Joel, visiting, and predator-proofing the seedlings

It's been another busy few weeks for us.  I'm starting to notice a theme here, what about you?

A few weeks ago, we attended a live streaming of a talk by Joel Salatin (of PolyFace Farms) called You Can Farm.  It was an overview of his ideas, his farm, and the reasoning behind the systems he uses.  It was great!!!  All the notes I took can be found on our Resources page (up in the top right).  I really liked that he explained why he farms the way he does - I often come across great ideas, but I have a hard time figuring out the logic behind them.  Joel explained things clearly, so that it made sense to the rest of us.  He also reminded us to stop thinking "Well that's great for them, but it won't work for me" and start trying to apply ideas to our farms.  Sure, we don't have 100 acres of cleared land to do pastured cattle followed by chickens, but we do have about 26 acres that we can use for a smaller setup.  It was a great talk, and I'm sorry we couldn't make it to his other two about pastured chicken and pastured beef.

Almost a week later, I was packing for a trip (more on that in a moment) and I noticed water leaking through the walls.  Oh joy, I thought, another leak.  So we headed out at 7 at night to try and clear the ice off the deck.  Jordan got what he could using a sledgehammer, and the next day I cut some drainage through the ice using the hatchet.  By the time I finished an hour and a half later, I was getting pretty good at aiming that hatchet!  Not the best circumstance to get familiar with our tools, but it worked :)

I cut the ice along the logs so the water could run below the seams between the logs.  Then I cut a channel to drain it out to the deck.

Closeup of the ditch along the wall.

This worked perfectly, and we'll be keeping a much closer eye on this next year.  I was worried this would happen, but I'm glad I noticed it before there was any major damage done to the bedroom or the kitchen.

With that done, I could finish packing for my trip.  Kim invited me to come along to visit her grandparents in southern-ish BC, so I packed up Zim and off we went.  They are raising cattle, and also have horses, ducks, chickens, and a garden.  Being much farther south than we are, there was no snow, and everything was already turning green!  We hit 23C on Sunday while we were fencing - what a treat!  Kim has a family of great people, who have experience with agriculture and lots of great ideas that they were excited to share with me.  It was a weekend of amazing food, hard work, wonderful conversations, and fabulous company!

The cows, complete with calves

Zim and Doodle playing with a stick near the cattle

Part of the fencing team, tightening the wires.

This is the view the cows will have once they are put up in the top pasture we were fencing - lucky cows!

A few weeks ago, my friend Liz offered us her old oven - it works great, she said, but it didn't match the fridge they bought when theirs died over the winter.  Of course, I said "Sure, we can take the oven off your hands," especially as it's a full-sized one.  Great!  We've got apartment-sized appliances because the kitchen is so small, and we find both the fridge and the stove too small for our liking - the oven couldn't fit some of our baking sheets, and the stove had only one large burner.  so we swapped out the stoves, and this new (to us) oven is FABULOUS!  I can bake two dozen cupcakes or muffins, all on one rack, and each of them comes out perfect.  This, friends, is bliss :)

Perfectly baked Banana Chocolate Chip muffins

The big project this past weekend was to set up the seed-starting station.  I picked up a little greenhouse at a garage sale two years ago, and I used part of it to build the station.  Of course, this required swapping this piece for that, moving this shelf, and removing the top completely.  Once I developed a setup that would do what I want and fit in our tiny living room, I moved on to the next stage: predator proofing.  What predators?  Who would harm the tiny seedlings springing to life to provide us with nourishment?  These two: 

Yes, they look cute, but don't let them fool you: these are plant-destroying machines.  They don't hesitate to dig in the dirt, gnaw on leaves, and knock pots off windowsills.  So, to protect the seedlings, I needed to cat-proof the seed-starting station.  After a quick discussion ("Do you remember seeing any chicken wire?" "Maybe..... but I know there's some of that rabbit wire out in the pole shed.") I traipsed across the top of the snow (hint: this only works in the early morning!) and found said rabbit wire.  It's 2" landscaping wire, and it should work to keep the cats from laying on top of the seedlings.  I put that around three sides, and used screen for the fourth side, so I can roll it up out of the way easily.  This ended up taking all day (leaving me to franticly throw supper together and hope I didn't burn it - success!).  And the end product doesn't look so bad:

I decided to experiment with heat tape to increase the soil temperature without having to buy a heated pad.  I had it plugged in all night and did some quick testing this morning: Tray with heat tape: 14C.  Tray without heat tape: 16C.  Ambient temperature: 18C.  Hmmm, well that didn't work at all.  I might have to break down and buy the heated seedling pads.  I'll see if I can come up with something else.  Or maybe I'll just wing it - we're only growing for ourselves this year, so perfect seed starts is not a requirement.  The money would likely be better spent on the roof or the root cellar or the car or...

And, you guessed it, it will be another busy few weeks.  I'm heading to a root cellar workshop tonight, then I'm out of town for a few days.  When I get back, I'm hoping to start some seedlings (if the setup can survive the cats for the next week, the seedlings should be fine in there!) and begin fixing the roof.  We're still just itching for the snow to melt - we have so much to do, but we can't start on any of it until the snow is gone!!!  Jordan typically loves winter, and even he is tired of the snow.  Be gone, white stuff, you've overstayed your welcome!