Busy Times

We're not ones for resting on our laurels, I guess, but this has been a busy week in a series of busy weeks (months, years). All good stuff though.

Jane spent her birthday slaughtering a pig - a third of which is now butchered and in our freezer. We have a quarter of a cow coming soon too. Another steep learning curve was needed to put the theory of what we have been reading for years about dealing with intact dead animals - as ex-vegetarians neither of us have the innate knowledge of beef and pork cuts that many other folk probably have.

Our century farmhouse needs renovation and a good place to start presented itself when we saw an advert for grants available for energy efficiency work. You pay for a whole house audit, which looks at air tightness, insulation, heating systems, appliances - the whole thing. The consultant then produces a thorough report which highlights the work to be carried out, and the amount of grant assistance you can expect. You have 18 months to do the work, after which it is inspected. It was money well spent. We haven't had the report yet, but it sounds like there is a lot of scope for improving energy efficiency, and saving money. We are going to look at changing to a ground water heat pump with wood stove backup and do away with the oil furnace and water heater. More on this as we go along, I imagine.

Chickens 2 - Humans 3

We have always had our hens completely free-range before now, and put up with them shitting on the doorstep and hassling us when it gets close to food time...

This time, because we want to grow fruit and veg in a number of different locations, we thought we would try confining them to a moveable run using electric netting. $250 later we are one goal up on the day so far - we've fenced them 3 times, and they have found a way of escaping twice (so far... deep sigh).

It's the bloody leghorns - they are the sleek, fast, fit shock troops of the flock, first in to everything. First into the pot too at this rate... mutter, mutter.

Chickens bid for freedom

Chickens bid for freedom
Originally uploaded by rubhadubh

Trying out the blogging option direct from flickr - here are our hens, venturing out of the new chickenopolis for the first time!

First eggs!

Well after weeks of chasing leads on who might be willing to part with a few hens, we finally found someone who was desperate to get rid of loads! Yesterday we picked up 24 hens and 2 cockerels from Diane & Paul, fellow ACLers. 'Picked up' is an understatement. They were loose in the barn and it took a fair amount of cornering and artful diving across chicken shit covered bales of hay to get them all, but get them we did. And a lovely bunch they are too. Mostly young hybrid or white leghorn point-of-lay pullets bar one or two old timers. They seem to approve of their new quarters (a hastily constructed partial barn conversion) and just to prove it laid 10 beautiful eggs in their shiny new nestboxes. We'll be keeping them in for a few days till they get the idea that this is home, and till the snow melts a bit more, then we'll let them out and see how we get on. A couple from further south are coming to pick up 6 hens plus 1 cockerel (rooster!) on Sunday, so we will have fewer. But in the meantime we need to find egg buyers fast!

And as if that wasn't enough to celebrate, we passed our Nova Scotia drivers tests today, something that was quietly bothering both of us. Failing would have been inconvenient, not to mention highly embarrassing. However, all those sloppy habits developed over the last 25 years didn't put the 'driving enhancement officer' (not half as scary as the Uk examiners) off too much. Phew!

farm planning I

We have been trying to get a fingernail under the edge of the sticky roll of bureaucracy that will allow us to get going on some farm projects, and I think we have now spoken to the right people.

As a start, we need a Farm Registration number for which we submit forms (and a fee) to the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture. It seems that we have to do this whether the farm was previously registered or not. There are a few unknowable questions on the form to do with income and livestock held, but a very helpful lady at NSFA went through it with us.

We also put our names down for an Environmental Farm Plan, which is a prerequisite for other plans - however, they are advising that there is an 8 month wait for this to be carried out - will need to follow this up later.

Once we have the farm registration number, we can submit an application for a Nutrient Management Plan to be carried out. This involves GPS'ing the fields, taking soil samples and analysing them, then producing a report and suggested application rates. This work is done by consultants and we are hoping that we can attract funding for the cost. It is certain that the fields will need substantial addition of nutrients, we don't think anything has been applied for years - just grazed and cut for hay. One possibility for the Spring is wood ash from the biofuel station in Liverpool. The producer is paying for the first 100km of trucking, and the ash is free, so the only cost will be that of a contractor to spread around 3 tons to the acre. There will be around 25 acres to be treated.

We have a neighbours oxen and cattle on the field just now, grazing off some rough patches.

I have failed, so far, to find a supplier of hens at this time of year. There is a dearth of egg producers around here, at least for good quality, free-range eggs and we are missing our chooks.

Sister visiting

My sister Claire arrived in Halifax on Saturday 20th for a week visit. Today, Nova Scotia was at it's best, temperature climbing to the mid-20s, cloudless and leaves in fall colours. Beautiful.

new country - new scotland - new blog

Having relocated ourselves from bonny old Scotland to Nova Scotia, Canada is enough reason to start a new blog. We aren't doing anything radically different from before, small-scale mixed farming to mop up the funds generated by a sputtering career in website application development, but hey! all the doings of animals, weather and associated characters need to be recorded somewhere...

Mostly for our own benefit, so we can look back and see what happened when in the agricultural year - that way we get a prod to get on with the jobs that need to be got on with.

There are also family and friends who are following what we are up to, and this may save emailing the same damn stuff over again!