i am a gigantor!

d
I feel like a wiener posting these, but everyone has been asking to see photographic evidence of future human baby, so here it is.

I honestly don't have that much news to write about right now ... we're both happy and doing well, but pretty settled in for the winter. Lots of walking and reading and cooking and other chill stuff like that, but no dramatic stuff happening. Dogs and ducks and humans all doing aces. The baby is thrashing around like crazy these days, which is pretty cool. I'm just about starting my third trimester (already!), and thankfully finally look like I'm pregnant rather than looking like I maybe drank a bit too much beer this summer. Looking forward to Xmas visits, and thinking about maybe trying to head back to the island after the holidays but before the baby manifests itself. And, um, I think that's about it.

kind of on vacation

Kind of on vacation being pretty much the status of my life right now. It's pretty amazing, actually. Last month was all about winding down and also endless work on the raspberries (which paid our rent, so that was good). My right hand started totes falling asleep and refusing to wake up a lot of the time due to excessive pruner wielding, but it is much better now, thank you. Everything is almost wound up for winter, and we've even had a couple of snowfalls already, which has been pretty cool. Maybe more so for Devo than for me, being as he was raised on a snow-free island and basically has a spazz attack of joy when any kind of real winter weather rears its head.

Our landlords have been away lots, so I've been getting out the door first thing to feed the chickens, sheep, and their dog, and let 'em all out. Afternoon is collecting, washing, and weighing eggs, and evening is one last feeding for everyone and making sure they're shut up in their various barns, coops, and houses for the night. It's been relaxing and purposeful, which is a good combo. Nice to not have anyone around for a change as well ... all the guests and other folks around were great, but this is doubleplus restful, which I think we both needed.

Other than that, Devin is doing some work in a friend's greenhouse for a couple of weeks and looking to wrangle up a full time job for the winter, we've been hanging out with pals some, I've been painting the house, going for tons of walks with the dogs, doing lots of pregnancy yoga, and I started doing some online work towards the provincial instructor diploma I'm getting, which will allow me to teach post secondary and be a good expansion for the whole woodworking thang.

The future human baby is healthy and doing well. Had my second trimester ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, and it's looking good, and slightly like a human instead of a weird blob, so that's progress. I'm exactly halfway through the pregnancy (!) and getting a lot more obviously pregnant looking. It's cool to be able to feel the baby move and feel like it's more a for reals thing. I have all my energy back as well, which is incredible. It was driving me absolutely crazy not being able to do much and having this weird body which didn't look or feel like it used, but also didn't look or feel legitimately pregnant. One thing that's been really weird/interesting is noticing how gendered the work Devin and I do has become all of a sudden. It used to be pretty equal ... for every girl task I was better at (cooking) there was one he was better at (sewing), and we both did a lot of building things, growing things, and labour-y stuff. With my current delicate condition, I end up doing an awful lot more traditionally female work (cooking, doing stuff around the house, nurturing animals rather than doing more labour-y jobs) because I can't physically do the lifting and other stuff, and I don't wanna just sit around. I've finally wrapped my head around the fact that I just can't do what I used to for awhile, and am fine with that and with the temporary adjustment of responsiblities, but it's been really interesting to notice how we've dropped into normy-norms gender roles because of actual physical necessity, not because of any deep desire to be a real ladylike lady or totes toughass dude. Funny.

So maybe not too much actual for reals news, but I'm feeling incredibly happy and content and chilled out. Life is damn fine, actually. But people should still send me mail, because then things would be even finer.

thanks, giving, etc.

Stuff here has still been pretty busy, but the end is in sight. I am half uber stoked to have all winter to hang out and work on whatever projects I feel like, and half slightly terrified at that much free time stretching ahead of me. More because I'm unused to it than because it is actually a terrifying prospect ... I am mos def aware of how lucky I am to be in this situation. It's pretty crazy how close we are to winding up all the gardeny/farmy stuff and how close winter is to descending as well. The montains nearby have epic snowy tops already, and the snow is descending down shockingly fast. We already had a few flakes blustering around one morning last week, so more can't be too far away. The weather has been the kind of classic autumn I've really missed after three years of living in Victoria, the land of wishy washy seasons. It's freezing when we wake up, the ground covered in hard frost, the ducks' water crusted over with ice, but by the late morning when we're out working it's incredibly sunny with that amazing fall light, and it gets so hot that you're peeling off layers pretty quickly.

We are pruning raspberries, hauling away irrigation lines and hoses, mulching the buttloads of garlic we're planting, setting the crawlspace up as a makeshift root cellar, filling the freezer full to the top with lots of tasty protein for the winter (a pig! chickens! ducks! all raised by us!), eating lots of homemade pumpkin pie, and generally doing a last push to get hunkered down for winter. There's still a fair amount to be done, but we've had lots of rad and helpful guests, and it's been going quickly and smoothly. I have had to really really gear back on the amount that I do because of the whole full of babies scenario, and that's been a surprisingly hard adjustment for me. On the plus side, it makes me realize that I usually do a hell of a lot of work, which is a good feeling. On the minus side, it definitely reminds me that I am somewhat neurotic about how much I am accomplishing, and I'm not great at setting limits for myself, even when it is logical and necessary to scale back. I'm starting to look and feel a lot more pregnant now, though, and my mobility is starting to be a bit limited, which is a good reminder that I just can't do what I used to. My belly is definitely way bigger all of a sudden, and bending over is getting to involve a bit more effort and huffing and puffing, which is crazy.

