Fall to do list

Posted on November 2, 2026 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Fall is always crunch time for jobs at the farm. This fall, weather has been so mild and my schedule so full I’ve not started my fall to-do list yet. Now that November is here I can feel the deadline of winter looming. So here are all the fall tasks that have been knocking around in my brain.

Coop

I learned a few things in our first winter with the chickens. Now we have the ducks and there are a few changes I want to make to make things easier for everyone this winter. The main one is adding a roof to part of the outdoor run. A cover will give the birds a bit more shelter, lessen the snow build up and also provide some shade once summer returns. I have large panels of metal roof from the old coop that I’m planning to wire on top. I also need to clean their indoor pens, drain the new waterline we added to the barn, and get buckets ready for transporting water from the house. While I’m in the barn I have to cover the window that I leave open for the swallows.

Garden

I did a lot of work on the garden this spring, and it paid off in a great season (update to come). I’d like to do more work this fall so that we’re further ahead next spring. I need to clean out the remaining plants. Then I’d like to weed one more time and cover it all with leaves. There is still half the garden that we didn’t use this year, and I had dreams of prepping a few growing beds on that side, but I’m not sure that will happen.

House

Tasks at the house are pretty routine: remove screens, clean eavestroughs, turn off outside water. Nothing takes too long or is too difficult. Manageable.

Fire

November is usually when we start to have fires each night. Matt’s Dad and I have restocked our firewood stash, but it’s not piled. I’d like to stack it in our woodpile, and then I need to sweep the chimney. Perhaps when I’m on the roof for the eavestroughs I can do the chimney at the same time.

Tractor

I gave up on mowing several weeks ago. The bugs and caterpillars can be extra cozy in our shaggy grass for the winter. So I can pop off the mower deck, but the tractor has a few jobs left before it can retire for the winter. First up is chipping our annual brush pile. I used a lot of wood chips in the gardens this year and will need more next year, so replenishing our chip pile will be helpful. As will be cleaning up the mess of branches and sticks that have accumulated all year. The other maybe task is attaching the big mower and cutting the edge of the field and the septic one more time. I usually do it a couple of times a year, and I’ve only done it once so far. I think a final clean up would be good. Then the tractor can move into the garage, in case it’s needed for snow this winter. After a bit of organizing and cleaning in the garage, of course.

Work is never done, and that’s okay with me. Part of living at the farm is taking care of it. Fall–and the approach of winter–adds an extra dimension to the work. I’m hoping I can stay focused and productive and get as much done as possible.

What’s on your fall to do list?

Replacing our drafty patio door

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The living room has a big patio door on the south side. It gives us great natural light, which significantly increased when we removed the sunroom from the side of the house. I loved sitting on the couch in the fall, watching the leaves change colour.

But the beauty of fall is followed by the cold of winter, and I knew the patio door was a big source of drafts. I had felt that the sunroom provided some thermal buffer (perhaps wishful thinking). But with it gone, the cold air had a direct path through the door and into the house.

So at the end of the year (fortunately on a mild December day), we had the door replaced.

Of course, like so many things in this house, the door was “special.” It was right between five and six feet–the two standard sizes for patio doors. We went with a five foot door, and the installers built out the jamb and added some extra trim inside and flashing outside to cover the difference so it’s not noticeable.

Ellie plays in front of the patio door every day, and most lunchtimes are a picnic in the sunbeams that now stream through the window.

The feature I’m most excited about is the screen. With the sunroom in the way, we had no incentive to open the old patio door. We would have just smelled stinky old sunroom. Also, the door did not slide well and it didn’t have a screen. Now, we have a screen and a door that opens and closes smoothly. I am looking forward to fresh air as soon as the weather is warm enough to open the windows. For now, I’ll be enjoying my new view.

Anyone else dealing with winter drafts? Or enjoying winter sunbeams?

Busy, busy beavers

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A month into living at the farm I wrote a post that was basically, “I think I saw a beaver? It wasn’t really a beaver, was it?” It turned out that yes, it was a beaver.

And they’re still here and busier than ever.

Ellie and I visited them on the weekend. She likes to throw sticks into the water for the beavers and climb the “beaver tree.”

Child standing on a tree in the middle of a large beaver lodge

Since we cleared the pond shore last year, the beaver lodge became visible. It wraps around the big willow–the beaver tree–on the shore.

Partially frozen pond with a large tree and beaver lodge on the shore

Occasionally over the summer we caught a glimpse of the beavers swimming in the pond or heard splashing during one of our campfires.

In the lead up to winter, the beavers added sooooo many sticks and sooooo much mud to their lodge. It is very large.

If you take the trail from the pond around the meadow and behind the barn, you come to the beavers’ logging camp. They’ve taken down about a dozen trees here. In the fall, Matt’s Dad came and cut up three trees that had fallen over the fence and across the path. He dumped the wood at the firepit by the pond. The beavers dragged every single log into the water. And then they went back and knocked over a bunch more trees.

