watering the cattle

For right now, this is how we have been watering our Galloway cattle. We go through about a tank every three days more or less depending on the weather. We have installed a frost-free hydrant, but until the pressure tank is hooked up and the plumbing completed we continue to haul water.

A quick straw-bale house update

We were planning on having a stucco party this coming weekend. People are just so darn busy these days and we were afraid that we were not going to have enough people so we have gone ahead and hired a professional stucco guy. This has greatly alleviated our stress about this particular process. It just never really seemed right to me to ask our friends and family to come help with the stucco. Everybody has their own lives to live and I couldn't help but feel intrusive.

Thanks to those who did offer to help though!! If anyone is still interested in coming for a visit to see how things are done, by all means drop me an e-mail and I can give you directions to the farm. I realize that there are some people who would like to see a straw-bale house being built. If we can accommodate those people without impacting our schedule or adding to our already insane pace then we will!

The stucco wire is currently being installed by our straw bale contractors. Hopefully we will be stuccoing this weekend!

rain and rainwater harvest

We have not had a sunny day yet this September. It has been just a little ridiculous actually. It will stop raining just long enough to get at least a little dry and then it showers again for a few hours. Day after day of gloomy, wet, damp misery. At least that is the way I am looking at things right now while the harvest waits to be started. I ended up buying another swather last week. It is an old Versatile 400 that is in nice shape. So, while we wait for things to dry up, the work on the house continues.

Late last week we installed our cistern behind the house. We purchased a large tank (4100 gallons) and we will use it for our domestic water needs. We will also use this tank as a catchment for rainwater from the steel roofs of the house, the garage and the shop. The rainwater will go through a filter and first-flush system before it enters the tank. From there the water will enter the house and go through our distiller for drinking and cooking. It will go through an ordinary filter element for the other household uses like laundry and bathing. From time to time we will likely need to fill the cistern with city water from the nearby filling station.

As you can see, the hole for the tank was huge! That is an 8' ladder leaning up against the wall of the trench. It was interesting to see the different layers of soil that extends that deep underground. That black patch to the left of the ladder is actually a very small deposit of coal. We also unearthed some big pieces of granite that are quite beautiful. We will use those for some landscaping accents here and there.

ready to sell beef

For four years now we have been growing our little herd of Galloway cross cattle and experimenting with different pastures and processing, and even a couple different breeds of cattle. Overall, we have been very happy with the beef that we have produced. It was when we butchered our first Galloway though that we really knew we had something great to offer people. I have never been a big proponent of healthful, grass-fed beef to be honest with you. My experience of grass-fed beef came about in the 90's with the influx of New Zealand beef in the grocery stores....ughh, it was inedible. But, Cindy kept on and on about grass-fed beef and how healthy it was and we did a lot of research on different ways to make it taste nothing at all like NZ pasture raised beef. Thank goodness.

The beef we are producing now is so good that I find going to a restaurant to order a steak a complete waste of time. Juicy is the first word that comes to mind with our Galloway beef. Even well done, as my parents prefer their steaks, it is very succulent. There is a slightly different beef taste, but it is in the same way that our pastured pork is different...it is amazingly different! It tastes like beef!

So, now we have one steer ready to process this fall. One and only one. We will need some beef for our own freezer but I have decided to offer the other half to potential customers in the form of sampler sized Beef Boxes. These will be approximately 50lbs each and will be comprised of a variety of steaks, premium lean ground and roasts. Trust me, you will want the roasts! Amazing.

We will keep the cuts on the small size in order to give everyone as many different cuts as possible to try out. Next year, we will have at least two full steers to process and that beef will be available in bulk and cut to your exact specifications. Prices for next year will be determined later.

So, if you care to try some Galloway, grass-fed beef that has been grow using Organic standards please check out our Beef Sales page and give us a call. We can deliver in mid-november to a central location in Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary. There will be very few of these boxes available for 2010. No need to send money now, just call to order and ask me any questions you like and bring a cheque with you on the delivery date that we set.

John

more good news

For the first time in history wild plants with modified genes have been discovered in North America. This is exactly what opponents of gene modification have been warning about and it is only the beginning of our tribulations with gene modification.

http://organicalberta.org/news/first-wild-canola-plants-with-modified-genes-found-in-united-states

what the?

