Maybe it won't look like the turkey coop...

Every time I think I'm about ready to finalize the design on our guest cabin/office, something catches my eye and forces me to rethink it all...

Tiny House Design , Archive » Tiny House Strawbale Workshop

Busy, busy, busy!

Wow, it has just been go, go, go around here!  In the past few weeks, we went from 4 sheep and some laying hens to 13 sheep, 2 pigs and tomorrow 10 turkeys arrive.  My chickens are coming mid-May...I'm going to do another 150 this year.  And this is all before gardening season starts!

We finished lambing with the Icelandics, last Thursday and ended up with 3 ram lambs and 2 ewe lambs.  Four of them are white with a brown spot here and there and one is jet black.  Here they are lounging around while their mothers are fighting over the best bits of hay...

In the middle of lambing, we had our Suffolk ewes arrive.  We started out looking for one little ewe lamb for Gwenna's 4-H project and ended up purchasing two lambs with their mothers, which brings the tally of sheep up to 13.  Uncle David and Auntie Susan were kind enough to pick them up for us using their stock trailer...

They have settled in quite nicely and we are attempting to get them comfortable with us, so that we can handle them a bit.  This is Zara, Gwenna's 4-H lamb.

As you can see, they are much bigger than the Icelandics.  I have also noticed they are much pickier eaters, they won't touch the brush or other bits of greenery coming out but prefer grass and hay.

On Sunday we got the call that our weaner pigs were ready to be picked up.  Of course we weren't exactly ready, so we scrambled to move the sheep over to the other pen and put up electric fencing around our old sheep pen and we were ready to go.  I'm amazed at how quickly they have got down to the business of rooting the place up.  I'm hoping they can do the whole pen and then I will seed it in the Fall, for the sheep in the Spring.

 They are pretty cute...Viv named them Porkers and Oinkers.  I do keep reminding the girls that even though they have names, we will be eating them.

Next comes the poultry!

'Burst's Second Day

Well little 'Burst' (named by Gwenna because it rhymes with first and because he jumps around in little bursts of energy) went out into the big pen today and met his Aunties.  They seem to be taking to him okay and Mom is very protective, calling him if he gets too far away.  Here are some more pics...

 Now that he is all cleaned up and fluffy, we can see that he has a brown spot on his back hip and another one on the back of his neck.

Our first lamb!!

Our first lamb arrived this morning, some time around 7am. Erich looked out the window and saw Snow White standing beside what he thought was a cat. Momma and baby seem to be doing well. Here are some pics...

 My friend Bobbi-Jo stopped by and confirmed that he is a little ram lamb. Such fun!

Fencing Season starts today

Michael Pollan's New Book

Michael Pollan is one of my favourite food activists...his new book Food Rules:  An Eater's Manual has just been published.  I came across this interview this morning, check it out.

How can we fix our eating habits?

Author Michael Pollan on eating ‘real food’ in moderation

	View related photos

By Joanne Camas; photo by Alia Malley

It can be complicated to simplify things, but sometimes we need to be reminded of the essentials. Michael Pollan's done just that with his new book, "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual". After researching "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" (2006) and "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" (2008), Pollan came to an important realization: "The deeper I delved into the confused and confusing thicket of nutritional science, sorting through long-running fats versus carb wars, the fiber skirmishes and the raging dietary supplement debates, the simpler the picture gradually became," he writes in "Food Rules."

The simple picture, he says, can be distilled into two facts that will lead to a sensible diet: First, the Western diet leads to Western diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. "Four of the top ten killers in America are chronic diseases that can be linked to this diet," Pollan claims. Second, people throughout the world who eat a range of traditional diets, even those heavy in fats, carbohydrates, or protein, don't suffer from these diseases. Thankfully, Pollan offers a third fact derived from these two: If we get away from the Western diet, we can see dramatic improvements in our health and reduce the risk of chronic diet-related diseases.

Epicurious spoke with Pollan about "Food Rules" and how its prescription for eating "real food" in moderation and sidestepping the Western diet developed naturally from the author's mantra in his "In Defense of Food": "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Story continues below ↓

---

advertisement | your ad here

---

Epicurious: If "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is an eater's manifesto, did you write "Food Rules" as a guide to putting the manifesto into practice?

Michael Pollan: That's the basic idea. After reading "In Defense of Food," several doctors told me, "I've got patients I'd like to give the background to, just a list of rules." People were sending me their own rules, and I set up a Web site where they could post them ... There was that repository of wisdom about food out there that we didn't have. I've compiled information from doctors, anthropologists, folklorists, and more.

