Category Archives: Farm Improvements

A Storm for the Record Books

21 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by in Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Seasons, Weather

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The meteorologists warned us well before it arrived. “An ‘atmospheric river’ is on its way!” they excitedly predicted, “and a windstorm!” Rolling our eyes at their hyperbole, we got ready anyway, pulling the foot bridges off the creek, putting the carport freezer up on blocks, moving our vehicles to higher ground. The weather has been nuts this year, anything is possible. We charged all the things; the neck lights and headlamps, our phones and tablets. We filled the potable water jugs, lining them up along the kitchen counter. The well pump won’t run if the power goes out, and we like our tea, so we need plenty of water. We stacked firewood by the door, made sure there was gas for the generator, and that the barnyard crew were well provisioned.

Saturday around noon, right on schedule, it began to pour, and it didn’t let up until 48 hours and 153.9 mm later. More rain at one time than we’ve seen since we moved here almost a quarter century ago. Over the last ten years, only seven MONTHS beat the rainfall we saw in TWO DAYS. We didn’t quite make the top ten, but our Malahat (Island Highway) did.

Now, I love the rain, but this was too much rain, and all the time it fell, my nerves were on edge. When would it stop? Would we flood out? We live in the bottom of a valley, right beside (…like, within six feet of) Goward Spring creek. The barnyard is next to the creek too, further down the property. In other words, we are about as exposed to flood risk as a beach dweller is to a tsunami. And an atmospheric river was flowing.

After dark was the worst, because we couldn’t see what was going on outside. We could only hear the enemy, drumming on the skylights. We took it in turns through Saturday and Sunday nights, putting on raincoats and headlamps and tromping outside to monitor water levels while practicing SAR whitewater safety – “stay far enough away from the rushing water so that if you do slip, you won’t slide in”. That could easily end badly. The water was roaring through our valley so vigorously that we had to shout to talk to each other outside. One of the nights, I forget which, RG flashed her light in our window, doing a bed check, and woke me up. Why was she looking in our bedroom window at 3 in the morning in the pouring rain? She’d been doing the rounds, and DH had left his office light on and the back door unlocked, and she was worried he’d gone out to check on things and fallen in. But he was snoozing beside me. So she went to bed too, and soon after that I got up, and we carried on.

For the last year or so, seeing our weather misbehave more often, and reading about weather events around the world, we have paying more attention to planning for disasters. One improvement that we had been debating was putting a culvert in on the far side of the driveway bridge, to redirect water away from the house if the creek flooded over the bridge and rushed down the driveway. We hadn’t broken ground yet though on that little job, and this weighed on my mind as I watched the rain fall. Were we too late? Had we dithered too long?

But much to our relief our house stayed dry. All our floodwaters went to harmless places. The people who built this house did good when they put it on the high side of the creek. Our little watercourse burst its banks quickly, growing from her usual five feet wide to more than 20. She overwhelmed the driveway bridge, but harmlessly, splitting into three streams temporarily, then rejoining herself and flowing out across the yard in an big double arc that combined again well below the house. She did not come down the driveway towards the house at all.

The coops stayed safe too, the creek banks get quite tall down that end of the place, so there was enough capacity to carry the excess water away with only a bit of flooding on the far side of the creek. It was close though, if the water had risen another few inches, the hen hotel would have turned into a spa.

The property right below us flooded badly. The creek widened into a lake across its entire 200 foot width, and spilled over the public path that runs alongside. Luckily there is no house there yet. Although they are trying to get a permit to build.

The deep ravine at the other end of our lane flooded too, sending water sheeting across the road so that DH’s brakes temporarily failed as he tried to negotiate the corner. All a bit of fun for him, I suppose. Motorsport man would have enjoyed getting out of that little difficulty.