Child ducking to walk under a tree cut down by beavers

Apparently, “beavers store food (fresh branches) in the water around their lodges” in the fall. Then “in the winter, a beaver will swim out… to get food under the ice.”

This gives me a bit of comfort as the build up of sticks in the pond this fall has me worried that the beavers are planning to build a dam across the middle.

The weather here has been much too mild for the pond to freeze yet. And I can see where the beavers have broken through the ice to keep the water open. They’ve also still been coming up on shore to eat the bark off a variety of trees, including a huge maple.

Beaver damage around the base of a large tree

I’m a little worried for the maple and still concerned that the beavers are going to take over the whole pond, but I’m hoping we can continue to share the farm. I still think it’s so neat that we have beavers.

Do you have any interesting wildlife at your house? Anyone have any experience with beavers to share?

Growing fruit in a cold climate

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Apples frozen on an ice covered tree in the winter

While our gardens may be buried in snow–and after freezing rain yesterday, ice–many of us are still planning, dreaming and thinking about what we’ll be growing this coming season (see Sarah in Illinois’ plans that she shared last week).

I recently wrote an article for The Canadian Organic Grower, sharing some tips for growing fruit in cold climates.

As hard as the snow, cold, ice and wind can be on humans, the climate can be equally harsh for plants.

Despite the challenges, many Canadian gardeners want to grow and enjoy fresh tender fruit right in their own backyards. Fortunately, a growing number of nurseries, breeders and researchers are cultivating trees, vines and bushes that can thrive in Canada.

Frost covered raspberry cane

In our own garden, I am excited by the prospect of hopefully picking our first crop of grapes this year and seeing our blueberries and blackberries return. These fruits are all cold hardy varieties that I specifically selected to ensure they survive (and hopefully thrive) at our farm.

You can read the whole article here.

For my fellow cold climate dwellers, do you have any recommendations of particular varieties that you grow at your garden? Or tips to help plants survive cold weather? What climate and growing challenges do you face in your garden?

Inspiration and a mantra for 2018

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Happy New Year from Sarah in Illinois. I’m very happy to have Sarah continuing as a contributor this year, sharing news of what’s happening at her farm in Illinois. Like us here in Ontario, she’s starting off the year in a cold snap, but she’s looking ahead with optimism. She’s sharing some of her inspiration for 2018 today.

Happy New Year!

Our new year in Illinois has been great, but very, very cold. We have not made it above freezing temperatures in about two weeks. Last night we dropped to -6F (-21C) actual temperature. Keeping water available to the chickens has been my biggest struggle, even with a heated water bowl.

There is one more inconvenience that I am dealing with. Frozen eggs!

I gather them in the morning before work, but by the time I get home and there has been 10 hours of single digit temperatures, I usually find this:

However, relief is on the way. The forecast for the upcoming week shows that we are going to rise above freezing every day and I am looking forward to it.

I am also looking forward to the upcoming year. A new year always feels like a blank slate. For us, 2017 had some good points but a lot of struggles and the promise of a fresh new start is invigorating.

If you remember my posts last year or the year before I used the website My One Word to find an inspirational word for the year.

I decided this year that I want to use a phrase as a sort of mantra for my upcoming year and I wrote it in the front of my new planner.

I am not sure where this phrase originated. I found a version attributed to Roy T. Bennett in The Light in the Heart: “Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”

I found this quote by David Cottrell: “Doing the right thing isn’t always easy – in fact, sometimes it’s real hard – but just remember that doing the right thing is always right.”

And if you are a fan of Harry Potter then I am sure you remember Albus Dumbledore saying, “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

No matter who first said it, I think it can be applied to every aspect of my life from what I choose to eat, to getting chores done around the house and barn.

So what about you? Do you have a word or a mantra to start your new year? Or do you write out resolutions? Do you feel like I do and think of the new year as a clean, blank slate?

This is a great mantra for the year, Sarah. I like how it can apply to big things as well as the little everyday tasks. I’m doing a word of the year for the first time this year, and I’ll be sharing my choice in an upcoming post.

I’m curious to here how others are starting the new year. Leave a comment and let us know your resolutions or words or mantras.

Snapshot

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A rare sight this winter–sunset. Fittingly, this pink sky shone over the farm on Valentine’s Day.

Happy weekend, to you.

How to encourage egg laying in the winter

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Back in December, Sarah in Illinois shared some of the lessons she’s learned since adding laying chickens to her farm. In the post, she mentioned mentioned that their egg production had declined as winter set in. She had a few ideas to encourage more laying, and today she’s back to share what happened.

If you remember my post a couple months ago, I gave an update on the chickens and mentioned that their egg production had declined.

I thought that it was either from lack of daylight or cooler temperatures. I was willing to try to add some artificial daylight, but that I was not going to risk a barn fire by adding heat.

I am happy to report adding some light did the trick.

I went to the local home improvement store and purchased a light socket with metal shade. All you do is add a bulb and plug it in.

I took it a few steps further.

First, I chose an LED bulb. I am serious when I say that a barn fire is one of my worst fears, and I was going to take no chances in using a bulb that would get hot.

