Crazy Weather – Crazy Farm

Hope everybody is well! We have missed a ton of months with being extremely busy here but we will review that in just a minute.

Life

I have something to say to a couple of people who read this blog but it is something that anyone and everyone can learn from.

Jump on opportunities when they show themselves. Sometimes, it may take you away from other things, but there is nothing worse than a missed opportunity. Even if that opportunity at the end of the day produces zero, you learned from it and can grow. It will help you find that next opportunity. In short, never be afraid of failing forward! I am 54 and I fail at something all the time, but I learn from those little failures. With those consistent learning lessons, larger and more lucrative opportunities can present themselves to you.

You know who you are, so don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith and if you fail, so what. You learn from it. However, if you succeed, then you can do so knowing that you took that risk and didn’t pass on the opportunity to learn!

For those who that did not apply to, sorry, I had to post it and those friends know who they are.

Life has a funny way of leading us down a path that feels as if it has been chosen. Like a create your own adventure book (aging oneself) but with an ending that has been already determined. It has been just over 2 years since my Mom passed away and 3.5 since my Father passed. Lately, more than ever, I have experienced through my own actions and the reactions of others around me, the values they instilled in me as a young boy. Anyone who knows me well has heard me say with honesty, I was a real pain in the ass as a kid; more specifically during my teen years. I did not get along with my parents at all and I know I did not make life easy on them. Yep, more of the problem was me and I definitely over the years made amends. Life has a weird way of showing us and reminding us of where we came from each and every day. I thank them for that and wish they were here to know how much I appreciate those values in my life today.

Image Credit to City News

The Farm – Weather Chaos

Before we get to other stuff, people want to know about the farm. I wrote weather chaos because we have had just that. It is like the perfect blend of wet and dry weather that grass loves. Ashley (aka HAM) can’t keep up with the grass cutting. It is always done just before we get more rain because we had to wait for it to dry some prior to cutting. She cut the driveway grass the other day, and the next morning, it didn’t even look like she touched it. Our grass is growing faster than we can fill the tractor fuel tank!

Kudos and BIG THANKS to Ashley for cutting the grass constantly, she does an amazing job!

Our forecast appears to me much of the same for the next couple of weeks. It has put a hold on somethings being planted and we are kind of hobbling into the gardening season. We spend a lot more time lately looking at the “by the hour” weather radar to see what is coming through and base task decisions on that.

We have also been receiving some high winds from the North which has not really helped any. Cutting grass or outside tasks in 50-70 gust winds is not really suitable……   even I am worried of being blown away, lol. Perhaps some of you saw that SE of Edmonton there were 8 tornadoes last week. I am surprised there were not more with the amount of wind we had.

The wind gusts were so strong that we had some siding tear away from the end cap of our house. We were able to retrieve it all, but still super strong winds considering where the siding came off. South end of house sheltered by trees and the house from a strictly Northern wind.

The Farm – The Garden Bed (pics below write up)

This year, we built a massive raised garden bed, 16’ long, 4’ wide and about 3.5’ high. It is rather large but makes things easier for Lisa and Ashley to pick from the garden and maintain the garden. None of us is getting any younger so crawling around on the ground is silly. Ashley is expecting so to have a raised bed is simply logical. We did bonus out a little. Last fall one of the lumber shops in town was selling 16x4x2’s for very cheap, non-inspection wood so it can’t be used for “structures”. PERFECT for a raised garden though. The construction of it was fairly simple. The toughest part was the size. A rectangle was built with 2 levels of wood, as in the imagery. Then we attached hardware cloth to the bottom. Yes, the metal mesh is called hardware cloth. This is used to keep rodents out of your garden bed. We stained each 2 level section before moving it outside into position. You build it as high as you need, level sections at a time and make sure the framing is alternating as you go up so it interlocks on the corners properly. We used corner brackets to secure each 2 level section to the one below it.

After you secure the final levels in place outside, you will line the walls of the planter with landscape cloth. This will help preserve the wood from the inside and also keep your plant root systems inside the box and not find those cracks and crevices in the imperfect wood to grow out of. We fastened ours with staples all the way around. It does not need to cover the bottom, just the inside of the walls.

I might want to add here…. Make sure you place the raised garden somewhere you won’t want to or need to move later. The only way this is moving is through destruction which is not what anyone wants to do.