At noon on Monday, the rain finally stopped. What a relief!! And then, literally half an hour later, our valley ringing with emergency vehicle sirens, the creek roaring like a jet engine, and a line of cars strung out along the far side of our place turning around because the road ahead was submerged, the wind started blowing hard. It was surreal. Almost immediately, grove of 3 or 4 big alders crashed down across the roadway, the rain soaked soil letting go without a fight. The power went out and the roadblocks went up. It would be almost 24 hours before the road reopened and the lights came back on.

“It’s a good thing” I thought at the time, “that we’re not trying to run any pumps”. We didn’t need to. Our little creek was a champ, working 24/7 to whisk all that water away down the Colquitz watershed to the Salish sea.

It’s been a week now since the storm began and here on the island things are starting to settle down. Parts of the lower mainland are still a colossal mess. Thousands of farm animals dead, thousands of people with flooded homes, and people missing in highway slide areas. The main routes to the rest of Canada were still closed Saturday morning, three of them finally opened in the afternoon.

Over here on the island, our grocery store shelves are half empty, the feed stores have no feed, and gas is rationed. Our island highway has reopened, single lane alternating, but hey, it’s not closed for 12 hours a night anymore! They’ve managed to stop it dissolving down the mountainside.

Here in our muddy valley, we’re in clean-up mode, and watching the weather forecasts. Another storm is expected this week. North of us this time though, they say. Like many people, we can see the weather is changing, so we will keep doing what we can to be ready. It’s only sensible. We’re not going full tinfoil hat prepper, with big buckets of dried food in the basement and an AK47 in the closet; not even close. We made sure to get pictures of the storm’s impacts, and I am storing these online along with the rainfall stats and my observational notes. Data yields information, which yields actionable knowledge, which yields… we hope, a roadmap to guide next steps. We know now that we don’t need a culvert, for example, and we have the pictures to prove it..

This weekend, as I work around the place, I will keep an eye out for trouble spots. I might take more pictures, make a couple more notes, and I will definitely stake the high water marks where we plan a new bridge over the creek. All jobs best done while the storm’s scars are fresh on our minds and on our environment. Because there will be a next time, and the gods help those who help themselves.

The Winter Field

17 Monday May 2021

Posted by in Chickens, Equines, Farm Improvements, Gardening

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One of the cool things about living for twenty-plus years on the same piece of land is being able to see the long term results of our actions. Like the 150 foot hedge that we planted along the busy road fifteen years ago. It’s twenty feet tall now, ten feet wide and impenetrable. And beautiful in the fall.

Or our “winter field”. The winter field got its name because it is the only field that stays dry enough that we can have the horses on it a little bit in mid winter when everywhere else is too muddy. To protect both the land and their feet, our ponies spend much of the wet season in their roomy barnyard paddock, on top of some serious drainage (4 feet of rocks, gravel, then hog fuel).

When we first moved to our muddy valley, a couple horses had been left too long on the winter field, nibbling it down to bare earth. After the horses left, we did nothing (no money, no time and three small kids) and by the next spring, much to our relief, it had greened right up with a mix of grass, clover and plenty of weeds. A couple years later we started putting our own horses on it. They ate down the grass each year, but not the weeds, because horses are picky. We tried to encourage the grass, because more free grass means less outlay on hay to feed hungry horses. We did our best to avoid overgrazing and kept the weeds sort of under control by mowing, hand pulling and, one expensive year, even plowing the whole bloody thing, fertilizing and reseeding. We tried the same approach in the northwest field.  Sadly, a couple years later, both fields looked just the same; grass, clover and plenty of weeds. 

More years went by, and then in 2012, we got six chicks and built their coop next to the winter field. By 2013 we had lots of chickens (that’s another story), who happily free ranged in the afternoons year round, nibbling greens and enjoying bugs, scratching things up a bit but not too much, leaving their droppings behind. 

