Midsummer

Am I crazy to be thinking of winter coming already?

I don't care, there's lots to get done before the snow flies!
There's about 2 months before the first frost, which is quite a while for the garden to fully grow up. I've got fence to build, water tanks to bury, and many other miscellaneous things to get done, but what else is new???

GARDEN
We got the very first harvest a few days ago, about a cupful of snow peas were ready for picking, and there are more growing on the three plants that I've got. I believe that I may allow the rest of the pods to fully mature and dry out, which will give me seeds for next year. The rest of my garden is well into it's summer growth, the 100 or so pea plants are shooting up, probably will have some peas to eat in a few days. My sunflowers are massive, leaves the size of my head, brocolli is healthy and big, beans are beginning to go, and we might get some cukes in a month or so.
One thing that I will say about my garden, I did not plant enough! I've got a planting bed that could probably support ten times more plants, and it's basically idle, just about 25 sunflowers in it, and a few really shoddy looking strawberries. Next year I'll have to use that bed to it's fully capacity.

I've been really thinking that I need to amp up my production for next year, and put a lot more space into the garden. I think I've learned the easiest way to do some rowcrops, which is to make a raised bed from soil and manure on top of a layer of newspaper, and mulch it with about 4 inches of cut grass. The plants will grow on the very top of the "mound", tucked into the mulch. Between the rows will be grass, about 5 feet of it, which I will cut and throw on top every couple weeks. I just don't know what exactly I should grow, but squash, pumpkins and watermelon sound pretty good. A decent sized pumpkin will sell in October for about $20, but they take a looooong time to mature, so I will need a greenhouse, and some soil blocks.
I'm thinking that I'm gonna need at least a full acre to do this, in addition to my current garden area. It will be watered with drip tape, and my hope is that the mulch will suppress most of the weeds, and whatever weeds manage to get through I'm just going to chop them with a whacker instead of pulling.
In any case, I will need to start making these mounds right now, rather than wait till next spring. The plan is to rent a Bobcat to move the dirt. I'm tired of shoveling.

ORCHARD
My mini-orchard, which consists of two cherry trees and about 12 saskatoons is actually doing well. The saskatoons are producing a most crop of berries! Maybe a half a bucket or so, but considering that I planted them this year, any kind of harvest is super! Next year, I'm gonna try and put about 200-300 of the same mature plants out there, along with a bunch of apple, plum, nut and other cool trees. In front of the saskatoons, I'm going to put either a thin row of strawberries, or asparagus, or even both. Somewhere around the edges, or even behind the big trees will be some raspberries, and down on the ground beside the trees will be tires or pots to plant squash or vine crops into. That's a few years down the road, the trees will have to be a lot bigger before that's gonna happen.

LAST WEEK
The bummer of this last week was the breakdown of my Corolla, which experienced a bizarre breakdown on my way to work. The engine is fine, but the steering and suspension are shot. I think we might be looking at $600 or better, and then I've still got to fix the brakes as well. I love that car, but I fear it might not be worth fixing : ( I've still got to tow the stupid thing from off the side of the highway, where it's been for a week now. Can you believe that there are no towtrucks out here??? Maybe that would be a good p/t business for me... The only way for me to get it is to rent a car dolly and tow it myself with the truck. It's actually a bit cheaper than a tow-truck, but I can't do it for a few days. Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as pissed about the breakdown as I could be. I was half expecting it, to be honest.
We've got a bead on a car, which we're actually picking up tomorrow from a nearby town. We've got a bunch of family there, so we'll make a visit out of it as well.
The car is a 1981 VW Golf, a hatchback diesel. It should improve my gas mileage for work by about 40% over the car, hopefully saving a bit of dough. It's a beater, so if it lasts me for six months, I will be content, but I'm hoping for a year or so, even if I need to spend a little money to fix the injectors. Those vehicles should be good for 500,000 km, and this one has half of that!

