Homestead

We had a few hens taken by raccoons early in the season. They were taken outside but when you tighten up security the raccoons tend to get more aggressive so I built a stronger summer door from the main house.

Turkey day is September 22. These guys are coming along nicely. We have a mix of straight run Bronze Orlopps and Mini Whites. The turkeys are you big for my picket and most of them are sold so they are going to the abattoir.

I am the lucky owner of a 20m blackberry hedge. Last years yield was about 15kg and thus year looks to be the same.

But here's the thing, 15kg is far too much to make jam of, so last year I experimented with wine. I got this kit https://brew2bottle.co.uk/products/better-brew-hedgerow-wine-kit-23l and just followed the instructions. And it was a great success, everyone who's tasted it have even been to nice to say it was bad or have actually complimented the wine. But I still have half the wine left and now it's time for 2023s harvest.

I'm still considering wine, jam and some juice but... What would you do with a lot of blackberries?

I know it sounds dumb that the butter chicken kit contains neither butter nor chicken but trust me, they're awesome.

The box contains diced organic tomatoes, organic coconut milk, two packs of spices one for the beginning and one for the end, and a sheet of instructions for cooking it in an instant pot and on the stovetop.

Our girl cat brought a rat she'd either killed or found already dead to our patio (she hasn't done this for a few years).

As the wife and I discussed how best to dispose of it, we saw to our horror 3 large, purplish-black (2cm x 1.5cm?) fat larval things emerge from the rat's abdomen. A quick web search ('Vancouver Island rat botfly') shows matching images. Eyyyyyych.

I bagged the carcass and captured the larvae in a jar for the moment... there's a burn ban at the moment, so I can't do that, but I don't just want to throw them in the trash either so

• Is burying them sufficient?
• Are our two cats in any danger of infection? (I phoned our vet, no answer from them yet)
• Should we notify the town pest control dept.?

There are lots of cats in the area besides our own, so we thought rats weren't a big problem on our street. Now I'm not so sure.

EDIT: We didn't want to wait any longer to deal with it, so I dug the deepest hole I could under some back bushes and squashed every larva I could find, in and out of the carcass, then buried everything. I hope that's the end of that. Yuuuuuuuck.

The other day I went out in the morning, drained and rinsed the ducks pool, and put the hose in it to fill.

That evening around dinner time I went, "FUCK!" and ran down to find three very happy ducks and turn off the hose.

So I added this automatic filler. Now when I rinse the pool it will fill to a couple of inches from the top and stop.

One of our Bronze Orlopp toms reaching through the fence to steal the duck's feed. They really aren't starving. They have a 35 lb feeder full of turkey grower pellets they can access 24 hours a day. It just tastes better if you steal it from your neighbor.

One of the more than 120 varieties of dailies planted around our house and gardens.

My wife ran off the London and left me in charge for 3 weeks. I didn't kill her tomatoes.

I have a lot of fallen trees on my property. Obviously I salvage what I can for firewood, but most of it is half rotten and not suitable for either firewood nor building.

I clean it up into piles in the fall and spring and burn it in the winter. And I made a hugelkultur mound that used some of it. But there's sooo much, and I'd rather do something better than just burn it.

Any ideas?

We have 16 turkeys on the go this year. They are a mix of Bronze Orlopps and Mini White's. The largest of our Bronze birds finished at over 20 Kg on the hoof last year. We ordered a turkeys a month later this spring than last year.

My wife loves toads in her garden because they eat things that eat her plants. She has a love hate relationship with snakes. On the one hand they eat rodents that would eat her ~~pants~~ plants. On the other they are snakes and they eat her toad friends. I nearly stepped on this one. I took a couple of pictures and placed it safely in one of the gardens.

What are some of your favourite tools (types of tools , brands, specific tools) or equipment for use around the homestead?

I am a fan of Stihl. I have a MS261 chainsaw and FS131 weed Wacker. Thinking of picking up one of their little battery pruners, the GTA26

Other recent acquisitions include a MUT utility trailer for our ATV and a John Deere zero turn.