This post is going to fall under the "if you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention" addage. I am not sure how I stumbled across this company Cascadian Farms, but I did and it sure caught my eye. I was thinking what a tremendous job they had done on their site, what great marketing and professionalism. Then I looked at their vast array of prepared food products and the supposed location of the farm. I also noticed the subtle wording in the farm's description. The farm is situated on 28 acres yet they sell an amazing selection of products around the entire United States? Something wasn't adding up. I did a few searches and came across this...

Cascadian Farm, a Sedro-Woolley, WA-based unit of Small Planet Foods, in turn under the ownership of General Mills Inc., has launched Cascadian Farm Organic Chewy Granola Bars. The three-variety line features Fruit & Nut, a mix …

It just goes to show that consumers need to be aware of where they buy their products from and to what extend the huge Monsanto's of the world will go to trick you into buying their products. I cannot imagine that many busy moms are out shopping and have the time to look up who actually owns Cascadian Farms. So there you go. Now I guess this isn't horrible. The products are organic, but these huge companies that are now in the organic food market are the ones that lobby and pressure governments to reduce the requirements to become organic. General Mills, with their vast resources of money will be the first ones in line to have organic certification requirements relaxed so that their "farms" can become ever more profitable. 

All I ask is that people please support your local farmers wherever practical. Nothing good in this world comes from big-business...that's about all I know for sure. 

heritage barley trials

This year, with the move and everything, I was only able to plant two very small plots of heritage grains. They are both barley varieties. The top picture is the Tibetan Barley. It did remarkably well this year. The heads are full and it stood up well to some of the downpours and high winds we experienced. If this were in a large field, it would have yielded very well indeed.

The barley below is Purple Barley. I believe it is also of Tibetan decent. It did not perform nearly as well as the Tibetan. The heads are small, short. The kernels look nice and plump though and are indeed purple. It doesn't show up in the picture, but you can see the purple colour within the hull. As you can see it did lodge quite a bit in the summer storms. If this crop was in a larger field, it would not look very good at all and would be difficult to harvest. I am encouraged to keep up with the trials of the Tibetan variety. I will also propagate the purple stuff and see if I can't get a better variety over the years.

beautiful morning in the pasture

I missed the best light this morning, it was just beautiful though. Quite chilly at 8C, but the cows were lounging; quietly chewing cud and resting for a day of grazing. Skipper was giving me the stink eye in this picture. I am always a little cautious around him. These are his girls after all and I can imagine him getting aggressive when called upon. I always get after him when he postures to me, but I would always prefer to avoid a confrontation if given the choice. Skipper belongs to friends of ours, but he has spent a good portion of his life with our little herd. We take care of him and share him with another bigger cattle farmer in exchange for his services. Bulls are dangerous animals...we've been to rodeos and have seen what they are capable of. The white faced cow belongs to friends of ours and is on our farm with her 2009 calf. We have tons of pasture and hay so we offered to take care of them this year while they fix fencing. Our friends live in an acreage subdivision and only have the two cows.

This is "Henny". She is the first cow we ever owned. Henrietta is now almost 8 years old I believe, but she is in tremendous health and always delivers us a healthy calf. We have never attended any of her calving events. Henny is a Galloway/Highland cross. One of the calves in the picture is hers...I think it is the closest one. The back one belongs to my favorite cow "Missy". Henny's calves are always the psychos of the herd...constantly escaping whenever the chance presents itself and wild. Missy on the other hand, along with her calves, are very placid and tame...the labotomized cattle. They always come up for a back scratch and are very affectionate. Missy's 2009 calf is "Miley" and she will be bred by Skipper this year. This year both Henny and Missy had bull calves...lots of meat in the freezer next fall. 

trusses on...almost

We have one more day of work left to install the trusses. As you can see most of them are in place. Double hurricane straps will be installed on each end of all trusses and the end trusses need to be installed. Hopefully, the sheathing will commence tomorrow so we can stop worrying about rain! We have the bale walls tarped as well as we possibly can, but there is still an uneasy feeling whenever we hear the tapping of rain on our trailer roof.

