The hay is UP!

This is the happy look of accomplishment as we head home with our last trailer load of hay from my neighbour's farm. I got a hay ride home too, pulled by Hugh's tractor...I was very happy! We managed to put up 60 small square bales of hay in the sheep barn hay loft. That's my "cold winter's day" emergency stash. There's room for maybe 20 more, but I'll put some straw up there soon too, so that I have a stash of bedding as well. In general, I use large round hay bales throughout the majority of the year to feed my sheep because they are more economical, but they are more labour intensive and require peeling off flakes and transporting what I need to fill the hay racks. Small square bales are a more expensive option as compared to the large round bales, but they are easier to handle. Because I don't grow my own hay and my pastures are limited, it has been a major source of stress to me, as the farmer, to locate and source the right kind of hay. If I don't have hay come fall and winter, my animals don't have FOOD. So when I have a lot of hay around me, I'm happy. I have several wonderful sources of hay now and I feel RICH! Bring on Winter!...well almost...just a few more things to do yet...

My sheep's wool

Earlier this year, I sent in my raw wool from last year's shearing to a processing mill in Ontario (Wellington Fibres). I had it processed into Roving, which is wool that has been washed and carded, and is now ready for spinning into yarn. I recently received my shipment back and was absolutely thrilled with my fibre. There were 5 bags of different coloured rovings: white, light musket, dark musket, grey and black. Although it took a long time to get it back and with shipping it cost a fair bit, I'm very pleased with the quality. I have decided to sell it all to recover the cost of processing. About half is already sold, and the other half will be sold at the Ottawa Valley Weavers' & Spinners' Guild 30th Annual Exhibition & Sale coming the weekend of Nov. 5, 6, 7 at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Ave. Ottawa.

Looking at all the fleeces from this year's shearing, I'll need to rethink my strategy. I have and plan to sell whichever raw fleeces I can and in the meantime will start to process my fibre myself. For my birthday and Christmas last year I received a very generous gift from my father and father-in-law...my long desired Patrick Green Deb's Delicate Deluxe Drum Carder with fur drum. I've been on a big kick lately to process the fibres I had already washed. The carder is working beautifully with my Shetland fibre. On top of that, its been getting colder here and there is no doubt that winter is on its way...and with all the woolly creatures I have grazing my little pastures, I have nothing I've made from their fibre. So its time to get busy making socks, mittens and my dream Shetland lamb sweater made from Annie, one of the original girls from my flock. She was the only lamb in the group and I sheared her wool myself with scissors and handshears. She represents my first fleece from my own sheep and incidently, she had my first lamb ever too, so she and her lamb Anakin are my farm tag logo.

Farm Stand Revisited

It has been a little over a month that I opened my little roadside farmstand selling eggs and I'm very pleased with the outcome. In my inaugural month, I sold 16 dozen eggs as surplus to our uses, producing about 1 dozen every 2 days. Nearly half were sold out of the little red egg cooler by the side of the road, but more were sold to friends and neighbours and people driving by that saw our sign and came up to the house. Not only has it paid for my feed costs, it has allowed me an opportunity to meet people in the neighbourhood that I hadn't met before in the 5 years since we've been here. They have gotten to know me a bit and I've had a few conversations about my chickens and sheep and what I'm doing here on my little piece of land. Unfortunately, I've frequently been SOLD OUT and have had to turn people away or offer to deliver when the next dozen is ready. Because of this, I've decided to expand! On Saturday, I picked up another dozen young ready-to-lay hens. Since they are young, they will be laying little eggs until they get a little bigger. I already had 3 hens that lay little eggs (because they are a bantam/smaller size), so I've begun to sell Small sized eggs as well as my regular size of XL eggs. When the new hens are up to full production, their eggs will be full size giving me 24 hens that produce XL eggs.

New Girls

This past weekend, 2 new ewes were sprung from their 2 week quarantine in the barn, to join my ewe flock. On the right is Ewenique Diana showing off her newly shorn body. She is a small 2 year old musket ewe with a beautiful light coloured fleece. She's sweet and spunky and I like her a lot. I obtained her in a trade for last year's ram Twist from my friend Danielle. Her companion on the left is a mule cross ewe lamb (cross between a Shetland ewe and a Blue-Faced Leicester ram). I couldn't resist her fleece and as I told Hugh, she was to keep Diana company while in quarantine, so I had to get her. She's very interesting looking, because she has the big BFL ears and the longer tail. The 2 girls are good friends now and hang out together constantly as they face the many head butts they are getting from my other girls as the order gets re-established in the flock. They are making it challenging for the night-time shepherd, Aidan to get them in at night, because they are essentially afraid to go in the barn and not yet bonded with the flock. Soon, I'll be shaking things up again as I wean my remaining 4 ewe lambs from their moms to set up my breeding groups for November.

