds installed - which will help prevent our heat from escaping the room as the temperature drops.

  

The upstairs rec room, formerly home to a lovely orange and brown couch from the seventies, has been upgraded to a comfortable boardgame playing area, with armchairs for reading and playing video games.

Everything in the guest bedroom needed attention - the nailed-together, narrow shelves were pulled out, leaving many holes and scratches on the walls, and the dark ceiling trim and corner gaps took a lot of work to seal and paint.

But now, my mother is happy to come and visit!

The upstairs bedroom is largely unchanged, but a new bed, dressers, black out blinds and and some personal items have helped to make it a bit more to our taste.

The master bedroom downstairs has been made over with a softer palette, and a is now a  place to curl up under the covers.... 

We're also preparing the fruit trees for next spring - pulling grass, killing off weeds with cardboard, and preparing areas for mulching and an after-the-fact form of hugulkultur.  We've started to work on one of the large piles of wood debris piled in the corner of the orchard, and are cutting straight poles for next year's peas and beans while we move old, and sometimes punky branches to form raised berms around and between the established trees. My hope is that the branches, manure, and mulching we put down around the trees will help to retain moisture, and the plants we locate there will increase beneficial insect presence, entice pollinators to the fruit blossoms, and improve the fertility and bounty of the area, while at the same time reducing our need to water and mow grass where little benefit will be seen.

Preparing

There are always tasks to be completed when your're gardening in a temperate climate.  We don't have down time during the winter here on the British Columbia coast - not like I was used to growing up in Ontario.  The apples need picking, the garlic and shallots have gone into the ground, and we've finally managed to sort out our pantry after months of moving boxes from room to room as we've been settling into the house.  We are still waiting for news on a source for firewood, as the dry summer months resulted in a ban on entry to the woods for firewood providers to get in to gather their already-downed trees.  Perhaps in the coming years we will get a permit ourselves and take the truck and our chainsaw out to gather fuel for the winter, but this year we've already had enough on our plates.
 

The 'pantry' when we arrived at the new place - beautiful fake wood panelling, OSB ceiling pieced together with dark brown millwork, tons of cracks, crevices, and holes that seemed to invite our new-found friends the carpenter ants to use the walls as a highway.....

Part way through 5 coats of primer and paint, steel wool, caulk, poly filler and sweat during a week of 30+ degree weather....

Things that needed to 'fit' into our pantry area, which had been gathered in hallways, closets, and other rooms awaiting our attention.

Our wonderful, finished pantry - now home to many plastic bins since we have discovered our mouse problem. We've only seen one silverfish, so I'm not escalating that to problem status yet! I'm thrilled to have everything to hand right across from the kitchen (a stripping and painting project itself, for this winter). We will be building a work island in the kitchen from an antique table, where we can chop vegetables and pull up a stool to prepare meals, but this space allows room for us to slow cook, dehydrate, mix and measure without having to clutter up the kitchen proper.  I'm looking forward to baking apple crisps and continuing to dehydrate our remaining Cox and King apples for winter with all of the tools immediately available.  Unblemished apples can store in our pantry fridge, and we will be filling the freezers with more meals as we harvest fall vegetables from the garden and butcher our final 2 litters of rabbits for the season.  We're home!

Fall is Coming

Now that things have settled down a bit, and we're definitely heading into fall with cooler nights and the apples ripening on the trees, we've been lucky to have some friends visiting while we prepare for a visit from our parents.  One of our wonderful houseguests installed a new fan in the living room to help the woodstove heat the house more efficiently, and we played boardgames until long past my bedtime. We fed them from the bounty of the property - greens, bush beans, carrots, and peach cobbler for dessert.

Our original, 40 inch fan, with a broken switch to turn the light on or off - the owners had simply removed the bulb, so there was no light in the room...

and our new, 52 inch, 5-blade fan with remote control.  Bring on the wood heating season!

The bunnies are on their fourth week, and are bothering their moms constantly. We will be separating them back to their own quarters this weekend, as the kits are quite content to eat pellets, grass, and greens.  Because we were unable to reunite our last pair of sisters due to territorial instinct, we tried to get these sisters back together earlier last weekend, after only 3 weeks of separation.  I mistakenly thought that they might enjoy some time without the kids.  After a few moments in the run together, on fresh grass, they began to fight and one had been gashed before we were able to lean over and separate them. Hydrogen peroxide and Polysporin have cleaned up the wound, but I am sad that they won't be keeping each other company through the boredom of winter.

We had an arborist come out to view the fruit trees on the property, and the review was largely positive, though we all agreed that the forest blocks out more light than is ideal.  We may eventually be thinning some of our surrounding evergreens.  As the trees go dormant this year, we will be doing some selective pruning and shaping, removing grass at the base of the trees to be replaced with cardboard, manure, and mulch, and then underplanting into those new beds with berries, flowers, and herbs to create a more diverse system, and to encourage pollinators and beneficial insects to visit our trees.

I've been walking the property, trying to assess vegetation, and where the light falls at this time of year so that I can plan ahead, but really, we have a lot of unknowns still affecting those decisions.  We need to get a cistern installed and a new well pump, which will affect where the future fencing goes, which will affect where any outbuildings and garden beds go, and the list goes on from there.  I very much want to get fencing in place, as there is evidence that people are trespassing and breaking into our sad, moldy trailer. We've put up No Trespassing signs, and left an inquiry at the District as to our responsibilities should someone hurt themselves or start a fire, but have not heard back.

The firewood is still on hold, as the dry weather has prevented access to the logs waiting to be hauled out of the woods.  I have leads on two wood providers, and am trying to be patient waiting for their confirmation of delivery.  We had a very interesting visit with our chimney sweep, who told us we had her 'second favorite' stove, (a good model with the perk of an integrated ash-catcher), and we learned some of the finer points of fire management.  Our chimney received a clean bill of health, and we'll have her back in the spring to assess how well we burned our wood during our first winter.

A weekend trip to a pancake breakfast/swap meet resulted in a potential connection for chickens next spring.  We still need to set up an enclosure and bang together a coop, but we have a line on Naked Neck Turkens to start a small flock in memory of our funny bird, Nugget.

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.