Life continued, and here we are another eight years later, with the winter field transformed! Especially the area nearest the coops which looks amazing. The thick emerald grass is trimmed slightly tall and fairly even by the flock’s sharp beaks, and completely weed free. It looks like the ‘after’ picture of a weed n feed commercial, except for the chicken poops nestled here and there. Ten feet away, the grass is still lush, with scattered bits of clover. Ten feet more, the grass / clover mix is more pronounced and there is a weed or two. About forty feet away from the coops, where the birds don’t hang out as much, it looks more like the before-chicken winter field.

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It has to be our free range poultry who have made this dramatic difference, nothing else has changed! It appears that given the right set of circumstances, chickens are superb groundskeepers. 

Regenerative agriculture is having a moment right now, and I totally get why. One regenerative ag strategy involves running livestock lightly on the land where they can forage their own feed, fertilize with their droppings, and disturb the soil moderately with their activities, improving fertility and production. Our winter field, before and after introducing chickens, is an accidental testament to this idea. It’s quite remarkable.

Around here, as we experiment with more regenerative approaches (my new raspberry patch is ‘no till’ and RG uses lots of the techniques), the health of the soil and the plants and animals that it nurtures just keeps improving.

If I had the time and energy, I would have chicken tractors, staffed by feathery groundskeepers, set up at forty feet intervals all over, and let the place really go to the birds.

Phytophthora In My Raspberries

18 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by in Farm Improvements, Farm Produce, Gardening, Reduce, reuse, recycle

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Phytophthora root rot fungus has been creeping through my poor raspberry patch for the past few years, wreaking its slow motion havoc on first one cane, then another. 

High soil moisture, something we have no shortage of around here, creates an ideal habitat for Phytophthora. It prefers heavy soil and slow drainage and its spores can swim from plant to plant through the soggy ground. In my patch, affected canes grow, set fruit, then wither away, their roots rotten. It really sucks.

I have two means of control, removing infected canes and improving drainage. This helps, but the patch is slowly declining. So this year, I decided to start fresh, and put in a new raspberry patch in a higher spot. I had to buy new canes, since mine are probably all infected, so I chose Phytophthora-resistant varieties, some summer fruiting and some everbearing, ordering them in January to be sure of supply. 

I’m planting them without disturbing the soil underneath, a regenerative gardening technique that we have good success with here. I lay down feed bags, pile RG’s precious compost high on top, and plant straight into it. The feed bags will rot, smothering the weeds and grass I laid them on top of first, and the raspberry roots will grow down into the earth, and all through the delicious compost. I will seed grass on the pathway bare spots, and as the grass grows between my bermed rows, I will mow it and use it as mulch. (I’m imagining broad emerald green pathways between fruit-laden hedges…can’t you just see it!?!)

It’s nice starting from scratch, having the opportunity to change what I don’t like about my old raspberry patch. I made the pathways between the rows good and wide so I can get a lawnmower around easily. This will provide plenty of elbow room for picking at harvest time too, my old patch is crowded and it’s hard to get down the rows and spot all the berries.

Deer and rabbits are plentiful here, so an effective barrier is a must have. I used metal posts that won’t rot in a few years like my old pencil posts did; some recycled from an old rain shelter and some good old t-bars that were lying around. DH kindly chopped the ends off some rusty bed frame rails for me, so I’m using those too. 

Metal hardware cloth or chicken wire works well to deter the bunnies. I went with the cloth this time, folding it so that half lies on the ground, skirting the entire border, and half climbs up the fence. I top this skirt with several feet of deer netting, zip tie it all together, and secure it to the ground with six inch landscape staples. That’ll keep the little buggers out.

The gate is half recycled 2×2 and chicken wire panel and half bent green willow, with zip tie hinges. No need for it to swing freely, it won’t see a lot of traffic. I still need to hang netting or something in the archway.

I planted my new raspberry canes the other day, and picked up two more today to fill the last two spots. If these do well, I shall put in two more rows next year or the year after, planting them up with suckers from whichever of my resistant varieties (Prelude, Nova, Killarney, Joan J and Honey Queen) do best. 