Monica's new friend

Brianna and I attended the Bird and Small Animal Buy/Sell/Trade event held in Renfrew. I'd heard about it in the spring, but we had never been to it. We headed out early, armed with cages and cardboard boxes in search of new hens for my now thriving egg business and maybe a duck or 2 to keep our Silver Appleyard duck, Monica company and Brianna was hoping to get either a mouse or dwarf hamster as a pet to go into the cage we already had at home. We saw a lot of interesting birds, ducks and chickens, and rabbits, many I'd heard or read about, but never actually seen in person. I didn't find my ready to lay hens, but I got a lead on maybe 4 or 5 that I may be able to pick-up later this week. I did find many potential friends for Monica, but settled on a Welsh Harlequin drake that we've named Harley. This little duck is about 3 months old having been born in June of this year. We brought him home and he got to meet Clio unexpectedly through his cage which really un-nerved him and started him hissing. I was going to put his cage next to Monica's pen so that they would get comfortable with each other before putting them in at night together, but he was so stressed out that I put his cage right in her pen and opened the door. Monica was on the other side of the pool looking at him, when he rushed out of the cage and ran right into the duck house. He never left. We checked later and Monica was still outside, possibly concerned about going inside her house, and Harley was still inside and not leaving. By the end of the day, we found both Monica and Harley together, inside the house. I gave them a treat of shredded lettuce in their dishpan full of water, which Monica just loves. She went for it immediately and encouraged him to help himself too. I took pictures of them while they wandered outside the house together, bobbing their necks and making their gentle happy duck noises. Monica seems very happy with her new friend. She's been alone for a long time.

I'm hoping he'll grow a little bigger since he's still quite young and his head feathers are still just now coming in. I had been interested in this breed before when I first looked into getting ducks. Welsh Harlequins are a light breed, while Silver Appleyards are a large breed. Both are listed as Critical on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, while only the Silver Appleyard is listed in Rare Breeds Canada as Endangered. They are dual purpose (eggs and meat), will usually hatch their own eggs and are calm and good foragers, making them ideal for our farm. They are both stunningly beautiful birds with distinct personalities. I hope to get a Welsh Harlequin female in the spring to make it a trio and hopefully get little ducklings born here, but for now and for the winter, Monica will have a friend since she is very social. That way, she won't have to try and befriend wild ducks in the spring.

Spa Day

I've been wanting to try making soap from scratch for a long time and so finally, this past weekend, I finally got organized and Brianna & I had a crafting "spa day". Brianna made 2 kinds of hand-milled soaps. She made small molded Lavender Fairy soap by grating a block of plain Goat's milk soap, melting it and adding lavender essential oil and a little bit of blue and red soap dyes. She also made 2 Citrus soap balls with the same block of grated Goat's milk soap with sweet orange and lime essential oils. They smell really nice. They are drying for about a week before we can try them out. She made Ocean blue bath salts which she has been enjoying adding to her bath water.


She helped measure out my ingredients for making a big batch of moisturizing soap base (coconut oil, sunflower & olive oil and lye water). I was stirring it for hours and only poured it later that evening, because I wasn't sure when it was ready and "trace" had occurred. I realized later that it was likely ready within the hour. I poured half of the batch to make plain soap (to be milled later) and to the other half I added honey, oatmeal and vanilla essential oil to make a Honey & Oatmeal soap bar. A day and a half later, I unmolded them and cut them into bars to dry and cure for over a month. At that point I will check for optimal pH. Its a long process of waiting, but I'm hoping I will love the results. The Honey & Oatmeal bars don't smell good yet because they have to cure and the lye is strong and overpowering it at the moment, so I'm hoping it will have the scent I desire when its all cured. I have plans to make more varieties in the meantime and continue experimenting. I will also try making massage bars and homemade lip balm, which are ready for use much more quickly than the soaps.

One word of caution: Don't allow dogs access to the area where soap bars are curing...Clio got a hold of 4 of my Honey and Oatmeal bars and chewed off large bits. Amazingly, she hasn't suffered any ill effects...must be all that nice healthy oatmeal!!

Farm Stand Open

Recently, I realized another one of my farming plans...at least a start of it. I opened my roadside Farm Stand at the end of the driveway. I'm selling Farm Fresh Eggs and I have a sign I painted and close by, I have a cooler, which I will refill daily. The cooler will be brought out in the morning and sit on a little table and be brought back inside in the evening around 7pm. Inside will contain ice packs, egg cartons and a small heart shaped tin for the customer to put their money in as payment. Its also called an honour stand and it makes sense for me to do, because I have a surplus of eggs, but I don't have enough to justify sitting out there selling them, nor to maintain steady customers with regular egg deliveries. I call it my drive-thru, self-serve Farm Stand. We are a society that increasingly likes things to be easy and quick. We are fitting a lot into our days and having to stop by and drive up to the farmer's house to get your weekly eggs may be a deterrent to some. But...if the eggs are right there, you drop in your money, grab your eggs and go on home. Nice and quick...no chatting necessary, no concern that you are disturbing the farmer or that he isn't home or you waste your time because the eggs are sold out. That's the idea, so at least it will be interesting to see if it works.

Of course, if you do want to drive up the driveway and chat with the farmer and see the chickens and meet the sheep and talk about anything that may come up, she will be pleased to do that too!