Who knew that yoga and chickens made such good snow buddies? That comment might not make much sense, but it will after you check out the great series of photos over at ‘Consider Bardwell Farm.’
A couple of posts ago we said that our chickens can be timid and flighty during the daylight hours. It took the warmth of our kidding intern, Noah, to melt the heart of one of our Buff Orpingtons.
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I like the idea of a virtual game of telephone tag that might just lead these folks down a country road to the farm of their dreams! Good luck!
My hubby and I have spent our Saturday mornings for quite some time driving out to Langley to pick up chicken feed, go to the livestock auction, have breaky at Otter Co-op and drive around drooling over farms.
Chatting with Joel Salatin about our farming aspirations and the challenges we face in finding our forever farm, he made a point that stuck with me. We must not forget that there are lots of old-timer farmers out there with the opposite worry: how am I going to get OUT of farming?
More than half of current principle farm operators are over the age of 55. In the next 20 years, 70 percent of farmland will change hands.
Many of these folks don’t want to see their beloved farms turned into golf-courses, or worse yet, a suburban sub-division. But if you don’t have (willing) family to pass the farm to, what do…
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Made from Dark Creek goat milk
One of my Christmas presents was a gorgeous cheese press made by the oh-so-clever Toryn (it is SO handy to know a machinist!). To make sure the prototype worked, Dani and Toryn tested it by making a batch of cheddar with my stockpile of frozen milk. I had no idea what they were up to (I confess I was taking it easy in Hawaii at the time).
Unlike soft cheeses like chevre, mozarrella, or ricotta (which are most excellent for those short on patience), hard cheeses take their time maturing, so it was a full 8 weeks later before we could test their experiment! It was definitely worth the wait! The cheese is tasty, a little drier than I’d expect in a cheddar with a distinct, slightly sharp flavour. It’s delicious! Given how long we had to wait to taste it, I’ve been trying to pace myself and not gobble it up. This is proving difficult as it’s just so good – with crackers, on toast, by itself… Plans are afoot to try several more recipes as soon as Dani gets back from school. Feta, gouda, and parmesan are all on the list to try.
My new cheese press is a work of art, is it not? It also makes a fine wheel of cheese.
Meanwhile, I am reading the books I got for Christmas. Here’s my current reading list:
The Joy of Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Making, and Eating Fine Cheese, by Jody M. Farnham and Marc Druart
Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses, by Ricki Carroll
I already had this one:
Making Great Cheese at Home: 30 Simple Recipes from Cheddar to Chevre, by Barbara Ciletti
and there are a few recipes in my goat-keeping books as well, so that should keep me busy while I await my cheese-making partner’s return!
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Poor Bub boinked her beak!
I have no idea how this little muscovy duck damaged herself, but the top of her beak looks like it hurts. She’s safe and sound in a private room (in the kitchen) so she can have a bit of peace and quiet to recover.
When she has fully settled down, I’ll give the wound a good rinse and see if there’s anything else to be done. Keeping her clean, warm, and quiet for a couple of days is probably all it will take to have her on the mend.
It is so hard to be patient when the snow is flying and the water buckets are frozen! Granted, there is a special pleasure to be enjoyed curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of tea and a stack of seed catalogues, but nothing quite compares to the delights of digging around out in the garden!
Meanwhile, I’ve been experimenting with the ipad version of a really good garden planning program previously available only online (at www.growveg.com). So far, so good! One of the best features of the program is the way it keeps track of succession planting. With a large garden (let’s be honest – for some of us this is true for a small garden, too!) it’s hard to keep track of what was planted where in previous years. One of the best ways to control pests and diseases in the garden is to rotate crops and not plant members of the same plant family in the same place year after year. It takes 3-5 years for one bed to be safe to use again for certain crops. Who can remember that far back? The Garden Planner from growveg.com keeps track for you. When planning your garden next year, the beds change colour to warn you away from planting related crops in hazardous places! And, no, I have no affiliation whatsoever with these guys, but I must say I like using the program and love the fact I can now take the ipad down into the garden to do updates while I’m standing in front of the beds looking at what I’ve planted. Though, today, the only thing I can see down there is snow, snow, and more snow!! Soon… soon those warm spring breezes will be here and I won’t be stuck doing virtual gardening at the keyboard!
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