I added a picture of the ducks hanging out in one of their inexplicable favourite spots, under the truck. The drake with the black head and funky red stuff around his beak (Bill) in front is still with us, but the other two are gone. We slaughtered last Saturday to make more space for the winter confinement in the duck house. We spared Bill and two ladies (Dolored and one lady who has yet to be named). It was actually uber hard to give them the big chop. I was pretty bummed. They were just so nice and friendly and lovely, y'know? I didn't feel weird about this stuff with any of the other animals, not even the pigs who I totes loved, so it was kind of surprising. Anyway, it had to happen and it went smoothly, so what can you do. Bill and the ladies don't seem to be too traumatized, so that's good.

Tonight we're off to a friend's place for epic Thanksgiving dinner, and this week should be filled with sweet bro downs, work and lots of time for chilling as well. Good stuff!

harvest!

Yeah, I totes need to update this thingummy more often, but in my defense, I am busy containing a human baby and having a giant garden and stuff. Regardless, I will make an effort to blog it up like nobody's business marginally more often. Sorry, pals.

We are once again super busy around here. Tomatoes are kind of going crazy, so I have also been going crazy doing a lot of picking and canning and all that good stuff. I have quickly overcome my fears of feeding everyone botulism or some other sort of poison I've never ever heard of. Apparently everyone who told me that canning was max easy (probably the same sensible folks who told me that gardening was easy, another thing I refused to believe before this year) were correct. We've got tons of salsa, tomato sauce, applesauce, pickled beets, and frozen corn and tomatillo salsa so far, and I'm hoping to get a bunch more done while there is still fresh food around. Our giant box of garlic arrived in the mail (our rad post office lady said she was sorry to see me pick it up, as she'd been wandering over to smell its garlicky goodness every few minutes), so that needs to be planted pretty soon, and we're going to be transplanting a buttload of strawberries into the garden for next year, so right now we're just trying to get everything pulled out and make space in the garden. I've been pulling out finished beans, corn, broccoli, peas, and winter squash, and Devin has been working on getting our borrowed tiller fixed up and ploughing through the garden with it. My sister is living in Nelson now (!!!!), so she is being awesome and fun and helpful and things and pulled out a million squash vines with me this morning, as well as aiding and abetting the cooking of delicious foodstuffs all weekend. I am stoked that she is here.

Right now everyone is outside working on the garden still, and I am dealing with the fact that I am four months pregnant and can't do everything I used to do all day anymore. I know this should be obvious and easy and all that, but it's really hard for me. I tend to feel like I'm not doing enough anyway, and when I can manage way less than my normal workload and still feel all out of breath and wonky, then I end up feeling totes lazy. Absurd? Hells yeah, but that is how I roll. It's nice that I know some other ladies who have had kids who are good about telling me in no uncertain terms to stop throwing the damn bales of hay around and go sit down because I'm being ridiculous. All in all, pregnancy is good stuff so far. I am in my second trimester, so I have way more energy and way less inclination to puke. I'm starting to show, which is cool, although I am still at that weird in between stage where it's unclear whether I have a beer gut or a future human baby. My midwife is rad and posi and tells me that both the baby and I are healthy and doing well thus far.

In animal news, the pigs are getting dropped off at the abbatoir tomorry morning in preparation for the big chop on Monday. I am stoked. I have really enjoyed taking care of them and spending time with them, but I am also max excited to start eating them. I got a lot of expired dairy for free from the rad grocery store down the valley, and we were given a ton of apples and pears, so they've been eating well for their last week and should taste pretty good (apple finished pork is apparently pretty awesome). Also, we now have ducks! Muscovy ducks! I will take pictures of them soon and maybe even write another post on here without waiting a whole month, and then you can all see the radness that is ducks. They are really friendly, and will also be tasty times. Devin was pretty stoked about how soft and velvety they are, and I must concur on that point. We got them in Victoria last week, and after a small incident with them breaking free of their improvised cage in the backyard of our old house (thanks again for the epic duck catching Jen and Vrinda!), they made it home just fine. Devin drove back in a truck full of ducks and dogs, and I had a more peaceful drive back on my own in the car. We are also getting some more Icelandic sheep for the winter, which is rad. They are pretty boss to hang out with and look at, and they will provide lots of shit for the garden in the spring, so a good deal all around. Plus they are tasty and fleecy.

And that's about it, I think. Stuff is busy and challenging and exciting and posi ... a damn fine combo, in my opinion. Rad to see friends in Victoria again last week, but just as rad to get home and start eating out of the garden and working on projects again. I feel more and more settled in and more and more stoked on our decision to stay. So come visit, everybody.

decisions

This morning I dropped Devin off at work for 8. We'd lazed around having breakfast and reading for an hour or so first, partly because it feels good to keep getting up early, and partly because the little banty rooster is insistent that no one must sleep past when he decrees. Some days he starts crowing before five and I start cussing him out, other days he chooses a more reasonable hour and it's actually a pretty nice way to wake up. Anyway, it's now just past nine and I've already had a good talk with one of the friends whose farm Devo is working at today, had a leisurely drive home down the back roads, got suited up in my official farm overalls to feed the pigs and chickens and move the chicken tractor along for the day, and done some stretching (the latter without official farm overalls). I guess what I'm getting at is just how much I've been liking it here lately. I feel calmer and calmer and more settled in, and I dig that. Right now we're in the throes of trying to figure out if we should stay here or move back to Victoria, so how I feel about being here is closer to the front of my mind than it often is when I'm simply buoyed along by routine. I think most everybody has heard this already, but I'm two months pregnant, and we're going to be having a baby in the spring. So, this is pretty surprising and exciting and all of that good stuff, but it definitely leads to some big decision making. We really can't decide what the best option is. Our rent here is crazy cheap and would get cheaper if we signed on for a longer stay. The house is pretty much perfect for two dogs, two people, and one human baby, and it's amazing to be out in the country. However, it can be pretty isolating here as well, and we haven't made a ton of friends yet. We have lots of family and friends in Victoria, and there is definitely a lot more potential to make money there (although also a lot more expenses and the near impossibility of finding an affordable place to live with a baby and two dogs). I guess I at least have a strong sense that either option will be rad and will work out well, it's just a question of buckling down and deciding. Which we need to do intimidatingly soon.

