A severe summer

This was a screenshot from the Weather Network site last month:

It caught my attention, as 'severe' is not usually a word I'd associate with summer weather. But it has turned out to be an apt one for this season.

We are used to dealing with very dry summers, but this has been the worst one since we've been in Canada. At the height of the drought, on August 13th, I forced myself to take photographs of the vegetable garden. With barely enough water for the household, I had not been able to water the garden at all, and the plants were really suffering. In the whole of July we had 23mm of rain and the previous three months were also very dry (April 23mm, May 19mm, June 48mm).

The cabbage patch:

The squash plants:

The row of sunflowers next to the squash:

We got an inch of rain that day, followed by half an inch three days later and that was enough to start the plants growing again. It's still very dry, but the 48mm we received in August has made a huge difference to the garden.

This how the cabbage patch looks now:

And the sunflowers, with the squash behind them, are looking a bit healthier. Two of the squash plants died in the drought, but the others have recovered and I'm now picking patty pan squash. This week I will pick the first of the zucchini/courgettes. The only problem now is that the weeds are also enjoying the rain!

In less happy news, I have to report that my entire flock of chickens (33 birds) were killed by a mink during July and August. I don't know if the dry weather was a contributory factor, but I suspect it might have been. Over the course of three weeks I fought a losing battle with this night-time killer. Every time I thought I'd managed to mink-proof the coop, it found a way through (they only need an inch) and killed one or more chickens. One night it killed eight. On the morning of August 8th I found the last seven chickens dead on the floor.

After eight years of keeping chickens I think I'm going to stop, for a while at least. I am really going to miss them, and their eggs (my birds had produced 15,000 eggs in the time I had them), but right now one less responsibility is probably a good thing. But yes, this summer has been severe indeed.

Winter's last blast

 After a mild few weeks, the weather took a turn for the colder this week. Yesterday an ice storm came through and left a fairly thick coating of ice over everything. This morning it warmed up quickly, so the ice began to melt: we could hear it almost exploding off the roof as we woke up.

The chickens' run resembled an ice rink. And it turns out chickens don't like skating, even if they are Canadian.

Chickens out

Last day of January and a rare sight: the chickens being able to venture outside. For the last two winters they were cooped up for three months in a row. This winter has been much kinder. There are still a few inches of snow on the ground, but today's temperature is due to climb to 6°C/43°F, so I'm thinking by this evening there won't be too much left.

We have yet to have a day this winter where the temperature has gone below -20°C/-4°F, which is fairly unusual, and the average temperature for the month of January is running at -5°C/23°F, where normally it is -7°C/19°F.

The week ahead looks mild, but then there is a return to more normal winter temperature after that. As this week and last week are usually the cold point of the year, I'm certainly not complaining...

A greenhouse perambulation

There are six raised beds in our greenhouse and at this time of year they're all in use for various crops. I love going in there and checking on progress, tidying things up and pulling weeds or overgrown lettuces. There are a lot of the latter: I let some of last year's lettuce go to seed and lots of it came up in the spring, in addition to what I sowed myself. Luckily the chickens adore it, overgrown or not, so it doesn't go to waste.

Bed 1 is the first one we built. This year it is full of a range of heirloom tomato plants, with some basil and the inevitable lettuce plant (I'll save the seeds from the two dark red ones you can see in the front here). Most other years I've had problems with blossom end rot on the big tomatoes, but so far so good this year. I put a good layer of chicken manure in this bed before planting it, so maybe that has helped.

Bed 2, the next one along, houses a huge sage bush and some more basil and lettuce (out of shot here). There are three okra plants in this bed - they are only just getting growing properly now, after a cool start to the season. They really need the protection of the greenhouse to put on growth, but they should take off in the next few weeks. There is already one pod forming on the biggest plant - although I managed to miss seeing the flower open! Behind them are a few late tomato plants (sown after I lost the outside ones to the late May frost). The white flower is a cilantro/coriander plant. They are great for attracting pollinators.