Anyway, the wife wants the computer, so I'll sign off here. Pictures to follow on the next post!

Summer? I think so!

Two cherry trees, and seven saskatoons in a semi-circle. The saskatoons are three years old already, so hopefully I'll get a few berries off this year. The cherries will take a while longer, maybe two years from now.


Hello again, it's springtime, and things are going well!

As you see in the pictures, everything is green as ever, and I've been planting everything in sight, and trying to keep it alive in the process.

There are a lot of non-garden projects that need doing yet, not least of which will be the solar panels that I will (hopefully) be ordering next month, getting the wind turbine up again, and putting up a wind fence. That should hold us off till Fall, and then I would like to do some water collection projects, starting with the burial of a water tank by the house.

All of this is made possible by our mortgage company, who is allowing us to defer our payments for one year (thank you!) and by this time next year, we will be $20,000 less in-debted, and hopefully be well on our way to independent living.

PERMACULTURE
For those who haven't heard it before, permaculture is short for permanent agriculture, or permanent culture. What it really means for us is relying less on outside sources of energy and "stuff", and providing more for ourselves, at least as much as practical. It also means making "systems" that feed into each other, making it possible to produce much more with less time, less money, and less infrastructure.
My first permaculture project were the two cherry trees and saskatoon bushes in the first picture. I planted the saskatoons in a semi-circle around the two cherries, with the shorter sasks facing the south, and solar gain. I plan on repeating this setup multiple times, as well as placing some shorter plants (strawberries) in a semi-circle around the saskatoons. I may plant other shrubs or trees around or near these ones, like nasturniums, herbs, and whatever else I can find that doesn't need a lot of water. Behind the trees, I will dig a small pond, and when the pond overflows, it will feed a mulch pit near the trees, which hopefully will attract tree roots. I will dump compost in there, rather than spreading it around the trees, hopefully saving time. The whole circle will have at the centre a small wooden platform that will shade the ground, and provide a place to pick cherries from, since I've got the idea to have this as a U-pick operation.

I know it sounds weird, but it's not really that unusual, and it ought to look pretty cool as well! I'm hoping that the mixing of trees and such will deter the normal bugs that can destroy berry crops, and that orchardists normally spray poisons on their trees to fight.

At various times in the summer, I plan to run chickens between the trees, who should do a fine job of fertilizing the ground, eating bugs off the plants, and eating rotten fruit off the ground. And that's how permaculture works!

GENERATOR
Up until two days ago, we were running our household electricity off a propane generator, which was a REAL pain in the...you know what I mean.
Several weeks ago, a friend of mine gave me a used generator, and said he didn't know if it worked, but it didn't produce electricity. I thought maybe the coils needed to be energized, and I figured I could probably get it going again.
Well, the other day, the propane generator died. Somehow the spark plug socket was completely stripped, and the spark plug kept popping out. After trying a million times to keep it together, I finally decided to try this free generator...I flipped the circuit breakers on, fired it up, and it worked!
Not only that, it has a 30 amp circuit, which means I can use up to 3600 watts at a time in my house. The last generators would only do 2400 watts, before the breaker popped, which meant no using the water when it was running.

As I'm typing this, the new generator just ran out of gas, which means it ran 12 hours on one tank! The propane one would only run for 7-8 hours before it was done. And a tank of propane costs around $15. All in all, I've traded up, and this genny is a Honda engine, which should last a looooong time, with proper maintenance.

Time for bed, church tomorrow!

Everything's pretty much normal...

In the last two weeks, we've had almost as much snowfall as we got for the entire winter before now...so, in other words, it's a standard Alberta springtime. Except for the one last snowfall on the May long weekend. That should be the last. Maybe.

It's already May 7, and the kind of weather that I should have been expecting has been prevalent. It was warmer for most of February than it was today, but I'm just grateful there was no wind!
The wind seems to make bad weather seem 1000% worse...