An LED did the trick. It produces almost no heat at all. I can rest my hand on the metal shield while it is on and there is no chance of me, or the chickens, getting burned.

As you can imagine with a traditional bulb there is no way I would be able to touch the shield, it would burn me instantly.

The second thing I did was to secure the fixture.

It came with a clamp to attach it where you need light. There is a good chance that it wouldn’t move, but I wanted to make sure it did not fall and rest in the straw in the bottom of the coop. So I ran a screw into the clamp after I had it where I wanted it.

No crazy chicken antics will cause the lamp to fall.

My final step was to add a timer. I have it set to come on every morning from 6 to 7 am and again from 4 to 8 pm.

After I had all of this in place I waited.

After about a week I found 2 eggs in the box.

And then a few days later I started getting 3 eggs a day.

I even had a bonus day yesterday where all 4 chickens laid an egg.

I can say that this project was a complete success, and I have no fear of burning our barn down.

I also have progress to report on my project goals that I listed in my last post.

One of my projects is to make over my Grandma’s Saint Francis statue.

I started by scraping off all loose paint. I did not intend to remove all the paint, only the paint that was loose and came off easily.

For the most part the concrete is in good shape but it has broken off of the base.

I am sure there are products meant for this type of project, but I chose to use what we had sitting around. We had a partial bag of thin-set mortar that we had used to install tile in our house. It sets up extremely hard, so I thought that once it is painted, it may work just fine.

I really don’t know about the longevity for this use, but I decided that it was worth a shot. I mixed some water and made it thick enough that I could apply it with a putty knife.

I knew that I wanted to add a couple layers instead of one thick layer so I purposely left the first layer bumpy instead of smooth so that the second layer will have something to attach to. I waited for it to dry and hoped that it would work.

24 hours after I added the thin-set to the statue, I started thinking that it is not going to work. I think the thin-set is too crumbly and will not hold up long term.

But that’s okay. I tried it, and I will try something else and report back how it goes.

Way to give things a try, Sarah. I’m glad that the chickens’ light worked so well. It’s great that you’re able to get fresh eggs again. I would miss those! Hopefully you’re able to find something that works for your Grandma’s statue too.

A walk by the creek

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Care to join me on an evening walk along the creek?

We’ll start at the front of the property where water from farms to the north of us drains onto our land. It flows along the border of the front field, cuts under the driveway and then picks up another stream. From here it snakes along the perimeter of the corner field following the edge of our pine forest.

Partway along, we come to an old bridge that once connected the field to the forest. I discovered this bridge on one of my first rambles in the early months of owning the farm. I remember how excited I was, although I have yet to attempt to cross the bridge.

Some day, we may repair the bridge and establish some pathways through the forest.

As we near the mouth of the pond, the creek drops, swirling under trees, around boulders and over rocks.

Unusual weather for January in Canada–five degrees and day after day of rain this week–has the water high and flowing fast, yet ice still coats the grass along the shore.

We end our ramble at the pond where the ice is melting in this January thaw.

Just one small problem, we’re on the wrong side of the creek and the bridge is out. Be careful getting home. 🙂

Have a great weekend everyone. May I suggest you go for a ramble?

Breakfast with the birds

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Most days, my morning starts pretty early. Too early for the sun and too early for the birds.

Which is a shame, because our birdfeeder is perfectly positioned right outside the dining room window, and I love watching the birds as I’m having my breakfast.

Over the holidays, my days started a little later and I was able to share my breakfast with a few feathered folk.

The woodpecker (above) was the top of the pecking order until the dove (below) came along. Despite their reputation, this guy is not at all peaceful. He wants all the seeds for himself.

I highly recommend this simple style of birdfeeder. The birds seem to really like it, and it’s easy to fill and clean. I posted plans way back when I first made it. You can download them here.

What birds do you see at your house? Do you have a birdfeeder?

That’s a wrap

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

If you’re looking for Christmas presents, fancy paper and pretty ribbons, you’ve come to the wrong place.

I did do some wrapping this weekend, but it was in the garden (yes, I’m still working in the garden).

I have wrapped our grape vines in burlap. I have no idea if this is the right thing to do or not, but, as I’ve said before, gardening is an experiment.

The grapes are brand new and they’re a wee bit exposed on the outer edge of the garden where it meets the field. I felt like a bit of additional protection wouldn’t hurt, and I had some burlap lying around, so a couple of weekends ago, I stapled a length of fabric to the fence.

Of course, I ran out and by the time I picked up more burlap, we’d had snow. A lot of snow–at least for us and for this time of year.

Since I could no longer open the garden gate–unless I wanted to shovel and I had been shoveling for a couple of hours by the time I had the brainwave to finish the garden–I tossed the burlap, the stapler and the scissors over the fence, and then climbed the fence myself. In case you’re wondering, climbing a fence in bulky snow pants and boots is not the easiest. But the snow makes a soft landing.

I was grateful we have a wood fence, because it was easy to just staple the burlap right to the wood. Where the bottom of the fence was buried in snow, I packed the snow against the fabric to hold it in place.