All in all, all is well, however. I have my first appointment with my midwife next week, and I'm already embroiled in the battery of family history taking, blood tests, pee tests, physical exams etc etc etc that baby having seems to entail. I've been to the doctor more in the past couple of weeks than the past couple of years, and it promises to only accelerate from here on in. I feel really good about the whole thing, though. It's funny how that stuff works out. I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to have a baby, and we sure as hell didn't plan on me getting pregnant right now, but as soon as we found out, just going with it felt like the exact right choice to both of us.

Other than that, things are rolling along smoothly. Lots of visitors lately, which has been awesome. The above photos are stolen from Shane and Tannis, actually, as they was semi-permanently attached to their cameras while they were here, with epic results. But, yeah, the last slaughter went well, the garden is pumping out an incredible amount of food (it is doing so much better than we thought a first year garden would ..... it's ridiculous), there are a jillion adorable tiny fawns around on the roads and paths still sporting their spots and huge pixie ears, various family members have been passing through and getting stoked about upcoming human child, Devin has lots of work right now, I'm trying to get into school for as soon as possible, and we're eating a buttload of good food from the farm.

stuff, things, etc.

Again, sorry about the lack of updates. I feel like I end up on farm time a lot, and all of a sudden can't believe how late it is in the month or how much time has passed or whatevs. It's been almost four months since we moved here, but it actually seems like a lot longer. It's funny how subjective time is.

The garden has been doing really well ... it was looking kind of hurting for awhile, just because of the not so amazing first year garden soil and the struggle to keep it watered enough. But we got a few days of really heavy rain (and epic thunderstorms, which is something I've been really missing, living on the island), and also got in and did a bunch of side dressing with all purpose fertilizer and feather meal, and everything is looking a lot better. The tomatillos are starting to fill out (as you can see by the photo above), the corn is frickin' huge (the photo above is taken holding the camera at eye level), the potatoes are small but edible, there is all the kale I could ever eat (that's right ... living the dream), and if I have to eat any more snowpeas, I think I might puke. The summer squash and cucumbers are really starting to go nuts, and the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are all ready to eat as well. So, we're managing to eat really well and ridiculously healthily and spend virtually nothing on groceries. The level of work on the garden is feeling really manageable again, which is nice. We're pretty much just working on bits of weeding here and there to keep things under control, harvesting, and trying to build up a buttload of compost for planting strawberries and garlic in the fall.

The bookcases I've been building for my friend are pretty much done, and came together well, if I do say so myself. They're the first really big project I've done all on my own, and I feel really good about them, which is exciting. I was initially kind of worried that I was taking on more than I could handle by myself and in a semi makeshift shop, but I'm actually starting to feel like a for reals semi-competent journeyman. When I come back from Victoria I'm going to install the bookcases, build the simple captain's bed, and then it's on to finishing shingling my house, the workshop, and framing out the windows in the workshop. Devin and I are going to work together on all those projects, which will be cool. I haven't done any framing or shingling, so I'm a bit intimidated by it but also stoked to learn new stuff.

I started feeling a bit restless, and then realized that now that I'm not being run ragged trying to keep up with the garden that I miss getting exercise. So I started going for big bike rides, and that has been uber posi. I can bike to the post office to check the mail and get groceries and stuff and it's only about an hour round trip on the beautiful trail by the river. One of the last times I headed down there I passed an old man walking along with an accordian, playing and singing to himself. Radness. So, yeah, basically I'm feeling like things on the farm are under control, and that leaves me time to start meeting people and doing things outside of the farm, and doing all that other settling in stuff that I didn't have time for when we first moved here and were shackled to the garden. Good stuff!

Slackass.

p

Slackass = my blog updating schedule, not my life in general, although things have slowed down a bunch, which is not too pretty bad. Trip to Victoria was max awesome ... so rad to see everyone and help in the garden at my old house and get to actually go to a show and all that good stuff. I'm gonna try to make it back to town sometime this summer, but we'll see how that works out.

The garden is actually, finally, kinda sorta under control. The potatoes look pretty damn boss, as you can see from the photo here. We're pretty much wishing we planted the whole thing with potatoes because they grow so well in a first year garden, and they're so easy to take care of. We're definitely starting to get a sense of how little we will yield this year, which is to be expected because we're just starting to build up the soil. The spinach all bolted way early, and the broccoli and basil are doing their best to do the same, although we should get a bit out of them. The tomatoes are doing pretty well, as are some of the peppers, and a decent amount of the squash should be fairly decent. So, we're eating well between this garden and Judi's garden and not having to spend much on groceries, which is a huge relief to my brokeass self. Unfortunately, all the lettuce we planted in the new garden didn't grow fast enough and was too bitter to eat. I pulled it all out this morning and chucked it in the compost, which was a bit of a bmmer. It sure took a lot less time to take out than to seed, anyway. Next year it will all be easier.

It is starting to get super crazy hot here (35 degrees yesterday), so we started waking up at five so we can finish the garden work by ten. I'm trying to divide up my day so I spend the morning in the garden and the afternoon in the workshop. It's been hard to tear myself out of the garden because there's always so much to do, but it's really necessary for my own productivity as a woodworker and sanity in terms of not being chained to the garden. Besides, there just isn't a ton to do in there right now besides harvest, so that's pretty okay. I'm starting a new project for a friend here .... doing a set of built in bookcases and a little captain's bed. I'm really stoked on both endeavours ... it should pay okay, and they'll both be a lot of fun to build and really good for my portfolio. The woman I'm doing the work for is an absolute sweetheart as well, so that's always a bonus.

