The young know the rules, but the old know the exceptions...

Every so often I am hit with a eureka moment. There is a term for it, like a shower spark or whatever, but essentially it is a theory that a certain part of your brain can kick into high gear when you are predisposed with something else ie in the shower or driving a long distance. I am cursed with these all the time and I say cursed because I have forgotten more profound ideas and theories than I'd like to admit. Mostly because I don't write them down and by the time I get to the blog it's been replaced with day to day clutter, either way it's frustrating. Every so often I'll remember one and try to casually slip it in but if I could remember them, my blog would be way more enlightening. You'll have to make due with my inane babble until I can get a tape recorder that floats around my head.

Anyway, it's Christmas day and we are relaxing after a couple days of whirlwind family visits. D and I decided to host this year for a few reasons. My side of the family has no real room for formal visits, her brother is hunting photo ops in Africa while on a not deserved/overpriced honeymoon, and except for her mother, all her family lives in Quebec. We are happy to do it honestly. I'm not a fan of driving long distances, I prefer to be in my comfort zone and frankly we have the room. Everything went without a hitch, everyone was on time, no one aired their festering grievances and there were plenty of cookies. All in all it was a classic old school xmas dinner and I must admit, one of the best holiday meals I have ever eaten. D really went above and beyond and worked her a$$ off. How she can work a fulltime corporate job and even have the inclination to pull a meal stream like that one is amazing and solidifies reason # 344 why I married her. I'll thank her with a foot rub later.

The farm is prepped and ready for next season, Phase 1 is complete. We were hit with a week of very warm weather and after a patented eureka moment, I was able to finalize a plan of attack, finagle my cousin into coming over to clear the rest of the Montego plot and move around some top soil. The neighbour had helped a lot previously but some key things were still nagging me.

• How to get the soil back to real growing potential without wasting so much money and time on rehab. 
• Where to get the soil from to even get the grading back to normal.
• How much real workable space will we have considering the hazardous waste and trees.
• How will be spread the soil without damaging the substrate and using up too much favour credit. 

Auditioning for scarecrow job on next years plot

 The final resolution is to clear and grade the first plot, which finally grew to a mere 100ft x 60ft. All the good clean top soil, which was left over from a parking pad the previous owner created nearby, would be moved to the side until needed next spring. The base now is a relatively clean spot lacking in an overabundance of healthy nutrients but good grading and tons of natural sunlight.

Our move for the space next year is to build small plots within this larger one. 3 ft by 15 ft each which will be perimeter lined with landscape/interlock stones and useful pieces left on site or skids of over stock stone my uncle's business can't use. An ultimate example in reduce reuse recycle, the hippies would be happy. The stones will surround each plot essentially just to keep in the dirt we'll be adding, in turn creating a pseudo raised bed style. Between each plot will be 2 - 3ft wide walkways topped with soy ink based newspapers/cardboard covered with hay we snagged from some locals. Each plot will then be filled with the rich topsoil we have piled in the corners and then a few inches of this GardenMax super soil a local garden company sells. At that point we will adapt each plot to what we need in terms of pH levels, porosity etc. From then on, those plots will stay there and just be rejuvenated each season in whatever way works best. In total there may be approximately 40-50 plots, but we'll see...

Not sure how the future plots (adjacent to Montego) will be done, but we aren't a huge fan of the row style of farming so if this works we may just buckle down and do the mini plot style for each addition, then just maintain them. Now that the snow has set in and land manipulation is at a stand still this will be an ultimate too be continued/stay tuned. The GardenProPlanner App discussed previously is on sale for $9.99 and worth every penny. The final seed details will be added at a later post. A friends uncle sent us a care package full of some pretty interesting seeds to mess around with. Some including, I think, a few psychotropic cactus seeds from the peyote lose your mind genus family. But you didn't hear that from me... 

Cooper at 16 weeks

Cooper update coming next blog but I will say this, which you can add to my Eureka File (EF): I am positive, not unlike greeting card/chocolate companies creating holidays like St.Valentines Day, there is a conspiracy to be uncovered where paper towel companies are perpetuating the idea of people adopting puppies... you heard it here first...

Finally, from our family here at Homestead U and Keltic Kreek Farm, we want to wish you a safe and happy (insert holiday here). May your best days of 2012 be your worst of 2013. We hope to share another year of progress and please feel free just to leave a hello below to let us know if/who  someone out there is sharing our trials and triumphs up to now.
(D and I have a bet as an over/under as to # of replies) 


Life Lesson #701: Best Xmas movies to watch Xmas day in order:

1. Christmas Vacation   
2. A Christmas Story
3. Scrooged
4. Elf
5. Die Hard
6. Gremlins
7. It's a Wonderful Life

It's never too late to catch up with old friends... unless you owe them money...

