Life On the Farm

Summer has Slipped Away

2011-10-01T19:29:00.001-03:00

Summer has slipped into autumn and farm life has slowed slightly. We just got back from a few days away, (another perk of homeschooling; taking holidays at the end of September!) As much as we all love the farm it was nice to get away for a few days.

Photos from this summer:

Our two pigs, Apple a Berkshire and Chocolate Chip a Berkshire/Tamworth cross (left to right respectively), enjoying a corn husk meal.

Hendrika & Joe Henry

Bobby

Preparing winter feed.

Onion flowers: Unexpected beauty.

Onions drying in the sun.

My youngest brother who is six years old raised six laying hens again this year. My eleven year old brother raised 30 laying hens. He also grew gladiolas and some corn that he sold husked, washed and ready to be eaten.

Tomatoes waiting to ripen.

Swiss Chard ready to be harvested.

Sunflowers brighten up the garden.

Fruits of autumn

Garlic

Cows on pasture

Boys enjoying the dandelions

This doesn’t show all the hard work and sweat of summer but it does show what we are proud of.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Spring is Here and Summer Is Close on Its Heels!

2011-05-26T21:21:00.001-03:00

Life on the farm has picked up its pace. With the season of new life comes the privilege and responsibility of caring for the new life.

The first batch of chickens is now on pasture and the second batch is just a couple of days old. We all enjoy these cute yellow fluff-balls, as we call them for they look like walking plush toys. They soon grow though and lose their young beauty.

We recently purchased five heritage breed day-old Bronze turkeys as an experiment on many levels. Part of the experiment is buying them as day-olds. We have heard that turkeys can be hard to raise the first couple weeks of their lives. Unlike the chickens, the hybrid turkeys are purchased at three weeks of age so raising turkeys from birth is new to us.

We have a new Jersey dairy cow now whom we named Hendrika. She just gave birth to Joe Henry, a very cute fawn coloured bull calf. Hendrika is also nursing an orphan Lincoln Red calf, so now we have Bobby the beef calf and Joe Henry the Jersey calf. =) Hendrika, Joe Henry and Bobby are out on pasture now and grazing within the dandelions.We are all happy to have fresh Jersey milk. MMMM

As I am writing, my Dad and Uncle are loading cattle to take to pasture over at my grandfather’s farm. These are mostly the mama cows and their newborn calves. When finished today, we will have seen most of the cattle out to pasture to graze for the summer.

This brings you up to date on our life on our farm. Next time I’ll tell you about my brothers’ summer projects as well as my market garden.

Merry Christmas from the farm

2010-12-21T10:36:00.001-04:00

Merry Christmas to all. Sorry for not posting sooner. The summer is always the busiest time of the year for us. Things have finally slowed down here and we all are looking forward to Christmas.

The market garden did very well this year and we are planning on doing it again next year. It seems that Dad has now finally caught up on all the things that he doesn’t have time for in the summer.

We built a greenhouse onto our shop this year. We have planted some lettuce, spinach and carrots in it for our own use. One of the other additions to the farm is the meat room which we built in our shop. It is an insulated room which has all of our freezers in it and has room for us to drive our van into it to load for market . The chantecler chickens are another addition to our farm. They are a heritage breed and we are hoping that they will lay eggs when they get old enough. The last addition to our farm is Laura, the dairy cow that we got in November. We have been enjoying her milk and I have been making our own butter. Mmm.

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Update from our Market Garden

2010-06-28T16:50:00.004-03:00

Our garden has been growing fairly well and we have started harvesting some produce already. We now have lettuce, spinach, garlic scapes, spring onions and radishes for sale.

Additions to the Farm

2010-06-23T19:43:00.009-03:00

We bought two grown Indian Runner ducks... ..and three Muscovy ducks, this is at 5 days old...
...they are now 17 days old!

My five year old brother bought six laying hens and sells his eggs at the Deippe Market.

On Pasture

2010-05-10T17:49:00.012-03:00

The cattle are enjoying the green grass out on pasture.

Our goats are now outside eating the grass as well.

Mom and I have started planting our Market Garden.

Spring!

2010-04-17T14:28:00.014-03:00

Spring has come on the farm!

Dad has been busy building the new chick house,

with lots of help,

to get ready for the chicks.

Happy Spring everyone!

Winter Work

2010-02-06T17:47:00.007-04:00

We have been all keeping busy during the cold month of January. Dad has been putting the finishing touches on the new barn, and repairing some machinery.
We have been working on making a small smooth area of ice on the farm so that we can play hockey as a family.

As you can see in the photo above, some days are not as good as others, like the day when Dad's dump wagon tipped to the wrong side.

Here is a photo of our family at our stall at the Deippe Market. We sometimes take the meat into the market on Friday and then go swimming together afterwards (one of the perks of homeschooling).

Farm Photos

2010-01-09T20:05:00.006-04:00

These are some recent pictures of the farm:

This is a side view of the barn.

This is a view of the barn from the road.

The curtains on the barn allow the sun to come in and can be cranked up to keep out the wind and snow.

This is the bale chopper that Dad uses to chop and blow hay and straw to bed down the cattle.

Cattle eating hay

Happy New Year

2010-01-05T19:45:00.001-04:00

Happy New Year! We have had a great Christmas and are still enjoying our Christmas holidays. Dad has been enjoying two weeks off from Market but will be back there again this Saturday. Things haven't been very busy, but Dad is still finding things that need to be done.