Migratory Chickens

April 25, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

The chickens migrated to the vegetable garden today.

My chickens are migratory; they have a summer home and a winter home. In summer they have a dedicated paddock—an otherwise useless little corner of the yard under some birch trees. Their winter home is the vegetable garden. I fence off a quarter of the space for my winter crops, and let the chooks take care of the rest.

I used to struggle with waist-high weeds in the garden each spring, injuring my back or my arms almost every year just trying to prepare the garden for planting. But since I started employing the chickens in the garden over winter, spring planting has become a breeze.

Well, OK, not a breeze. It’s still a ton of work, but I can do it without injury.

The chickens eat weeds and pests alike, keeping both under control all winter. There are weeds they won’t eat, of course, but as long as I swing through the garden once or twice over the winter to root out the biggest ones, I arrive at spring with minimal weeds or pests to get rid of.

And the icing on the cake is that the chooks love the garden. Egg production often slows down in the autumn, but it shoots right up again when the birds are let loose among the leftover vegetables. Everybody wins!

In praise of the freezer

March 27, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Hurrah for the freezer that allows us to enjoy hot homemade pizza in 15 minutes!

This evening, the kids have a piano recital. But first, we will stay late at school for band practice, and Ian will come home late from work because of a meeting. There will be precious little time between the day’s events and the evening’s event to cook and eat a meal.

Thank God for the domestic freezer (or perhaps I should thank the dozens of inventors who worked on developing and refining refrigeration technology since 1755). Despite the tight schedule, we will eat well this evening. A homemade pizza awaits us in the freezer. Fifteen minutes in the oven is all it will take to turn that icy block into a delicious meal.

This is our first year with a chest freezer, and we are singing the praises of modern refrigeration technology (at least until the power goes out for four days, which has been known to happen in this shaky land). In the past, we’ve not been able to freeze vegetables, because the little freezer space we had was needed for the 24 loaves of bread Ian makes every two or three weeks. We resisted getting a chest freezer for a variety of reasons—space constraints, cost, the frequency with which the power goes out (5 times so far in the month of March)—but after the cheese fridge died, we decided to give the chest freezer a try (it could sit where the cheese fridge had been, after all, and the cheese…well, we’d figure out where that was going later).

In the heat and bustle of summer, it was lovely to be able to quickly prepare fruit for freezing, rather than laboriously canning it and steaming up the kitchen. It was delightful to be able to plant as many peas as I had space for, knowing I could freeze the excess. I was thrilled to be able to freeze the extra corn, rather than watch it dry out on the plants. And when the pumpkins start to rot in late winter, I’ll be able to bake dozens of them at a time in the bread oven and freeze the flesh so we don’t lose them.

So, thank you William Cullen, Oliver Evans, Jacob Perkins, Alexander Twining, James Harrison, Ferdinand Carré, Nathaniel Wales and many, many others who have refined this technology over hundreds of years and brought us the modern freezer.

Life as a Squirrel

March 26, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Having recently crossed over into the dark side of the year, I am naturally looking ahead to the winter to come. The days are growing short, the nights cool.

As I sneak a late-night snack of almonds and raisins (though I’m not particularly hungry), I begin to wonder…Am I like a bear, eating extra food, building up fat in order to hibernate all winter?

Then I harvest the beans, corn and pumpkins and store them away in cupboard, freezer and shed, and I believe I am like a chipmunk, filling its larder with autumn’s bounty so I can huddle inside munching on the fruits of my labour all winter.

Our last snow–in 2011. We rarely get snow to frolic in, but it’s nice to frolic when I can.

But that’s not quite right, either, because I’m truly more like a squirrel. I hunker down in my winter nest during the worst weather, but on fine winter days I like to frolic outdoors, to scamper around searching out the little tidbits I’ve stashed here and there. The chard I left growing on the compost pile, the lettuces in the greenhouse, the last of the potatoes and carrots still in the garden, the cabbage and broccoli that hang on through the cold months. Sometimes, squirrel-like, I forget where I’ve hidden something—the last jar of artichokes, in the back of the cupboard, perhaps, or the leeks, quietly growing without my noticing until one day they are ready to eat.

I’m sure that, for a squirrel, fine winter days are a frantic race to stave off winter starvation, but for me, winter frolicking is just that—a little light weeding, gathering in the meagre winter crops, and enjoying the release from the hard labour of summer.

I still have a month or more to go before I can rest from summer labours, but on this tired end of the year, I look forward to my squirrely winter days, curling up in my nest and eating from my food caches.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

March 12, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

See a beautiful goat kid? Beauty belies the truth: manually pulled from her mother, bottle fed because she was two weak to stand, then put down at 3 months old because of an injury.

See a beautiful goat kid? Beauty belies the truth: manually pulled from her mother, bottle fed because she was too weak to stand, then put down at 3 months old because of an injury.

I glanced down at my shirt as I got out of the car. Damn. Frayed on the hem, and stained with something dark—blood, probably. I sighed. Once again I would be the worst dressed parent at school—the country mouse among city mice.

It was easy when the kids were at the local rural school. Most of the parents showed up in manure-splattered gumboots and dirty coveralls there. But now that the kids are at school in the city, I feel a vast cultural divide between myself and the other parents.

They walk in wearing impeccable make-up, high heels, and dry clean-only clothes. They sport jewellery and labour-intensive hairstyles. Meanwhile, I’ve thrown on my least decrepit pair of blue jeans, hiking boots, and a t-shirt of dubious cleanliness. If I’m lucky, I’ve combed the hay out of my hair.

