Hello Everyone: Winter is ending, and the most of us are coming out of hibernation here at the farm. There are still a few things that have been happening...
Sales for this years CSA are going well. 80 per cent of our shares are sold. We have room for a few more; I am looking for customers in the following neighborhoods:
Centrpointe
Trend Arlington
Copeland Park
Bridlewood
I will consider customers from the following neighborhoods - please call to inquire:
Old Ottawa South west of Bank
The Glebe west of Bank south of Fifth.
Sales have been going quickly; last year we sold out of our shares by the end of March, so contact me soon.
More information about our CSA may be found on our "Join Our CSA" and "2021 Delivery Details" pages.
Contact me soon if you are interested or have any questions.
Hibernation on the farm consists of a lot of research, purchasing, planning, scheming, fretting about plans and coming up with alternate plans.
Everything that needs to be accomplished in the next two years is interconnected and some goals cant be accomplished until other tasks are completed. Some require rented equipment, some require a second pair of hands or expertise, many are time dependent and some are a bit out of my experience.
Apparently I am good at this kind of logistic planning, though it seems to require a lot of pacing, muttering out loud and occasionally going for a walk or lying prone in front of the fire while Cayley purrs on my chest.
We've had some company...a flock of Red Poles have been visiting regularly to eat Black Niger seed.
I saw our first Canada geese of the season early last week and a pair of swans just the other day.
Sensing the warmer temperatures and longer days, the bees have been venturing outside.
In other words, the robins are on the way!
We lost more than half of our snow pack over the past week. 
One of the farm tasks to be seen to over the winter is checking on the beehives.
The bees are wrapped up in the hives, huddled together around the queen, beating their wings to raise the temperature of the hive.
All that wingbeating requires energy, which is why they store extra honey over the winter. We took some back in the summer, and so we have to give them something back to eat.
These bi-weekly checks allow us to see how the bees are doing.
At last check, one of our three hives appear to have not made it through the season.
Our "sick" hive from last year is doing ok. It's population seems a bit small (it has been since arrival last spring) but they are active.
The third hive is thriving.
We've put an order in for two more hives. Four is manageable for us, considering the rest of the work here on the farm. Three is sufficient for our income, but we can't count on the hive that was infected last year to survive.
Do the sugar cakes work? I keep wondering about the bees health, but Julia says this is the way it is done.
We undo the compression straps (keeps racoons and bears out in case they breach the electric fence), pry off the lid and lift it just enough to slip in another cake.
Lid and insulation back on, and another days task is complete.
Last month I decided to start another round of mushroom logs. I selected some healthy ironwood trees that were in an area that needed thinning out (we are trying to promote maples and oak in that particular woodlot), cut the felled trees into 4 foot lengths, and lugged them back to the farm.
Temporarily, I set them across the old mushroom logs from two years ago. This ensures that they are not in contact with the ground when the snow melts, where they might be contaminated by other types of fungus.
I tried a different supplier that uses inoculated wooden dowels instead of the Styrofoam plugs.
After drilling the holes the dowels are inserted and tapped in with a mallet.
The intention is that the shiitake mycelium will begin colonizing the rest of the log over the course of this summer.
Keeping the logs in shade were they can remain relatively cool and moist will promote the mycelium growth.
After the dowels are tapped into the logs, they need to be sealed to keep moisture in.
The supplier provided soy wax flakes which I melted in a mettle can atop the wood stove, and then brushed the liquid wax onto each of the dowel heads.
While doing this work, I dropped a dowel and it slipped underneath the old mushroom logs from two years ago.
This is what I found....
Out of sight, in the dark, quietly going about their business.
There are not many mushrooms there, but enough to teach me to look a lot closer.
After examining a couple other logs, it became evident that these sprouted sometime very late in the fall and were covered by the snow pack over the winter.
This bodes well for the spring...I'll be watching these closely and waiting for our first harvest.
At first this find was disappointing. How many did I miss last fall? Most of the logs were still too frozen and or snowed in to their supports to examine, so I'll have to wait a few days to find out for sure.
As far as I can see, only a couple of logs produced fruit, and only one mushroom per log at that.
After thinking it over, I realize this is a good sign. I am having a small amount of success. Heading in the right direction. At least some of the logs were successfully colonized. According to the text book, some of these logs should be ready to sprout this spring.
Motivation to keep gong for the coming season...