I have a few marionberries and a couple thornless blackberries well established  in my old raspberry patch along with my ailing raspberries, so if the new patch does well, I will let the marions and blacks take over the old one. Phytophthora doesn’t affect them. 

One of the gardening hacks I’ve learned over the years is to flow with the realities rather than struggle to make something thrive where it doesn’t really want to. If my old raspberry patch doesn’t want to grow raspberries any more, I won’t compel it to. In the garden as in life, persuasion is better than force.

A South-facing Barn

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Equines, Farm Improvements, Seasons, Weather

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In my experience, nothing beats a south-facing barn. On cold sunny winter days like today, with the snow blue and crunchy and the mud frozen into hard ridges underfoot, the morning sun rises at just the right angle to flood both stalls with sunshine right to the back wall. Lucky equines, to be snug and dry and munching breakfast while sunbathing.

In the summer the sun tracks much higher in the sky, and except in the very early morning the stalls, thanks to the roof’s overhang, are plunged into deep shade, a cool retreat from the heat of the day.

Our prevailing south westerlies and winter northerlies are well blocked by the barn’s design. In stormy weather, the big sliding barn doors may sway a bit in the wind, but they never slam open, or shut. The rain never blows inside the open stalls either. It’s the height of mud season right now, and except where our little desert flower donks have peed the stall floors remain dry as a bone. Resourceful and fastidious donks have set up their own temporary “indoor” pee spot, about 2 x 2 feet, which they use carefully and exclusively, so they can avoid putting even one dainty hoof on that horrible white stuff. They have a separate small spot where they deposit their manure. Good donks, this makes them easy to clean up after.

The loft stores upwards of 250 bales of hay and thanks to our new roof vent keeps it dry and mold-free year round – an impressive achievement in our wet west coast climate and a real money saver, since we can buy enough hay for the whole year at the peak of haying season and at its best price.

I don’t know if the builders were barn design experts, or if our barn’s functionality was just a happy accident, but either way, the almost fifty year old building still does its job beautifully. Over the past few years, it’s needed some restoration work, as well as a new roof, and it’s been money well spent and a job well done by our soon to be son-in-law. This morning, as I hung out enjoying the sunshine and listening to the equines contentedly munching their hay (such a peaceful sound), I once again quietly thanked whoever designed and built it. Form and function, this humble barn has it all.

My Covid Project

03 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in Chickens, Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Farm Produce

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Three weekends of satisfying work, and I am rewarded with a snazzy new rooster coop. The first residents seem delighted with their new digs. It may have been sparked by an uncomfortable night moving birds out of a crappy old chicken tractor, but this has in reality been my first big Covid project.

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Circling the wagons, improving infrastructure, provisioning the household,  increasing personal food security. This all brings me comfort and a sense of control in a world where normal looks a long way off.

I know it’s not just me. People everywhere are busy with Covid projects.  Starting new gardens, refurbing or enlarging old ones. Adopting new pets or expanding their livestock holdings (in our case, with ducks). Keeping sourdough starter and scobys, making kombucha and bread. Even Dear Husband turned out a few loaves.

I have to laugh at myself though. I only figured it out today, as I was sitting out there drinking lemonade, admiring my accomplishment. My tall, secure coop, with spacious roosts. My fully netted pen. My grassy 2500 square foot free range yard. Sure it works for roosters, but do you know what we actually have here? The perfect turkey setup.

I have considered turkeys for a few years now, and of course researched their needs thoroughly, on many a snug winter evening by the fire. An informed farmer makes for a successful farmer after all. But I never pulled the trigger on a turkey project because usually, one or another of my neighbours have birds available for the big three turkey-fuelled holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s much easier just walking down the road, handing over some cash, and toting home a delicious zero mile diet roaster. This year, neighbour S is raising them and I’ve already put my name in.