Yesterday we had friends of ours drop off their two cows to be bred by the bull "Skipper". He arrived last week and immediately started to show off for the girls. A whole lot of bellering and pawing of dust...it was quite a show. Then the neighbors cows and bulls took notice and for two days and nights at least they were bawling and moaning to each other. Luckily, they are separated by almost half a mile. Otherwise there would have been wrecked fences and cowtastrophe.

straw bale raising pictorial

Here some pictures from this past weekend. The bale walls look  fairly wonky prior to the top plate going on. Once the top plate is installed and the tensioning takes place the walls are rock solid and level and plumb. Today, the guys are busy tensioning the walls and preparing the walls to accept the trusses.

Below, you can see Lorie busy tying custom length bale for the spaces in the walls that require off-sized bales.

Cousins Mike and Brett busy at the "Bale Raising".

Pounding 3' bamboo stakes...2 per bale. Holy Fred Flinstone impersonation!

Below shows the walls at the beginning of the tensioning stage. At only 10% tension, the walls were noticeably solid and much straighter. Full tension will make them rock solid and then 2" of concrete inside and out will make the house like a bunker.

I have skipped a lot of detail. If you have any questions, please post a comment. Thank you for reading my blog. Cheers!

straw bale raising pending!

Well, it looks as though everything will be in place for us to be able to have our "strawbale raising" party this weekend. Work is still underway with the base building assembly and the top building assembly and the window and door bucks. That should be completed by Friday. The actual bales are scheduled to go up on Saturday and Sunday. We seem to have a good amount of help at the ready so it will be a lot of fun to have friends and family actually helping with the construction of our new home. We will be sure to take plenty of pictures and maybe some video of the event. It will look like a different place by this time next week! Stay tuned.

summer hail = plow down

Almost all of our organic buckwheat was lost to hail in this one field. It is too bad, because I have a good market for buckwheat and this was worth some money. On the plus side though, this field will be much cleaner next year due to the summer fallow work that we are now forced to do. Here the little IH 766 is hooked up to the small JD disc and we are almost finished working under the buckwheat. The rye on the right looks untouched by hail. Buckwheat is apparently extremely susceptible to hail damage and is not insurable.

summer 2010 crop tour - peas

These are Certified Organic Peas. These peas were sown into this field with the hopes of being a clean crop that we could harvest. Worst case scenario would have been that they came up dirty with weeds and we would have plowed them in as a legume plow-down. They came up beautifully though and it will be a bumper crop of peas for us. They will be used for human consumption in Split Pea Soup or Pea Butter or used for other organic farmers who need organic pea seed for next spring.

summer 2010 crop tour - oats

A nice crop of organic oats for 2010. Actually, these oats will be considered "transitional" oats as the land that they are grown on is not yet certified organic. They are being grown organically, but it takes three years to transition the land into Certified Organic status. A very nice crop for this year...these are "Rodney" Oats.

construction update end of july

So here is where we were at with construction of our straw bale house at the end of July, 2010. As you can see the garage has been up for some time now. All of our household stuff is being stored in there and it fits! That means that we have downsized all of our crap that we feel we no longer require in our lives. Stuff that bogs us down and certainly has no place in our new house which will be half the size of our old place. I still cannot get over what a good feeling it is to simplify things even just a little.

As you can see the slab is prepped and the plumbing is in place for our hot water heating system and potable water. As I type this on August 3 the concrete has been poured and materials are on-site for the wall construction to commmence this week. I will post some pics of that process. This is where it finally gets a little interesting and begins to look like something a little out of the ordinary. 

At the start of the bale assembly construction, the measurements are taken on the slab and the wood bale bearing assemblies (BBA) are constructed. Next, the window and door bucks are built. Towards the end of the week, the bales will be delivered and the final plans will be made to build the walls by placing bales. This all has to be timed for good weather, the arrival of the trusses and the crew to roof the house. Once the bale walls are in place, they cannot get wet! 

time for a holiday

Back in the beginning of July we had a chance to get away for a few days. The Boy had a volleyball camp in Jasper, Alberta and so we stayed at a local campground while he spent his days playing volleyball in town. It was great fun to just hang out and do nothing much. We spent some time at the Miette Hot Springs, did some sight-seeing and some shopping and just tried to relax a bit. I thought you might enjoy some pictures of Alberta.

we're still farming too you know...

