October 28, 2009
· Filed under Pigs
Pitou is the pot-bellied pig who came to us in an unusual way – as is often the case with rescues and strays – he was abandoned at the Portland Fair earlier in the summer. My friend Ed is in charge of the petting zoo and arranged for Pitou and a few other animals to be at the fair for the weekend. At the end of the fair, Ed was notified that the owner was moving to a new home with no space for Pitou. I volunteered to take him if no one else did – lo and behold we now have a pot-bellied pig. Luckily Ed has been fostering him since then and will keep him for the winter to give us a chance to get the barn fixed up.
Since we aren’t planning on any baby Pitous the time had come for him to make a trip to the vet and have a couple of certain somethings removed. If they aren’t removed, a male can become very pungent, with a ‘boar’ odor so to speak and may also become aggressive.
First things, first: get him in the crate and off to the vet. He has free range of a small barnyard at Ed’s farm but we had no idea how difficult it would be to catch him. I brought a large dog crate and set it in the barnyard with Ed to scope things out. There he was, off in the distance and curious with what was going on.
Once he spotted the crate, he knew we were
up to no good and would have nothing of it.
Ed tried to lure him with some of his favourite grains…
but Misty, Pitou’s sidekick, wouldn’t let him get
tricked and protected him while he ate.
About a half hour later we got him in the crate but he let us know he
wasn’t happy, inviting us to kiss his him on the posterior cheeks!
His behavior improved once he got to the vet’s office but he still wasn’t
going to cooperate by allowing the vet to put the leash around his neck.
A few hours later I got a call that everything was fine and
Pitou was ready to come home. He looked a little
groggy and ready for all of this to be over.
He also got a new harness in the meantime, which may be handy in
the future if we need to catch him again. He is actually quite
good natured and the whole process went very well. He looks menacing
in some of the photos but actually weighs just over 50 pounds.
He is all black except for the white stripe on his forehead.
We’re not sure why he was called Pitou but it
seems to suit him – I may have to work on my french…
October 22, 2009
· Filed under Kitchen Garden
This is a first for me, planting garlic at the same time as the other fall bulbs (300 or so Daffodils and about 100 tulips) and I’m looking forward to the harvest next August! I bought some bulbs about a month ago from David McGreery of Riverside Gardens. He was hosting a workshop sponsored by Just Food, an organization in support of growers, locavores and foodies in the Ottawa area. ‘Working toward a just and sustainable food system in Ottawa’ is their mission.
After consulting with David regarding the best varieties for a beginner to start out with, I settled with four: Music, Italian, Czech and German Red. David does many of the local garlic festivals and often sells out so I was lucky with the assortment he had to offer me.
The first job was to separate the bulbs into individual cloves for planting, luckily I had Buddy to help out and keep an eye on things.
Next was choosing a good spot and making sure the bed was well prepped for the bulbs. I settled on the southern most portion of the bed to give good exposure and also to minimize any chance of disturbance next Spring when we plant the rest of the garden.
We had mulched the beds with hay pretty heavily during the growing season and I was amazed at the degree to which the hay had broken down into little tiny bits, giving the soil a nice airy hand. We also added copious amounts of rotted goat manure and the soil seems in much better shape than it was.
We planted the cloves about 4 inches apart and about 4 inches deep; unfortunately the first row came out not quite as straight as I’d hoped and hopefully nobody will notice.
The last thing we did was to mulch heavily with leaves. We’ll keep adding over the next month so that there is good coverage for the winter. We’ve been getting steady rain now too so hopefully they will break down a fair bit before the first snowfall. We’ll probably add a layer of hay before it gets really cold though and pull that off in the Spring, just in time for the baby garlics to start poking their heads out of the soil. Then we wait for the basil and start making one of my favorite foods, garlic pesto!
October 8, 2009
· Filed under Chickens, Ducks
It doesn’t look like much, but for the chickens and ducks, this is a full-fledged ‘Palais des poules’… We moved them from the original spot to this one after a few renovations: insulation, better windows, a new ‘chicken’ door, more room to roost and a huge outdoor run. We made sure to include all the necessities of life:
Places to eat…
…and sleep.
The ducks and chickens are getting along as bunkmates.
Of course they need areas for recreation…
…including a high spot to get a better view of their domain.
It’s not all fun and games though, they’re here to do a job: lay eggs.
On the plus side, the nesting boxes have a nice view of the barnyard.
The best part of the new coop has to be the chicken door.
When the sun is shining, be careful when you open it!
It’s a mad dash to get out and begin the day.
The morning waits for no one..
…well, almost no one. There are always one or two stragglers
who just prefer to stay in bed a little while longer… sounds familiar?