So, nothing has come up in the garden yet, except for the broccoli seedlings, which are still in the tray. No peas, although I planted a ton. I expect that I may have soaked them for too long, and they used all of their energy. I will try again, I have no shortage of pea seeds...but I was sort of hoping for some plants by now : (

I finally decided to buy some more blades for the wind turbine, and it turns out they cost around $250! I don't have that much money to spare, needless to say...but that doesn't mean I can't put blades on my turbine. I have decided to make an interim set of blades out of PVC pipe, which I will hopefully be able to find for free, or cheap. I found some instructions on Youtube, which were very detailed, and it doesn't seem too terribly hard. The blades won't be as efficient, but if they can at least pick up some decent power on the really windy days, I'll save some money on propane!

Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up a couple truckloads of composted horse doody, which should nicely fill up the remainder of my planting tires. I figure I'll mix about 30% topsoil, 15% peat moss, and the rest with horsie poo, and try planting in that. Apparently some of this guys "stuff" is 12 years old, so it's probably REALLY nice and broken down by now! He's very close too, which is very important to me, I'd rather not drive all over the province to get this stuff, and I really do need it.

After some conversations with the mortgage people, they might let me refinance everything, including the parts that I'm behind on. I need to demonstrate that I can make $5,000 this year, so I'm going to have to pull out all the stops. I know I won't make that much, but if I can show the POTENTIAL, that is good enough for them! My tax return is nowhere to be seen, and probably won't be done till June...I just can't wait any longer!!!! We need to sort this out now. On the plus side, when my return does come through, I would be able to use the entire thing for improvements, solar panels, and buying my cherry and apples trees. That's a good thing! The sooner those trees are in the ground, the sooner they will be producing food, and income for us.

Last, my little boy turned three weeks old yesterday! He's really porking up quick, he's put on two pounds already. Unfortunately, he's become more fussy and needy...my poor, poor wife.
Anyway, warm weather is coming, hopefully to stay. Adios!

It's a BOY!

Ronan Henry Evan ***** born a week ago today, 7 pounds, 3 oz.
That makes me two times a daddy, and more than twice as proud! Nothing is more important to me than my family, and my kids.Just a thought, for you fathers. Do you know what your kids want from you more than anything else? TIME.
Hey, you didn't think I would write about a new baby, and not put up a picture, did you? This is his first real outdoor experience, at about 5 days old. He's just now starting to open his eyes more and more, but he still (thankfully) sleeps a lot, but on the downside, he eats more than I do, which is to say, about every 1.5 hrs.


I'm not sure why we never did this before. Our property is perfect for kite flying, so I dragged our little kite out of the top shelf, and gave it a test run. I think I had it up to 200 feet in the air at one point. It wasn't really that windy, just some steady breezes from the south. Carrigen demanded that we do this again tomorrow, which I think is a fine idea!

I've been on "vacation" for a bit more than a week now, although I had to go to court yesterday. Most of my day is spent lounging with the family, cleaning dishes, occasionally fixing something, cleaning, cutting wood, and of course, garden building. I've actually been slacking a lot, I only really put in about 1.5 to 2 hours per day building my garden beds, which means I'm not going as quick as I would like. In my defense, however, there is a lot of work to do, and digging is hard on my shoulder joint!
I've decided to bite the bullet, and rent the Bobcat right away, or soon anyway. It'll really save me a bunch of time, and it will be tax deduction too. We need to landscape around the house, put down some gravel, and fill the garden beds with soil. I need to move around some giant piles of dirt, make some room for stuff.

So far, I've got 2 4x16 beds built, and the framework for another 4x32 footer. I want two more 4x16's, and 1 more 4x32 for this year. That's not including the greenhouse, which will be 10x32 (for starters) and the tire garden, which I've now gotten filled with soil, and just needs manure and maybe some other amendments. That gives me probably the equivalent of a 4x32 planting bed. If I can, I want to do another tire garden, they are pretty easy to build, and I've got a lot of tires left!

