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!