And, yeah, other than that everything is good. We officially bowed out of doing the market, which is a huge relief. No more hawking lettuce to hippies for basically no money. I'm working on selling to a couple of grocery stores in the valley, which seems both promising and unlikely to drive me completely bloody insane. There's still some folks that we met at the market that we'll end up hanging out with, but no more wasting all day Saturday in bongo drum hell, which was really getting to me. In other news, Gretchen got stung in the face by a wasp and had some crazy face swelling, as pictured above. She looked like Popeye on half of her face for a few hours, but she didn't seem bothered by it. Also, Devin's mum came to visit, which was totes sweet and a fun couple of days. She took the goofy family photo above. In pretty much every picture either Devin or I managed to look like a total dullard. I have generously chosen to post one where I look as though I'm halfwittedly trying to figure out what's going on while Devo strikes and epic pose. Yup, we are max photogenic.

uber busy.

Well, sorry it took me awhile to update this thing again. It has been a busy week full of going to a punk show for the first time since I moved here (!!!!!!) and hanging out with pals and doing another stinkin' market in Nelson and killing 150 chickens and that sort of thing.

The photo above is of the pigs devouring a bunch of raspberry goop. Said goop is the pulp and berries and stuff left over when Judi makes raspberry juice, and next to watermelon rinds, it is their all time favourite food. It's rad for me because it's healthy and they like to eat it, but perhaps more importantly, it makes them look all bloody-mouthed and badass, which is always a bonus. As for the other picture ... Gretchen is neither farm related nor news, but she is cute, even though she just threw up on the floor.

We spent most of the last three days doing the chicken slaughter, which was a lot of work. Getting the cones (metal cones that you put the chickens into head-down, then cut their throats and bleed them out in), the giant pot of hot water (to dunk them in post bleed out so their feathers loosen up), the plucker (a magical rubber-fingered device that thunks the chickens around frantically for a couple of minutes and removes their feathers ridiculously fast), the gutting table (I'm sure you can puzzle this one out on your own), and everything else set up took quite awhile, and there is, of course, a lot of cleaning up to be done afterwards. I did a bit of gutting, no killing, lots of chicken catching, and mostly worked in the kitchen. The kitchen is the quality control zone where you are equipped with tweezers to pluck out any stray feathers that escaped the rubbery clutches of the plucker, a stack of towels to pat the birds dry so they aren't frozen full of water, and a scale and plastic bags to get 'em weighed and tucked away. I think next time I'd like to try some of the killing, just so I can do all the different parts, but it's definitely pretty intimidating. Devin killed all the birds this time and vastly preferred it to the kitchen work because pulling out stray feathers makes him pukey, so it worked out well. All in all, I think I like the pigs better ... you don't have to eliminate as many lives to get a lot more meat, and it seems to be far more profitable. We are still deciding whether we'd like to do meat birds after this year. Part of the issue is just the way the birds have been bred. They are disgusting beasties that smell ridiculously bad, have no personalities, and can't lead very good lives. I feel a lot better raising animals that I enjoy being around and that I can provide with a good life.

On a non farm related level, some Victoria pals played a show here, and that was super rad. I also ran into an old friend from Calgary who's living here now and also met some punks from around here. All of this is very encouraging ... it's starting to feel like there are good folks around to hang out with, which makes me uber stoked.

The market is still frustrating. I think I just plain hate the market, actually. It's the worst combination of wanky Nelson hippies and wanky tourists, and it's just not an efficient way to make money. We are now starting to sell to a local grocery store, and I think that will go way better. We spend less gas money to drop off the produce, and don't have to stand behind a table schmoozing and hoping things will sell. We have little enough free time and time off the farm ... I don't want to waste it all doing a crappier and less rewarding form of work. It's good to be getting a sense of what is working and what isn't, even if it's frustrating at times. I am loving living in the country, the work of farming and keeping animals (with the exception of chickens), being outside all the time, living with Devin, and getting to do some woodwork on my own. Working on a farm that will never be ours is frustrating, though, just because we work really really hard every day and in the long run we won't see much out of it. We are starting to seriously think about finding a way to buy land on our own. I don't know whether that would be out here or back on the island, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both, but I think that will be our next big endeavour.

So, yeah, all in all, stuff is good. Occasionally frustrating, but good. We leave for Victoria the day after tomorrow, and it will be rad to see friends and get a bit of a vacation, and it'll be good to come back again too feeling a bit more energized.

lambs and rocks and other stuff.

Devo was saying the other day how much he liked living somewhere where you see animals all the time. I sort of generically agreed, thinking of all the creatures you see hiking and all the farm animals we have and all that stuff. He said "no, but really, you see animals all day every day. It's pretty rad." I've been thinking about that more and noticing how true it is and how much I dig it. Obviously there's all the times I'm weeding or seeding or prepping beds and look up to watch a chicken who has escaped from the poultry netting wandering around the garden or when I catch the pigs running around in their hilarious way out of the corner of my eye, or when the sheep run down the edge of the field to follow me as I walk by. But there's also having a snake race across the path in front of me a few times a week, being able to look up at the mountains and see mountain goats on the way into town, or even just glancing out the window as I was drying off from a shower today and seeing a deer with an impressive set of antlers moseying by on the other side of the fence. It is indeed pretty rad.