I've got a tray of broccoli seeds started, some are looking pretty decent. This week, I need to start some Roma tomatoes, peppers, and maybe some melons. Once they reach a decent size, I'll put them into clay pots, and just bring them inside when there's an overnight frost expected. By the time the risk of frost passes, they should have a month or two head start. It's the best I can do without a greenhouse right now! The baby's room will probably be used as overnight pot and tray storage, but he doesn't really care anyway, he's a baby!

I'll be back to work tomorrow, but just for one day. Yippee.

Food security

Most of my posts up to this point have been little vignettes about our little lives here on our little homestead, and I've been pretty restrained about world affairs, but I read something today that made my blood boil a little, and I thought I'd share it, and tell you why the author is wrong.

On occasion, I read from a site called www.thetrumpet.com, which is a Christian site dedicated to articles about the disintegration of our world into chaos, and probably soon, the so-called "anti-Christ" in Revelations. Most of these articles are very good, and report on the rise of China and Russia as new world powers, the fall of the US from it's coveted position of "reserve world currency", and the ongoing economic world depression.

As with most Christian sites, they have a "bent", or to put it more bluntly "a theological motive" based on the writing and teaching of some guy named Herbert W. Armstrong, who was supposedly a prophet of God, and predicted all sorts of our current events, and some future events. You might wonder why I say "supposedly", well, I'm extremely skeptical about anyone who is bold enough to label themselves a "prophet" and claim to have access to future information. 99.999% of these guys are complete frauds, and most are looking for fame and money.

The real test of a prophet can be summed up in this. 1. Do 100% of his predictions come true? Not 99% or less. A real prophet is never wrong, because he actually speaks for God, who of course, is always right. 2. Do his teachings line up with Scripture? If not, he's a fraud, or at best, very, very arrogant.

The article in question is found here:
www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6767.5292.120.0
and starts off sounding very smart and practical, when it reminds us that we rely on technology, electricity, and oil to sustain every single aspect of our lives, from water to food, to heating our houses and getting to work. Without oil, our economy would flatline, and people would starve to death in droves.
Some of the sensible people among us see this problem, and we say "Well, lets reduce our dependence on the "system" and start providing for ourselves, at least in energy and food." So, we have gardens, solar panels, wood stoves, and we put some food away for emergencies. We also trust in God, who provides rain and sunshine, and is keeping the tornadoes and hailstorms at bay.

Mr Armstrong has this to say, and I quote
“Do not spend extra money on foodstuffs above your normal supplies and perhaps some ‘staples’ which could carry you through a few temporary food shortage on a vastly curtailed and reduced diet, in a severe and temporary emergency, for only a few WEEKS! … If you ever store more food than the normal laying up in summer for winter—you’re hoarding, and God Almighty may well withdraw His protection from you!”

The underlying point is "Don't put your trust in earthly riches, trust in God's provision!", but telling people not to have any food stored is about the same as telling them not to completely fill their gas tanks, because it's "hoarding", or not to have more than 2 shirts, and maybe 3 pairs of socks, because that's all you need for a couple of months, and we don't want to "hoard" clothes. Is God going to withdraw his blessing from me because I have 30 t-shirts, 4 pairs of shoes, and 7 pairs of jeans? Because I have extra gasoline stored in containers? Because I have some sacks of grain in my shed? Because I have canned meat and tomato sauce, enough to last probably 3 months? Should I limit my garden to only what my family can eat for this year? What about saving for retirement, does that mean I'm hoarding money? Am I allowed to store several days worth of electricity in my batteries?

Unfortunately for Mr Armstrong, this viewpoint is completely unscriptural, and quite ridiculous indeed. The word "hoarding" does not appear in Scripture, but food storage does. Joseph, when he was Prime Minister of Egypt, stored up 7 years of grain during some excellent growing years, which were used during 7 lean years. This was in response to a vision from God himself!

