Good Morning - 2023

[Farrier]

Good morning. That is about all this miscreant grumpiness can say these days. Alive and swell. Miss the friends here, but its my own fault. Well me and Winwalkingwoof. I so liked to abuse her on here. Oh well. I am going to go outside and kick my dog and goats. St Catherine kicks back, and my mother, well I am still afraid of her from childhood days.

[Jaye]

I imagine your goats would kick back too, if provoked.

[WLLady]

Good morning all! Our buckwheat has sprouted! Interesting looking sprouts. Looks like beans go in today-we'll be all beans this year. And then winter wheat after the beans are off. Should help get some soil amendment going. hoping we can get the winter wheat off early enough next year to cover crop with buckwheat next fall and then plow that in in the spring of 2025. Taking some time off work, just to recoup and regroup i think. Staying close to home because the bees are CRAZY. LOL. Had a swarm we caught and boxed 3 times, well, that hive is now empty, and last week we had someone swarm (and i still don't know where it came from) that was seriously 40 pounds of bees. Filled a double hive completely on capture. We are thinking the old swarm must have gone back to its parent hive and then swarmed again just with more bees, because we don't have any additional emptier hives than we did.....This swarm bent our little apple tree over it was so heavy! When i drove in I thought a giant piece of landscape fabric had blown into the tree....There were that many bees! It's all safely boxed and they're flying around and doing their thing.

Got the pea/bean trellis into the garden, garden is tilled once (will need another round), peas are planted. Was hoping to get potatoes and things in today but i need a break from hauling mulch and weeding yesterday. So maybe i'll do that tomorrow. The greenhouse is slowing getting crowded. Started a pile of redbud seeds this year, have a few little trees growing, and bayvistafarm brought me some horse chestnuts! yay! don't have any of those down here - well, i've found 1. We have another 2 planted that we got last year. All the fruit trees are doing well...might get some cherries this year. planted a bunch of plumcots and chums to try and combat our blackknot issues with plums. Might get some pears this year too! Have 4 baby ducks. and moms sitting on about 60 eggs in various places around the farm. Had to remove a rotten egg from under one yesterday-need chainmail! It exploded in mid air on the way to the composter LOL. i know better than to carry them, so i threw it because i could feel the crackling in my hand when i picked it up. Phew, avoided a big mess there! Baby chickens aren't so baby anymore. Got a few easter egger girls on to a new home, have a few more to go, and then boys to freezer camp. Later.

Read a paper the other day that said that the new plastics that were brought in because of the old plastic leaking bad stuff for us, are actually WORSE than the old plastic for "forever chemicals" that our bodies can't clear without kidney and liver damage. I think i'm going to go back to glass for everything. And someone said to me a couple weeks ago that isn't homesteading awesome? I actually hadn't considered what i'm doing as homesteading...but i guess it is. hm. That was a feed store discussion-we were talking bees with someone there, they wanted to get into bees, just a hive or two and we were telling them about the 2 to 6 to 15 hive problem....lol. So i guess there it is....we are homesteaders. Except we both still work.

OH! i think i finally made rooted apple cuttings from my spy tree! Super excited about that. Have to check the ones in the basement still, but the ones i potted on are looking like they're making roots! whoohoo! Only took 3 years to figure that out!

yay for holidays! time to go and work hard at relaxing (i'm sure most of you know what i mean with that!)

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning,
Love horse chestnuts @WLLady had one in front of my window when I was little a spectacular tree.
They aren't hardy in this area, which didn't stop me from bringing one (or 5) from Toronto few years back, babied two that sprouted for 5 years and then one bad winter and that was it.

BDW my Morels froze while I was waiting for them to get bigger, so I used them anyway they were sort of freezes dried

[lolotsung]

https://maryscattergood.com/

Local Caledon artist above

[ross]

Happy Fathers Day guys

[Happy]

Happy Father's Day

[Bayvistafarm]

Good evening!! Thought I would pop on here for a bit... before closing the guinea's in, and pilling a cat... hes got over the roof high blood pressure, so theres that. Every day. closing up the barn every night gets later and later... as those damn birds don't go to bed, until dusk. There are 2 on nests. Ones on about 40 + eggs in a globe thistle... and ones up in the straw mow. I REALLY should take them away, and incubate... one, I haven't the heart to steal and upset them, but I REALLY REALLY don't need the aggravation of having them killed on the nest, OR watching babies trying to run thru the grass and die. Anyone want eggs? I figure the one nest is 10 days in. Maybe the other one is too. Don't know how many are in it.. but I did climb up and saw her covering all of them, so....

Got the garden all in finally. 6--- 25' rows of potatoes. I just took LOTS to the corner, where we toss our refuge, lol. My kids just didn't use many.... I don't know why.

Here are a few farm pics... well, first ones up, are from Melissa.... who bought a filly, who was 2 months shy of a year. Poor thing, was very muttly. First pic are when she got her, and a few months later...second pics, are a year later...one earlier in the year... then at the end of summer/beginning of fall.... and the last one is from this year, 2 weeks ago or so.

Her mom is part draft, part Canadian... sire palomino quarter horse. Shes sure a beauty, and shes lightly riding her now.

Lots of bull in this picture... herd sire. 4 years old.... haven't kept any heifers off him, because of it... but one.... a calf he bred when she was a 5 month old suckling. She will calve closer to the end of July. Yes.. bred by him again.

I have so many iris...here is one of my fav's.. in a rose bush. I should go take a picture now, because the bush is so loaded with flowers, however the iris are waning.

Dave loves taking pictures, and bought himself an expensive camera. NOT top of the line, but pretty damn close... but hey... may as well enjoy yourself in this life... and hes taken a few really nice shots.

Another iris.. playing with a few features on the camera.

Love this guy, lol. Every single day, before daybreak, hes in a potted plant. Wonder where he will go, when I finally get all these flowers planted. These are seedlings, self seeded, I've potted up.

My onions and garlic and leeks.

3 rows in the north garden... the other 3 are in the south. WASN'T going to plant so many, but had tons of left overs, of 4 different kinds, I used them. Bought russets, because I didn't get those last year...

Some of those barn swallow babies, after Dave took their cool pic. Its not a great picture, but they are cool.

My chicks are so big now....took 23 what I thought were cockerels to Hagersville with the dick that was their father, and also my last EO rooster. I did hatch EO's... but took all those to the sale. Except the girls. He was SO mean too. I got $36 EACH for those roosters.. and the EO was scratchy looking, because he was in a pen beside my ameracauna roo, and they just fought between the wire occassionally. The other one was nothing special (thought he was a BCM) but pretty. The 7 week old babies brought between $5.50, and $7 !!!! WOW.

I bought 15 (sent me 17) red ranger cockerels... got them April 17th... and they go out July 6th. To Lowbanks in Hagersville to be done up. Can't believe how big they are getting!!

Oh... Kathy's horse chestnut trees mom, lol.

Its about 17 years since I planted that, from a chestnut from its mom, down the road from us, lol. Found it on the sidewalk.



Anyhow, I think its time to go to the barn. Have a good night!

[Ontario Chick]

Wow, great pictures !

[labradors]

Wonderful pictures! Love the Horse Chestnut tree :).

Linda