Haying While The Sun Shines

With farming, you find there are plans, best made plans, unexpected interruptions and outright chaos!

OK, maybe chaos is a strong word, but when you are haying with weather as the master, breakdowns are, as my friend Greg would say, "Highly Unnecessary".

The first field next door is only about 2.5 acres, so quite easy to manage with our small tractor and aging haying equipment.  Cut one day at a rate of an acre per hour, rake the next with a beneficially hot and breezy day, then bale and haul on the third day, 90 bales total.  Easy.  Ideally, I would have expected about 150 bales from that field, but it needs some input - manure, seed, maybe some irrigation in the dry part of early summer.  In any case, it was nice to be able to take the hay as offered by our neighbour.

The second field is about 3 kilometers down the road.  It is 6 acres in size and sits as 2 pieces separated by a natural low spot that drains the field.  The West end is poorer quality grasses, lots of heavy stemmed grass and flowery weeds.  The East end has much nicer grasses.  Cutting and raking went as expected, but the weather was not giving a big window to bale and haul.  Baling should have taken around 5 hours, but the baler had different ideas.  Some things you can control or take preventative measures.  Other things are really unexpected.  I should have sharpened the twine knives.  The twine stopped tying properly about half way through baling the field because the knives were getting dull and causing the twine to have to rip away on a few strands rather than simply pull off the knotter during the tying cycle.  Fair enough, sharpen the knives.  But just as things were back into full swing, the safety stop mechanism broke and the baler stopped!!  And did it stop!!  One loud, metallic thud and nothing was rotating, plunging or baling!

With a decidedly necessary supper break, I found the broken pivot link, took it out of the baler and got busy with the welder in the shop, recreating the appropriate shape and angles to the link.  Keeping in mind I started baling after lunch hour to ensure the windrows of hay were dry, the time is now about 8 p.m.  We have another 60 bales to make before sundown and the dew setting.  As it was, the baler was back up and running by 8:30 and we did make it off the field by 10 p.m. without any dew setting.

The next day was a forecast of thunderstorms and we were not let down.  Lost about 30 of the bales in a severe soaking thunderstorm that gave a record 2.6 inches in less than 45 minutes!  Some other bales got a bit wet as they were only tarped on the wagon, but we were able to successfully dry them with minimal degradation.

It is always interesting to work with the schedule that is given by the weather.  9 to 5 is one thing, sun, wind and rain quite another.  Oh yes, there was post haying maintenance to do.  Hopefully it will ensure minimal problems for next year.

Bales That Got Wet

Bales for the Hay Mow

The Breakdown

A Deer Resistant Field

Once we had completed our field seeding, given the seeds a first drink of lake water, we knew it would only be a matter of time until the deer found the new, tender vegetables starting to grow.  We had already experienced a loss last year with the deer almost completely wiping out a few rows of vegetables.  With that issue at hand, we purchased a quarter mile of six foot, black mesh style deer fence.  It wasn't too expensive, considering all the loss potential with growing vegetables outside.

The fence requires a top wire to hang from, apart from the posts to be fastened to.  The job of installing the fence suddenly showed it's problems; where do you get posts long enough to fasten the fence to?  What about gates that will match, wide enough to get the farm equipment into and out of the field?  The gates were easy enough as we had leftover steel mesh panels from another building, so we added hinges and they became gates; we had a bunch of salvaged steel pipe that were nearly ten feet long which became fenceposts and for the topwire, we ran electric fence wire and as per the fencing manufacturers recommendation, we used zip ties to fasten the fencing to the posts and top wire.  We had to get a few cedar posts that were nine feet long for mounting the one gate and those posts helped to define the one corner to give extra strength to the fencing as a whole.

Once the fence was unrolled along the ground, we pulled the top edge up at each post and without any traditonal stretching of the fence, fastened it and just kept it tight enough to prevent any sagging.  The fencing, being black is nearly invisible.  We added ribbon along it's length to give warning of it's presence, but one of the keys to the success of this fence is that it is hard for the deer to see.  Since it is hard for the deer to see, they cannot judge the jump they might have to make to get over it.  Time will tell if this fence is worth it. 