The so-called "Old Testament Law", which many people think is abolished now, told farmers that they must rest their land every 7 years, and grow nothing. Anything that grows on it's own just falls on the ground and rots. That means people had to have food stored for TWO years, to cover that year where nothing was harvested!

Even the storing of food from one year to the next is a major undertaking. I don't know of a single person who has an actual years supply of food. We don't, at least not at this very second. I'd like to, and we will soon, and I don't consider it "hoarding", because most of that food will be grown right here!

The whole idea of "hoarding" comes from socialism, and the concept that God will punish us for prepping is retarded, especially when you start applying it to other things that are more socially acceptable to store.

I store and prepare in case I lose my job, or something else happens to our family. I don't want to rely on government benefits to survive! If something does happen, and the "World Ends", well, then we've got some food to get us by!

Don't believe anyone who tells you that preparing for the future means you don't trust in God. Just don't be smug because you've got some food stored up. Remember Job, and that all you own can disappear in a tornado overnight!

When's that package coming?

So, basically, we're waiting for a bunch of things right now. Our baby was due yesterday, but there's only a week that they'll let go, and then they induce the labour. There's my tax return, which the Canada Robbery Agency has had for 2 months, and I have seen nothing yet. Last, I'm waiting for it to rain, which it looks like it might today. We really could use the moisture, and my garden beds need a good soaking!
I took a day of vacation already, to start getting things ready for the baby. I spent a good deal of time outside, taking advantage of extremely nice weather (+12 C) to keep working at the garden.

This is the front entrance to our house, which was previously an extremely ugly patch of lumpy dirt, that turned into a big mud pit when the snow melted. I stacked the blocks, and hacked off the lumpy dirt (which was actually really good soil), and made a flower bed. The grate will stop the muddiness.


This isn't finished yet, but it will be a big patch of strawberries, interspersed with some various other veggies, beans, onions, and some flowers. The strawberries will be sold at the farmer's market, and will hopefully supplement our summer income a bit, and provide us with fresh strawberries all summer long. The tires on the left are ones that I cut to open them up a bit. I want to be able to fit around 7 - 10 plants in each tire, for about 200+ plants. If each plant gives me a pint of berries, that's about $3 a pint (hopefully), and maybe $500 or so. If I plant beans in the centre of each tire, the beans grow up over the strawberries, but will not block the sun too badly. They will also produce nitrogen on root nodules, which will be used by the strawberries.This is the second of probably 4 raised beds that will be in a row beside the house. I've built a ramshakle fence to protect from the wind, but this is still the most wind-sheltered spot I've got so far. This is where my mini-greenhouse is, and I've got a couple broccoli shoots coming up from a 72 cell tray of seeds. They will be going into these beds when they are big enough.

The beds themselves are only going to be about 1/2 dirt, or less. The bulk of the "fill" will be llama manure mixed with straw, with a layer of soil overtop. I might even layer more manure, then put more dirt over that, possibly with some newspaper in between. I'm running out of places to put fresh compost, which for us includes toilet waste, which we are composting. After 2 years, toilet waste will break down into excellent compost, which I will be putting under trees and shrubs to feed them. For those of you who might think that using human waste for growing food is absolutely disgusting, what do you think happens to the sewer sludge after it's processed? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't disappear into thin air!
It gets sold as compost! Mmmmm, sewer sludge!

Hopefully my next post will be to announce the birth of a new baby boy, so stay tuned...

A time to plant....

I thought today I would put a picture first, instead of last. I like to include pictures, when possible, because I also love to read blogs with pictures. They really are worth 1000 words!

