Some many things to do so little time

So it is now May 29th, more then a month since my last post and since we got the goat.

THE GOAT: when the breeder called on Apr 15th I was literally trying to get caught up on my posts and make sure that I had written about everything that I had done, and well, a ton more has happened.

The goats name is Tamara, she is a registered Nubian goat.  She kidded twins (good for me and hopefully she continues to have twins in the future) so the breeder through in the male kid for the same price.  He was a really nice guy and I hope to have him up one day to show him the homestead that he had a hand in building.  Now I don't know very many goats, but Tamara is not a very smart one.  She has this cry that she makes when she can find Troy (the male kid, Cheryl named him) and it is very distinct.  I can see that, the whole protective mother thing, but sometimes she will start freaking out and making that cry and Troy will be to the left of her and a little back (what I mean is just out of her line of sight) and she doesn't look around to find him first.  She chooses to freak out first and then look around for him.  This is hard for me to explain in written word, but she is stupid. We converted an old double car garage that was on the property into the barn.  I had spent a lot of time putting some scrap roofing metal around the base of the exterior walls and then piled rocks around the base of the wall to stop predators. Because it wasn't finished the first night that the goats were here I slept in the back of the van parked right outside of the barn with a loaded 22 rifle and a flashlight.  Sleep was limited.  A train passes by our house every half hour over night, I would say. I didn't know this sleeping inside, but now I do.

As we got the call, Cheryl said to me well why don't we pick up some laying hens while we are out and I agreed.  So we found 3 Plymouth rock and 4 Black sex-link right around the corner. A young guy was selling them and he had a huge array of other foul.   Now the chicken tractor wasn't done, so the first thing I had to do when we got back, after finishing the rest of the barn, was finish the chicken tractor. I kinda just through the rest of it together.  Because of that it ended up weighting a ton and now I have to move it using the ATV and not by hand as I had planned.  The chickens love it, but for the first few days they would lay their eggs on the ground and wouldn't go up inside at night.  One of the sex-link was the first to lay her egg in the nesting boxes and then from there everyone followed and it only took them three days till they all learned that inside on the perches was where they should spend there nights.  We do currently have one hen (but we can't find out who) that is laying deflated eggs.  The eggs is just a shell and has nothing in it and the shell itself is softer  and wrinkled.  O well hopefully it stops as the nest of them are laying fine.  We are getting at four eggs every day and some days they give up to six.

The Paddock:  Yesterday I got the paddock to a point where the goats can go out and they are contained, for the last month and a half we have been just letting them roam free and I have spent a lot of time trying to keep them out of areas that they shouldn't be in.  SO this is a relief.  the door from the barn to the paddock still has no lock but that is coming.  Yesterday there was no door and even though the goats had the ability to roam the grasses of the paddock they choose to stay inside the barn, like I said they are not very bright.  To add to that when there was no fence they would wonder around and eat the grasses and everything else that was growing all around the paddock, but now that they are fenced in (80'x 60', it's huge for one goat and a kid) they stay near the doors or inside the barn.  I still need to put t-bar between each set of posts, but Troy is too young to challenge the fence right now and he will be dinner if we don't get another doe soon, so I am in no rush to get that done.  I did build them this great feeder for in the barn but now that the grasses are in it will stay empty all summer.

Now well we where at the goat breeders we noticed that he had two jersey bull calfs. so we asked and he told us that he picked them up at a livestock auction for $20/head.  I almost passed out. To go over the numbers for those that don't know.

SO Jersey is a dairy breed, so the bull (male) calfs are useless, they take milk supply and feed to raise plus handling and so dairy operation want to get rid of them as soon as possible. A spring calf will weight about 500 lbs or more by the end of summer and still be or just past the veal point. thats roughly 300 lbs of vealish meat for $20 and some time and management, that's 6 Cents a lbs up front cost.  If you have 2 acres of grasses that you can bale 1 acre twice for winter feed well the calf eats the other (about 2 tons) and once you are through spring grasses the next year that calf that cost $20 now could weigh up to  1200-1400 lbs,  thats about 1000lbs of meat after you remove useless bone (because there are stewing bones) and innards, plus there are some innards that are useful like the intestine, heart and liver.  The brain can even be used for tanning the hind and hooves are a delicacy and hard to find with our current industrial food system so you could almost eat the whole thing, and don't forget to compost the rest for your garden the following year.  NOW THATS A DEAL!!!!!!

