Thinking About Corn

What a difference a couple of days and a good, steady rain make!  The picture on top was taken last Friday.  A few little snow pea sprouts and that's about it.  Saturday night, we had a nice rain that just drenched everything.  The picture below was taken today.  Not only did more snow peas show up but the corn made an appearance too!  All in the space of may-be 48 hours. 

Everything else is coming up, too.  So the garden is off to a good start, I think.  It's a little patchy but hopefully it will fill in, it's still early yet.  But it’s the corn that's been on my mind lately.  A couple of years ago, I had trouble with critters raiding the corn after planting it.  They ate all the seeds and I had to re-plant.  Corn was slow that year because of it.  So I put up Dolly and I started covering the corn with plastic at night.  That seemed to do the trick.  Last year the corn came up first planting.  I thought it curious, though.  I never had trouble with critters in the corn before.  And then, after planting this year, it hit me...

Two years ago, I had read that it was wiser to plant the corn ahead of the snow peas.  It made sense to me; I had struggled to keep the snow peas from over-running the corn.  In a few weeks it worked out, the corn out-grew the snow peas quickly and became trellises for the snow peas.  But I figured I'd try planting the corn first and waiting to put the snow peas in.  That's when the corn seeds got raided.  This year I decided to go back to my old method of planting the corn and snow peas at the same time.  I didn't like waiting to plant the snow peas because they are an early plant vegetable and they do well in cooler weather.  I was also thinking may-be that was why the snow pea harvest wasn't as good as it had been previously.

I also didn't cover the corn with plastic at night this year. Simply because the plastic sheets I was using sort of disintegrated over the winter and I hadn't replaced them yet. And TAH-DA!!!!! No raiding of the corn! I checked every morning and the corn rows were pristine; no little scratch marks, no disturbed earth. And the corn is coming up in a timely manner and abundantly.

So now I'm thinking that there might be another benefit to planting snow peas and corn together. I think may-be the peas act as camouflage for the corn and the critters stay away. Took me two years to figure it out. What's that saying about not seeing the forest for the trees?

Dolly's New Duds

It's been a busy few weeks with getting the garden prepped, then ready, then adding compost, then making rows and then trying to figure out where to put the DaM plants and seeds. It seems I run out of space faster each year. Which is odd considering I'm only feeding two (humans, not going to get into the animals, figuring that out would take forever) instead of four. Mind you, the kids come home from university fairly regularly and I tend to ply them with food to take home so that could have something to do with it.  Running out of space and running out of time pretty much marks this time of year for me.

Thankfully, the busy time is winding down from a Cat.5 Hurricane to a little dirt devil. It's manageable; I can actually do everything I plan to do in a day now. So I decided to have a little fun and kill half an hour by giving Dolly a makeover. She changes every year, as I add and take away things that get worn, lost or taken.  The big changes this year are eyes instead of sunglasses and stuffed blue hands instead of floppy white ones.  Last year her picture ended up in our local newspaper with the caption of being "unique".  I'm glad I took the time and had a little fun, now I'll have someone to talk to while I'm weeding in the garden.  Oh, and of course, any resemblance to fictional or real characters is not intended and purely coincidental.



Thinking About Elderberries

I've been thinking about getting a few elderberry bushes for a while now. Why do I want elderberries? Because I want to make elderberry syrup. From all I've read this syrup is a pretty good preventative for colds, flues and related illnesses. Sure could of used it last year when dear Don was sicker then ever with a cold he just couldn't shake and turned into a lung infection. Apparently if you take a tablespoon a day, it acts as a preventative. And if, by chance you do catch a flu/cold, you up the dosage to 2 tablespoons and the cold doesn't hang around as long. So they say. I won't know until I try it. But I figure even if it doesn't work, I have a syrup for pancakes.

Last year, I did try to get some. I figured it would be a fairly simple procedure. Go down to the local nursery, announce I want some elderberry bushes and be directed to the right area of a immense greenhouse conglomeration that not only includes numerous greenhouses but wandering paths, garden paraphernalia (what's with the gaudy painted real ugly gnomes? Really, they are enough to make any garden give up and not grow anything) and bunches of people, some with carts laden with plants others wondering where they are and more importantly where they are supposed to be. (WOW, I think I just became the unofficial queen of the run-on sentence. Wonder if the the Guinness book of Records has that category).