The two picture are of my first completed raised garden bed, hopefully one of many to be built this year. I know it looks like it was a lot of work, but I actually built the bed on a pile of dirt that was already present, comprised of topsoil I scraped off almost two years ago now, and has been turned into fantastic soil, full of roots, and very crumbly. On top of that, I added three wheelbarrows full of llama manure, which is about 1/2 straw. Into here, I will be placing peas, spinach, and brocolli, which I will attempt to grow through the spring. In the frozen north, planting before May is very unpredictable, but I think my choice of plants will give me success.
As stated in my last blog post, I want (need) to make some money this year, and the earlier I start, the better!

In other VERY exciting news, my son will probably make his earthly appearance at some point in the next couple of weeks, and my second full time job is getting stuff ready for that. We just need a bassinet, and to clean up the bedroom a bit more, some paint touch ups, and I'm READY!!!!!
That, and I'm ready to take a few weeks off. Seriously, I haven't actually taken vacation in two years, and that vacation was the first one in 9 years of marriage. Of course, we're not going anywhere, but I'm sure I can find lots of (garden) stuff to do. My plan is to tow the little tyke around with me in a carrier, get him used to the dirt and sun-shine. My kids are gonna be tough! My daughter has already shot a rifle three times, and she's just six.

As far as planting the big orchard....well, we'll see if I can spare that money. I really need to destroy some debt, and refill my propane tank, so we'll see. For sure I'll be putting up the wind turbine again (it's been windy every day here), and a fence would be terrific! I might have to make do with a couple rolls of snow fence tacked to some fence posts, and add some real boards when money allows. I don't care at this point, I know that things are going to be fine. We made it almost two years out here now, and we're all quite hardened to the scrimping. Raising a bit of our own food will help a bit, and raising our own energy will help a lot, probably to the tune of $300/month. Propane costs a lot, even with the 25% rebate.

Lastly, our good friends, who looked after our house for a bit this winter, and lived out here in a big trailer for a few months, have decided to put the farm thing on hold for a year, save some money, and get a real plan together. I will confess, it is a good idea. No reason to rush anything, but I know from experience, that they need to start formulating a plan RIGHT NOW! Time flies when you're having fun...

I wanted to end by giving some random bits of wisdom for anyone who wants to try what we're doing.

1. -30 C/F means water freezes solid till spring. Bury your water tanks, and insulate your sewer pipes.
2. When that contractor said "I think it should cost around $xx.xx", add 50% to that, and double the timeline.
3. Loving your neighbor is not a suggestion. It is a commandment for a GOOD reason!
4. No matter what, if the wife isn't happy, neither are you!
5. Children don't need toys, they need your time. Every good memory with family only makes for a stronger, more resilient teenager/adult.
6. Don't be smug because you are more independent and enlightened than the average city joe. God gives, and he can take it away too. Remember Job.
7. Six packets of the same seed is really too many.
8. A garden market/orchard/ranch will NOT turn a profit until the fourth year, IF you plan properly.
9. Don't till your garden. Throw down as much mulch as you can, and plant on top of that. Prairie soil is like cement to dig and till.
10. Plant trees around your house the first year.
11. Spend at least 3-5 hours each week learning. Read, listen, ask, and dig into information. It will save you in the end.
12. Conventional wisdom can often be thrown away if you look at how the real world works!
13. Change your tires when they need it. Waiting for that bald tire to explode on the highway can leave you stranded.
14. Recycle everything that can be used again. Avoid plastic.
15. Savor every moment. Don't be rushing around trying to "get stuff done", just enjoy the process of getting there!
16. Your pension will be worthless by the time you get it. Save real wealth, and hand it down to your children and grandchildren.
17. All wealth comes from the ground, and the sun. Paper is not wealth.
18. Never tell me "I don't think that will work!" unless you want to watch me kill myself proving you wrong.
19. 1% of ideas are totally impossible. 95% of ideas don't work the first way you try them. 75% of people give up after the first try.
20. It's not how much money you make, it's what's left over after the bills are paid that counts.

Most of these I learned through the wonderful process of getting it WRONG the first/second/third time. Hopefully someone learns something from reading this blog post.