Take it easy

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s vacation week, people. I’ve been trying really hard not to come up with a big to-do list for this week. (I can hear Matt scoffing as he reads this).

I’m not good at sitting and relaxing. Honestly, I find I relax the most when I DIY. Gardening, painting, working around the farm empties my mind usually.

However, I’ve been trying to set different types of goals for this week:

Spend a lazy morning on the couch with a blanket, hot chocolate and a pointless action movie (my favourite kind of movie)
Check if I can still turn a cartwheel (Matt’s scoffing again)
Go for a few long walks with Matt, Baxter and our off-leash hiking group

Of course, there will be other activities. The gardens are all weedy. The cold water tap in my shower is so stiff that it barely turns–and Matt’s brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit at the end of the week, and part of being hospitable involves not asking your guests to shower in scalding hot water. I might finally put a gate on the vegetable garden.

But who knows. Maybe all of the books I’ve ordered from the library will come in, Ralph and I will hang out in the hammock, and our guests will have to double fist it when they turn on the water.

We’ll see what happens. For now, I’m trying to make like the Eagles and take it easy.

What’s your plan for the week? How do you like to spend your vacation?

Rough ride

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The car was up on the hoist. Matt was underneath. The mechanic turned to him and said, “What are your intentions with this car?”

Never a good question when you’re standing under a 12 year old vehicle.

There had been signs that not everything was right: warning lights, new noises, a dozen years on the road, the 262,000+km on the odometer.

Driving home, the car broke down three times on the side of the road. Jumper cables were required.

I was at work and unaware all of this was happening, so my question when I got home of “How did the appointment with the mechanic go?” was met with an answer I didn’t entirely expect.

“Ummm… I hope you don’t mind, but I bought a car today.”

To roll out the red carpet for Matt’s new car, we pushed the old car out of the way of the front door (the dealership sent someone to pick it up… with a tow truck), and we patched the potholes in the driveway.

We can’t have new suspension and steering put to the test by the obstacle course that is the usual access path for the farm.

What state is your driveway in? How old is your car? Have you ever had to buy a car urgently? Who else thinks I should have got to drive the tractor while Matt handled the rake?

#plant15

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Over the winter, I connected with a few writers who specialize in the agricultural sector. Most of them have a background in farming. From them, I learned that when people ask me what kind of farm we have, the correct answer (so that I don’t sound like a complete city slicker) is “cash crop.”

This year’s cash crop is soybeans.

However, I should be clear that this is not our cash, nor our crop. We’re still too citified to farm our own fields. I’d have no idea where to even start. And we definitely don’t have the equipment.

Everything that’s gone into the fields and all of the plants that are currently in the fields belong to our farmer.

The soybeans are now knee high to a puppy dog.

There are still a few tiny blossoms here and there. We should be seeing bean pods soon.

I’m too much of a city slicker to know whether things are looking good. From afar, they’re looking very green.

Farmers with much more knowledge than me are sharing their crops at #plant15. I encourage you to check it out to see the ups (and downs) of the growing season so far.

Odds and sods

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I took advantage of the mid-week Canada Day holiday to turn this week into a bit of a vacation. I’ve been trying to embrace the “summer time and the living is easy” mantra, so I don’t have a DIY or farm update to share today.

Here’s some of what we’ve been up to instead:

We spent Canada Day with Matt’s brother and sister-in-law, as is our tradition. I cannot say that Baxter the Canadog embraced his adopted country. He tolerated his patriotic kerchief, the parade, the crowds and the fireworks. He wanted to meet all the dogs and smell all the smells, and was a bit disgruntled that he didn’t get to spend every second socializing. He got lots of compliments on his kerchief though.
I planted some more peppers–4 more red and 12 jalapeno plants. Matt and I both keep adding lots of plants to the garden. Good thing we have a big property.
I’ve visited a few antique stores–not my usual haunt–during this vacation. I think I might have found a set of dining room chairs. They’re on hold until Matt can check them out later this morning. Fingers crossed he likes them.
Chiot’s Run is a new blog for me. I don’t have a lot of gardening blogs in my reader, and I’m really enjoying this one. After spending a fair amount of time yesterday thinning my beets and rutabagas, I’ve decided that next year I’m going to follow Susy’s lead and make myself a square foot gardening template for root vegetables.

What have you been up to this week? What’s your definition of easy summer living?

I wish you all a wonderful weekend. And to my American readers, happy Independence Day.

Happy Canada Day

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Maple leaves, green and red, presiding over the farm. Happy Canada Day.

Back up power for an electric sump pump

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Since the first rainfall two weeks ago, we’ve now had rain steadily for nearly two weeks. Often, it’s not gentle rain. Deluges and thunder storms have been the name of the game.

Our sump pump kicks in often, especially with a heavy rain.

The big worry is that thunder storms bring both rain and power outages. Without power, our sump pump doesn’t run. We’ve not lost power yet, but it’s Matt’s biggest worry.

Does anyone know if there’s a battery back up system you can add to a sump pump?

There are benefits to having a generator, and we may go that route someday. For now, I’d love to hear if anyone knows about sump pump solutions.

It never rains but it pours

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For the past few years, it seems we’ve gone from winter to summer. Just skipped over spring completely. This year, we’ve seesawed back into winter a couple of times (brrr). But we’ve definitely missed spring–and its spring showers.

The grass seed that I sprinkled has sprouted–thanks to diligent daily waterings.

Our fields are going green and our soybeans are growing, but my hose doesn’t help them, and I wasn’t sure how long they’d hang on without rain.