Epi: Do you have a favorite Food Rule?

MP: It changes, but probably, "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself." And this one's weird because it's so blunt: "The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead."

Epi: The Food Rules are very simple though not always easy to act on. Which rule is most difficult for you to follow?

MP: I don't have much trouble with them, but if I had to name one, probably Number 46, "Stop eating before you're full." That's a challenge for Americans, who've been trained to eat till they're full and finish what's on their plate.

Epi: A related rule, "Leave something on your plate," surprised me. Isn't waste against the principles of ethical eating? Wouldn't it be better to simply shrink portions to eat less?

MP: It's a form of self-discipline, instead of your plate dictating when you're full. I'm talking about a bite or two, not leaving a big pile of food.

Epi: Do you think there's hope for improving the Western diet, or are we too far gone?

MP: I think there's hope as we're starting to recognize the toll this diet takes: One third of the population is now obese; there are soaring rates of Type 2 diabetes. Eating this way is going to bankrupt the country. The same kind of feedback on smoking changed our habits, and the smoking rate has gone down significantly; we're on course for that kind of change in food.

Epi: Do you worry about the government getting too involved in policy about our food?

MP: There's always the potential for the government to do it badly, but they are already involved in agricultural policies, school nutrition, and other areas. In fact, a lot of what we're dealing with are the unintended consequences of government policies such as subsidies that can be changed.

Epi: Are you seeing any changes as a result of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and Robert Kenner's documentary "Food, Inc."? Are consumers demanding that corn and its by-products not be added to every food, that chicken factories be shut down, for example?

MP: Lots has changed since 2006: Hundreds of products are being reformulated without high-fructose corn syrup, for one thing. Local food is taking off, and the market for pastured meat and milk has grown enormously.

Epi: What would be your last meal?

MP: Hmmm. Roast chicken, preferably pastured, with roasted vegetables, eaten very slowly. That's probably my favorite dinner. And if there's ever a time for slow food…

Epi: Who are your food heroes?

MP: Alice Waters, Dan Barber, Joel Salatin, Eliot Coleman, Fred Kirschenmann, Joan Gussow, and Marion Nestle. I've learned immense amounts from these people.

Epi: If you could choose four dining companions (besides your family), who would they be?

MP: Barack and Michelle, and we'd talk about some of the issues surrounding food and farming in America. We'd eat salad from the White House garden. I need four people? Well, let's include Sasha and Malia. Kids have to be in on this conversation, too.

Epi: Do you have another food topic you're itching to write about?

MP: Yes, I want to write about cooking. My research has convinced me cooking is an important part of the solution. It's the only way to take back our diet from the big companies.

Michael’s Quirky Food Rules

Rule 20: It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.

Rule 21: It's not food if it's called by the same name in every language (think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles).

Rule 26: Drink the spinach water.

Rule 32: Don't overlook the oily little fishes.

Rule 36: Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.

Rule 57: Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.

Michael Pollan is the author of "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" (2008), winner of a James Beard Award, and "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," which was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by both The New York Times and The Washington Post. In 2009, Pollan appeared in the documentary "Food, Inc." and PBS's "The Botany of Desire." He is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. Pollan's new book, "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual," has just been published. Learn more about the author at Michaelpollan.com

Another Great Blog to Share

I love finding new blogs, chronicling people doing such interesting things!  Thought I would share this one with you all...
Throwback at Trapper Creek

Just look at the tags of her posts...

agriculture Australian Shepherds beef cattle Belly Acres (rant) canning cattle chickens Collaborative writing compost composted animal manure early days early farm life easily amused family cow farm dogs farm life food preservation frugal farming frugality frugal living grazing greenhouse haying heirloom fruit homesteading lost skills making do over-winter vegetables pastured poultry personal quilting recipes redneck moments rotational grazing Salatin-style farming scratch cooking seed saving self-sufficiency sustainability vegetable gardening vegetables weather wildlife winter stores zero mile foodshed

 

And anyone who uses Joel Salatin quotes is just fine in my books.  Check her out!

Lambs, pigs, turkeys, chickens and calves...oh my!?

The spring-like weather and our first 4-H meeting, has got us going on our plans for Spring 2010.  My little ram Hvitkarr, has been doing his best to get the girls bred but since it is January and he is still working on at least one of my ewes, I'm not sure if he has been successful.  We shall see.