So Ryan and I went to a livestock auction.  I didn't understand a thing the auctioneer said, but I did find Buff Orpington's for $2/bird (day old chicks) so we bought the last 10 he had and two turkey's for $5 a bird, Ryan bought two turkey's also and we are going to take care of them till they have space or Easter/ Christmas/ Thanksgiving, haha.

I went the next week with Cheryl and the kids hoping to get a pig and bull calf plus some more Orpington's, but the pigs were all off the block and there were no calf's that week, but there were 16 more chicks.  I have had to separate the turkey's from the chicks. They killed five chicks from just being jerks and stumping on them.  They would literally just walk up to a chick and just stump on their head.  So we are now down to 21 chicks and four turkey's.

I will tell more later, bye for now.

Worst Blogger Ever

Ok, Ok, I know.  I am the worlds worst blogger. It has been forever since I was last here and wrote something.  I am equivalent to that date that shows up 2hrs after you gave up and went home, more like the one that shows up on the wrong day.

It seemed like I had nothing to write for well over two months with winter slowly closing shop and literally nothing going on but cutting wood, and lets all admit that there is only so many times you can hear someone talk about cutting word.  It's like listening to politicians talk about what they plan to do, all the hard work takes place at that point because once its out of their mouth you know nothing is going to be done.

Then winter ended and we had crazy warm weather and its like a hundred and one things needed to be done and the daily abeyance list changed, but never ended.  So in the past threes weeks (or so) this is what has take place......

I started, but have yet to finish the chicken tractor.  The bones and nesting boxes are done.  I just need to finish the coupe, add some tin for and the chicken wire.  then it is one down and one maybe two more to go.  This would seem to be an afternoon activity, but I am making it out of old skids that I got for free and I am recycling them into something new that will give life to hundreds of chicks if not hundreds of fine breakfasts.

28 Posts holes are dug. and then subsequently filled with water because the ground on our property is so wet.  I have cut around 20 cedar trees down and I have harrowed (the bottom four feet) all but four posts.  They are leaning against the back deck now drying and soon I will blow torch them and then water seal them.  In the same action I pulled up the boards on the deck to add footings, but the ground under the deck was still frozen,  So today I put back some new boards but didn't screw them into place in hopes that the ground will thaw soon and then I will have to do the holes by hand.

The post holes where ok to dig, we rented a gas powered post hole auger with an 8 inch bit.  It worked fine except for the fact that as soon as you hit something it just logged itself into the ground.  At that point we needed to take the bit off and turn the bit out by hand.  This is where the most time was spend.  The physical work itself; well if you want large shoulders then you should rent one of these and just dig some holes, you'll be as wide as a barn in no time.  As for me the physical and excruciating part was walking around carrying the machine and having to bend, there were breaks, lots of them.  By the end of the day the two man auger turned into a three man auger.

The kids play set is up and some what in good order.  It is not in its final place, but for now the kids can play on it and be occupied for at least a few hours each day.

We have the start of our orchard,  Four trees all about five years old, so they should bare fruit next season for consumption.  I changed the location from where I originally wanted it, and over time it might expand in the form of a phase 2 back to where I had wanted it.  We have 1- Apple that has five different apples grafted onto it. 1-Apple that has just one baking apple on it. 1- Dark Sweet Cherry (self pollinator) and 1- Pear (self Pollinator).  I just added root stimulator to them today, to help them take to their new home.

It is Apr 15th and the phone just rang, it's the Nubian Goat breeder, the Goat is ready for pick up today!..... 

Winter is Almost done!! I hope...

We just got back from a weeks vaca in Mexico, with no children.  Great Great Time.  Seen some ruins spent some time in the sun and ocean.  loved the fact that the weather was mid 20's (mid to high 70's) all week, not to hot, but never cold, some nights were chilly.