The last few days and probably the rest of the week is the task of weeding and making green compost out of the weeds.  The old garden tiller is getting a workout with having to make several passes between rows to successfully bury the weeds.  With this field being carved from the wilderness, there is quite a variety of weeds, including some really robust thistles.  We will leave you with some photos showing the fencing, the weeded and the unweeded sections of the field.

The Beginning of June

Wow, first week in June and we are taking a salad for ourselves as we carefully thin our early produce!  Fresh lettuce, beet tops and onions!  What a treat!  It is nice to see the early fruits of our labour, having contended with an extended cold season, having to switch frequently between heating and ventilating the hot house, ensuring there was adequate moisture in the soil one minute to venting out the extra humidity the next.  Am I complaining?  Not at all!  It is just part of the lifestyle called farming! 

So this is a quick post to give a glimpse of what we've got going on.  Cucumbers are into the 4th leaf today (only the third leaf in the photo), tomatoes, peppers, beets, lettuce, and a scattering of self-seeding dill which seemed to get everywhere!

Our previously flattened greenhouse is now up and in service, but 10 feet shorter due to the extensive truss damage.  It will still serve us well and there is still some space left in it to trellis a few cukes and squash.  Enjoy the photos and we will be back in a week or so.  Farmers Markets are coming up soon!

Out West in the Canadian Plains

I might consider this a bit of a "cheater post", however it was really exciting to see where some of the big farms are and to get a bit more scope on feeding the world.  

To see the vast expanses of grain farms, going literally for hundreds of miles along the highways in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta was really eye-opening.  Of course I realize that my acre or two can sustain more than my family for a few months, but when you consider Canada alone, at a population of 36 million people, the field sizes out west start to make sense.  On our trip, we also saw the beginnings of the season in Eastern Saskatchewan and Western Manitoba where farmers are already positioning equipment, harrowing fields and getting ready to sow seed.  Once again, the scale of the operations are extreme.  I pull a six foot wide disc harrow, these big machines are pulling anything from an 18 foot to 60 foot wide cultivator!  To add perspective to all of this, visiting the Reynolds Agricultural museum in Wetaskiwin, Alberta and seeing the 100 year old technology they used to do field work is very humbling.  We've advanced technologically alot in 100 years!

We also noticed the great number of cattle farms.  Being mid-April, the calving season was in full swing.  We saw so many new calves we lost count, and we were only scratching the surface in terms of seeing farms.  We visited one small farm in Claresholm, Alberta and got the up close and personal of that operation.  The owner said that the calving season seemed to be delayed which was a blessing in disguise as southern Alberta got a horrible snowstorm around April 9th.  This would have killed any newborn calves.  All his calves were born around the 14th and on - he was waiting for three more on the 21st.

Scenery in the west is amazing when you're used to forested areas.  True, a field is pretty plain, but there are more rolling areas of Saskatchewan than one expects, so we did experience a really amazing side of the great plains.  Will leave a few pictures for you to view.  Back on our farm, the work is about to begin.  Stay tuned!

Chickens And Eggs

To get a real feel of farming, you need to have farm animals of some type.  Possibly the easiest animal to start with is a chicken.  And wouldn't you say seeing a chicken poking around the barnyard just really makes the farm feel like a farm?  Or a rooster crowing in the morning as the sun comes up?   Oh yeah, I can feel it...

We got chickens from a public school project about 6 years ago.  These chicks were an egg incubation and hatching experiment done by some students.  The neat thing about it was that the eggs were from different hens and the chicks that hatched were of about 6 different breeds.  Donated by a local chicken farmer, the students had a great time watching the eggs crack, open and the little chicks develop in the first week.  This is when we got the chicks, at about 5 days old.  We were pretty excited to get the chicks but also did not know what to expect.  So we started with a fairly large wood crate, about 2 x 3 feet in size.  We bought a heat lamp, thermometer, chick starter feed, a waterer and put it all together.  We also got ourselves a book called, "Raising Chickens for Dummies", an excellent resource for anyone.

