Getting Started

So, here we are, five months after moving in and we are finally starting to feel like a farm.

It feels like everything has been impossibly slow. In order to get one thing done, you have five other things that need doing and everything needs doing yesterday.

We are still waiting on contractors; many of whom came out to look around and never bothered to give us quotes despite us pestering them. Most of them claim that they don’t have the man power for a job this big, or the time for a job this small. We are not the only ones in this part of the world with this problem; it makes me wonder how much of this economic downturn is actually happening and how much of it is artificially educed by moderate sized businesses not bothering to hire employees. There is a lot of work out there; companies just need to step up to the plate. I don’t sound frustrated at all, do I? The end result is that the house is still in its deconstructed state. We took the carpet up before I could move in (carpet is made with chemicals and given my health these days, chemicals’ have gotta go.) and are waiting for plans from the engineer so that we can install the heating system (under floor heating with a heat pump from a pond which we are waiting for the guy to dig). By doing most of the work ourselves, we managed to find a contractor who would draw up the plans, get us the parts and inspect our work as we go along. In the mean time, we have to walk carefully on the noisy subfloor; being every vigilant of splinters that aim to lodge themselves into our feet.

The yard is doing much better. The chickens are growing up and providing us with lots of ‘fertilizer’ (much of it on the paths, so watch your step). They are a great source of entertainment and as they are allowed to wonder around where they like, they often come and help in the garden. They especially enjoy nibbling on vegetable seedlings, a habit I hope to eliminate by placing wire cages around the young plants. Despite my vow not to name my food, three of the cocks have been named. At first, I just named the rooster: Lucky. From the start he had a wonderful personality. As a chick he was bold. When all the others ran in the other direction, he would approach you and investigate. He’s also very people friendly, well friendly with people that he knows. At night Lucky is the last one in the coop, often escorting the hens inside, and if anything untoward happens to a member of his flock, he’s right there to set things right. He’s also the only chicken I’ve seen who doesn’t hog treats. If you give him a snack, more times than nought he will give it away to a hen. Since he is such a good care giver to the flock, we decided that he should live on and care for the hens when the other boys go to that ‘other place’ - thus the name Lucky.

The chicken named Trip loves tangy things. He’s one of the few chickens who will eat ants and once he ate a bumble bee. The bee, not wanting to be eaten, decided to sting poor Trip in the crop. The toxin from the sting made Trip terribly ill. I find him seizing on the floor of the coop, his neck flailing around like a bit of yarn, and I thought that he was a goner. His eyes were glazed over and he seemed to be completely unaware of his surroundings. I put him in a box with some straw and brought him into the house (to separate him from the other chickens just in case it was something epidemic). When we realized it was something he ate, I massaged his neck and gut to help it move through and get out of his system. Then I had to help him drink water (all that diarrhoea surely makes a chicken dehydrated) as he didn’t seem able to remember how to drink. Right away he seemed to relax and started to improve. A night in isolation (box in the livening room) and he was ready to rejoin the flock; albeit, his neck was still tender for a few days afterwards. Before all this, Trip was just another chicken, not much interested in human activity apart from the fact that we sometimes give chickens food. Now, he’s always near by when we are in the yard. He seems to realize that we saved his life; either that or being the only chicken to spend a night in the house has made him think he’s part chicken, part person. As for the name, well since I think he was hallucinating, I started calling him ‘tripp’n chick’n’ which was quickly shortened to Trip.

Another chicken, Spot, follows G’pa around the garden. He’s not much interested in the flock; he’s small and scrappy but loves eating bugs and therefore loves helping G’pa in the garden. Spot also enjoys eating weeds more than any other chicken. So, if you see G’pa out and about, chances are you will find Spot close by.

Speaking about G’pa, he’s out in the orchard pulling on the shoots right now. He’s planted over 50 fruit trees and one walnut tree since we have arrived. The deer have caused some havoc on the new trees, which was expected, so instead of waiting on contractors (again) we bought the fencing material from a nearby farm supply shop and will install it ourselves (at a savings of $14,000 over the lowest quote we had). I’m of the opinion that we should splurge and hire some people form the local hostel for the day to help us with the installation. G’pa and Dad are not as young as they pretend to be and given that I cannot even lift the posts, it would go much quicker if we had some help. Besides, it would help the economy to give some people extra pocket money.

We have three vegetable gardens started, the upper garden next to the house, the lower garden next to the brook which will eventually be dug, and my own experimental beds in the front yard. As G’pa has already planted enough vegetables to feed our family and hopefully a few extra to sell, I’ve decided to start some garden beds in different ways to see how they perform. Whereas G’pa is use to large scale garden beds, my experience is more towards the small scale raised bed system like what I used at the allotment gardens in the city. But, more on that later as the season progresses.

Even though everything took so long to get started, we should have enough vegetables to feed the entire family (including processing for the winter) and a some extra to sell to a select few. Once dad get’s a spare moment, I’ll get him to set up an email address that you can contact us on if you would like to put an order in. I think what I’ll do this year is to post on this blog what’s going to be available in a week’s time and then you can email with orders and we can have it ready for pick up when you are coming by our way. I’ll work out the details later on.

As the deer have thoughtfully striped most of our trees of the fruit buds, we will be scrumping for fruit this year. We might have a few apples and pears from the lovely old trees that were here when we moved in, but we will just have to wait and see.

The hope is that by next spring we will be growing enough to sell in earnest and start paying off my student loan. Both Dad and G’pa have small pensions which should get us through the year if we are frugal. But of course there are my health bills as well... well, something will work itself out and being outside seems to be good for my health. In fact I find it difficult to spend time inside when the weather is this fine so I’m going to have some breakfast and get out there to feed the chickens and work in my garden.