A busy, crazy, wonderful Spring!
The winter that wouldn't end! I'm sure that like me, you were MORE THAN READY to see it go! And when it did, life on our farm took off in a whole new way!
Before the snow disappeared, we welcomed the arrival of our beautiful daughter! She took her time (11 days overdue) but we think she was waiting for spring to come just like us!
She's the reason we have put a hold on veggie CSA shares for this year. Wouldn't want to get out to the garden after a day of spit up, blowouts, laundry and nonstop nursing and find out that a heat wave had killed off anyone's cabbage! If it's just mine, I can handle that risk, but for you I want to deliver the best so I'm waiting until I can give the garden a bit more attention!
Okay these guys actually came before the baby, along with their own crazy drama! Here's the story: we purchased these two little fellas from a neighbouring farmer just after they were weaned. So that was the first thing. They missed their mama's! And we had gotten quite a bit of snow, making the electric fence slightly less effective, while at the same time bringing the top of the fence a little more within reach. That was the second thing. Our older steers of course just wanted to make sure that everyone knew who was in charge in "their" pasture. That was the third thing!
What does that all add up to? One very pregnant lady, two helpful friends and a husband racing home from work early to chase one runaway calf who hopped OVER the fence and managed to get over a neighbour's field and down onto a frozen river before finally being convinced to turn around and head for home! And then a very redneck fence conversion affectionately known as "fort knox" was built to keep the two groups of steers separated and that little rascal safely contained until the snow melted and our new (more powerful) electric fence arrived from the states!
They all get along just fine now!
Our other new adventure on the farm has been these busy critters. So far they have tilled up my greenhouse and they are working on the last of the vegetable garden now! They did a pretty good job and I believe pigs will play an important role in weed control for our garden in the future! Next week they will move out into the pasture where they will get to work on converting reedy marsh land into tasty pork chops! They are growing fast and Aron believes they might be ready for our mixed pork boxes in 10 weeks! I guess I'd better go put the priceson the website...........
And here are the little chickens! Not too many of them wanted to pose for the picture because it's a cold day and they wanted to stay inside!
In the background you can see the new chicken tractors we are building for them. They are ready to move out to grass on the weekend so the pressure is on to get everything finished!
Luckily this year we have signed up as hosts for a program called "workaway". We've already had a few young, energetic volunteers here to help out. And when you want to be outside helping with the farm activities but you're stuck in the house with a baby, it sure is nice to know that hubby has an extra pair (or two) of hands to keep things running!
So that's what has been happening! I think next time I'll tell you about the experiments I'm doing with the vegetables. Maybe I can learn enough to make next year's garden amazing!
