homestead

I don’t if they know any songs. The squirrel baffle keeps the hens from getting in the top of the feeder and keeps them from pooping into it from above.

I would prefer not to drive. I’ve been walking about a ¼ mile to release them. Is that far enough?

We are harvesting 44 white rocks today. I mount three cones on my tractor bucket. I have cut them down to widen the mouths. I put the tractor between the chicken house and processing area....

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

My wife had to run off to the other end of the country very suddenly yesterday. She had planned to process two boxes of late season tomatoes. It fell to me to get it done. I diced them up and put them in the freezer so that she can make sauce when she gets back....

These are Bronze Orlopps and Mini Whites. They are 242 days old as of today. They have lived a good life with all day access to outdoors, good, high quality, local drug-free feed, and clean water. They are friendly and very calm. I like turkeys far more than I like chickens....

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.

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

A wire broke off the ignitor element in our Harman unit. I have ordered a replacement and it looks simple enough to fix myself. But before sourcing the part I had called about 5 different fireplace companies in the area, and it seems everyone has dropped all support for pellet stoves in recent years! Not only does no one sell...

This goose has adopted my parents, and is attempting to establish residency in their cabin. We suspect it is domestic and escaped from its coop. It’s a seasonal cabin and they’re planning to close up soon. What should they do? Central Ontario. Near Bracebridge....

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)....

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

He said yes....

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...

A comment on another post reminded me…...

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

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 just posted a few pictures of the chicken disassembly process. In deference to the vegans and those of delicate constitution I followed the community rules (which I wrote) and marked the post NSFW....

It took us 6 hours to harvest and process 42 chickens. They are in the fridge with bags of ice between them to make sure they cool down. Tomorrow I will part most of them. We are keeping these ones for ourselves for the winter. We would normally sell half of the fall batch but the summer was crazy and our plans changed so...

These Cornish X meat birds arrived on our farm on August 3. That makes them 30 days old today. We ordered 40 and got 45 (the hatcheries always give you extra in case there are any losses during or immediately after transport.) We have lost only one so there are 44 out there now....

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...

Also just harvested our first zucchini of the season!

I was shopping for a new scythe blade when I found this beautiful and incredibly long competition scythe blades....