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

Slow Times

 Not a lot has happened since the last post.  I am still working on the duct work.  It just takes way longer then I thought it would.  Each piece has to be measured then I have to draw it out on sheet metal then cut and file the edges.  Then I have to assemble it in place.  So hopefully by the end of this week I will have been able to dedicate enough time to be able to have it finished and then have someone come in to wire the furnace up.

For the outside I was able to dig one fence post hole, I attempted three.  The ground back in the paddocks  is full of small rocks and the hand post hole digger just doesn't work in those conditions.  For now I will have to use t-bar toe put up the fence for the goat pen.

I did email a farm that is not to far from us here about buying a goat off them, However I have heard nothing back from them.  Once I have some free time I will give in more effort.  While helping a friend with their basement last weekend I did have someone offer a male goat for $100 but they weren't sure if it was a nubian or not, I'm not sure if I really want a male goat this early.  I definitely don't want to pay for food and I did find a web site that you can buy registered goat sperm from award winning goats, you just have to buy five shots at once for about $25/each.

Heating by the fireplace in the living room is alright, but regulating the temp is crazy.  most day it swings between 23 degrees and any were as high as 40 degrees, it's 30 right now.  I am not joking, I can't wait to get the digital thermostat in so I can actually see how high it gets in the living room, right now the needle markings end at 30 and the needle pushes past that pretty far.

Can I get a big HURRAY!  My mother-in-law found a house and has an excepted offer, The end of Dec is her closing day.

I tried to boil water for coffee on the wood stove this morning...  So it took an hour before filled the stove and moved the damper wide open, then it boiled within 10 mins.  But then the house was back up to around 40 degrees, which is why it is now 30 almost 2 hours later.  I would have to say I expected the water to boil with in 10mins even with just ambers in the stove, given that the unit itself is likely in the range of 300-400 degrees at that point so I am a little stumped at that.  Now I am sure that if I put a cast iron pan on there and let it heat up I could definitely get some good cooking result, given that most food cook at under 100 degrees.

Did I mention that my mother-in-law is moving out!

This is one of the few times that I will mention brands, I am actually making an effort to leave names of people, products and companies off this blog.  When we bought this house we did not include the appliances in our offer to purchase.  We wanted to get all new High Efficiency appliances.  After doing some research, price comparisons and finding out what Cheryl wanted, we went with Sears and their Kenmore Elite line for the kitchen and one of there Kenmore Standard lines for the front load washer.

At first there were a few things wrong with the appliances, but they were quick to come out and fix them and they were minor things that would have happened in transit or things missed at the factory before shipping.  Not a big deal and we were really impressed with how fast they handled rectifying the problem.  Little stuff aside, things just keep going wrong.  The ice maker in the fridge makes more ice then what we need so the fridge manual says if that happens take the tray out and empty it.  So I shut it off and did as it said, but when I put it back and turned it back on it wouldn't make ice.  I tried everything in the trouble shooting guide, I also tried unplugged the fridge, and raising the temp of the freezer to 8 degrees just incase something was frozen.  When I called the person on the other end basically tried to read me the trouble shooting guide and then came up with they had to send someone out, why not have someone qualified answering the phone that could walk me through diagnosing it.  There are other issues , but I don't want to lose what little readership I have.  The short, we'll have to wait and see!

I picked up this book, "trees in Canada" and it has been great.  I have picked out what trees I want to plant in the forest and what I am going to put between us and our one neighbour.  It seems that the house that we can see is now being rented out, but I never see people.

Well thats all for today,

The Frost

Ok, so much has happened since the last post that I don't even know were to begin, so this might jump around a lot.

So after getting the bush cord of wood into the house I realized that I definitely don't have enough wood for all of winter and into next spring.  I thought I would do something that would make Nate more interested in being out side so I set up a tree drop that would take three trees in a row.  It worked well but the last tree started to go and then stood back up.  For anyone that knows that is not good.  So the debate is,  do you wait for the wind to take it down and maybe wait days or do you go re-cut it and risk having the tree fall on you?  So i went and re-cut, the tree was standing on only an inch thick strip ( like a hinge) straight through the trunk.

After dropping the trees I loaded the trailer and starting pulling it back to the house and thats when I got the trailer stuck.  My bright idea was well the car is heavier then the ATV so I just go get the car.  Then the car was stuck.  I had Paul coming over that night to help with the furnace, and when he got here I had him bring his Suburban back to pull out my car, and then he got stuck!