Coming home was hard, the house was 8 (48) when we came home and I was only able to 60 (thats the mid teen's) before bed.

BABY CHIC'S:

So I have written a few times about getting the buff orpington chic's.  This has been one of the must frustrating things that occupies my mind must days.

Months ago I did my research and found no hatcheries in Canada that had the BO breed.  I did find two USA hatcheries that would ship them and there was only a larger shipping fee.  Since then I guess things have changed.  Both companies when I called could not ship over the boarder and only one would ship to a post office at the boarder (US side) where I could pick them up and carry them over with health papers that they would print for an extra charge, almost doubling the order price when you fact gas plus the papers charge.

Then I found two hatcheries, one on the east coast and one on the west coast (of Canada).  they both could only ship by air due to the distance they were from us and that again would double the price of the birds.

So then we found a group that was ordering from the USA and was already going to have someone go pick the chic's up from the boarder.  Great I signed up, paid my fee and then tried to get in touch the person that was placing the order.  Finally they emailed me back and guess what... they were not members of the group and they had only just mentioned to the head of the group that they were thinking about placing the order.  The head of the group I guess misunderstood and printed in their publication that the group as a whole was putting an order together and well... it was not what I had signed up for.

We did end up finding a person that was going to hatch some chic's from her flock, a very small scale business venture for her.  The only catch is that she is out by Ottawa, about 5 hours away.  So now we have our order placed and should have chic's by Apr., which is much later then I wanted them, but what can you do? I did change the order to 20 Buff Orpington's and 5 Rhode Island White, just because RLW mature early and start laying eggs at around 16 weeks old. I'm also not holding my breath though.

Before vaca we had to show the inside of the freezer to the last of our chickens since we wouldn't be able to get someone to feed them while were gone.  The process is getting better.  We used a laundry bottle with the bottom cut out and hung upside down for the kill station this time.  It worked great, but I think we need to use 6L bottle instead of the 8L bottles that we get from Costco.  There was a little to much room in it and some of the chickens got their feet down under them while we were trying to cut their jugular.

The Goat seem to be a sure thing since we stopped being picky about the breed (we are now getting a saanen)  and we are just waiting for the doe to kid and then we can go get it, again from out Ottawa way so hopefully the goat and the chic's will be ready at the same time and we can just make one trip.

I have yet to start the chicken tractors, to many things are going to, but with the steady supply of skids that we found we should have enough wood to build as many as we need plus do the two "top bar bee hives."
I did pick up a hot water tank the other day from some repair place and hopefully this weekend I will be able to go over my plans with the plumber I know and make sure nothing contradicts the principles of plumbing.

Wood is still the on going issue, because of the snow I can only pull out enough wood at one time for a few days.  Add to that the the wood is still wet (even though I am only cutting green ash) so it doesn't produce as much heat so you burn more to get the same BTU's.  Right now after I am done this I will go out and drag more wood in, there is literally two pieces of wood in the basement right now.

Cheryl picked up a bunch of canning supplies last night from someone just trying to get rid of them.  which is great for us.

That's all for now.  I am still looking for a play-pen either free or really cheap.

Thanks for reading.

Why did the chicken Cross the Road?

The Colwill's, Vaughan's and Brandy and Monroe all came over for the slaughter Party.  So things always take longer then you think.  What I thought would take 1hr and have it all done, took 2 and a half hours and still wasn't finished.  We did six birds.  By the end we made Paul take his turn at killing and he did alright, besides the constant hesitation.  Ryan was the supreme gutter, Paul did what he does best watched and entertained while trying to keep his hands clean, hence the making him kill a bird.

The kids surprisingly where ok with everything,  we talked them through what was going to happen and why we have to kill the animals.  We took the time to explain that we were not doing this to be cruel, but to make food.