I honestly didn’t mean to build a turkey shed, so I have to have a good laugh at myself. I’m such a turkey sometimes. 😂  But I couldn’t have designed a place more suitable for raising turkeys if I had tried.  Even my subconscious is in prepping mode I guess.

Maybe  I can pick up some turkey eggs next spring, try to hatch a few, see how it goes. Something to muse on, this winter by the fire.
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Thirty 2x4s and a Weekend Later…

12 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Chickens, Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Farm Produce

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Time for a new rooster coop I decided, as once more I found myself crouching on hands and knees persuading reluctant, sleepy cockerels into transport crates. It was the night before freezer camp and I was crating up 2020’s first batch of winter chicken dinners.

The bachelor coop was still perfectly comfortable for its inhabitants, who stood an average of eighteen inches tall. For me though, at five foot seven, it was a little tight, and hard to clean, and after three years, starting to come apart at the seams. It had lasted pretty well for a recycled boxspring floor with plastic pipe studs and chicken wire walls, but I was ready to upgrade.

After conferring with Resident Gardener and Dear Husband, I decided that the rooster coop should stay in the secret field but move to the other side, tucked under a hedgerow for shelter, with its back to the rising sun (to help keep them quiet in the mornings). It should be big enough to walk upright into, for ease of cleaning and handling birds. And the doorway wide enough for a wheelbarrow.

A new fence and gate would let the young cockerels free range over the whole bottom half of the secret field, snacking on bugs and grazing, turning the secret field’s output into chicken. A new pen, attached to the coop, would give them somewhere to stretch their legs when they couldn’t free range.

With that vision in mind, I picked up 30 eight foot 2x4s and a role of half-inch hardware cloth on my Wednesday feed run, carried it all down to the job site on Thursday and Friday using the “grab a couple and take them with you every time you walk by” strategy and started construction Saturday morning.  A quick couple questions to my carpentry mentor DH and I began putting together the base. I only had a couple hours to spend on it though, Saturday is coop cleaning day and I had my regular chores to get done.

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Today I had no competing priorities, and was able to spend the bulk of the day down in the secret field, working on the coop. So much fun. I used up all but two of the 2x4s, and finished up most of the framing. My new rooster coop is looking pretty good so far if I do say so myself…

Fortress Blueberry

16 Saturday May 2020

Posted by in Equines, Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Farm Produce, Gardening, Reduce, reuse, recycle, Wildlife

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We all love blueberries around here, so two or three years ago I brought home a couple blueberry plants from the feed store, and planted them out near the pond in the Tarzan Tree field. We wrapped plastic netting around them, and left them to their own devices. They never did much, returning our almost-complete lack of attention with their almost-complete lack of fruit, the ultimate tit-for-tat.

Growing no less fond of blueberries as time went by, this year I doubled down tenfold. When the blueberry man posted his Facebook ad I answered it, and a couple weeks later ten nice blueberry bushes appeared in our driveway. I was going big.

Resident Gardener rolled her eyes a little bit at my folly, but she took half of them out to the Tarzan Tree field and planted them anyway. She had been giving my poor neglected blueberries some love, and a bit of pruning, and this year they actually had some flowers! When the five new ones went in, it seemed we had achieved an actual blueberry patch!

Fast forward a few weeks, and I’m looking for a new project since I now had the raspberry patch sorted. So when RG mentioned the bunnies had been getting at my new blueberry bushes, I went to check it out. Little buggers! Our jury-rigged plastic fence enclosure obviously wasn’t up to the job. The five plants she had set out were now half the size of the five she had transplanted into bigger pots and arranged beside the house until the fall rains came, when we would add them to the patch.

Well, here was my new project. I couldn’t have asked for a more clear wake-up call. I had a blueberry patch now, dammit. I wasn’t going to let those dang bunnies take out my blueberry patch!