Speaking of lambs...today we were over at my friend Sara's visiting Millie (our Dexter cow who she is boarding for us) and we got to see a little orphan lamb she just got.  How cute is this?

That's Mimi  and Sara feeding Rosie...

We have had so much fun getting to know Sara and Matt and their little girls...

Sara has a similar interest in raising her own food and is continually adding livestock to her homestead.  We spend a lot of time sharing lessons learned and making plans for the next animals we want to raise.

She has inspired me to add a few feeder pigs and some turkeys to our list this year.  Today Erich and I did a walk around the property, identifying where we are going to put everyone and figuring out what needs to be built.  It's all very exciting!  

It seems that Gwenna has caught the bug too, she joined 4-H this year and is planning to do a ewe lamb project, which means she gets to keep the ewe and next year will take the ewe's lamb to market.  Since I'm not sure if our ewes are going to lamb and because they are on the smaller side when it comes to meat/carcass I think we will get a suffolk cross ewe lamb from a woman who raises them for 4-H 'ers.

Now that we've got that sorted...time to move on to my seed catalogues and the garden!

Welcome Mildred...Millie for short

This is Millie, our Dexter cow and her little bull calf (unnamed as he is destined for the freezer). We have been thinking about getting a cow for a while now and have been researching what would be the best breed for our little homestead. I came across this article in Mother Earth News and it peeked my interest in the Dexter breed. Here are a couple of points from the article...

Pound for pound, no bovine can match the diversity of Dexter cattle, one of the smallest cattle breeds. Standing just 36 to 44 inches at the shoulder, Dexters are the perfect old-fashioned, family cow. Gentle, versatile and economical, Dexters efficiently turn pasture into rich milk and lean meat, if you're so inclined. In recent years, interest in Dexter cattle has surged worldwide. Here's why:

They're the perfect size for the family homestead. One Dexter cow will give about 1 to 2 gallons of milk a day, a much more manageable amount for a single family than the 8 to 10 gallons a typical Holstein yields. If you raise a Dexter for beef, you'll need room in the freezer for about 400 pounds of meat, rather than 600 to 800 pounds you'd get from a typical full-size steer.

Looking after a Dexter can be fun for children and can give them a sense of accomplishment. With proper attention and training, a Dexter can be easily handled by even the greenest homesteader. Don't expect that dazed-cow stare, though. "For their small size, they're pretty lively," Conroy says. Dexters can be trained like oxen to plow or pull wagons, and their strength belies their size. At the same time, that size makes them less intimidating to children and adults.

Dexter cows produce about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons a day of about 4 percent butterfat milk - over a full 305-day lactation-when fed for production. (Some exceptional cows can put out up to 5 gallons per day at the height of their lactation.) The fat globules in Dexter milk are very small, which makes the milk more easily digested. The cream easily separates and makes outstanding butter and ice cream.

Dexters are a hardy breed that performs well in a variety of climates. In North America, Dexters are raised from Alaska to Florida. Many breeders note that all the Dexter needs is a place to get out of the wind and sun. Many animals even prefer to stay outside in the snow in the middle of winter instead of going into the barn.

Easy and economical to keep, a Dexter consumes about half of what an Angus or Hereford would under the same conditions. A half acre of good green grass per animal, or 12 to 15 pounds of hay and a little grain each day is enough in temperate climates. The cattle are ideal for grazing on older or overgrown pastures.

The cows usually give birth without assistance, and using a calf puller is virtually unknown with Dexters. Calves weigh about 45 pounds at birth, and by the time there weaned at 7 months, they may weigh between 350 and 500 pounds. Both sexes will continue to grow until 5 or 6 years old. Some Dexters have lived to more than 20, and many continue to calve for more than 15 years.

Sounded just right for us so I started to look around BC, to see who had some for sale. I also convinced my neighbour, Sara who was looking for a milk cow, that Dexters would work for her too. As it turns out, she located a pair of cows with calves for sale, just down the road from us and her hubby went and picked them up on the week-end. Sara also agreed to keep them at her place until we have a shelter for them and our fencing done (hopefully this summer). These pics were taken at her place...
This is Bessie, Sara's cow...
They are amazingly friendly...
but I still find the horns a little intimidating...
They are bred and due in June. We plan to milk them once we are all used to each other.