Now, you are thinking… that is a lot of dirt to fill that thing….  Nope! You fill the bottom with compostable materials like chunks of tree branches, mulch and leaves. NO GRASS! Do not use grass as it will create a massive stench through the garden and nobody needs to smell rotting grass! Your compost should be as high as the bottom 2 boards, so the first section you put built and put down in position with the hardware cloth. We used a wooden brace on the bottom level in the middle to provide additional support based on how much fill we were putting in.

On top of the mulch/compostable material, you put a level of screened top soil. It may have some weed seed in it like ours did but you can’t do much about that. Eventually the weed seed will die off and breakdown into the compost below. So, the top soil should be about the same height as the compostable material, the second section of the 16x4x2’s.

After the top soil is in, you then fill the remainder with black earth. Now black earth comes in a few different forms, but as long as it is black earth, you should be fine. We used Vigoro BLACK EARTH to fill ours to the top. Leave it for a couple of days, and with some luck, at least one rain fall so it can all settle into place. It should drop about 2 inches below the top line, ours did.

Now we have a big raised garden close to the house and in it we can grow a ton more stuff without it breaking the back. We placed it on a 3-5 inch bed of ¾” gravel rock which we use for our driveway. It provided a little height but also in that area, we see puddles of water. We lifted it so after rain storms it was not sitting in water and rotting the wood at the bottom.

Tons of seeds have been now planted, but carrots, beets and peas have a strong presence already. They were planted a couple of weeks ago. Updates on the veggies as they come in.

Pumpkins and Sunflowers…. They are still on a heat mat, under a lamp in the dining room of the house. We are looking at just 1 of the seeds for Dill’s Atlantic that germinated. That is the pumpkin that grows to over 1000lbs. LOL, let’s see how we do with that one. Also, we have Big Max pumpkin seedlings in pods. A few of those plants and those pumpkins grow from 100-200lbs each. We also have Howden and Small Sugar. The Howden’s you are familiar with as the ones you buy at the store for carving at Halloween and the Small Sugar are for baking.

Our sunflowers seedlings are frustrating! We have Velvet Queen’s which are the red sunflowers, and they germinate and then die. The two others, Giganteus and Titan, we have seedlings for. We are going to drop the Velvet Queen’s into a garden area and just see what grows, if anything.

The Farm – Property Seedlings

We planted some seedlings around the property for privacy and wind break. Alberta Wild Rose (Provincial flower), Common Lilac, Okanese Poplar Trees, Acute Leaf Willow Trees. Lodgepole Pine Trees, 1 Prairie Sensation Apple Tree and 5 Raspberry Bushes.

We bought them all from a company called TreeTime.ca and I can say, it was a pretty cool experience. They ship them via mail. All the seedlings, (usually 1 yr old) are previously frozen in a state of “hibernation” and they thaw in transit to you so when they arrive, they are basically ready for planting. The experience was definitely a 4.9/5. The company that sold them sells in bulk only (except fruit trees), so we had to buy bundles of 3 or 5 or more.

From what it seems so far, in just a month, we will most likely be lining our inner 10 acres with Okanese Poplar Trees next year. They are growing fast and strong in less than a month from planting them.

Only 2 of the 5 raspberry bushes don’t have growth on them yet and 3 of 5 willows. Everything else has foliage big time so we could not be happier. Looking forward to the Rose and Lilacs growing up. We put in a nice wall of them in an area viewable from our front window.

The other day, Ashley and I went around and gave the seedlings some love with new fresh soil and some nutrients to help strengthen the root system. We need them to grow up quite a bit through the summer so we can properly protect them for the winter. Someone smell Cow Manure?

The Farm – What About Those Pigs?

Let us tell you about these pigs….. they are still pigs, just bigger! The girls were introduced to the boys earlier in the spring. From the “sounds” of things, the boys did their sworn duty and we should be expecting little ones in a couple of months. Hard to tell if the girls are pregnant as they make me look anorexic; they are big girls. They are healthy and happy! If you read the part above about the grass growth, well, even the 4 pigs in a paddock can’t keep the grass down it is growing so fast. We were hoping to move them from one paddock to another. Back and forth so we wouldn’t have to cut the grass in one of the paddocks, however, this week we will be cutting that grass as it is out of control.

Hamlet and Wilbur are fairly large boys definitely pushing over 200lbs each and the girls, not sure of the weight but Prudence and Petunia are definitely packing a lot! They are pretty friendly and they do love their mud pit for sure.

