WEEK # 1: A new way to post in the "Recent Events"

We haven't been active on this blog for half a year due to our busy schedules. Now that it is the dead of winter it is time to dust off the old blog and get it going again.  Perhaps the best way to post updates is to return to our old method of posting weekly as we used to do with our first blog.  This method seems to require more discipline, as opposed to just posting whenever we felt like it.

Over the past six months we have been pretty steady in our usual routine here in southwestern Ontario.  This year's harvest had some hiccups along with successes. We are now well into egg production, while the honey our bees produced was left to the colony to survive the winter.

Speaking of winter, this one started off with a chill! For nearly the last two weeks we have plunged into well below average temperatures, with a few nights of a wind chill near-30 Celsius. Our chickens have spent the last two weeks stuck in the coop until a couple of days ago, and as for the bees.....time will tell.

WEEK #1

With the holidays finally over, it is go time here on the mini farm.  Time to do our spring cleaning (we do it in winter) in the house, brushing away cobwebs above, scrubbing walls behind, cleaning floors beneath, and start another batch of our microgreens.

For the microgreens this year we chose Arugula, Mizuna, and Oriental Mustard, leaving off the Kale since having poor germination the last couple of goes. Preparation is easy with dumping damp potting mix in our seed starting trays, sprinkling the seeds on top, and barely covering them over.  We then place them on the shelves in our basement on heat mats and under fluorescent lights that have a timer so they run when the hydro is cheaper. In less than 2 days the Oriental Mustard is already up. 

Microgreens are a nice treat to have in the dead of winter, and is the only thing we will grow until we have to use the same shelves for seed starting in April.

Over the next few weeks we have quite a few chores we never had the chance to complete in December. This includes making jalapeno pepper jelly, processing a few chickens, making French fries from our potatoes, and possibly canning some soup.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!