Saturday morning, we watched clouds building to the north of us, wondering if rain was finally going to fall. (If you look closely, you might be able to see the bright green watering can halfway down the driveway, next to a newly planted tree).

A few hours later, we had our answer. Yes, it was finally raining, but it was pouring. More water than the dry, dry ground could possibly absorb.

It doesn’t seem like we just have rain anymore. It’s either a deluge or nothing. Maybe the gentle rain is hanging out wherever spring has gone.

Poor Baxter did not appreciate the cooling moisture as much as the plants did. Apparently, melting from the heat is preferable to melting from rain.

The torrential downpour did eventually ease. By the end of the weekend, we had a full day and a half of rain.

So I won’t have to do any watering for a little while.

What season is it where you are? What season should it be? Have you had too much, too little or just enough rain? Are seeds sprouting where you are? Does your dog like the rain?

An evening walk along the pond trail

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The nature of farm living is that it’s tough work. Last night, after a day full of hard labour, my skin was stinging from scrapes, thorn pricks and a pretty decent sunburn.

My muscles and grip strength were gone. At one point, Matt had said, “Pull!” as we were stringing the fence in the garden. And at my response–“I’ve got nothing left!”–he just laughed.

It was after 5 o’clock, and the dog still needed his afternoon walk–a daunting prospect.

But the nature of farm living is that there’s also an incredible setting, right in our backyard, so Baxter and I headed for the pond trail.

Matt cut this trail for us last year. Some of our hard work earlier earlier in the day had been sharpening the mower blades (with help from my parents), attaching the deck to the tractor and mowing the grass.

In addition to doing the lawn, Matt did a pass over the trail, so Bax and I had a lovely space to hike.

We walked alongside the lilac hedge that leads from the house down to the water.

We turned left and followed the trail along the shore towards one of our old apple trees. This tree is a showstopper this year. Absolutely covered in blossoms.

From there, the trail heads into the small pasture behind the barn, following the fence at the edge of the marsh.

It loops around past the manure pile and then up to my favourite tree.

We took a detour by the garden to check out the new fence.

And as I headed to house, Baxter decided he was going to stay out for awhile yet. He laid down beside the garden and gazed back down the trail and across the farm.

The view is fields and forest and trees and marsh, and it’s worth any scrapes, pricks, burns, aches, hard work and exhaustion.

The payoff–this farm–is exactly where I want to be.

Picking up after the litterbugs

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’ve decided that smoking, drinking and littering should all be added to the list of deadly sins.

Saturday was the annual spring clean up in our area, so I headed out with a roll of garbage bags, two pairs of gloves and, of course, my usual sidekick.

Most of the litter that we picked up was cigarette packages, paper coffee cups and beer cans. Given that most of the trash was thrown out of the windows of passing cars, I’m concerned that so much of it consisted of empty containers that formerly contained alcoholic beverages.

So perhaps to clarify, the deadly sin should be drinking and driving, not just drinking.

The annual litter clean up invariably leaves me feeling disgusted with humanity.

Not all of humanity, though. This year we had professional help from 1-800-Got-Junk. The team was driving around the concessions, picking up the bags that had been left on the roadside.

Baxter was also his usual helpful self. He appreciated the opportunity to spend as much time as he wanted wading in the ditch.

When he tired of getting muddy, he returned to sniffing and sunbathing.

Here are a few highlights of this year’s clean up:

Various car parts–headlights, bumpers, hubcaps, a license plate. Our ditches are very deep, and apparently the stop sign across from the east field is invisible.

SPB, I have your gloves… Well, two of them. The third odd one went in the trash.

We made it approximately halfway around our 2km of roadside. The grand tally over three hours of clean-up was three bags of garbage, three bins of recycling, three hubcaps and three gloves. Oh, and those three new sins.

Have you done a spring clean-up at your house? What’s the weirdest trash you’ve ever come across? What sins would you add to the list if you could?

Summer family

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Recently, I’ve started following a few more farm blogs. Even though we live on a farm, I am definitely not a farmer and there’s a lot that I don’t know.

One of the blogs I’ve been reading is Dinner Starts Here.

Contributors to this site are young farmers from Ontario. They write about their lives on the farm and “how they’re producing everything from berries to beef, milk and eggs to wheat, soybeans, potatoes and maple syrup.” The idea is to help people understand what goes into producing the food we eat and get to know the people who make our food.

Last week I came across a post about one of the farmer’s summer family. She wrote about the migrant workers they hire every year to work on their farm. She said, “Our guys are one of the major backbones of the business. They are vital to our operations successes – we quite literally could not exist without them.”

Photo courtesy of Dinner Starts Here

I realized that after reading her post, I had some misconceptions about migrant workers, so I reached out to the Dinner Starts Here team and asked if I could share her post.

Erin gives a good explanation of the important role migrant workers play on Ontario farms, and it’s a great introduction to the people who produce the food we eat.

Contrary to why a lot of people believe farms hire migrant workers – it’s not cheaper or easier… it’s actually is a lot more expensive and a lot more work for us to hire them than it would be to hire local staff. First – we’re required (as we are required to pay all of our staff) to pay them minimum wage. Some of our guys who have been returning year after year have earned increased wages like all of our staff does when they return year after year. Then – we have to pay for housing, a portion of their utilities, and a portion of their airfare to and from Mexico. We also spend countless hours taking them shopping for anything they need – from groceries to new clothes to take home for their kid… which is a tremendous amount of work, time and effort. But in the end… for us… it’s worth it.

I encourage you to pop over to Dinner Starts Here and read the rest of the post.