Over the next few weeks, in spare minutes here and there, usually at the ends of long days, I would wander out to the blueberry patch and do a bit of work. I scavenged materials from all over the farm, a part-roll of chicken wire left over from coop construction, some rusty but solid t-posts donated by a generous neighbour, some slender eight-foot bamboo poles harvested last fall from our prized clump of black bamboo, and of course the yards and yards of six-foot plastic deer fencing that had enclosed the blueberries, useless against the bunnies but perfectly suited to stringing from bamboo poles to keep the deer out. I even had all the zip ties I needed. My only purchase was the white plastic t-post fence caps, to prevent clumsy horses impaling themselves.

Having researched effective bunny fences online, I started my install. Pounding in the posts to form a nice big enclosure was the easiest bit. Rolling out 70 feet of 4-foot chicken wire so I could fold up a border a foot wide all along, then rolling it up again and man-handling it over to where I had installed the t-posts, so I could unroll and fasten it along the fence line, was the trickiest bit.


Uninstalling and untangling, then reinstalling the plastic deer fencing RG had jury-rigged was the most time-consuming bit. Building the gate was the hardest bit, luckily Dear Husband came along just as I had finished the basic frame, pointed out it’s shortcomings, and pitched in to help correct it. A good teacher as always, DH more facilitated my build than took it over.

One of our big city pandemic refugees, a young man currently furloughed from Vancouver’s film industry, went after the weeds with a vengeance. He had almost the whole patch beautifully weeded in one afternoon. RG mulched along behind him, as I continued work on my fence.

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On Mother’s Day we finished our magnificent blueberry fortress. Almost. We will sheet mulch the grassy areas so they will be broken down and ready for the other five bushes in October. We may need to add some featherlight netting to cover the top before the berries ripen, to save them from the birds. RG thinks not. Her theory is that there are so many wild berries in our valley that ripen in August at the same time as blueberries, we may be ok. Time will tell. One thing for sure, those darned bunnies are going to have to go elsewhere for their blueberry fix now. Unless the little buggers can chew through chicken wire.

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Counting on Ducks

19 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Farm Produce, Gardening

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Early Friday morning I went for a drive along the quiet roads, my first outing in more than a week, to pick up a few Muscovy duck eggs from a pony-tailed young mom with a baby strapped to her chest. We did the Covid dance, she advancing and laying the egg carton on the ground, then retreating, then me moving forward to carefully pick it up with gloved hands and slide it into a bag. Swing your partner do si do.💃

I haven’t hatched duck eggs before. I tried once with eggs shipped from Manitoba, but none even started and the breeder graciously gave me a refund. So this should be interesting.

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We have been pondering ducks for a few years now, to help deal with our somewhat dire slug situation, but have never quite committed. This is because we know that ducks are talented mud generators, and we have quite enough mud in our valley already.  We also worry that they would destroy our lovely pond. But the garden is bigger and more important this year, and RG is tired of midnight slug hunts, so we’re finally ready to take the plunge.
Plus, we have a disaster readiness plan firmly in place. If it all goes sideways, we shall eat them, and thereby exact our vengeance. Apparently Muscovy meat is tasty, very lean, and red, with some gourmands comparing the breast meat to sirloin steak, or expensive ham. Not what one would expect from poultry.

A duck with secrets that only science can uncover.

A kind neighbour gave us the five foot t-bars we shall use to stand up their run, to be fashioned from a roll of welded page wire that was hanging around looking for a job. The old mobile rooster tractor, to be parked near the pond, will be their abode. Unlike other ducks, Muscovies like to perch, so the tractor should work well. First their brooder, then their coop, the rooster tractor will be the only home they will know. Hopefully, once they are grown, RG will be able to wheel them at night to wherever she needs help with slug control, let them out in the morning to do their work, and they will docilely go to bed in their tractor each night, safe from predators. This may be a bit of a pipe dream, we will find out eventually.

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Other than the fifteen bucks I spent on the eggs, we haven’t shelled out a dime so far. We will have to pick up some duck food I suppose, but that should be our total cash investment.