Super handy but more expensive: a SCUT (sub compact utility tractor). We have a Massey Ferguson GC with a Sims cab and variety of attachments (MF blower, Woods rotary cutter, etc)

Hi all, just joined up and figured I'd share in the berry love. My partner and I moved on to 50 acres of land on a windy hill in Central NY about 10 yrs ago. When we're not trying to keep the 200 yo farmhouse from falling down we're raising a small flock of all purpose sheep, a few Nigerian dwarf goats, and 15-30 free ranging chickens. Our weird flock is self-perpetuating, so a mix of australorpes, barred rocks, jaerhons, etc.

We've also got a couple of horses, a donkey, and a couple of dogs. We're mostly in it to feed ourselves, but one of these years we'll figure out the short season here well enough to start a market garden. Last year we managed to eat about 90% off the land from May - November, and of course have a few things we're still working through. Not going so hard on it this year due to some health issues, but growing peas, corn, beans, chickpeas, a million pounds of potatoes, tomatoes, wine cap mushrooms, and usually get some volunteer squash or pumpkins. Found some wild grapes so threw up a trellis and they're going gangbusters.

Tapped some maple and birch for the first time this spring, and definitely looking forward to more of that. We also forage greens, berries, wild quinoa, nuts, and all manner of things I'm told are edible. Our pond used to be stocked but between the previous owners overfishing and some beavers a few years back I doubt there's anything much left at the moment.

We process the sheep wool by hand and are trying to get enough spun up to try weaving on the huge, ancient barn frame loom a friend gave us.

Also experimenting with a food forest, between our established heritage (aka bitter, sour, and mealy) apples, new honeycrisps, walnuts, chestnuts, paw paw, and one lonely peach.

Anyways, that's us. We like to keep busy. Looking forward to learning from you all!

We relocated the raspberries last fall, and then promptly forgot about them. What would probably amount to 5m of shrubs, is now covered in stinging nettles and various other weeds. We managed to not even pick enough to cover the bottom of the steam juicer (on the left). It came out at just shy of 2dL, which was promptly sweetened and hardened with gelatin.

Also just harvested our first zucchini of the season!

I picked about 500 ml (2 c) this morning. My wife is away for the next three weeks so I'm going to try my hand at making and canning black raspberry jam.

My wife and kids are leaving for three weeks in Europe tomorrow evening just as the berries, tomatoes, and peppers begin to ripen. I don't know anything about sauce or jam making.

I guess I'm going to learn.

How long will a dozen wild raspberries sustain a family of four and all of your city friends who are planning to bug out to our place when the zombie apocalypse starts?

There have been some soft, green vine like plants growing around our feed cans near the brooding house (where the turkeys currently are) and the turkey hut (where they will be moving this weekend.) I pulled some of them out and threw them into the holding yard. When I let them out they started making happy turkey noised.

Hello, everyone.

I am a mid-50s Canadian, married, with three kids (one is a step-kid.) My wife and I bought 16.5 acres of mature, second growth A2 land in Eastern Ontario 25 years ago. We are on the floor plain of the local small river and our land floods in the spring and is wet all year. We cut out a clearing to build our house and gardens and keep a few animals.

My wife keeps gardens with fruit trees, berries, flowers, and vegetables. Most years she has lots of plants to sell in the spring and vegetables to see at the local farmer's markets. This year has been challenging for a number of reasons so the range and number of vegetables she had planted is much lower.

We have a laying flock of chickens that ranges from 30 to 50 birds. I honestly have no idea how many birds are out there right now.

We do two batches, spring and fall, or White Rock meat birds each year. We have half or more of the meat birds inspected and processed at the local abattoir so that we can legally sell them and the rest we process ourselves. It's not my favorite part of farming but it has to be done.

We also do between 10 and 40 turkeys in a single batch each year. This year we have a mix of Bronze Orlopps and Mini Whites for a total of 18 birds. The turkeys end up too big for me to pluck with my plucker so we send them all out to the abattoir to be processed.

We have done pigs in the past and were planning to have a pair of pigs this year but the challenges that I mentioned above got in the way. Instead my wife's friend has taken in our pigs and is raising them for us. We will pay for the processing and they will keep one for their troubles.

I'll get to giving this community an icon and a banner tomorrow.

If you want to propose something, feel free.

I'm open to sharing modding duties with someone who is like minded.