While we were processing them two of them had eggs in them.  It was so cool seeing how the eggs come to be.  In one of the chickens there where eggs in all different stages, all the way to just these little sacks that looked like caviare. Now all the planning didn't work out that great.  It ended up that we got blood everywhere, so once we have our flock it will be summers only killing and and outdoors.  Since we have five left, I'm giving them to a week to lay an egg OR ELSE! They know what is coming, it was explained as they watched their friends.

So sat the family headed out and picked up some feed for the chickens, not bad $18 for 40kg.  The rest of the day I had to come up with a place for the remaining chickens to stay.  We spent next to nothing on their coop.
Materials
-4 skids
-Brad Nailer and nails
-handful of screws and gun
-circular saw
-wire cage material
and Ta-dah!

They have two nesting bowes, a perch and two feed troughs (one for feed and one for oyster shells). The water dish, as of today, is an ice cream bowl filled several times a day.  I have a light hooked up to a timer to come on at 5am to give them few extra hours of light a day to try an coax them into laying eggs. None yet!  5 more days and then more freezer space will be occupied.  I finally got that email about the Orpington order so hopefully I get a phone call soon and then I can have that behind me and done.

The goat I heard back and things look good the seller is going to contact me as soon as the doe kids and then we can come pick her up!! milk milk milk!!!

Till next time.

I want to try and clear up some old post with things that I said I would get to and I did but I didn't blog about so that will be my next task.

All the best,

Taste like Chicken

On the goat front.  We found another person selling goats, but they are about a 3hr drive away and some things are a little unclear I'm going to have to have a few more emails to clear things up.  Hopefully our search is over and we can have a wet doe for the spring,  Cheese Cheese Cheese.

So the Chickens!  two days after I placed my order for the chickens we received a call from the hatchery in Canada saying that they can still fill our order, BUT they need to ship them by air $$$$$$$$$ and that adds an extra $100 to the chicken order.  Now considering that the order only came to $136, well you do the math.  Those are some expensive chickens.  Back to google.

Good thing I married such a smart women because after bouncing a few ideas around and i prepared myself for driving to the boarder and bringing the birds back over myself from the USA.  Cheryl did some looking online and found someone that was selling their birds so they could buy the breed that I want.  So i gave them a call and found out they were part of an Association that was ordering together and after a few more calls I am now joining that association in order to get in on their order of the Buff Orpington's that they are having shipped up from the USA (did I mention that they are ordering from the same hatchery that I was going to buy from).  I am just waiting to hear back from the person at the Assoc. about placing my order and then I won't have to drive to the boarder.

At the same time The other day I found someone online that was just getting rid of their flock because they had stopped laying (winter).  So the children and I headed up there today to pick up the birds.  Nate was all excited and you almost couldn't contain him,

 that was until the farmers dog came into the barn and then he freaked.  Hailey was freaking the whole time so there I was with two children freaking out a dog running around while sheep watched the whole thing and me chasing chickens.  the funniest part was that I was doing a better job of catching the chickens then the farmer.  At one point he was chasing one and I had one in each hand while trying to calm down two children screaming at the top of their lungs.  Now i guess that someone responded to the add after us because the farmer explanation was that someone else was coming and He (farmer) told him that him (the other guy) that someone was already coming so he could have half.  So i thought we were going to have 20 chickens, but instead we got 11.  Still a good deal at that price, FREE!!!! We finally finished, got the kids in the van, pooh covered and all, and left.

So tomorrow Ryan, Paul and Families are coming over to turn all but three into dinners.  Cheryl won't be here so she will miss out, but for the rest of us it will be good practise for when we have larger flocks.

I found a place that has a ton of skids, so for the next several Wed before bible study I am going to be picking up skids until I have all five chicken tractors made.  Yeah!

just in an aside---I had a run in with the Post worker today.  We haven't had mail a week and a half, so I called the post office toll free number and was surprised that they said that there was no way to call the local post office, "they don't have a direct line"  I laughed said thank you and hung up without waiting for a reply.  It took me all of 30 sec. to find the local number online and when I called them they said I hadn't received mail because there was to much snow near my mail bow.  I will give them this, if they felt there was a problem they should do what is necessary to solve that problem.  However what did they do, THAT RIGHT NOTHING.  I had to call them to find out that there was a problem and that bugs me because as with the rest of you I pay to get my mail and if I can't get my mail I feel that I should be informed why.  I shouldn't have to be the one that initiates that process.  Just as a side within this side. on Fri I had to wait to pull into my drive because the post veh. was at the end of my drive pulled right up to my box and didn't put anything in it. because there was to much snow, but they were pulled right up to it, any closer and they would be taking paint off their veh.