I called caa and explain that my car was stuck but there was the suburban in front of it that we needed to pulled and then we would get the car out ourselves.  I also told them that it was behind my house and that we needed a narrow truck that would fit through the back gate.

The truck shows up and it was a wide flat bed and so he tries to fit through the gate even after I tell him that it is 8ft wide and his truck is 9ft wide.  What does he do he gets stuck.  there was some back and forth about if it could be done and my exact words were "if you can't do this then l let me know, because if you can't then you can't"  His response was something to the effect of well I don't want to be a jerk I can but it would help if you made it easier.  it took a few tries but he was saying if you pay me more I can do it.  After he looked over the scoop of what needed to be done he said that $50 and he would call another truck and pull it out and bill caa.  done! not yet.  When the other truck show up it they said "O, just hook the two veh. together it will pull them both out."  now with both veh out we start to drive up to the house when the tow truck leading tries to drive through mud slow, and gets his truck stuck.

The result was we had the tow truck hooked to the suburban, the suburban hooked to my car and all of them being winched by the first truck that showed up.  Now you would think that this took all night but it really only took 30 mins from the time the second truck arrived and we only waited about 20 mins with the first truck for the second, so in total it was about 50mins.  Now the path past the house is only one lane so when the trucks stopped to take payment we had to stop and park our vehs also.  And this is when you find out what someone is made of.

When going to pay he used the same line "well I don't want to be a jerk, so"  and he asked me for a $100 dollars and when I brought up what that we had agreed @ $50 (which I did not haggle because I thought it was reasonable given the work to be done, even though I could not afford it) he then changed it to $75.  Then there was  this explanation that the tow job should have cost $250.  Ok so if you would have lead with this is going to cost $250, I would have just passed and asked you to leave.  So the baby starts to pout and threatens to call caa, and what do I say, go ahead we had a deal.  caa called an hour later and lets just say I am no longer a promoter of caa.  They were completely ok with the fact that the driver changed the amount he was charging after the job was done and they were going to charge me for two tows (to recoup the cost that I would not pay the driver)  By the way Canadian Tire provides the same service and I just happen to have my ear to the ground and there is soon going to be two more players on the block that provide the same service that caa does and more, so say good bye to your market share jerks.

The furnace is 80% installed and now just some duct connections and the electrical needs to be done, hopefully I will have some quotes by weeks end, then we can start having the whole house heated.

I finally went out and bought a winch for the ATV (because we need it for the plow) and it cost $90 for  a 3000 lbs winch.  I finished hooking it up tues and then drove back and hooked it up to the trailer and it didn't even flinch pulling the trailer out, I is great.  I also found a guy selling ATV plows and He should be calling back today with were we can meet to get the snow-plow off him and for $370 for a 48' swivel, thats a good deal, thank you kijiji.

So more wood today and hopefully I will get to all the the house today and then it is just the matter of splitting it and we are set.

Holy Goat!

Cheryl and I were talking the other day and she really wants to have goats for next summer (bring year one).  The plan has them scheduled for year two.  So this morning I spent more time then I should have and cleared around the first paddock, getting all the weeds and over-growth away from the old cattle fence (which is really just six strands of barbed-wire poultry nailed into anything in the way). I worked off and on all day on the fence.  Also I found a cattle fence not far from the one that I was working on, it looks to be in good shape and is one of the 4x8 rectangle rolls of fence, it might just be enough to fence in the first paddock and then I'll just string the barbed-wire through it to tighten the openings a bit.  There is still about three days of work left on the fence but I think it might be possible as long as I can grow what they need to eat for next year.

In getting ready to take down the barbed-wire fence I first had to remove the electrical fencing line that ran one side of the paddock.  Nate wanted to help with this.  It was a blast watching him try to walk through the long grass, in his little yellow rain boots (it has been rainy lately so the fields are a little soft).  I was holding his hand and it seem more like dragging him then walking, but he was laughing the whole time and kept rambling about how it was like being on a skate board.  When I had to stop and work on something all I had to do was give him my nettle noise to play with.

During one of the breaks I took from the fence work I tried to till were next years garden will be.  The tiller had a flat and had not been run in about a year and a bit.  Getting it started was easy, almost to easy.  The flat, while I don't have a pump, so it is still flat and that means that I still have to till the garden and after being in the front paddock all morning, I might till it also and throw down some alfalfa to grow over winter maybe mix in some timothy also.

