Sad Apple Tree

Georgie came round last weekend with his extendable Stihl pruning chainsaw and we did battle on the one and only apple tree on the farm. We won, I think.

It is a Yellow Transparent, known as the August Apple around here. An old variety not so often seen now. It's an early apple and does not store well - in fact, the apples go from superb to not so nice seemingly in a matter of a few days.

The tree probably hasn't been touched in 20 years, so was very overgrown and tangled. The apples it gave were plentiful, but small and many showed disease. There is a lot more work to be done over the next few years to bring it's shape back, but we couldn't do too much for fear of stressing it. What we did do looks brutal enough!

Signs of Spring?

Slowly but surely, Nova Scotia is turning towards Spring. We've had some lovely warm sunny weather, though if a breeze is present it chills down a lot. There are still patches of snow, but we probably have 90% clear ground.

We had a menagerie of visitors on Sunday, Georgie walking 'Girl', one of his foals, out for the first time and then Jonathan and Mark 'walking' their two bull calves out haltered. I'm not sure who was walking who, but the effort of handling these animals like this really seems to pay dividends down the road.

Yesterday, we put spiles in 4 sugar maples to collect sap for making maple syrup again. It made me look back at the blog entry from this time last year, and inevitably muse on all that has been and gone and dunnit in the interim.

We have loads of seedlings coming up both indoors under the light table and in the polytunnel. Off to a flying start compared with last year. It will be interesting to see how much earlier we start harvesting. The rhubarb has started peaking through, which is always a good sign of the season turning.

I've spent some time in the woods below the house this week, clearing hanging trees, spindly rubbish and dead trees - not that you'd notice! There may be a bit of usuable firewood, but we still need to gather ~6 cords for winter 2010, and get that split and stacked.

What else? We've all had minor illnesses, Breagh got a silver medal for her science project, both kids got great school reports before March break this week. We've all been out for gentle runs as we intend to do the Spartans 5k fun run on April 5. In fact, I may nip out for a 1 mile jog just now. Pathetic really, when you think the distances I was covering a few short years ago...

webaria.com

On a techy note... I do actually have to work to pay for all this agrarian nonsense!

Since moving to Nova Scotia I have been working as a freelancer for the business that I sold in Scotland, lanetech. David Powell, the new owner, has had a steady stream of new site builds to do and ongoing tech support of existing sites, which has kept me in gainful employ ever since.

However, there are sites to be built over here too, and I needed a business persona. After much debate I settled on Webaria, which had the advantage of having webaria.com, .ca, .co.uk and .net domain names available.

I have squeezed in the build of a website at www.webaria.com and if you would like to visit and leave comments (nice ones) it would be appreciated. I wanted to test out the integration of another blogging system, Wordpress, into the site, and it has worked out pretty well.

Propagation light table

Propagation light table
Originally uploaded by rubhadubh

Well, she asked for it, and I did need a practice project to try out my new Kreg jig (www.kregtools.com)! And so here, as requested, and indeed, as modelled by my glamorous assistant, the lovely Jane, is my version of a propagation table.

Each tier is lit by 4 x 4' daylight T8 fluorescent bulbs and gives 8 square feet of room to start seeds off. We will probably need to add heat either with a heating pad, or a wall heater behind the unit. Whether 24sq.ft. will be enough room is yet to be seen.

We are hoping to have not only our own plants started off, but also enough young transplants to be able to make our fortune at the first Farmers' Market of the year on Saturday May 9.

I can always make a mk.II version, missing out all the mistakes I made with this one. It didn't cost a huge amount, the lumber was $75, the light fittings $160 and the bulbs $45. Twice the size and half the price than the one sold by Veseys. And when the seeds are done with, we can use it to sleep visitors on in the spare room - I should have made it a bit longer :-)

I wonder how long it will be until the polis are around asking what we're cultivating!!

Snow,ice,ice,snow.

Yep, that seems to be the pattern at the moment. Snow and ice dominate pretty much all of our outdoor tasks. Whether it's opening the barn doors, watering the animals, walking to the garage, or driving down the drive, conditions underfoot (or sometimes overfoot and over the knee too!) are a time-consuming and challenging occupation. It took three tries to get up the hill yesterday, because I was silly enough to stop at the bottom to pick up Cam from the school bus. Smashing ice in buckets and chicken drinkers is part of the daily routine. Skidding up and down the drive with buckets of gravel can be fun. And, hey, taking the occasional kettle of boiling water out to defrost a stuck door isn't such a big deal! The cold fresh air still makes me feel alive, and the animals hardly seem to notice.