Even though all of our efforts seem to be focused on building the new farm we still have farming activities ongoing. The cows have all calved out now...for us that only means three of them. But still, it is the beginning of our little herd of Galloways. This year we lost the first calf...from our heifer. We simply lost him...looked for days. The other two, more experienced cows had no problems and delivered two healthy boys. These two along with our 1 year old steer mean that we have no short supply of beef in the coming years. Right now our freezer is empty and he is starting to look mighty tasty out in our pasture. The two little guys are very cute and now that they are around a week old you can see them playing with each other from the distance. Running and bucking and driving moms nuts with their head butts to the udder at feeding time. Calving season is a fun time of year for us. 

We are also still producing wheat berries and flour on a weekly basis. I love this picture. This is what I view on a regular basis as I get told what I am doing wrong. It looks like Mrs. S is giving me a piece of her mind...I forget what she was talking about, but she wasn't angry. You can see the mill in the background and our little milling room where we mill flour and weigh and package. It is actually a relaxing activity away from the tedium of building and planning. Here, Cindy is just applying the labels to the bags that I have filled and sealed. 

What the heck is going on?

Well...where do I start? Not posting in a month with as busy as we are leaves me wondering how to even begin. Firstly, the weather has be horrible. Rain. Rain. Rain. The hay isn't cut yet and we will surely do without a second cut now as it is so late in the season. The house construction has been progressing at a rate of zero because we didn't have blueprints until very recently but now we are finally underway. I received a call from the county that the permit was ready for pickup just now as I was typing! YAAAYYY! Actually, today is the first actual day of the house construction.

So far we have the yard and driveway built, the power lines installed and the garage built. The cows are out in their pasture that is as lush as I have ever seen a pasture around here. Grass over their heads in places! Today was the first time that the gravel truck could get into our property with additional gravel to get rid of the mud around the garage and yard.

We are living in our holiday trailer in the yard battling mud and rain. We are happy though. Actually, it is kind of novel to live in a trailer like that. When we want to go away for the weekend, we literally hook up our home to the truck and drive to a lake or the mountains or wherever. So far we have spent a week in Jasper when our son was in a volleyball camp and last weekend we spent at a nearby lake where we tested our our new-to-us boat...that was a blast.

I will have some additional pictures to show you all soon.

June 14

Gosh it has been eating at me that I haven't updated the blog for so long. I really enjoy my blogging, but you can probably understand the pressure that I have been going through lately with the spring farm work and moving the farm...along with the other normal family related requirments. I have some pictures and video of what has been going on for the past month or so. I'll try to post those in the next day or two.

First of all "the move"...we have been going gangbusters with trips out to the new farm for the past several weeks. When the grain truck is available between seeding gigs we load it up with furniture, boxes and other assorted junk that is too valuable to just toss. We also have another little utility trailer that Cindy can pull with her CRV. On top of that we loaded up our horse trailer and borrowed my SIL's big stock trailer. Trips are made to the property while Cindy sometimes stays behind to continue loading the next trailer or truck. It has been going well and we actually have 60-70% of our stuff moved. We have to be out of our house on the 25th of June.

Farm work...that has been going well also. No breakdowns so far. The peas were seeded first in late May. That took a day. Then we moved and seeded the oats...that took two days. Then we moved again and seeded the wheat in another day. Yesterday I started seeding the Buckwheat but ran out of fuel and had to quit around 7:30. This was after a very long day of moving furniture and moving equipment and a few minor repairs of the seed drill. I just didn't have the energy to go get more fuel. I will finish seeding the buckwheat tonight after work and after a stop at the fuel station.

That, in a nutshell, is my life lately.

Construction Update - April 26

Not a whole lot has changed lately. I met with the guy who is performing the dirt work this morning. His name is Ed Budzinsky and is actually a schoolmate of mine from Bon Accord. Good guy. We met today to finalize my wishes for the yard. There isn't much left to do...just touch up the driveway a little and expand the yard area where the house is to be located. We needed this area a little larger to accomodate the house and a circular driveway that will be on the east side of the house. This circle will allow guests an easy way to get in and out of our yard without having to backup...a skill that seems to elude a lot of people for some reason? Anyways, this will make it easy for grandma to come for a visit and it will also be easier for me to clear snow with the tractor. I can simply drive around in a circle instead of moving back and forth back and forth.