Dinner tonight was a giant salad because it was too hot to cook and I got distracted with woodworking anyway and ran out of time. I thinned some spinach beds this morning, so we had fresh picked baby spinach mixed with local lettuce, tomato, cucumber and peppers from the greenhouse in the next town down the road, parsley and radishes from the garden, and a farm egg. Not bad local meal considering the season is only just starting.

As you can see from the picture, the farm now has a couple of lambs. Judi got them just to raise for the summer and eat. They are Icelandic sheep and damn but they're awesome. They have badass horns, sweet dispositions, and they're great animals for milk, meat and fleece. We are kind of batting around the notion of getting some. I have yet to realize my goal of having an animal that will yield me milk and let me start cheesemaking experiments. Maybe next year, obviously, as I think we've taken on enough new projects for this year. Still, it's encouraging to feel as though everything is going well so far. I feel like I'm learning so much every day, but it's getting less and less intimidating and more and more exciting/empowering/whatevs. It's just posi to feel like all my daily work (and there is a lot of it) is going directly to meet my essential needs. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I am digging out giant rocks like the one pictured above. For the record, I unearthed it and pried it up myself ... Devin just helped me roll it out of the bed and apparently this yielded him picture rights. Also, contrary to the evidence of the photo, he still has eyes. I'm not really sure what happened there.

Anyway, I'm gonna run ... gotta feed and water the new chicks and shut 'em up for the night.

go go garden.

I totes can't believe how quickly everything is growing in the garden now that it's gotten started. We have almost all the transplants in, with only a few more basil and pepper plants to go, then a bit more direct seeding. I transplanted about 24 winter squash and melons today, and between today and yesterday Judi and I put in about 80 tomato plants. We are gonna have some damn fine eating. I'm stoked on the amount of gardening time I get in with Judi, because she's a lot of fun to work with and an exceedingly valuable source of gardening info. So, yeah, everything is pretty much just exploding in the garden. I wish I could keep on the weeding and thinning a bit better, but all in all it's looking pretty amazing. Things seem to be coming together in terms of who likes to do what in there as well. Devo is admirably obsessive about keeping things tidy looking which I suck at, I really like doing some of the prep work like forking the beds because it's a good workout and makes me feel tough, and Judi can transplant like a race car.

The new batch of meat birds arrived at the post office in Castlegar last night. We picked them up and got the dubious pleasure of driving home on a hot night with the heat on and the windows rolled up (better to contain the bird smell and manic peeping noises). These guys look a lot better off than the last batch, who were pretty miserable. They have bounced back now that they're out in the pasture in their chicken tractor, but they were pretty wretched for awhile. It's good to start fresh (even with the hours I spent shovelling chicken shit out of the garage to get to said fresh start) and to actually see how things are supposed to work for the meat birds. With them showing up chilled and sick last time it was hard just to keep them alive, let alone anything else.

The pigs are doing exceedingly well also. They are a bit sunburnt still, but seem to be learning to stay out of the sun quite so much. They are growing really fast already, and seem to be uber healthy. They are getting pretty damn fine feed as well, between the organic starter we have them on, and the top quality table scraps (certified organic spinach and radishes, for example). Judi had some raspberry pulp left over from juicing the other day and some buttermilk that was almost off, so they got a meal of berries and cream, which is pretty style-y by human standards even. We are still trying to figure out a price for them, so if anyone happens to be in some sort of fancypants supermarket and can remember to take a look at the price of organic pork, please let me know.

I am getting really stoked to hit up Victoria in June .... it will be uber rad to get to see everyone and get a little more social time in than my life has contained of late. Still, I feel pretty damn settled in here. I feel like there was an initial stage of feeling like I was on a schmancy country vacation, a middle stage of feeling a bit restless w/ spending so much time on the farm, and now I like the work and the area more and more with every day. Basically, farming seems to have everything I want to do ... hard work that relates to food and lets me spend a ton of time outside and around rad animals. Pretty damn perfect, I'd say.

The photos above are from my morning walk with the dogs ... they get pretty stoked to be out in the woods, so it's hard to take any picture besides one of them running away rapidly and excitedly. Bean goes on particularly epic adventures, and is always being spotted making these huge leaps or running daringly across a log spanning the creek or whatevs. It's good to see him so happy, anyway.

We put the meat birds out in the field in their chicken tractor yesterday, so between them and the pigs it's looking pretty farm-y out there. The chickens are still pretty repellent little creatures, but they look a lot nicer wandering around in the grass than they do huddling under the heat lamp in the garage. I know they need an enclosed space when they're little and can't physically handle being outside, but I still feel bad shutting them in. The pigs are doing really well and seem happy and comfortable. They have started to be a bit less lazy, and when we head out to check on the field and open the gate and stuff first thing in the morning, they recognize us and stand there grunting expectantly for their breakfast. They also follow you around when you go in to feed them or visit, and occasionally get so bold as to try and eat your pants, so I would say they're nicely settled in.

Devin found some morels in the yard a couple of days ago, so we stuck them in a stir fry along with farm asparagus, radishes, spinach, and some other non farm-y food. It was max delicious, and cool to be eating so much from the garden already. We've also been eating a buttload of rhubarb, which has been totes tasty.

I got out for a real bike ride for the first time the other day. Devin was working a full day, so I biked lunch down to him and hang out for a bit. It's weird to be on a cushy, fat tired bike instead of my old road bike, but I dig it. It's definitely a lot more relaxing to ride down country roads than fight commuter traffic and constantly be thinking "oh shit, one of these jerks in an SUV is totally gonna hit me today." All in all, I miss bike riding a lot less than I thought I would, so that's cool. I think biking is maybe a bit more empowering in a city, where you tend to be a lot more divorced from the necessities of life. Being able to take back responsibility for your transportation and not be indentured to the bus routes is a really big deal. I guess here not only is pretty much everything I do all day long good exercise and a fun way to be outside, but I also spend virtually all my time meeting my daily needs directly, instead of trading time for money and taking that roundabout route back to providing for myself. So, yeah, not pining for the bike quite as much as I thought I would, and that is rad.