I am looking forward to ducklings, but I had better not count them before they hatch. To achieve my efficient feathered slug patrol, I have to get them out of their shells and raise them first.

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More Rain!

10 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in Equines, Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Seasons, Weather

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On top of January’s once-in-10-years rainfall accumulation, we got more than ten mm of rain a day in February until the 8th when the sun finally shone.  Our muddy valley is sopping, dripping wet. Keeping the barnyard crew comfortable (and thus healthy and thriving) is currently a very hard slog.

The farrier came last week and to our relief pronounced the equines’ feet to be in pretty good shape, better than most he’s seen recently. Lots of horses in our area are up to their fetlocks in mud and nowhere dry to stand. 😕

Luckily our hoofed creatures have a dry barn floor, as well as a high spot here and there in the paddocks to take refuge on. We’re hoping it will dry up enough that we can get the tractor in the paddocks to scrape the worst areas…but the rain keeps falling.  Maybe later this week, fingers crossed.

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We ALL enjoyed Saturday’s sunshine, and the sky (!) somehow a richer shade of blue than I remember. Washed clean I guess. Sunday morning we were back to steel-grey heavens, with a little sun in the afternoon.

Even my fully roofed chicken pens are soggy. I can’t count the number of mud-filled wheelbarrows I have sledged over squishy fields to dump on the poo pile. It’s sure a good workout!

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I’ve learned some tricks since those first few winters, when I literally had streams running through my chicken pens. All summer long I throw heaps of veggie garden thinnings etc. in the pens, giving the birds their own private compost pile nirvana while building up the ground litter. By winter, this high ground deflects the surface water run-off around the pens instead of through them. When the chickens track in enough water that the ground gets muddy, (it has to rain a LOT for this to happen) I can use my trusty Restore pitchfork to pry up and remove the top couple of inches of mud throughout the whole pen, revealing fairly dry soil underneath.  This year, I’ve already had to do this two or three times in each pen. I will have to stop soon though, the ground height is dropping, with actual puddles seeping up in a couple spots. Time to change strategy and start deploying pallets over the worst areas to keep my girls out of the muck.

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The dust baths are stocked full of dry peat moss and wood ash from the fireplace. The chickens LOVE it, more so in this weather of course. The ladies’ public baths are crowded! Some birds need a bit more care, developing pendulous mud balls on their chests that need clipping out, or rinsing if it’s warm enough and they can run around to dry. I have never, in all my years keeping chickens, had the pendulous-mud ball issue before. It just goes to show that there’s always something new with chickens.

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This weekend, I can feel spring just around the corner. The osoberry is beginning to flower, and the alder catkins are swelling. Soon they will be dropping everywhere, detonating on impact in little yelllow puffs of smoke, and my poor DH will be sniffling and closing windows.
Of course the winter-flowering hellebore and snowdrops have been blooming for a while now. I wonder if we will get another dump of snow before old man winter is finished with us? These last few years, snow in February has been a thing here. I guess we’ll find out soon enough!
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Water Line!

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in Equipment, Farm Improvements, Weather

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Yay, the winter water line is in! Frozen water lines are only an issue for a few short weeks each year here in our coastal muddy valley, so this low priority project has been years coming. Water on tap in the barnyard in all weather. What luxury!

DH dug a trench using his own invention clamped on the end of his tractor arm thingy. Then RG took over, putting the final touches on the narrow trench, running and insulating the line then burying it, installing the tap and building it a snug insulated box for shelter.

Now it’s over to me to pick up some quick release hose connections. When a cold snap threatens, the plan is to detach the main feed, drain the water from the hose ends, close up the box and in the frosty morning hopefully find a working tap in the barnyard, right where it is needed.

This will be so much better than hauling heavy sloshing buckets of water all the way from the house! I love labour-saving barnyard devices. They leave more time for pure enjoyment.