I now have just over a bush cord of wood in the basement, cut and split.  When we bought the house the furnace couldn't be W.E.T. certified, so we had to buy a new one.  This has been a hugh head ache, the place where we bought it doesn't install them themselves, but they do recommend a company to do it.  Well, that company came out and took a look at the current set-up while we were waiting for the new furnace to be delivered.  They left and didn't leave a business card phone number or name (Co.).  So we waited and waited and then I was cutting one day and thought that I should call to find out what size logs would fit in the furnace and at the same time found out that the furnace was in.  Longer story short the installers hadn't called and then when I continued to call they had some excuse that there are so many set-up types for the furnace that we bought that they didn't know how to price it because they didn't know what needed to be done.  Well I'm not going to go into detail about that, but they were here they seen the set-up and they knew what needed to be done.  That just doesn't make me feel to confident in there ability, not to mention the customer service aspect (having to basically call everyday to get them to return my call).  So I have read the manual and I might just try to do it myself and then call someone once I hit something that trips me up. Tomorrow I'm going to take the existing furnace duct work apart and have a closer look.  And for now the fireplace in the living room is doing just fine,  I write this as I am sweating just sitting here.

Hopefully I will get the skids soon and I can start making plans for chicken tractors.  But for now I will just keep working on cutting wood and fixing the paddock while the weather still holds.

God Bless

Getting there

         As the yard fills with leaves I finally finished cutting the felled trees in the back, about half is chopped the rest is stacked in rounds waiting for a sunny winters day to be chopped.  After looking at the amount of wood that is there I can't help but remember the saying about wood "if you think you have enough, triple it and you might be ok". So I might drop a few more ash and cut them before the snow comes.  Defiantly having the ATV and Paul's trailer has made cutting a lot easier, I can't imagine doing that work with a wheelbarrow.

         My mother-in-law is still living here.  It has come in handy a couple of times when I need to leave the kinds and just go do something on my own.

         A couple weeks back Ryan help fell some trees in the front yard, well I have been trying to just burn through that wood.  So once the fire is going I will throw a few of those logs on top of the stove and turn them every once and a while, then finally put them in the fire to burn.  This has worked great with only few incidence until the other night.  It started with the night before one of the logs on top had started to smoke only a short time after going on top.  So, I just took it off and put it outside (around 5 or 6pm).  At 3am the next morning I was up with the kids and then couldn't sleep due to a headache.  I was downstairs watching "I still know what you did last summer" online (why do people still pay for cable?) when I thought that there was a tow truck next door or in our drive.  Wrong! it was that piece of wood, it had caught the front porch on fire,  four glasses of water extinguished it, but scary enough.  It took about half an hour to pull and replace the floor boards that were damaged.  And now there is the "No drying wood on the stove" rule.

         Next on the list I need to till the second paddock on one side for the garden in the spring.  I have asked my electrician friend to save the metal things that wire comes on so I can take down some barbed wire and relocate it to around the second paddock.  Deer and Rabbit (food) might try to eat the garden in the spring.  Which reminds me  I really want to catch some of the rabbits that are hopping around here and try to breed it with a meat rabbit to see if we can get all the good characteristics of the wild (foraging) with the size of the meat rabbit.  That will have to wait till spring and green pastures, because we don't won't to have to buy food for our food.

        On the topic of wild animals, I was up the other morning because I couldn't sleep (again), and around 4am I could hear the coyotes going crazy.  I opened the back door to get a better listen and they were no more then 400m from my back door, straight back (on my prop).  They sounded like they had caught something, more then likely a deer by the sounds of their numbers, and they were having it out over who got what.  I want to rig a few metal barrels up as traps to place around the prop to cut down on the amount that could potentially attack our animals (I have my license to do this).  So, if you happen to have metal barrels that you want to give away, Please post a comment.

        The pond is almost completely out, it is heavy work so I can only do a little at a time and pay for it dearly each time.  Now I just have to move the remaining stones and back fill the rest of it with dirt.

        I did just read in this months M.E.N. about Osage Orange.  It is a living fence, I would love to use this I just need to find out about how much it is going to cost and if that is in the budget then I will start next spring.

       Today I have to wire a trailer harness and then go pick up debris and do fall landscaping at the rentals.

Out for now,