And I should really stop typing and start weeding again, so I will get off the internet and back into the garden. Trying to get a bunch done today as Chad is coming this weekend and I'd like to take at least a half day off. I am totes stoked to have a visitor!

So first off, the pigs are pretty totes awesome. They run around three abreast, and if one of them gets behind it catches up with these little rabbit-esque leaps and until it thunks itself into the side of one of the lead pigs, then they frisk around as a team again. Gretchen is insanely fascinated by them, and spent the first two days we had them with her head stuck as far as it would go through the fence wire, whining and trying to get through and hang out with her piggy brethren. The pigs have been doing an impressive job of pawing away at the fenceline already, so we got the strand of electric fencing in yesterday, which seems to be a good deterrent, although I feel bad when they hit it and start squeaking. I couldn't watch when the first started running into it, although Devin had no such qualms and basically just stood there laughing. Putting up the electric wire was a bit of a struggle ... we would start stringing it and the pigs would follow us, pawing away at it and biting it. After they'd gotten tangled in the string once, bitten through it once, and had to be chased around a bunch I gave them dinner a bit early. That proved to be a good enough distraction to get things wrapped up on our end, but it was for sures a race against time.

We initially had big plans of not naming the pigs so we don't have as much trouble killing them when the time comes, but Devo came in after checking on them the first night and announced that "Goldenbutt, Mr Piggy and Mrs Piggy are all asleep in the house," so that went out the window pretty dang fast. I can already tell that it's going to be ridiculously difficult to send them on their way in the fall, but I think it's important to get a chance to see the whole process through, since I eat meat nowadays. It's way too easy to be divorced from the process. It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect it has on my eating habits, anyway.

All in all, everything is going really well here. We are estimating about two more weeks of crazy work until everything is planted, and it's definitely nice to have a time limit on it. I really love the work and love seeing things come together, but it's hard not to feel burnt out some of the time with the sheer number of hours we're putting in. Yesterday was a town day, so that was a good break. A day of driving instead of wheeling a wheelbarrow, and a good solid burrito and margarita interlude = good stuff! But, yeah, in all, I am still really really stoked. I like the valley we live in more and more every day, and I feel super lucky to get to be here. It'll be rad when more of the snow is gone from the mountains and when everything is in the garden and we can start doing some serious hiking as well.

pigs are here!

So, yup, we picked up the pigs today. And they are grunty and awesome and frisk around a lot and seem to like it here. And I am totes exhausted from getting their fence and house ready all week, so I am going to get off the internet and read a book, but I will tell you more about them soon, and you can at least check out a picture for now.

busy. and stoked.

As usual, super uber busy, but stuff is still going really radly here. Right now we're just pushing to get all the pig infastructure in place before the pigs themselves get here later this week. We are almost done building a little a-frame pig house (on skids, so it can be moved around). Devin and I built the floor together, then I did the framing myself (first time working on that kind of thing, and it was a lot of fun) and he has done all the wood siding, and I got the plywood nailed on the roof. We just need to tarpaper the roof and tow it into the field for now, then in the fall when we have a bit more time we're going to make cedar shingles to fancy up the roofing. You can see a bit of the house in the photo above, but I will post a real picture of it when it's done and looking a bit better.

Yesterday we rented a gas powered auger from Devin's work and got all the holes for the pig fencing dug and the fence posts in. Gas powered augers go like the proverbial hot damn, as long as you don't hit any rocks. The first five holes we dug were hugely mega rocky which was discouraging, but a rich source of terrifying crunchy noises and epic auger flailing. The last ten we did were ridiculously easy and rock free, so that was pretty rad. I think it took longer to clear the rocks out of those few holes than to do all of the digging, but it's now done. We're going to string the fencing tomorry, and then I just need to build a gate and some feed containers in some of my copious amounts of spare time, and we are pretty much ready for the piggiess to get here.

Speaking of newly arrived animals, Judi's cows got here today and seem to be settling in well. I have already had to haul Gretchen out of their pasture four times today (which is extra impressive given that it was rainy and she opted to stay in the house much of the day). The first three times she was just in there eating goose shit, but the last time she started barking at the cows and running back and forth in front of them. When they didn't, y'know, just step on her or whatever, she became encouraged and stepped up the pace. She got them running to one of the corners, and ran back and forth barking to keep them in place. Eventually she got distracted by more shit to eat, so I was able to scoop her up and get her the hell outta there. Jerk.

We did our first farmer's market in Nelson last weekend. I gotta say, I absolutely love the valley we live in, but I think I hate Nelson with a deep and burning passion. There are just so many hippies. More than you would even imagine, and they're all so damn sincere about being stupid hippies. I can't exactly put my finger on what it is about them that pushes my buttons so much, but, man, Devin and I were both ready to have total freakouts by the end of the day. I think the markets will be posi for getting off the farm and taking a break from the hard physical work and stuff for a day, and I'm sure there will be rad people there, but I'm definitely gonna have to learn more tolerance for hippies (or at least more deep breathing and relaxation skills) to do them without my head exploding.

In more posi news, we are already eating chives, radishes and rhubarb from the garden! The taters are starting to come up, the spinach is almost ready to be thinned (and eaten!), the kale is up, the transplanted cukes, pumpkin, butternut squash, cabbage and brussel sprouts are all thriving, and there will be a buttload of corn and some broccoli and cauliflower transplanted in by the end of tomorry. So, yeah, stuff is really coming along, and it's cool to see so much in the way of results so quickly.