Going to see a man about a Goat!

Over the Christmas holidays we had some time go visit a local farm (about 30 mins away).  I found this farm through it organizations web site, Goat farmers.   After a few emails back and forth we went and visited this farm about buying a wet doe for spring time.  At first glance from the outside the farm didn't look like much, but as soon as we got inside I couldn't help but smile.  in the first barn we went to there were bucks, chickens, rabbits and a calf.  In the second barn it was just out of a one of those picturesque farm books, where everything was the ideal and nothing was make-shift.  The first thing you see walking in is the milking station, and just past that several pens with multiple goats and kids in the back ground bales of hay and a wagon.  Chickens where here and there and the kids wondered in and out of the pens as they pleased as they were to small to be contained by the large steel fencing.  The farmer was kind enough to share lots of info and spent more then an hour with us, this we were very thankful for.  Now the farmer seemed a little hesitant, but hopefully he will be able to sell us one or be able to talk to other farmers he knows and be able to help us get started on our way to producing our our dairy needs.  To top the trip off the farmer gave us a round of cheese.  All and all it was a great outing and I can't wait to get a goat!!!

As for the rest of everything.  Wood seems to be an ongoing issue for us.  At the beginning of winter I thought I had about 3 bush cords it turns out that it was just over 2.  Now I have been dropping Ash trees but it is slow work in the snow and I can only leave the kids for short periods of time so it seems that every week I am out getting more wood and it seems to only be enough to last about a week.  This summer I am going to have at least 3 bush cords cut and split in the basement and a spare bush cord in rounds just outside the basement window, so that I don't have to go outside cutting in winter again.

So I finally seen FOOD INC.  a must see for everyone.  You might never eat commercially farm beef or chicken again.  I want to get this DVD and start lending it to friends, not just because it promotes the type of life style that I am working towards, but it also opens your eyes to the how blind we are the were are food comes from.  Now don't think I don't know that doc's are one sided, but given the content and the fact that they would be sued if they had even a mis-leading sentence in the doc (you have to just watch it, to get that).  I would take most of it as truth and if I were more interested in the numerical side I would do some research into the stats that they used, but the doc was less about the stats and more about the how and the how is what I am concerned about.  Watch it!!!

Just over to weeks ago we had a friend ask if we could watch his boys while he took his wife on vacation before starting his new job and he would pay us, we opted for the favour returned.  Now the very night that we agreed and then set the day that they would drop off the boys, my wife received an email from work telling her that she had to leave for a business trip for four days.  So here I am with four children under four years of age, three of which are boys.  Well... it is finally over.  Now boys tend to edge each other on and by the end of the week I was doing surprise jump-in's to rooms because what was happening and what was being communicated to me where very different.  All and all it was what I expected having that many children all so young.  We only ended up in the ER once and it was near the end of the week for something minor, but I thought in might be a broken arm.  Glad it wasn't that would have been hard to explain, "here is your kids back and don't mind the cast".

The snow melted and other week and it was so warm (into plus double digits) that the rink completely disappeared and I am giving up for this year.  This is a straight on shot and the snow is really up to her cheek.

I plan on working on the chicken tractors over the next couple of weeks I will post some pic.  I am in need of wood pallet/skids.  Hopefully my friend will be able to get them for me but if not I need to find some more.  So if you have any please leave a comment.  I have placed my order for chickens and they will arrive in the first week of Mar.  Buff Orpingtons!!!  They cost a lot here in Canada ($150), but Lord willing we will be able to grow a sustainable flock from this lot and not have to buy anymore.