Budgetwise SheepkeepingTips

I was trying to find instructions on how to make a sheep feeder out of an old tire, and I found this great page:

http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/29/29-4/14_flock_secrets.html

Enjoy a Free-Range Halloween

I love this woman! I have enjoyed many of her posts at her blog Free Range Kids. Check out this latest post from The Huffington Post.

As Goes Halloween As Goes Childhood

Forget all the guys in Bernie Madoff masks and tutus. If you want to see something really scary on Halloween, come to my apartment around 9 p.m.I'm letting my kids eat unwrapped candy.

They can eat any homemade goodies they get, too, and that unholy of unholies: candy where the wrapper is slightly torn. And on the very off chance they get an apple, they can gnaw it to the core, so long as there's not a razor-sized, dripping gash on the side.

Which always seemed like it would be a kind of give-away that something was amiss.

It's not that I'm cavalier about safety. I'm just a sucker -- so to speak -- for the facts. And the fact is: No child has been poisoned by a stranger's goodies on Halloween, ever, as far as we can determine. Joel Best, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware, studied November newspapers from 1958 to the present, scouring them for any accounts of kids felled by felonious candy. And...he didn't find any. He did find one account of a boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix his father gave him. Dad did it for the insurance money and, Best says, he probably figured that so many kids are poisoned on Halloween, no one would notice one more.

Well, they did and dad was executed. That's Texas for you. Another boy died after he got into his uncle's heroin stash and relatives tried to make it look like he'd been killed by candy. And that's it.

Now look at how the fear that our nice, normal-seeming neighbors might actually be moppet-murdering psychopaths has turned the one kiddie independence day of the year into yet another excuse to micromanage childhood.

It's not just the fact that churches and community centers are throwing parties so that kids don't go out on their own. It's not just the fact that Bobtown, Pennsylvania has gone so far as to "cancel" Halloween altogether -- for the sake of "safety." (The authorities there were surprised to find this decision unpopular.) It's not even that those of us who'd like to hand out homemade cookies know they'll be instantly tossed in the trash.

No, the truly spooky thing is that Halloween has become a riot of warnings that are way scarier than the holiday itself. The website Halloween-Safety.com recommends that if your child is carrying a fake butcher knife, make sure the tip is "smooth and flexible enough to not cause injury if fallen upon."

Excuse me? Has anyone ever seen a knife land blade-side up? And then fallen on it? Meantime, schools around the country are sending this note home to parents: "Please, no scary costumes." In England last year a man was ordered by his landlord to take down his lawn decorations because the zombies were too "realistic."

In other words: They looked too much like...real zombies?

Our fears are so overblown they'd be laughable if they didn't sound so much like the fears that are haunting us the rest of the year. Fears that have lead to parents to wait with their kids at the school bus stop, and keep them inside on sunny afternoons. Fears that make parents forbid their kids from skipping down the street to invite a friend out to play. That's the everyday version of Halloween fear: The fear that we cannot trust our children amongst our neighbors for one single second because, who knows, they might be pedophiles just waiting to pounce.

If you want to see what childhood is becoming, look how at what Halloween has already become: A parent-planned, climate-controlled, child-coddled, corporate-sponsored "event," where kids are considered too delicate to even survive the sight of a scary costume.

If you want to see what childhood is becoming, look how at what Halloween has already become: A parent-planned, climate-controlled, child-coddled, corporate-sponsored "event," You know. Like if someone came dressed as a slightly torn Snickers.

Skenazy is founder of freerangekids.com and author of "Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lenore-skenazy/as-goes-halloween-so-goes_b_340163.html

101 Uses for the Power Auger

Last week-end we rented a power auger...that big yellow machine in the picture. We need to build a hay/woodshed with as many found/scrap materials as possible as we have no budget for this project! So the upright posts are beetle-kill timber that the hydro people have been cutting down to clear the hydro right of ways, and average about 18 feet long. Grandmaman did the 'skinning' of the bottoms of the posts.
Erich dug the holes in no time, using the handy power auger, and it took all three of us to get the posts into position in the holes. Next week-end we are hoping to get going on the roof. And since we had the auger, we added some poles to the treehouse and made room for some swings.