Oh, and it looks like we will almost for sures be in Van for a couple of days and Victoria for a day near the end of June. Iskra is playing a couple of shows, so Devin is going to do that, and I am tagging along to get some sweet bro downs in. So, coastal pals, we should totes hang out.

i have a phone again!

Back to having phone and internet, after about five days without. Our road was getting re-gravelled, and in the process, some dude on a giant gravel truck knocked down our phone lines so we were phoneless for awhile. It's nice to be able to keep in touch with people again, at any rate.

Stuff here is aces .... hugely busy as per the norm. We transplanted cukes into the new field on Sunday (as per the photo above). They're planted in corn-based black plastic that keeps them warm and weed free and will be pretty much gone by July. We also pounded rebar into the ground and ran loops of PVC piping over it to make hoop houses for some extra heat and frost protection. They were initially wearing these stylish looking plastic party hat type cones as well, but it started getting too hot for them, so now they're naked. Judi and I seeded a bed of beets and one of carrots today, and we'll do parsnips tomorry. Devin and I are also hoping to get a buttload more potatoes in the ground tomorrow morning. We have a bunch of different varieties now .... there's a guy who lives about fifteen minutes down the road who is a huge potato enthusiast/nerd and a total sweetheart who gave us a good deal on some cool kinds of seed potatoes.

Devin started his part time job today. He's in at a small engine repair shop just down the road for half days four days a week. It works out perfectly in terms of distance and hours and stuff, and it looks like it'll be a really interesting place to work as well. I got EI, so I am really really stoked on the prospect of being able to spend as much time working on the farm this summer as I need to and not having to stress about money. It seems like it'll work out well doing work trades for rent as well ... we didn't do tons of paid work this month but our rent was under three hundred bucks total (!!!!).

We were starting to get pretty burnt out from all the days of trucking a million wheelbarrows of compost around and shoveling compost and raking stuff that will turn into compost and screening compost and running compost through the wood chipper to make it into smaller compost, so we took a half day off on Sunday, and will try to do this at least once a week. There's so much to do and it's really rewarding and absorbing and all that good stuff, but it's for sures important to actually, y'know, hang out and go for walks and drink beer and chill and ill a bit. We took a walk after dinner the other night and checked out the property a bit more, which was rad. The river is so low right now that we could just walk across to the island, so we snooped around there a bit, checked out the swimming hole for when it's hot enough, and tried to figure out where Chad will be able to fly-fish when he visits.

In animal news, the chicks are totes thriving and looking damn fine. The bigger ones have feet that have grown way faster than the rest of them, so they sort of have the same ridiculous proportions as puppies. They are pretty adorable. Our pigs get here in ten days or so. We were working on getting the old shed into shape as a pig house, but decided it is just too janky to use. So, we borrowed a book of plans for animal shelters and tomorrow morning will get started on building an a-frame pig hut. It'll be good to get more experience doing the more carpentry type building.

Oh, and I also finished my workbenches and built a table for the record player to live on and got yet more sweet tools. Life is pretty totally aces, all in all.

ridiculous weather

So, it's totes snowing, which I find outrageous. It's weird being at the intersection of all these valleys ... crazyass weather comes and goes at all times. This morning it was cold but not too bad, so Devin starting seeding parsnips. Halfway through the first row it started snowing, so we had to go on to something else. We started marking out more beds in the new field (some in the greens section for the lettuce transplants when they're ready, some in the roots section for seeding beets), and halfway through that it was sunny and getting warm again. You end up looking around at all the green grass and flowers and stuff growing, then if you look up just a bit, there are these very close epic mountains with fresh snow all over them. It makes for a bit of a schizophrenic landscape, but it's really beautiful.

The chicks are still sort of struggling, but I think they're starting to get a bit better. They got chilled in transit, so although we've been keeping them uber warm and giving them everything their tiny hearts could desire (chicken gatorade, both food and gravel to eat ... all the amenities, y'know), there have been a lot more deaths than is usual. I feel bad for the poor little guys, but they seem to be rallying now, and they're growing really quickly. You can see from the photo above of a few of the huddled masses that they're looking a little patchy and messy still, but I think that the attention is starting to make a difference. Judi tells us they're usually a lot more adorable and a lot less covered in gunk, but I think they're pretty okay as is.

I've been getting the shop all set up the last couple of days, which is really exciting. I have my work benches done, my new dovetail jig is here (!!!!!), and I've been changing the blades on the planer, organizing all my crap, and generally getting ready to start making rad shit. The next day or so will probably be spent working in the field and getting some hoop houses ready for the more delicate plants, but after that I'm ready to go on the side tables.

It seems crazy to me that we only got here just over three weeks ago. It feels like ages, maybe because we've been working a lot every day and the weekends and days of the month have become sort of meaningless, or maybe because we spend the majority of our time on the farm and the outside world tends to recede back. Whatever the reason, it's a bit of a dislocating feeling, but not in a bad way. I'm really really happy here, and even all the gardening stuff is really starting to come together and make sense to me, which is cool, as at first people would bust out all this gardening lingo and I would stare at them in incomprehension and start zoning immediately. I've obviously got a ridiculous amount still to learn, but it's starting to make sense and click into place, which is rad.

it begins ...

