Spring Update

Has a lot ever happened so far this spring! It's been so busy I haven't had time to write about it. It's kind of funny, in the winter I have lots of time but nothing to write about while in the spring I have everything to write about but no time to do it!

The seeds are still selling and I'm sold out of about 3/4 of the catalog. It seems like every week this time of year there's another Seedy Saturday somewhere in the province. Most recently was Halifax and before that was the very successful one in Wolfville. This could be the busiest time of year around here just because I'm still doing my seed rounds while at the same time the garden is coming back to life and the rest of the farm needs work as well. In the garden the garlic has sprouted and Colin has planted the first peas.

An exciting recent discovery is that the old chicken run is built on top of what's best descibed as an ancient manure deposit. I think what happened is that the previous several owners simply swept the manure out the back door of the barn until over the decades it built up into this incredible four foot deep pile of fertile black earth. I've spread over 100 wheel-barrow loads over the garden so far with lots still remaining. When the pile is gone we'll build a much larger and sturdier run to contain both the chickens and goats for the summer. The chickens currently have the run of the farm, scratching in the forest, raised beds and compost piles and dust bathing en masse along the warm foundation of the house. They can't complain too much about their new summer enclosure, at several thousand square feet it would be paradise for the average battery-hen.

We're having the newly cleared upper field plowed for the first time in a few weeks. After the roots are raked out and we get some manure spread to enrich the poor sandy soil we hope to grow some seed and food crops up there this year. What's good about having two seperate fields like this is that we can isolate crops like squash and corn for producing seed. My plan with squash is to plant them on hills of manure which should make that limited resource go further. We'll just have the root-zone heavily enriched while the vines can sprawl over the poorer soil. I'll plant about an acre of alfalfa in the upper field this spring as a long-term green manure crop. The deep roots bring up nutrients from the sub-soil while at the same time fixing nitrogen. What the field really needs though is more organic matter. The hope is that the alfalfa will produce enough biomass that we can mow it several times a year to add to the soil. I suppose we'll see how it goes.

Bessie is really enjoying being out on the pasture again. Although not much is growing yet you can tell she loves being out of the barn. We think she'll be giving birth any day now. Stay tuned...

Welcome New Hens!

Here are the most recent additions to our crazy menagerie of barnyard animals, eight Buff Orpington hens! Our flock had dwindled over the last two years from eight hens to only four and they were struggling to keep us stocked with eggs. Although we keep our chickens until they die of old age, the winters always claim a few hens every year. We had to break down and actually buy eggs a few weeks back, and it was at that point we knew we needed some additions to the flock. Luckily a friend of ours had a big flock that was her daughter's 4-H project, so she was happy to find a (vegetarian) home for the surplus hens!

Introducing them wasn't nearly the ordeal I was fearing. For about an hour the new hens sat hudled in the corner, the old hens sat watchfully in the other corner and Rocky the rooster was pacing back and forth between the two. One at a time a new hen would come out of the corner, Rocky would do a little dance around her and then, accepted into the flock, she would walk over to the old hens to get pecked at. This procedure was repeted for all the newcomers until all twelve hens were mingling and getting along in relative order. And that was it! No real fighting at all!

The two groups still prefer to keep to themselves while they're out, but the flock seems to have totally accepted the new hens. We're now up to between six and eight eggs a day on average, which is great for this time of year!

Brush Walls

I first learned of brush walls; loosely woven heaps of branches, stumps and other organic debris often planted with a living cover of vines, from Windhorse Farm. They use them throughout their forest, fields and gardens to provide cover and habitat to all kind of wildlife, as well as to define boundaries. In addition to their ecological role, what we've discovered is that they make really great livestock fencing!

Last winter we began fencing our pastures using this technique. We made our first brush wall while we were clearing a corner of our field to make a pasture in an area that was previously logged, and therefore covered in brush and debris. This of course was perfect building material so we got straight to work. The building technique is almost totally foolproof, just throw and stack the brush into a wall roughly 3-4 feet high and equally wide, keeping in mind that the material will eventually settle. I tend to put the smaller material on the bottom and use the large branches to weigh down the top. So far this has provided a perfectly adequate barrier for our cow. I found that I could quite easily construct 40-50 feet of brush wall in a day (that's a lot faster than sinking posts and nailing rails) while at the same time it should last much longer than a conventional fence without significant maintenance. All you might have to do is add more material to the top as it settles and begins to decompose over the years.

Over half the fencing around our pastures now consists of brush walls, and I'm sure that percentage will increase now that we've realized what an impressive method of fencing it is. The next step for us now is to plant Virginia creepers, grapes, hardy kiwi and other vines to cover the walls and provide even more wildlife shelter and, in the case of those last two, a great source of fruit.




Bessie ruminating on escape from her secure, totally sustainably fenced pasture.