If you don’t follow our farm page on Facebook, please do. Ashley posts pics and videos all the time of the pigs and our dogs.

Earlier this spring we did build the pigs a shelter once we introduced the boys and girls. The boys do go into their house but the girls prefer to be outside so a shelter with some hay was in order.

They definitely use it and even the boys can be found their at times taking a snooze!

The Farm – DOG LIFE!

Need a puppy? We had 7 puppies we couldn’t seem to find new homes for. It was a little ridiculous. They were 10 weeks old. All the pups have new homes now but, it was not easy.

We kept 2 of the 10. The two we kept are Rey and Chewie; yes, further into Star Wars we go. Rey has proven to be the smartest pup from the litter. She is hilarious! When the weather is nice, all the pups were moved via quad trailer from the garage to the fenced in back yard area. Rey loved the ride and is always up on her back legs with front paws over the side, tail waggin and a massive smile. She is also apparently a swimmer, yes, she climbs right into the water bowl for a dip in the pool. No Rey, it is not a pool!

Chewie is cuddly and looks like an Ewok.  Very “poofy”! This week they started house training with Mom and Dad as their guides. The pups piss off Luke, which is our oldest dog at 2 years, but, he is a bit of a grouch at times. Ashley lied to him and said there would be no more puppies in the house after we got Leia and Solo. Now he is grouchy, way to go Ashley!

Leia, Solo and Luke, all happy and healthy. Solo is now fixed so no more pup litters. Our dogs are truly amazing acreage dogs and it was surprising that we had a challenge finding them homes considering where we are.

Be sure to watch the little video clip of the pups playing with Mom and Dad.

The Farm – Clean Up

Other than the grass cutting, we have also been trying to level off a couple of paddocks and our backyard. We bought a 400lb Agro Roller to pull behind the quad. It works best after a good rain. Idea is to level the ground in two of the paddock areas and in (what we call) the back 40. Our backyard also has had some rolling done to it. We want to get it as flat as possible so Ashley can just run through them quickly with the lawnmower if she needs to. It also helps when you are walking through the paddocks that you are not twisting your ankles on the uneven ground. We are slowing pushing out the voles and moles from the property. They really don’t like the pulsing buzzers in the ground and they have moved away from the areas we have them in. Now I need about 30 more!

Rocks is another thing we have a lot of so as they show their ugly faces, we dig them out and use them around the garden area. The rocks kill the grass cutting tractor blades so removing them is important. We think we have almost all of them. Ashley cut the grass, Colin digs out the rocks! The rocks are just part of the property clean up. We were assessing a ton of fallen trees at the back of our property that need to be removed. A chainsaw day is in our future and depending on how far we get, we may be doing some woodchipping again later this year.

Everything is a hustle and bustle here on the acreage. Lots of property cleanup, pig shelter construction, puppy chaos, garden preparation, and more!

We have to reconstruct one of the enclosures in preparation for the piglets. It is our smallest enclosure but effective for piglets and Prudence or Petunia. The old fencing is coming down and some of it has started to lean from the recent wind storms. It is a bit of a juggle with the moms and piglets for their first week or two as they need to be separated.  After that time, they can all be penned together. The boys however will be separated in early July so the Mom’s have the space to themselves. A bit of prep work but the new fencing will be solid to keep the piglets safe in their enclosure. We will most likely have both Mom’s and their piglets share the smaller enclosure and shelter for the winter.

The Family

If you didn’t know, Ashley is 5 months pregnant now, it is a boy, and I have been informed I only can influence the child with Packers football. Baseball and Hockey have already been determined. That is okay with me. Ashley keeps on going though out on the farm, cutting the grass whenever the weather allows her to and doing odd jobs. She is definitely slowing down though, a real slacker sometimes. LOL

Lisa took a job at a local regional park just inside Saskatchewan and she works in the office selling permits, passes, etc. and manages the entry gate. She works varied hours.

My work continues to strive forward with new projects showing up on my desk more regularly lately. I have also partnered with two different clients on two different projects which has kept me very busy. I can honestly say that as much as the weather this past spring has pissed off a lot of people, I think for me it has been a blessing as it has kept my indoors with no reason to be outside…..well, nobody was outside. Got a lot of work done during the crappy weather days so I guess we take the good with the bad or find the rainbow on an otherwise dark and dismal day.