All of a sudden, it feels like things are really starting to get rolling pretty damn fast. A couple of days ago we started staking off the market garden in the new field, and got some seed potatoes in (as you can see from the pictures). In the last two days we finished stringing the wire for the fence extension (the field had been used as pasture in previous years, so the fence wasn't high enough to keep deer out) and getting it all tightened. The irrigation line is in place in bare bones form, so we'll just need to add more connections coming off it as we get plants in the ground. The spinach is going in today to keep the taters company, and Devin has a crop rotation plan pretty much totally mapped out now, so the rest of will gradually get dropped into various slots. Yesterday was the first twelve hour day, and I think that's pretty much how it's gonna be from now to the foreseeable future. I am stoked! I feel really lucky that we get to be a part of a solid, established farm, but that we are getting to be a part of putting in a new garden and adding new animals (pigs! coming soon!), because it's a good chance to learn every step of the process without it being too crazy intimidating. So, yeah, stuff is pretty totally rad. I will take more pictures of the garden as we get it staked off and planted in and as it starts to look a bit more like something besides a giant rectangle of dirt. other than the directly farming related projects, I am about to start building a matched set of side tables for Alex and Judi (which will be both lucrative and fun, and which has given me an excuse to buy a dovetail jig, which i am max excited about), and it looks like I'll be finishing framing out the windows in the workshop, shingling our house, and putting in a set of french doors (Devin will prolly work with me on the latter three endeavors, depending on how crazy busy he is).

the new field

The picture above is the freshly tilled new field ... lookin' damn fine. Yesterday was a pretty busy day ... we had guys out here tilling and liming the fields. I spent part of the day picking rocks behind the tractor, part of the day working on fencing, and most of the day toting around 40 kg sacks of lime. These had to be tossed into the scoop of the tractor, cut open with a shovel, and dumped out, and we did damn near 200 of them. The fields look great, and I feel like a tough guy, which is a good combo. The guy running the big tractor told me at the end of the day that he had to hand it to me, because he'd never seen anyone work like that, which is a pretty amazing compliment to get. The new field is now pretty much ready to go ... we're just finishing reinforcing the deer fencing to make it 6' plus. Right now we're doing a quick and dirty job where we use baling twine to attach a taller post to each short post, which we hope will get shored up to be even sturdier when we stretch the wire across it. It should be good enough to keep out the deer for now, anyway.

On a more nurturing note, we now have 200 tiny baby chickens (mostly meat birds, but a few layers)! They came in late Thursday night and I got to help introduce them to their new home and teach them to drink water (dip beak in water, repeat). For now, they're in a tiny enclosure under heat lamps so we can try to keep their temperature at around 90 degrees. As they get bigger and able to keep themselves warm and take care of themselves, we'll gradually enlarge the enclosure. I'll try to get a picture of them soon, but right now Judi is just going into the garage where they're kept quickly every 12 hours to make sure the heat stays in. Even their food and water needs to be warmed before it goes in.

It's a really beautiful morning here. The sun is already burning the fog off, and I can hear geese flying over (as well as Gretchen snoring). Devin gets home from Victoria today, so that will be good also. I look forward to once again having access to a motorcar, which I am gonna use to go get smokes and a beer. And a library card. Not necessarily in order of priority.

the dogs

Bean and Gretchen are pretty ridiculously happy here. They have shed their collars and officially become farm dogs (and have discovered all kinds of gross stuff to roll in to seal the deal). They spend pretty much all day outside (although Gretchen will occasionally sneak back in and fall asleep on our bed, generally after rolling around in the horse manure on the new field, if possible), so by nighttime they are totes beat and spend the whole time sleeping and being cuddly. This photo is definitely representative of their energy levels by the end of the day.

the workshop!

Here are a couple of shots of the workshop. You can see the utility shelves that I built or fixed up, painted, and installed for tool storage, and a bunch of crazy old cabinets (some from the dump, some from the newspaper office where they were used to store type back in the day) that I fixed up and made a new countertop for. We're still in the process of getting organized, but I am almost done a new workbench that will be really flexible in terms of how I can use it and put it away and store it, and that will also serve as an outfeed table for the table saw. The next project will either be a big worktable with a solid top for Alex to use, or some side tables for Alex and Judi that we still need to talk about and design. Once those are done with, I need to build a bunch of bookcases for our house and a table for the record player to live on. The field is what you see when you walk out the front door of the workshop, and it's the new field that will be used as Devin's market garden. This weekend we got four truck and trailer loads of horse manure and spread them all out on the field. A guy is coming in to till it all up later this week, then we'll be good to go. We'll run a chicken tractor around the perimeter, and maybe do something similar with the pigs.

the house

For the benefit of family type folks who want to see our house, here are a couple of pictures of it. It is pretty much the schmanciest and most grown up type place either of us have ever lived, which is kinda crazy. There are two lofts, one of which is Devin's private space, one of which is mine. We tried a bold new policy of sleeping in a loft and without the dogs, but that lasted all of two nights, one of which involved Gretchen being carried up a ladder midway through the night. So now we just sleep in a bedroom with dogs, which is pretty okay.

random scenes

This is what I see when I wake up in the morning. Stoked! It's only three weeks since the last photos, but the snow is pretty much totally gone. You can see fresh snow on the mountaintops in the last photo, but down here in the valley it's uber warm and protected. During the days, it's already way warmer than Victoria summers, and I've already been working in sleeveless shirts and guzzling tons of water and wishing that woodworking in shorts or miniskirts was not such a stupid idea. The first picture is part of the old shed right by our house. Part of it is storage for everyone's building supplies, but the part in the picture is a couple of rooms Devin has been cleaning out (hence all the junk on the ground). Half of it is his tool shed, and the part in behind will house our piglets in a few weeks.

first trip up this year

Here are some pictures from when we dropped off our first load of stuff in mid March. It was still pretty crazy snowy, but pretty rad nonetheless. The dog in the pictures is Tula, the farm dog who is giant and old and snorty and all in all pretty awesome.