Bed 3 was my brassica nursery bed and I left a couple of kale plants in there for an earlier crop - they're producing lots of leaves already, while the ones I transplanted outside are about half this size. Behind the kale are lentils - my first year of successfully growing these (the rabbits got them last year when I sowed them outside!). In the rest of this bed I replaced the transplanted brassicas with beets and some carrots. They are being bothered by a nest of ants, so I've transplanted some sage into the bed, because ants aren't supposed to like it. Doesn't seem to be having any effect so far, though!

Bed 4 was my pea, parsnip and lettuce bed. The peas (Green Arrow and Little Marvel, with Oregon Sugar Snap at the back) are going over now, but I'll keep some to save as seed. I'm slowly pulling up the lettuce for the chickens and in the centre of this bed are my eggplants. Like the okra, they've been slowed up by the cool weather we've been having, but this week they've started to put on more growth and I'm hopeful they'll produce a good crop. It'll help when I pull out the peas which have been shading them, too. I've got three eggplant varieties this year: Applegreen, Korean Early Long and Rosa Bianca. They are all from Baker Creek, although they don't seem to do the Korean Early Long variety any more. These were from a 2012 seed packet, mind you!

Bed 5 is mainly peppers, with some carrots, beets, chard, later-sown tomatoes and already-going-to-seed spinach (I'll save that, too). This bed was also full of self-sown dill and I've been steadily pulling that out to avoid having the same problem next year! Most of the peppers are doing fine - I've put tomato cages round them to give them a bit of extra support before the fruit start coming. I find tomato cages good for peas and cucumbers, too. Note that I use stakes for the actual tomatoes!

A few of the peppers are very pale and a bit small - I'm not sure if this is a defect of the variety (I have failed to label them, as usual!) or a defect of their soil. Since they are all growing in the same place, it would be odd if that were the case, but I'll have to wait for the fruit to form to see if it's the variety that's the problem.

Bed 6 was only supposed to be melons and cucumbers, but the self-sown lettuce took over in here - even growing on the floor! There's still quite a lot of dill in this bed, too.

I haven't grown watermelons before and I didn't realise how huge the plants get. I pulled the cart up to support this one melon, but it's already grown through the end of the cart. I think it's going to take over the whole greenhouse!

Family portrait

These chicks hatched on Friday and Saturday, but today was the first time I managed to get all five of them in shot (barely!). Their mama has been highly protective of them: I hear her making a warning call to the chicks every time I open the door at the back of the barn and up to now at least one or two of the chicks have always been hidden underneath her wings.They're getting a bit more adventurous now, though.

Three of the chicks were from Ameraucana eggs, and the other two were either Welsummer or Barnevelder eggs (I haven't been able to spot the difference between those). The father was most likely the younger Buff Orpington rooster who is currently Top Bird, but it's just possible that the browner chick had the Welsummer cockerel as its sire. That one hatched from a blue egg, not a brown one. Three of the chicks are almost identical at present, with a small brown mark on their heads and otherwise golden. The chick on the right of this shot is all golden and a bit paler than the others. It will be interesting to see what colours they turn into as they grow up.

Garden in!

The Victoria Day weekend is the traditional one for putting tender plants in the garden, but I was slightly nervous of doing so when I saw that the temperature was going to drop to 4°C/39°F in the coming week. I went ahead anyway, and the next time I looked at the weather forecast it had changed to 7°C/45°F - so with any luck all will be well.

It's been a madly busy week in the lower vegetable garden, which has only just dried out and warmed up after the cold Spring. There has been a lot of weeding and manuring leading up to the last two days when I've been putting in the tomato, corn, squash and brassica seedlings which had been growing on in the greenhouse. Last year I lost most of the cabbages to rabbits. so this year I'm experimenting with scattering some ground-up dried cayenne peppers around them as a deterrent. 

The tomatoes are all in the ground and surrounded by a mulch of grass-cuttings.

In the much drier upper vegetable garden I'm experimenting with some grain crops this year: barley, oats and wheat. The idea is to become a bit more self-sufficient in grain for the chickens in the future, but I imagine that this year we'll probably just keep any grain we gather as seed for next year.

Spring, all of a sudden

 The weather has just taken a warmer turn, which is just as well, as I couldn't leave it much longer to transplant my peppers, eggplants and tomatoes from the warmth of the house. I spent a happy hour in the greenhouse on Monday, potting everything on. 100 tomatoes, 33 peppers and 12 eggplants are all now in greenhouse beds or in pots waiting to go outside once the soil is warm enough. It will be some weeks before that is true!