The gravel for the driveway has been ordered and tomorrow it will be delivered. The grader will still be on-site finishing the dirtwork along the ditches and putting a finishing touch on what is spread by the gravel truck.

Today I also approved the electrical line installation to the yard site. It only cost $270 and I get that back in the form of a government grant so that is a good deal. I will meet with the Fortis installation foreman sometime in the next few days and let him know where I want the lines and he will let me know if that works for him. Not quite sure what to expect for a timeline on installation.

Mrs. Schneider ordered the garage package today also. We ended up ordering the garage package from UFA instead of Totem...it was cheaper. We decided to go with regular form of construction for the garage as opposed to a strawbale building. It will go up faster and easier and then we will have a place to start storing household items from our current house.

The development permit and garage construction permit were approved last week so we are good to start building something. The plans for the house are still underway with the designer/architect/engineer...but they should be ready within the next two weeks.

Busy, busy, busy.

Auction notes

I enjoy going to farm auctions. There is a very real excitement, or for lack of a better term "high" that comes when you bid on something. Even if it is a $20 box of cultivator shovels my heart starts beating heavily in my chest as I bid. The adrenelin rushes a bit and I get a little shaky holding up my number on the bid card for the auctioneer to read once I win something. Of course, the amount of shakiness is directly proportional to how much money I have just spent.

When I attend auctions I tend to just hang back and see what's out there and if the item is something that I could use, I try to come up with a limit of what I would pay for it and still consider it a "deal" that I would brag about later at the coffee shop. That is sort of my gauge for purchasing items at auction. It's funny but you never hear about how someone over paid for something at auction do you? Most people must have the same sense of guidelines for auction bidding that I do.

Every now and then though I attend an auction for a specific item that I really want to acquire. Be it a nice, shedded tractor with low hours and a fresh engine or a combine with similar features. These are the auctions where a little strategy comes in to play and the nerves are weakened just a bit. Usually, in this case what I try to do is stay out of the bidding just to see who the players are. Hopefully, the item I want is late in the auction and I have had a chance to get to know the crowd...who has the money, who is buying what. I watch for who is going over the equipment I want as the auction proceeds. Usually, the people that want to bid on something go over it with a fine tooth comb. I try to get to know the equipment prior to the auction. Almost always, you can phone the farmer and make time to go look at the tractor ahead of time. Sometimes, I already know the farmer and how he takes care of his stuff.

Now when the tractor is finally up for bid, I let a few guys bid it up and I see who really wants it. I try to let them bid up a few times and wait to see who drops out. I already know how much I am willing to spend so I try to get into the bidding near my limit, but still low enough to bid a few times. When I bid, I bid very fast and with extreme confidence trying to send a message that this tractor is mine no matter how high you want to bid against me. Of course I am not always successful and maybe I am bidding against someone who wants the equipment as bad as I do and he has more money to spend, or set his limit higher, or has no idea what it is truly worth. I bid up to my limit and hope that I have bluffed him out of trying to bid against me any further. If he bids again, I shake my head and walk out...letting the auctioneer know I am "out".

It also pays to pay attention to what the auctioneer is saying at an auction. I almost always attend auctions alone so I don't get chatty cathy and I try to stay focused on the details of the item being bid. A perfect example of this was this weekend when a typical fuel tank and stand went up for bid. I needed a tank and stand and these looked no different than any other setup. I was willing to spend up to $230 for the bid. Then the auctioneer said something curious...that the tank was full of diesel fuel! The bidding started and a few guys started throwing bids. I quickly made a calculation that the fuel in the tank was worth around $900 and that the tank and stand itself would be around $250. The bidding was slowing down at $400 and so, with three successive quick nods of my head, I had won $1150 worth of stuff for $475! When I returned to the auction site later in the afternoon to fill up my tidy tank with cheap fuel, a fellow auction attendee drove past me with his winnings and commented that he didn't know it was full of fuel...should've been paying more attention shouldn't he?