I am looking for a few things for free and if anyone has them please message me.
-pack & play pen
-wood pallet/skids
-hot water heater (doesn't need to work)
-metal barrels
-drywall or wood board (left over no smaller then 4x4)
-canning supplies (anything you have in your basement)
- plastic 20kg (or larger) bags from  walk way salt or water softener salt.

Well thats all for now,

Till next time
Justin

The Snow is Here For Good

So, I have been meaning to write this for about a week now but I have been extremely busy.

   The furnace has now been in and running for about two weeks.  Good thing to because the fireplace was just eating wood like crazy, we have already gone through a bushcord, when we had the WETT inspector in he noticed the wood stove and mentioned that if we lined the chimney and did insulated pipe inside the house that we would use about a third less wood in it and get more heat out of it.  Well thats great but now that the furnace is in who cares the stove is just for show now and will hardly be used.  I did have a chance to see how hot it gets using the wood stove using the digital thermostat (it is stuck in F it won't read in C) before we could use the furnace and I am not lying it was 89 F in the living room in the evening before we went to bed.

   WOOD:  while because we went through so much wood with the stove, my efforts have turned back to get ting wood into the house.  At the end of summer I had finished cutting the trees and had piled rounds in the back barn leaving chopping for a nice sunny winters day.  While that was today.  Did I mention that there is a little bit of snow here.  There is about a foot and a half on most of my property, driving the ATV is beyond frustrating.  I have to do this odd stance on the ATV were I lean over the front handle bars, feet still on the pegs in order to give traction to the front wheels other wise I can't steer the thing.

   ICE: I am determined to build an ice rink for Christmas and not spend anything for it.  I want to be able to wake up Christmas morning with the kids get dressed and then take them for a skate.  And it has to be a huge surface!!!  So I have put in about 10hrs already making slush and then spreading it out over the front lawn and then adding water to build it up and then all over again.  I have changed my method three times as I learn more about how things are reacting to what I'm doing and I only have about half of the base done.  That being said I am going to try to use a garden watering tomorrow and I think it will speed things up greatly.  I won't have it all done for Christmas morning, But I will have enough to take the kids skating.

   The goat farm guy did get back to me and we had a few exchanges, I'm just waiting to hear back from him as to when we can go see his farm over the Christmas Holidays.  We will be able to see the goat we are going to get, because it will be one that is preggers right now.  FUN FUN!

   The goat pen building stop the minute it started to snow.  But I have been using the barn well for the ice rink so it works I just need to get it wired properly, right now I have an extension cord running 30ft from the first barn to it.

   I am waiting on some skids to start building chicken tractors and top bar bee hives.  I have the plans all laid out and ready to go, I just need the free materials.

   I have been looking to no avail for a free old water heater.  I have designed a water heater that will run through the wood furnace in the winter and through a panel on the roof in the summer leaving only spring and fall for the electric water heater we have to do the trick.
   This will save a fortune,  try this on. when we had our first electric bill they did it based on an estimate based on what would be normal usage for the average family.  They had estimated some where just over 50Kwh per day. ( to give you an idea that would be like 20-100W bulbs running 24hrs a day)  when I called and gave them the meter reading our actual usage was 21Kwh per day and a large part of that is the water heater given that we have to heat our water with electricity.
   So the new set-up that I want to do will have a solar panel that will power a little 12V pump to circulate the water through the phethum on the furnace into a tank prior to our current water tank during the day.
   When Our tank calls for water, instead of it bringing in new cold water from the well it will bring in water from this tank that will have an average temp. of about 160 C. Meaning it will increase the temp in our current water tank (currently set at 110 C).  We will set our dish washer for the middle of the night so that the new tank doesn't get to hot over night, given that there will be no other calls for hot water.  I might get a small 12V plug converter from an electronics store that I will plug into a timer to have the water circulate a few times throughout the night just so the solder doesn't melt over night.

I will start posting picture with each post I just don't have the camera handy right now. I have a cute one of Hailey standing in from of the back door with the snow outside the almost as tall as her, the foreground is a little dark because I couldn't get the flash to go on give the snow in the back ground, but it is still cute.

All the best,
Till next time
Justin