Unfortunately, it was not the case, getting elderberry bushes, I mean. First I was asked if I wanted the decorative type or the common type. That got a blank stare from me. I said I wanted the one that I can make syrup from. The blank stare was promptly returned to me. After a bit of a discussion the nice helpful lady and I decided that I likely wanted the common variety. Then I was told they didn't have any. She said she'd order some in and she couldn't order any because they're all out. I thanked her for her time and did not say "You could have saved me 45 minutes simply by saying you were all out of both the common and decorative type." But I learnt more about elderberries and about patience and that's worth 45 minutes.

So home I go to find out more about elderberries. I know they are native to PEI which makes them very attractive to me. I'm not crazy about evasive species whether they are plants or wildlife. I figured it would be good to have their botanical name so I get the right type of elderberry. The elderberry bush I need is Sambucus Canadensis. I also found out the the PEI Forestry Department GIVES these things away because they are indigenous to PEI and they want to encourage people to grow native plants. Unfortunately the department were all out and so that ended my plan to plant elderberries last year. So today I will phone the department and order my elderberries. Hopefully that will go well, but based on my experience last year, I'm not counting my elderberries before I grow 'em.

Another Cat!!!

If this keeps up, I'm going to be starting to be referred to as The Crazy Cat Lady (as opposed to The Crazy Chicken Lady or The Crazy Rabbit Lady...but I guess anything's better than just plain old The Crazy Lady. Sometimes you just gotta look for the bright side.) Last winter I noticed a very large, fluffy black and white making its way across the snow cover towards the chicken coop. She moved slowly and gingerly as if she thought she might fall. It hurt to watch her. I got the impression she was old and probably arthritic. I opened the door and she ran(ish) under our porch.

I saw her on and off through the winter. It appears she has taken up residence under the veranda, on the farthest corner. Probably an old feral cat too tired to try to make it through the winter without some sort of shelter. My heart went out to her. (I'm calling her 'her' but I have no idea if she's a 'her' or a 'him' , but I know she's not an 'it').

I started leaving food out for her. I know, I know, I know, you feed 'em, you'll never get rid of 'em. But I didn't want her starving to death under my porch. Besides, it was obvious she was heading to the coop to eat Coop's leftovers anyways. At first, she ran and hid from me. Then she didn't run as far and did stay in sight waiting for me to put down food and leave. She started at about 30 feet away and over the months, she has gotten as close as six feet. She moves cautiously (painfully?), and sits daintily with her tail curled around her front feet.

She has learned, I imagine, to be patient, to be invisible, to be cautious of humans.

She gets along with Coop but not Whisk but then again, Whisk hates EVERY cat in the world. I'm hoping one day I will gain enough of her trust that I will be able to take her to the vets so she can at least be spayed or neutered, which ever the case may be. We call her Toc which stands for The Old Cat and as long as people don't start calling me TCL (The Crazy Lady) I figure I'm ahead of the game.

It's Not Goodbye If You Don't Forget

I lost my biggest fan of this blog. Mom passed at the age of 86 after a monumental battle with cancer. She passed as she had lived; quietly with a grace and love I have never seen matched.

Mom loved my blog and if I hadn't posted for a while I'd get an email from her. Typically, she never told me to post something it was always how much she enjoyed it and were there any new posts on the way? Pushy, she wasn't. Supportive and positive was the way she liked doing things. When I told her I was taking a break from it, she just said could read the old posts over and over. She had three favorites: http://wwwmindwanderings.blogspot.ca/2010/09/pumpkins-on-gate.html
http://wwwmindwanderings.blogspot.ca/2008/07/my-moms-peonies.html

http://wwwmindwanderings.blogspot.ca/2009/01/to-special-lady.html

I must admit, the last one is my favorite, too.

I decided to stop posting for a year or so because I found myself repeating the same thing: Today I grew something, today I harvested something, today I butchered something... Same old, same old. Over a year has gone by so it's time to start again. At least it will be a record of my triumphs, failures and everything in between.I'm going to start again once things settle a little bit around here. But it won't be quite the same because Mom was my biggest fan and not only of the blog.

My Blog Will Start Up Again in the New Year, but Untill then...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

This is from last year, we don't have snow yet.

As the year closes,
We sit back and reflect on the fleeting 12 months
That seem to pass so quickly.
Invariably our thoughts go to friends and family,
Both near and far
In not only distance but in time as well.
So to your family from The DaM Farm,
Merry Christmas!
May the glow of the fireplace stay in your hearts
And may the New Year
Bring your dearest hopes and dreams to reality.

Raw Dog food

Oooooh!!! Is that the food dish I hear rattling?!?!

