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

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.