It's harvest time. I left the garlic in too long this year. I did a better job with not watering as they were hardening off but left them in about a fortnight too long. This resulted in a lovely treasure hunt but I think I got most of them. This was a wee portion of the harvest - such fun. I'd just been away for a week at a Master Dyer's retreat (more on that later) and worried about all of my crops with the encroaching cold, especially this little beauty: I'm so excited to have a fair few proper squashes and really hope I'm able to get them to ripen. The weather has warmed a little again so... fingers crossed. Next year, tomatoes and squashes and the like are going in about a month earlier and going to be covered at the start of the season as well. Will it help? Who knows but it will be a worthy experiment. In other news... later, I think actually. I have so much going on and so many announcements but they'll have to wait. Sorry folks, there are no babies for sale at this time. Thanks to everyone who's messaged me with requests. I don't think we're going to be breeding next year. If you're still looking, do drop me a line and I'll send you in the direction of some great goat producers. I don't know what it's like where you here but here, we're in a straw/hay crisis. Fortunately, I have enough hay to get me through the year and likely well into next year as well. Straw, not so much. Usually I pay $3 per bale for straw. This year I paid $8. Per bale. Per light, not quite the usual bale bale. Ouch. So I bought four instead of 24 like I usually would. And then I went back and bought more. I think I'm up to something like 12. I know that people are thinking this dry, dry, dry weather is an anomaly but I can't help but be worried. I was out digging bulbs today and I could not believe how dry it was. So while it's beautiful and we've never had more stunning autumn colours: It's still bloody spooky. So, to be prepared, I'm going to be spending some time this winter researching alternatives to straw as bedding. I hope this weather is a fluke but as we've still seen next to know rain it's bone dry about foot deep, it's hard to imagine what next year could be like. Especially if we don't get the snowpack we need.
So far I've only branched out into trying pine chips but an $11 bale didn't go nearly as far as the straw. I'd say about half as far which is why I went and bought a bunch more straw. Ah, farming. Well, in spite of my best efforts, I've given in to my habit. And yes, another goat came home. He's just young but shows great promise. He comes out of spectacular dairy and temperament bloodlines, and we love him already.
I cannot wait to see his babies! So, it's a bit of a "you win some, you lose some" time for us. In addition to the saga of the phone (I finally have a replacement), our beloved Freyja-cat has disappeared. We're still hopeful but as she's a wily sort, realistically, something's probably gotten her. We don't often lose cats up here but, the orange ones seem to have the most trouble. Funnily enough, the morning we realized she really was gone, we found a surprise waiting for us. As you already know, I'm not a fan of interfering with nature but in this case, the babies were scooped from mum. She's a muscovy and they're chicks and we've already seen the results of mama ducks thinking their chicks should participate in swimming lessons... So, we've stepped in.
So, sad but as always, we're reminded that there truly is a cycle of life. So, as we slid closer to the other side of summer gardening season, new questions start to crop up. One I have been asked about is... how do you know when to harvest your potatoes? Especially when they look like this: I mean seriously - how can you see those blooms and not be thinking... can I eat these yet? Such a good question - how do we know our potatoes are ready for eating? So, you probably planted your potatoes much earlier this year. Don't know much about growing potatoes? Let's start there then. You'll want to plant seed potatoes, rather than just grocery store ones, even organics. I've found that even with the organic ones (the non-organics are treated to keep them from sprouting), the yield isn't great and sometimes the potatoes never really get big. So, consider purchasing some seed potatoes from a reputable provider. You can't (I think) ship potatoes across the border so buy from your own country. Ideally, you'd want to get them well before it's time to plant. That way, you can chit them well in advance of planting. I've seen two explanations of chitting -one is to just let them be in a light place and grow long shoots; the other is when you cut them into quarters and let the sides harden a bit before planting. Either way, get them well before planting, and place them in an egg carton with the most eyes up. By the way the side with the most eyes is called the rose. So, plant them rose side up. Once they eyes have grown to about an inch long, plant them out according to your local calendar and their variety - there are earlies, mids, and lates. Smart planters want all three :) And yes they're a bit sensitive to frost but you can mitigate that by covering them in a bit of row cover. So, you can plant them a few ways. You can plant them old school - in depressions that allow you to mound up soil around them as they grow. Or newer school - in a container. Either way, adding dirt as they grow up will mean more potatoey deliciousness for you. Continue to water regularly and mound up the soil.