Still, despite all the above, I must confess I do find my thoughts turn to spring occasionally. And I find myself fantasizing about wearing fewer clothes, eating fresh tomatoes from the garden and not tip-toeing gingerly about like a granny. Even the horrors of the blackfly seem to blur when I think of walking bearfoot over the grass....

But hey, our wonderful community rink will be gone in the summer, and sledging down the hill will not be an option. And there's something about those mornings when the snow glitters like, well, like glitter, and the ice makes beautiful big leafy patterns on the porch windows.

Maybe my biggest revelation about our move to Canada has been just how much I love the seasons...

When does spring start?

Trouble in Porky Packages

Berkshire Weaners - February 2009
Originally uploaded by rubhadubh

Kilbrannan Farm expanded it's livestock and culinary potential this morning when we drove over to New Ross to pick up our two Berkshire weaners.

Ross Farm, I have mentioned it before, is a great place - a heritage farm museum. Not a dry boring museum though, they really 'walk the walk'! Their Berkshire sows and gigantic boar produce piglets which are then sold to those in the know. Those in the know, know that these heritage breed pigs produce outstanding pork and bacon, a world away from bland commercial porkery.

There's still a deal of snow around and -15, so we have them in the barn with a heat lamp for the time being. They have made themselves a nest and are currently sleeping off the excitement of the day.

Once it fairs up we'll have them out on pasture, scoffing all the garden offcuts, and that should turn them into prime pieces of porkdom. In the meantime, we'll scritch them behind the ears and try to make them happy meat!

Woohoo - Cam Rocks!

So Cameron came home from school earlier in the week saying he'd been asked to take part in a Variety Show in the school gym tonight, on behalf of the North Queens Junior Girls Basketball Team. Fair enough, so we encouraged him to put a drum solo routine together with, oh, at least a few days to practice.

We went along to set his drums up this afternoon. Only a couple of the performers were school kids, the others were adults, and you could see his confidence slipping as they mostly ignored the wee 10 year old with the drum kit. Well, maybe that's no bad thing as he won't always be the centre of the show... Anyway, he didn't do much practising just tapped timidly in the background whilst they twiddled away.

Come the show, again, he didn't miss a beat but played very quietly almost to the point of invisibility until the intermission. At the interval we spoke to him and he said that he had decided not to play solo. We encouraged but didn't push him. Back to the second half... and no Cam on stage. Jane went to see if he was ok and he was, but none of the adults had invited him back.

Well, we like a bit of country as much as the next Canadian immigrant, but to be honest, there's a limit. The guys playing were ok, but the sound was crap and after straining to hear the 50th song about Mom drinking meths, Daddies lurv, dog leaving on jet plane, boyfriend being called Sue or whatever, people were starting to filter out. Problem was, Cam's drum kit was on stage, so we couldn't go anywhere, but we'd decided to put the evening down to experience at least. For the last couple of tunes Cam came back on.

The M.C. had asked him to do a drum roll to introduce each of the basketball team, so when the other musicians left the stage, Cam stayed. Then Carl, the M.C. said "So Cam, show us what ya got..." - a momentary blank look followed by fleeting panic, we held our breath; what would he do...

Hurhurhur, what he did was shrug - and played a belter! Man, he just blew them away, the place went wild, and he bloody taught them not to underestimate a young lad! The thing is, he is getting pretty damn good on drums and folks were probably thinking he'd done well enough with what he had played - so it was totally unexpected. But he is playing with style and grace and groove, and my heart soared.

As Jane said, this is the sort of thing you want for your kids - the little successes, the tests and triumphs, at least enough of them to balance out the inevitable knocks and defeats. And it won't hurt his cool rating, and the chance to date the better looking girls either.

Of course, because we are crap parents, we had (again) forgotten to take a camera. Thankfully, there was a proper parent in the audience, so hopefully I'll be able to post a photo soon.

Phew! I need a rum... and the skating rink opens tomorrow, so I'd better not be late, but that's a different story. This is Rock and Roll Radio, stay tuned for more Rock and Roll...

Oh aye, and a happy New Year to everyone!