I said earlier that people don't mention the stuff they overpaid for? Well at the same auction, I let emotions get a hold of me and I ended up paying too much for a really nice set of harrows. They are worth more than I paid, but I probably could've waited for another auction and got a similar piece of equipment for less. Oh well...the best laid plans.

Cheers!

New Farm Construction - Day 3

Just getting finished up on the rough shaping of the driveway and yard. Next will come the grader, packer and then finally the gravel. It is starting to look like a farmyard already...well, not really I suppose. But, it is easy enough for me to envision how things will look when complete.


Rain in the forecast for the next 3 days. We need it so bad it isn't funny. There are over 60 wildfires burning in Alberta today...more than 4 times the normal for April. This is ridiculous. Whoever says that the climate isn't changing has their head in the sand. When I see the rains in the midwest and central prairies, the droughts along the foothills. The intensity of winter storms along the east. Seems pretty obvious to me that things are more volatile and changing fast.

New Farm Construction - Day 1

Here is a quick video on what our property looks like after Day 1. Here is the Cat D6 dozer building the driveway. He is stripping the topsoil out of the way, then he will wing the clay back up onto what will become the roadbed. After that, the topsoil will be replaced into the ditches and spread out evenly.
I will update on a regular basis the progress with construction. I am betting that this is going to be the boring part of construction for most of you. Everyone I know, is anxious to see the strawbale house be erected. It is very exciting for us though to see the differences in the property each and every day.

Ok...time to update

Sorry that it has been a while since I updated the blog. Here is what is happening. We have found our property and closed on the deal; we have started the process of getting the blueprints drawn; the permits have all been applied for; construction of the driveway and yard have started! This is all great news for us as we have been trying to sell our current location for almost 2 years.

Farming activities have also begun for 2010. It is another hot, dry spring and we are all quite afraid of the fact that another drought year is imminent. We have spent a few days now breaking or should I say re-breaking some hay land. Last year it was broke and seeded in wheat but the wheat did not germinate and the alfalfa simply overtook it. It is a little easier to break this year and hopefully we will get a good kill on the alfalfa so that whatever moisture remains available to the grain seed.

Other than that, we are busy with the multitude of planning activities that go along with constructing a new home and running a certified organic grain operation. Our flour mill is up and running too! I almost forgot to mention that. We are currently selling flour through Eat Local First in Edmonton and will begin to get our products into retail stores like Homegrown Foods in Stony Plain and others.

We have decided to forego with the decision to sell our products at farmers markets for this summer. It is just too busy of a year for us to add another project to our plates.

still planning

We are very busy in the planning stages of our new farm. Currently we are looking for suitable land in the area that we have selected and for a suitable price! That is part of our frustration right now...prices. Here we are in the middle of year two of a pretty sizable economic downturn and people are still asking the same prices for land that they were two years ago during the boom. We found a beautiful quarter section in a prime location for a very reasonable price of $2,200 per acre. We made the mistake to think that we shouldn't act on the first piece of land that we come across and in our delay, another offer was made on the parcel. All the while we have been seeing prices that are at least $1000 more per acre than what this guy was asking. The first offer is conditional upon financing, so we are assuming that somebody wouldn't make an offer unless they were certain they could get the bank to agree. Our offer would be unconditional, but since it is a private deal with a farmer instead of a real estate agen, he wants to honour his verbal agreement with the first guy instead of taking our offer. Understandable.

I dont' want to mention the area we are looking at yet, but we have checked out the school and it is near family and still very close to Edmonton. We are still very excited to get to our new farm and start over!

We will keep looking but we are feeling anxious. Our consultant on the off-grid, strawbale house does not want to commence with design until we have secured the land. So, we need to get the land in order to start the process of drawings and other 'house' issues. We are not in a panick yet, just a little edgey.

As far as the house plans are concerned I think that we have settled on a design that we like. We are simply going to re-create our current house except only the main level. We currently live in a 1500 sq. ft. walkout that we designed and built 10 years ago; and over the years we have often discussed that the entire basement level is pretty much unneccessary. Our current basement is fully finished and we are down there often watching tv or whatever, but it is at the expense of upstairs being completely empty! So, we are going to stick with the devil we know and simply build a single level, strawbale version of our own home. I will take a picture of the plans and post them here sometime next week. You guys can give us your opinions on the plans at that time.