July 2009

Strut and Annie enjoying the front field.

Chores are done, it's hammock time!

Back from a ride...

Firewood 101

Having a wood burning furnace is new to us, but as we didn't want to be caught with our pants in the down position we thought we'd better order some firewood. After some consultation we thought 5 cords would be a safe bet for our first winter. Wood was ordered and stacked - tada! Next step was to get the furnace serviced; the first thing the furnace guy does is get out his 'moisture meter' and start poking at our lovely stacked firewood and say, 'that's great, what are you going to burn this year?'. The morale of the story is that your wood should be dry... Ya, ya, I grew up in the city. A moisture meter was purchased and another 5 cords of wood was ordered!

Winston and Blunt are not fussy about the moisture content.

This funky guy is a Banded Alder Borer, hanging out at the wood shed.

Chicken Run...

Part of our homestead would include chickens, an important and as we had read, probably, the easiest livestock to start with on a small farm. But where and how to get them?

Vera gets the coop ready

A friend had moved to Oliver about six months before we embarked on our new life and had immediately got a coop up and running. Lionel, a very accomplished photographer www.trudelphoto.com is also a very accomplished researcher and had done much research on the subject of chickens. He would be our source of foul to get us going. Lionel graciously offered to procure some wee beasties for us and Renata and I determined that 6 hens a laying would be a good start. The existing coop at The Red Snowshoe is basically a shed and could easily accommodate three to four times more birds but we had plans to demolish this shed and move the coop to a new location up at the barn. So six birds would be just fine and when they started laying, as we had read, would supply us with more than enough eggs.

As I hadn’t visited Lionel’s place before and hadn’t seen Lionel for quite a while I was going to make this an over night trip even though Oliver is only three and a half hours a way. But in usual fashion I had Lionel’s location but for some reason not the house number, I didn’t realise this until much later.

I originally wanted to take my motorcycle, some how jerry rigging some kind of bird transportation device, probably similar to the millions of such devices seen on the dusty tracks in the far East attached to rickety mopeds and small cc motorcycles carrying the whole family, livestock and who knows what else… Renata gently persuaded me that moving live stock on the back of two wheeled motor vehicles was best left to those skilled in those maters and not middle aged westerners on BMWs… sigh!

So the truck it would be, seemed a bit over kill taking a half ton to pick up six pullets but air conditioning and tunes do make things comfortable and not just for me, after all there are the six pullets to consider as well, really.

Lionel’s place is smack in the middle of BC’s wine country http://www.winecountryretreat.ca/, a beautiful property where he and his wife and two boys enjoy the country life, a far cry from the Vancouver East End where Lionel still has his photography studio. As mentioned it’s not that far from us and a beautiful drive no matter what mode of transport you take. I made good time and of course had a handy Google map print out of what I thought would get me there without problems and so it did to a point. Picking up a bottle of the local hooch in down-town Oliver I drove on and found my way onto Green lake Road Lionel’s spread is on this road. Oh! No house number and Green Lake Road isn’t that short, damn no cell connection either. So I drove up one way looking up all the drive ways of those properties I could see. I did have a good idea of what the house looked like but most places are well set back from the road. I turned round and drove back. Ah a local coming down his drive, stop and ask him if he knows Lionel. Sure did. I’d found Lionel and the house and the birds.

Releasing the poullets

Lionel is a hunt to feed guy and that evening we dined on bar-B-Q game, delicious and all washed down with cold beer. I slept well in their guest suit that is available for rent anytime; see the link www.winecountryretreat.ca for more info. Next morning we rounded up 6 pullets from a neighbours coop, guess they were part of a larger buy. Knowing nothing about chickens it was basically a first come first caught that determined who’d be coming back to The Red Snowshoe and they really all looked alike to me. Scruffy, scrawny looking things with high pitched chirps and very jerky movements. Just a week or so up from the fluffy chick stage they just managed to have what could be called feathers…cute none the less. Secured in a cardboard box with some water and a little feed I set of to the sounds of muted chirping and a big thank you to Lionel and his family for the chicks and a great visit.

Orchard Guests

A big part of being drawn to a more rural lifestyle is the abundance of wildlife. The veggie garden is deer proofed 'actung Bambi' but the rest of the property is fair game. Sitting on the porch watching the deer enjoy some early apples is really a nice way to spend some time.

Orchard Guests

I am a white tailed deer.

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