With earlies, you can start digging (carefully - use your hands not a shovel) for new potatoes once you see the blooms fully open and definitely once they're dropping off. The longer you wait, the larger the potatoes get. With maincrops (as the mids- and lates are called) you're supposed to wait until the foliage starts to turn yellow and gives up. And then 10-14 days after that (depends on who you ask) you can lift them. I am not the best at keeping track of which type is which so I'm often scrabbling around the base of the plants once the blooms are visible. Also - I love potatoes and by the time they're blooming, I'm so excited that I just need to eat some fresh from the garden. If you aren't going to devour them straight away, you're best to leave them sitting out to dry before storing. This helps to harden the skin and preserve them. Best ways to eat potatoes? I love new potatoes boiled and then tossed with a bit of butter and fresh herbs from the garden. I also love potatoes roasted, baked, and mashed. I just love them and that's all there is to say about that. I have so appreciated the notes sent through the contact us page but there are two themes emerging that I would like to address. Conveniently, they relate to each other. The first is: I think you're advocating for simpler, sustainble living but it's such hard work. The answer is: yes, it is. I am so tired of blogs and webpages that promote this lifestyle as a "grow the flour to have your cake and eat it too" kind of lifestyle. It's just not that. What's happening because so many resources are making it look simple is people jump in with both feet and not looking, buy goats, and chickens, and land with the plan to live off it. That's great, if it works. More and more and more people I know are doing this rapid fire downshift in an upsizing way and it's actually hurting them. I think it's got some big implications for the planet as well, and I know it's got implications for the animals they're purchasing. So yes, this lifestyle is hard work. You have to be up to feed goats whether or not you feel like, chickens also need to be fed, coops need to be cleaned, gardens weeded. It really doesn't stop. For some of us, it's like a vocation. It's not that we walk around the farm with our halo firmly intact, we bitch and moan and grumble but if you've drunk the Kool Aid (as it were) chores aren't 'Chores'. I think the work aspect is the thing that people comment on the most - that and the cuteness of the goats. It's like somehow they think I don't know this is hard work. The hardness of it is also the thing I have started commenting on the most too. It's not that I want to discourage people because I think if we all adopted a bit of this lifestyle, we could manage a lot of change; it's just that I think the repercussions of people leaping in are too high. I used to tell people about the jobs - like kidding/lambing season where you wake up and there are babies running around playing. I didn’t really get into the three sleepless weeks when I still had to parent and go to work and be able to make good decisions. I also didn’t tell them about the heart ache of losing babies, especially when you think maybe it was something that could have been prevented if you’d just… I didn’t tell them about the times when your whole family is down with the pukey flu and you still have to drag your butt out of bed to feed and secure animals. Or the ‘OMG, how I am paying for this vet bill. Thank Dog I still have an ‘off the farm’ job’ moments. Or the nights when a cougar steals one of your goats because you forgot you no longer have a Pyr to keep them safe so you don’t lock them up… and you’re supposed to be travelling an hour and a half away to a family birthday supper. Your Reluctant Goatherd spends the day building building building and when you all get home, at midnight, he’s building, building, building some more. Or when you’re running late to get to work and fling open the door to the coop only to find that the reason your dog kept you up with barking (that you wished would stop but instead of letting him out to do his work, you kept telling him to shut up and went back to sleep because you were so tired) was because a bob cat managed to sneak into a hole in the coop and have a duck party. Now you have about a dozen dead and dying ducks, as well as a few chickens to deal with. And you were already running late. So, your teen aged son deals with the euthanasia while you finish sobbing/getting ready for work. And then your husband is home that night when it manages to be both wet and -20*C and is redoing the soffits (or facia, I never know) of the coop so there will be no more bobcat predation. On when you’ve just rung in New Years with friends and family and you spend the next evening trying to keep a dying goat alive. And then you spend the next day packaging up the body to send to the Provincial et because no one can figure out why he (or his brother) died but sister is fine. It’s not that I want to talk you off this path, if I did, I wouldn’t bother with this blog. It’s just that while the Lamb Olympics and Gambolling Goats and Cute Chicks are such a a wonderful reality, so are these things. And these are the things that seem to catch people by surprise. That and the hauling of hay (and water, unless you’re super fancy which I am not) and so on and so on.
I think those of us who write about and advocate for this style of living are partly to blame. We’ve sheltered far too many of you from the flip side of it all because we were SO EXCITED and SO COMMITTED but it’s not the right way to go about it. When I read articles like this one I am seriously surprised. You were shocked that doing things you've previously outsourced would take time and effort? Really? There is a reason that the whole agrofood complex has been able to suck most of us in. Because growing and preserving your own food is damn hard work. But the pay offs are huge too and every time I think I’m going to throw in the towel (and my husband starts doing the happy dance -he tries not too but…) I just can’t. That leads me to the second theme emerging from the “contact us” notes. How do you do it? Where do I start? What do I do? I do not recommend that you read a few books or blogs and go from an urban environment never having raised your own food in any real way to opt out and come to a rural area to "live off the land". Can it be done? I think it could but not by just anyone. I have had more phone calls and emails over the years from people who did just that and couldn't I take their goats/chickens/ducks/rabbits/cows/whatever because it turns out you need money to live (especially if you've made no changes to your lifestyle) and animals really get in the way of taking holidays and and and. I don’t recommend starting off with chickens or goats or livestock guardian dogs or any of those other things that can seem like a super cute and awesome idea (and it is) until you’re stuck with the reality. I do recommend that you give some thought to what is drawing you to the lifestyle and work back from there but start off small. Maybe start off making your own jam one year and maybe plant a very small garden with stuff you would like (like a salad pot with greens and cherry tomatoes). Make your own laundry soap (yep, instructions to follow), just start cooking a meal entirely from scratch one or two nights per week. There are so many ways to get started and I hope you do it in a way that works for you. It’s no good to try to be sustainable in a way that’s not sustainable for you. |
AuthorI'm a 40-something writer and smallholder living in the wilds of BC with my family, our small herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. Archives
August 2017
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