When you start doing a blog it's not uncommon to psych yourself up to be a Hemingway of sorts. You anticipate that your poetic ramblings will be quickly adored by thousands and it will be nothing at all to rip off poignant thought rivers daily. The fact of the matter is unless you put tons of time into pumping your blog, very few read it and the daily thing is a pipe dream for anyone over 25 with any kind of life. I will do my best and appreciate your patience. Not sure who that is directed to but if you read it, than it's you...

It's been a few days since the last post, my longest hiatus I think. If you were going through withdrawal I apologize but I'm sure it will be fine, this post may be a long one.

The garlic patch is in and growing. Things didn't really turn out like I had planned but hopefully it all works out. I borrowed my uncles dump truck and he gave me a few cubic yards of quality top soil to drop off at my place. I had wanted this "Max-gro" stuff from a local topsoil provider but ended up with one a step down (in my ignorant opinion). However it was much cheaper and I added a bunch of quality compost etc. so hopefully it works out. We'll know next fall if you can hang in there. Oh, I also planted a couple dozen bulbils but I'm not expecting much. If the whole thing craps out I won't be surprised. It's a first shot and I will be working right next to the garlic plot over the next couple weeks prepping Montego for next spring. 

Good to have great neighbours

Big side note bonus, when I pulled in with the dump truck, my neighbour, the old guy with all the tools, was in my yard mowing down my 5 foot hayfield of weeds in Montego. The whole thing was laid out flat from his industrial mower. It was a such a great lift, even D gasped when she saw it all cleared. In a way it took a mountain and made it a large annoying hill you'd hate to have to climb but can... oh he also had a bucket on the mower and dropped all my soil right into the garlic hole. Saving me about 3 hours of lugging a lame wheelbarrow back n forth. Country neighbours, so far, are great. Another neighbour, a young silver spooned kid a few doors south came over to say hi and offered a barter of some of our trees for some excavation work via his company. We do have too many trees which I will have to get rid of for planting but if we can sell some or at least trade them off for man hours/items than all the better. We still haven't sold our condo yet so money is tighter than (insert hillbilly one liner here)

The puppy, although cute as hell and full of life, has been a handful. In hindsight not sure it was the best idea to get him this quickly but I may say that at anytime. Once he's house trained and a loyal companion I'm sure it will be all great. He already knows how to sit and comes when his name is called. When he can use an abacus I'll call the media. By the way for those of you out there betting, we named the puppy Cooper. 

Future Greenhouse

All in all we love it so far. The property is huge which makes it all the better. We're still finding out new things about the house, hidden passageways and perks here and there. Something not so nice is the cost of everything. Things we need to buy for the farm business, things we need to buy to maintain/fix the house and everything in between. Most importantly D is happy and always has a little pep in her step regardless of what's going on. It's nice that we can be getting into our groove so quickly. I am however getting a little worried about pulling this whole things off. Just the small amount of work involved in getting the garlic patch going was a little tough. What am I going to do with a 60 x 80 plot, or even 4 acres. Hopefully by then aliens will have sold us slave robots that run off carbon monoxide or Twinkies... 
   
Life Lesson #17: To master your 9 X multiplication table hold up both hands palms up, fingers fanned out. Always starting with the number 9 in your head, try 9 x 3. The 3 being the 3rd finger on your left hand, put it down. The number represented by your fingers still up is the answer to 9 x 3  (2 and 7) 27. Try it with 9 x 5, the 5 being your pinkie finger on your left hand. Once you roll that down, the 4 fingers remaining on your left hand and the 5 on your right is the answer. 9 x 5 = (4 and 5) 45   
    

Call it what you wish, it's still home...

Week 1 of the move is now complete and we have started work on the first planting bed for next season. An advantage of the fall move is plenty of prep time for the growing season. On the other hand its a full winter of busy work which may or may not become a Shining situation. We have no red rum in the house at the moment.

We have decided to name our planting locations based on different places we have been to, or would like to visit. So far we only have two,

1. Montego: Name significance: First place we ever met while on vacation. Farm Significance: the initial planting location for next years first crops. It's a 60 ft-ish by 80 ft-ish plot of land right on the front corner of our overall garden lot, closest to the house and the only spot without a forest of trees and stumps.  
2. Eden: Name significance: The place everyone would want to live. Farm Significance: the back 2.5ish or so acres of our property separated from the front section by a creek and some trees. Ultimately it will be where we plant an orchard of various fruit trees. Probably 2+ each of apples, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches etc etc. Anything we can get our hands on will be grown and tested there. Most likely also the beehive hangout...

 Why name them you may be wondering?

• A just for fun 
• B for easy reference when discussing any given location
• C in case one has to look for the other it would be an easy find 

After 1 hr with a shovel? really...?