As the chicks grew, it was apparent they needed space so we built a coop and an outdoor run; it was a ramshackle space inside our equipment shed that we eventually insulated and closed off to be the coop.  We opened up a small hole in the wall so the birds could move between the outside run and the coop.  This lasted for one year until we realized that having a number of hens with a daily collection of eggs might be even better for us.  So we bought 25 chicks from a distributor and moved the whole issue into our brand new barn.  We designed our barn to house about 60 birds in the coop area.  With outside access to the coop, an inside passage from the coop to the feed storage room, high efficiency lighting, good R20 insulation and a large window, we have an ideal chicken coop.  We have since bought two more batches of laying hens, currently settling on the Plymouth Rock Cross Reds as a durable, calm and hearty breed.  They are such a classic looking bird, mostly white with a few black accents and small combs.  One rooster is in the mix as we've found having a rooster in place keeps the hens a bit calmer.  Somehow he got named Fred.  The original group of chicks all got named by the kids at the time; amazingly we still have 4 of the originals.  So here's the names - William, Henrietta, Jet and Soup...yes Soup.  Chicken Soup!!

Though it is a daily set of chores, hanging out with the chickens at feeding time is quite relaxing and very entertaining.  One starts to realize there are birds with character and you can count on the daily shenanigans.  We have a jumping hen who launches herself at the door when we take the feed in.  Not sure what her intentions are but she literally jumps against the door as it is opened.  We have a nesting box inspector who needs to "supervise" when eggs are collected.  She follows the egg bucket closely, often standing tall to peer into the nesting boxes.  We also have a hen who will "escape" from the outside run if we aren't there by 5 in the afternoon to feed the flock.  She wanders down the barn lane, waiting to see if we are planning to feed the crew.  Yep, those chickens are a whole lot of fun!

2 Weeks Old

4 Weeks Old

A Rooster named Fluffy!

Our first flock at 4 months.

More Thoughts On Land Clearing

The last time I spoke on land clearing was just over two years ago.  We have done some actual clearing and subsequent soil preparation for planting in 2017, but it seems once you get the clearing bug, it's hard to stop.  So in the last weeks of February, I headed back out to the new field area and have cut down a small cluster of trees that were like a "last stand" for the area.  The trees are useful as firewood, especially the spruce and poplar, but the Balsam Fir is miserably sticky to handle, even in the cold of winter with the resin flowing endlessly, it seems.  So down those trees went and now I am slowly piling the wood up in the shed to dry over summer.  I now have a usable planting space nearly 2 acres in size once the stumps are removed.

The interesting thing about the ground in this area of our farm is that it is a transition zone between a very orange sand, hard clay and silt.  The goal is to get this stuff mixed up over a few years of plowing and general soil management.  Already last summer I was able to move some of this sand around into the clay sections.  Because it's located on a slope, the sand has a tendency to travel downhill so mixing the soil and letting it winter is always beneficial.  Plowing before winter allows the clay till to crumble and this in turn allows easier mixing of the sand during the spring harrowing.  We will see how well it does.  A heavy summer rainstorm can find loose sand in a hurry, especially on a hill.

It's quite exciting in many respects.  This last bit of clearing gets the sunshine into the space earlier in the day with less spot shadowing.  The unfortunate part is getting the morning sun to this hill.  The hill faces West!  I've been told not to worry about it as the evening sun can be more beneficial overall, holding the heat level until sundown.  Perhaps some careful record keeping on my part could give way to some answers regarding the hill facing West and how much difference it makes.  I might have to follow up on that!

The upper photo is taken from the South corner of the clearing; the bottom three photos are taken looking back at the last clearing from the North corner.  To note, the dogs insisted on being in the photos!