I started making dog food about eight years ago. Dusk was my inspiration. We had him for about three months and by then I had done considerable research on his breed mix/type and the results were not good. Dogs of Dusk's origin, breeding and size don't live much past five years old and many do not get to three. I was feeding him a quality dog food that cost twice as much as the regular stuff but a serving was about a third of what I had to give compared to the grocery store brand so it wasn't as expensive as it looks at first glance. He got lots of socialization and excercise. So I was doing what I could and Dusk seemed happy and healthy.

At nine months Dusk started kind of favouring his hind quarters. He did a lot of 'bunny hopping' instead of running and sometimes had trouble getting up after a nap. Oh-oh. The vet said it looked like signs of hip displasia. Not good. She gave me some massage techniques to use with him and told me to limit the ball chasing/retrieval games since the stopping short wasn't good for H.D. My vet also suggested either home-cooking or raw food. She is a holistic vet, most vets are dead set against raw food for dogs. So I started looking into it. I did a lot of research but still it terrified me. I knew nothing about making a diet for my beloved pet that was going to be nutritious and healthy. A friend of mine and I were discussing this one day and I said I should really change Dusk to a homemade diet but I was pretty sure I'd end up killing him. She outright dismissed me, "You're not going to kill your dog". Here, go get this book, read and follow it and you'll be fine. And she was right. I was still halfway terrified and measured/weighed everything for well over two years. But after feeding this way for eight years and seeing Dusk approach his ninth birthday in good health, ( his back end gets a little stiff now and then) I'm glad I made the switch. I remember about a year after starting him on the diet watching all 130 pounds of him thunder across a field with a grace and strength he simply didn't have before. I couldn't help but marvel at the change in him.

Of course, food can only do so much. A really, really sick dog may not get better just because you change his food. But I do believe that a non-processed diet is just better for any living being. I suppose humans could live on nothing but cereal their entire lives, but who'd want to and how healthy would they ultimately be? Are there dangers to feeding raw food to dogs? Sure there are. I never leave the pets alone if they're having bones in case of choking. I use the same cleaning/preparation methods for their food as I do for cooking for the family. Other than green tripe, all the dogs food is human grade, so it's basically the same as ours (except it's the parts we don't eat). Green tripe is the stomach/intestines of cow, lamb or other herbivore. It's just gross, smells like a over-crowded barnyard that hasn't been cleaned in 50 years. I open the pack real fast and the dogs eat it outside. Horrid as it is, it's great for dogs and they absolutely go bonkers for it. So in short,I am aware there is risk but I believe the advantages outweigh it. Besides, the store bought dog food can be dangerous, too; remember all those recalls a couple of years ago?

A big bowl of veggie mush! I'll freeze this in little packages for the dogs' meals. A meal is mainly meat or meat and bones but a bit of veggies or fruit does seem to be required for my dogs. Dusk gets about 10% in his meal where Angel does well with 20 - 30%. I try to give the dogs as much variety as I can. Meats include chicken, rabbit, turkey necks, fish, beef, pork and on occasion goat and lamb and whatever else I can snag. Veggies are usually in a three or four combo mix and include dark, leafy vegetables and a little carrot or yam.

Mmmmm, garlic, ginger and parsley! When the dogs have veggies, I add this mix. Again, I make a load of it and then freeze it in single servings (I'm all about the easy and the convenient). I find it helps with digestion and my dogs breath/smell is not offensive at all. They do get other supplements, too; organic apple cider vinegar with their meat and bones meals, kelp/alfalfa with their meat meals, some oils like like wild salmon fish oil and early evening primrose oil though mind you, since now most of their meat is pasture fed, not grain fed they don't need as much. Dusk gets Vit. C to help when his hip displasia makes him stiff. They get raw organic ground pumpkin seed in the summer months to help prevent worms and fleas. I've never had an issue with either, yet.

Another important part of the meal is offal, the organs of whatever animal I happen to have, usually it's beef. This mix is heart, kidney, liver and tongue. They don't need much of it, but they do need it. We buy half a side of local, grass feed beef. I always ask for the organs and the trim that is usually thrown out and use it for the dogs. Of course, they have rabbit and chicken organs as well.

A nice, nutritious training/snack treat, dehydrated beef heart! The butcher usually throws in a couple of beef hearts along with the one that comes with my cow so I slice them thinly and dry them out in the oven. That plate is a whole beef heart dehydrated.

OK, it's not part of the diet Per Se but my dogs love their liver brownie treats! They also get eggs and yogurt and assorted other foods may not be 'classified' as raw but it works for for them.

Obviously, research and learning is tantamount in the success of a non-processed diet. Here is the book and the email group that helped me the most.

Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats The Ultimate Diet

by Kymythy R. Schultze.

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/K9Nutrition/