Anyway, we will have a heck of a struggle trying to get Montego ready for food planting. As mentioned before we were happy that the previous owner ran a landscaping company. Now we're seeing a negative side effect of that, tons of debris and stones mixed into the soil. After an hour of plain shovel digging I found way too much garbage to be optimistic about the whole ordeal. So for the time being we are focusing on the garlic patch. We have about 180+ cloves consisting of 8 different strains and a handful of garlic bulbils as a test. The bulbils won't pay off for about 3 years but economically it much better than plain bulbs.

Semi Interesting Factoid: Bulbils are small garlic seeds that grow in the flower of a mature garlic scape. A scape can have 60 to 400 bulbils, the average garlic bulb has 6-8 cloves.    

 

Garlic slave at work

On to the planting. The old owners still have some items left here he has yet to clean up. We're being patient with them for various reasons. So after my hour long wrestling match with their garbage in Montego, I flagged down one of the workers he has cleaning up the mess. Following a quick chat, I picked a spot at the NW corner of the Montego plot and he drove his bobcat over and cleared me a 6 inch deep plot 5ft wide and about 15 ft long. Just enough space for the garlic patch. It's got full sun and it's enough out of the way I can prep the rest of the plot over the next couple weeks for next year. As you can see from the pic on the right, it's all a nightmare of weeds, but the potential is there. Main priority is getting the garlic in the ground and once I have the 3 yards of special soil dropped tomorrow, Sunday becomes planting day. And not a moment too soon. Good thing D got me the farmer overalls with leather knees...

Life Lesson # 104: Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Oh we get puppy tomorrow too... can't wait. Overheard a helpful clerk at the TSC Store saying for a puppy you need a ticking clock and hot water bottle in their bed to help with mommy separation. Got one for puppy and for myself. I'll let you know how it goes. 

Wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then...

So it's been a couple full days since we moved in and things have so far been great. D is over the top happy, telling me every 10 mins or so. I don't mind it really, as they say "happy wife, happy life."and the alternative would be a nightmare. We hit the ground running and have basically all the important stuff set up. The kitchen is functional, the office is up and downloading movies, the shower is hot but the garage is still full of boxes and that's ok for now.

In terms of farm work we bought a few key tools, mostly shovels and rakes, I've located the spot for the garlic to go and cleared much of the overgrown vegetation around our deck. Halfway through my battle on the deck jungle I thought for a minute Jane Goodall was studying me, but it was just a shadow.

Weepin' Willow

Our twin 50ft willows are now trimmed and no longer sagging to the ground. Some may think the willows could have waited but the trimming had ulterior motives since we needed some sort of ground cover for the garlic bed once they are planted and after a couple light frosts have it. Covering them with 4-6 inches of straw or leaves helps to regulate the ground temp and stops the bulbs from being dislodged during frost heaving. See there are things to learn here... Once we plant the garlic we are trying different combinations of additives and soil enhancements to see what benefits work. I'll let you know the final choices and ultimately the outcome in a later blog(s).. so stay tuned...

We pick up the puppy in 5 days, he'll be 8 weeks and ready for a new home, the cats will not be thrilled but they'll live. They haven't really adapted to the bigger house yet, both them and D are pretty jittery with the new noises. I sleep through anything, literally. In our old condo, the fire alarm would go off right outside our bedroom and it wouldn't even phase me. Hope that's true when the puppy (and kids) are whining/crying... I may fake it anyway... 
  
Life Lesson #76: What ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s...










      

If you've never been in over your head, how do you know how tall you are...

With only 4 days left before we move into our farm and start our adventure, we happened to catch a documentary this morning on the CBC. Sometimes coincidence has a way to give you a little nudge in the right direction or at least to give your head a shake to reality. If you ever get a chance to, see the film To Make a Farm

Basically it follows 3 sets of young farmers in Canada who have chosen to grow and sell their own food. Each at a different stage and financial support situation, the film was not only moving but inspirational, scary and in many ways enlightening. Horticultural classes are now on the horizon, style of greenhouse and seed starting has been altered and even the way in which we'll offer our products has been improved. You have to be able to adapt to survive and an expert I am not, so if I can stand on the shoulders of genius before me, I can see that much better.

I have to be honest, the film scared me a little. Not so much the workload, that I can handle. I worked carpentry outdoors in January so I'm no stranger to pain, it's more the unpredictability of nature. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that no matter what you do to prepare for any circumstance, nature can at anytime drop and say, "na, I don't think you have enough heartache" then blamo, rain, pest, drought, sickness etc. If not for the fact D is going to keep working while we get this off the ground, I'm not sure going from 0 to 100 would be a smart move. Only time will tell, and it starts in 4 days...

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family... not that anyone is reading this... ;o)

Life Lesson #761:  Life is not fair -- get used to it...