And this is my darling daughter, who loves to help, especially if it means she can wear Daddy's hard hat, it's all about the accessories :)

Meet Hvitkarr

Here he is...Hvitkarr...our little ram lamb ding-dong :)
He is fitting in quite nicely. The girls gave him a bit of a run for his money, butting him about a bit but he seems to be standing his ground and even eating with them...sort of.
This week-end Grandmaman, who is visiting from Montreal, filled in for Erich and I and we drove to Creston in the Kootenays...an 11-hour drive each way. It was lovely to meet Colleen over at Flannelberry Farm, as we have been conversing online for sometime...she is a wealth of information on all things related to Icelandic sheep (and chickens too :). Little Hvitkarr was born in April, he is one of three (triplets) and comes from good milky and fleece lines.

We had originally intended to get a ram lamb from my friend in the Okanagan who also has Icelandic sheep, but very sadly, the little lamb she had for us died from eating a neighbour's poisoned pasture...damn those pesticides!

So fingers crossed, the little guy will be able to perform sometime in November and we will have lambs this Spring!

Harvest

This is my second season of gardening and I have to say I am hooked. Last year, I started a little late in the season so had to use seedlings from the nursery. This year I had a lot of fun, thumbing through the seed catalogues. I ordered from West Coast Seeds and Salt Spring Seeds. I talked about what I ordered in this post. So I've been harvesting salad, arugula and spinach for some time but things are really exploding just lately. This was my harvest today...
How awesome is that??? My sugar snap peas are going crazy...so tasty too! I don't really have enough beets to can, so I am just enjoying them fresh in juice or cooked, like in this yummy salad.
So great! Hard to believe they started as those teeny, tiny seeds.

Silly sheep

Last night when Erich was feeding the sheep, one of the hay bales came apart on it's way out of the barn, spilling all over the alleyway, so he left the sheep gate open so they could graze. We usually leave the door to the chicken coop open as well, so they can come and go. Well...this is where I found Brownie this morning...
What a completely silly sheep...this is what she was doing in there...

Doesn't she know that sheep aren't supposed to eat grain?

Putting that belly wool to good use

When the shearer was here, he started with the sheep's belly...apparently this is the wool most people discard because it is usually quite short and partially felted. His wife mentioned you could use it as mulch in the garden...hmmm. So I thought I would try it around my newly transplanted cucumbers. It has been quite cold here at night...going down to about 4 degrees, so I thought these nice little woolly sweaters would keep my cukes toasty warm! We shall see.
It does look a little funny.

Shearing Day

Today was shearing day at Wise Acres! A few months ago I came across Ian Dalziel, a shearer from the Fraser Valley who was willing to come and do my small flock on his way back from Dawson Creek. His wife Miranda and I, caught the sheep and Ian made quick work of shearing off all of that beautiful Icelandic fleece!
I mentioned in an earlier post, that they had shed their winter coat, so this fleece is not quite as long as I hope it will be next year.
They do look quite funny...somehow less dignified...but they will be so much cooler this summer, so hopefully it will be worth it :)
And now I have all of this to play with...

A Week of Fibre Fun

Last week I was in Victoria, attending the Master Spinner Level 1, class as part of the Victoria Fibre Festival 2009. It was a great course and covered the spinning process from raw fleece, washing, dyeing, carding, spinning to plying the final product. There were six other participants in the class, all of whom had been spinning for sometime...I was the only complete newbie. It was a little daunting at first, but my teacher was fantastic and the other spinners gave me lots of tips and support.

We got to sample many different kinds of fleece including Jacob, Cotswold, Romney, Merino and Icelandic. This is my very first skein and it's a Jacob...
It's pretty lumpy I admit...but by the end of the week...I was spinning silk! This is Tussah silk mixed with merino...
We also learned about using natural dyes including carrot tops, onion skins, marigolds, coccineal and pomegranate....
such a beautiful array of colour, don't you think?

I rented a wheel while I was in Victoria...so now I have to figure out how to use my own wheel...
after I get caught up on my garden, etc, etc!

Our chicks have arrived!

The last week has been busy getting ready for the arrival of 150 day-old chicks!
We ended up having to order the Cornish Rock Giants, instead of the Cornish Cross I mentioned in this post, due to some fertility problems at the hatchery. We'll just have to make sure these guys don't get too much feed and get a bit of exercise by moving the feeder and waterers further apart :)

We picked up the little fellas this morning...they hatched on Wednesday at Rochester Hatchery in Alberta, and we were originally due to pick them up at Total Pet in Williams Lake on Thursday but apparently they missed the mail truck in Prince George and had to spend the night there and were transported to Williams Lake early this morning. So here they are in their new digs...our shed converted to chicken house...

Now to keep them toasty warm in this cool Cariboo spring weather!