On Saturday I was up early for a long drive to Kitchener. I had to stop on my way out of the County to grab this scene: this is at Carrying Place, with the Bay of Quinte in the distance. It was a magical moment, just before the sun came up.

The chickens are really enjoying being able to run around in the orchard again. The older Buff Orpington rooster keeps his distance from the younger one (who is Top Bird at the moment), but the Welsummer rooster doesn't seem to have any disputes with the other two. I usually resist naming the chickens, but this one looks like he should be called Kelloggs, don't you think?

Spring progress report

It is beginning to get warm enough for me to get started on the Spring jobs. Looming largest in my thoughts was the need to empty the chicken enclosure of the accumulation of winter litter. But I couldn't do that until the chickens were willing to spend some time outside. They aren't happy about walking in the snow, so I needed most of the snow to be gone before I could contemplate the task.

Here's the orchard on March 26th:

Still fairly snowy: the Buff Orpingtons were willing to brave the conditions, but none of the other breeds fancied leaving the coop.

By yesterday most of the snow had gone and the birds were spending their time outside. Here they are this morning. There was a light scattering of snow overnight, but not enough to bother them.

It took two hours of shovelling to get the barn free of the woodchips and chicken detritus of the winter. And there was a rat's nest. With baby rats in it. I won't say any more about that...

The resulting chicken manure heap is huge! You can see that there's still quite a lot of snow behind it.

There are some signs of life in the greenhouse. These seedlings are coming up in the bed where I sowed peas. They're clearly not peas, but I'm hoping they are something edible, so I'll leave them for now.

It's suddenly a lot easier to walk up past the barns, with the snow going. There is still a lot of ice in places - this patch along the fence line is a good ten inches thick!

I was actually quite grateful for the continued cold weather, as our fridge went wrong on the 25th of March and was out of action for  a week. I put our cool box into service and stationed it on the porch. Fortunately the weather stayed at fridge temperature for the whole week, so we didn't have any problem keeping things cold.

It wasn't the most convenient location for a fridge, but having all the food out on the porch did turn out to be a very effective deterrent against snacking!

Regular February service

February seems determined to compensate for a relatively snowless January. It's been cold too, with an average temperature so far of -14°C/7°F (the month usually averages -6°C/21°F here). The temperature hasn't been above freezing since January 24th, and isn't forecast to do so in the next two weeks.

I seem to have spent a lot of time digging out the driveway and my 'eggs' sign: it's a bit of a miracle that the chickens are still laying (some of them have even gone broody in the last month!).

I'm reading Naomi Klein's book about climate change, This Changes Everything at the moment. I'm sure that this cold spell is one of those unexpected side effects of global warming, but right now I'm finding it hard to get upset about the idea of a bit more warmth in my life!

Excursion

Last winter was so snowy that the chickens didn't get outside for a solid three months. I'm looking back at last January's posts and remembering how horrendous it was. There is snow on the ground now, but only a few inches and there is even some grass visible at the moment. When it's very cold or windy I don't open up the back of the barn for the chickens, but today is milder and some of the hens ventured out to take the air.

The lake has been looking very pretty, reflecting back some clear blue skies of late.

 

But it's difficult to walk along our western fenceline at the moment, which is just a solid sheet of ice.

Coup in the coop

After several months when the two Buff Orpington roosters seemed to get along just fine, each with his own little harem of hens, there was a big fight the other week and now the younger of the two is Top Bird. The Welsummer rooster, one of the 'hens' I bought this year, doesn't seem to have been affected by this change in status of the other two.

We had a few days with snow on the ground when the chickens wouldn't go out, so I tried a trick I read somewhere of hanging up a cabbage for them to peck at while they're cooped up indoors. They didn't know what to make of it until I cut a small wedge out. Then they got the idea and they seem to have enjoyed it!

The Ameraucanas are happier about going out in an inch or two of snow than the Orpingtons. It's funny how the one white Ameraucana doesn't look particularly white when you see her against the snow.

The snow has nearly all gone now, so all the chickens have been enjoying being out in the orchard over the past few days.

It's supposed to get quite warm on Christmas Eve (8°C/46°F!), but we might get snow on Christmas Day, as a storm moves through and pulls in colder air from the north. Like the chickens, I will be quite happy watching it from inside.

December harvest

The temperature is forecast to drop to -11°C/12°F tonight, so I seized the opportunity of digging up some Jerusalem artichokes while I still could!

There isn't much left growing in the greenhouse, but I did get three bok choi plants and some coriander for our evening meal. The chickens are finally getting their act together, with a respectable clutch of six eggs today. We have eight nest boxes but for some reason they only lay in two of them - and they aren't adjacent. Who knows how a chicken's mind works?

I've spent the last couple of weeks taking advantage of some of the milder days by digging over the beds in the lower vegetable garden and adding chicken manure to two of them. This year, for the first time, I'm covering the beds with a winter mulch.

I had some leaves bagged up from 2013 and there is still a fair bit of old hay in the big barn, so I've used both on different beds, as a mini experiment to see how it goes. I'm hoping it will suppress at least some of the early weed growth in the spring.

First snow

Today was the first day that the new hens had seen snow on the ground. They peeked out at it but decided that it wasn't something they wanted to investigate at close quarters.

We've been getting a few more eggs of late - two or three of the Ameraucanas have been laying for a month now, and this week we got the first dark brown egg from one of the Barnevelder or Welsummer hens. The Ameraucanas lay a double-yolked egg every so often - the one on the left of this photo, much bigger than the one on the right, will probably have two yolks.

The snow is very pretty, but I'm not sure I'm mentally prepared for winter yet...

Changing colours

Autumn brings its usual changes to the scenery: morning mists and gorgeous reds and oranges.

And for us, it generally brings a dearth of eggs in the henhouse, as the chickens take a well-earned rest from laying. I've been getting one, two or zero eggs each day in the last week or two.

Today's egg harvest was two, and it wasn't until I'd got into the kitchen that I noticed one of them was not the usual Buff Orpington palish brown.

The new hens have started laying! Well, one has, anyway. The eggs either side of the bluey-green Ameraucana one are the normal range of colours that we get from the Buffs. In the dimness of the barn the Ameraucana egg looked a lot like the paler Buff eggs.

I'm very pleased that the new hens are beginning to lay. From being a position of scarcity, I suspect that very soon we might be in the position of being over-egged!

Apart and together

In quiet moments in the past few weeks I've been shelling my dry bean crop. There's something very satisfying about this job: popping out the beans and watching their respective piles grow. 

I'll be saving some of these to re-sow next year, but there should be a good few meals out of this harvest, too. Clockwise from the top they are Deseronto Potato, Early Mohawk, Jacob's Cattle, Hidatsa Red and Cherokee Trail of Tears.

This week I introduced the new chickens to the old ones. They are now sixteen weeks old and big enough not to be too picked-upon by the Buff Orpingtons.

The new chickens are still sleeping in a different area at night, but during the day they are now free to explore outside and it's great to see them pecking at the grass in the orchard. 

The two flocks are mostly keeping to themselves at the moment, but I imagine that will change as they become more accustomed to each other. Part of my rationale in getting more hens was to improve the proportions of males to females (which was 1:7).

One of the new Welsummers is looking distinctly male, however, so that aspect of my plan hasn't worked as expected! But with the 19 new hens, the ratio is now one male to eleven females so it has improved a little.

Hatchlings

Transformations are going on all around the farm. The Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars which were eating my dill plants a month ago are now gorgeous butterflies:

The barn swallows have fledged and are learning to fly. This morning the adult swallow seemed to be giving the four youngsters a pep talk in the barn.

Two robin broods have already been hatched and fledged in the barn this year and now there's another four eggs being incubated in another robin nest in there. I'm not sure if it's the same robin or a different one.

My chicks are growing rapidly. At two months old they look like half-sized versions of their adult selves. They enjoy running outside in the evenings after I've put the adult

chickens away.

It's interesting to have different varieties of chickens this time, instead of the Buff Orpingtons we've always reared so far. The Welsummers have particularly attractive plumage (I very nearly wrote 'foliage' then!):