When these city parents find out I live on a lifestyle block in the country, they wax lyrical about how someday they want to live “the good life” in the country. I look at them dubiously. Those high heels wouldn’t work well in a muddy paddock. If they persist, I describe for them my daily routine, beginning at 5 most mornings. I enumerate the hours of hard labour in the garden, the DIY vetting (not for the faint of heart) that comes with owning livestock, the never ending struggle to maintain a rotting 125 year-old house.

It’s worse when city folk come to visit. Of course, other than at kidding time (see Worst Hostess of the Year), when visitors arrive, work stops. We make sure the garden is weeded, the grass trim, and the usual mess of half-finished projects is cleaned up before visitors come. We serve the fruits of our labour—homemade cheeses, fresh fruit and vegetables. We relax with a glass of wine. Visitors get the impression it is always like this.

The truth is much dirtier and sweatier, and it’s visible in our clothing. No matter how careful I am, eventually I find myself trimming hooves, treating an abscess, or tying up tomatoes in my “city” clothes. I sweat every day. I am regularly splattered with blood—my own or a goat’s. None of my shoes is reliably without manure on the soles.

So while the city folk see only the romance of rural subsistence farming, we live the reality. Are there moments of romance? Yes. In the silence of early morning milking. In the evening strolls around the property, when the day’s work is done. In the daily sweep through the vegetable garden to pick dinner. In the frolicking play of goat kids in the paddock. But it takes long, hard work to create those moments of romance, and the romance probably isn’t worth it unless you also enjoy the work. And, of course, if you don’t mind being the worst dressed parent at school.

Cheese Magic

March 11, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Curds and whey

To be honest, until I had dairy goats, I don’t think I knew at all how cheese was made. Oh, I knew it was made from milk, but beyond that, I had no clue. I loved cheese, and I ate quite a lot of it, but how it came to be on the supermarket shelves, I didn’t know.

Truth is, cheese making is magic.

Well, OK, not really. It’s a simple matter of coagulating proteins, and the whole process is governed by the laws of chemistry. But it feels like magic.

Slow and painstaking magic, that is. Ignore for a moment the six months of planning and animal husbandry required to produce the milk itself, and let’s focus on the actual cheese making process. The process to make a simple farmhouse cheddar, one of the least time-intensive hard cheeses I make, usually starts at about 6.15 am. Two hours of heating the milk and adding cultures and rennet, and the first of the magic happens—liquid milk becomes a solid mass of cheese curds. I carefully cut the curd into small cubes, marvelling at its beautiful silky firm texture. Then I tediously stir for almost an hour and a half while I heat the milk to expel liquid from the curds. The curds finally go into the press at about 10 am. The “green” cheese doesn’t come out of the press until 11 pm. A week later, once the surface of the cheese has dried, it is waxed, and left to age for at least 4 weeks.

So, the fastest of cheeses is almost 5 weeks in the making. Other cheeses require much more active processing, and a much longer aging period (parmesan needs a minimum of 10 months, and is best after a year). Some cheeses aren’t waxed, and need daily or weekly washing for their entire aging period to avoid mould.

But once a cheese is ready, the second bit of magic happens, and it is my favourite part of cheese making–opening a new cheese. Only at this point do I know for certain how the cheese making months before actually went. Is it the right texture? Is it properly salted? Has it aged enough? Was I able to prevent unwanted mould growth? The whole family is drawn to the opening of a cheese. Everyone gets a slice, and weighs in on how good it is. This magical moment, standing around in the kitchen with the family is worth all the tedious stirring and waiting.

The French Potager

March 9, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Zucchini, eggplant, basil and cosmos nestle happily together.

I love the idea of the French potager—the small garden densely planted with a mix of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. When we lived in St. Paul, Minnesota with a yard the size of a postage stamp, we had a delightful potager in raised beds near the house, and flowing down rocky terraces to the sidewalk. Showy okra flowers competed with cosmos and marigolds for the most beautiful plant award. Eggplants nestled next to thyme, corn formed a backdrop for zinnias, and colourful lettuces marched in a neat border around the whole arrangement.

Now that we have more than enough space, the vegetables are segregated and confined to the vegetable garden, where I can be sure they are well watered and mulched, and I don’t worry about a few spent, ugly plants hanging around. I’ve also found that here in the land of pernicious twitch (couch grass), planting perennials and annuals together is usually a recipe for disaster—annuals don’t compete well with twitch, and the perennials harbour fragments of twitch among their roots, providing an endless source of the weed.

But this spring, Ian was looking for temporary plantings for his new pond garden—plants he wouldn’t mind killing off along with the weeds in the fall when he plants the perennials he wants there. He picked up a few flats of annual flowers, took all my leftover vegetable plants, and created a delightful potager bursting with colour, fragrance and flavour. It’s a lovely reminder that you don’t need a “vegetable garden” to grow food, and that vegetable plants are beautiful, too.

The Caprine Composter

March 6, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Caprine Composters at work on tough corn stalks.

There are dozens of ways to compost. There are barrels that rotate, rocket-shaped bins with handy doors on the bottom for extracting the finished compost, clever bokashi buckets, and worm bins. Then, of course, there are the non-commercial composting systems like sheet or pit composting, and my personal favourite, throw-it-in-a-pile-and-ignore-it composting.

None of these systems works well for large, woody items, though—small branches, corn stalks and the like. These things linger (or don’t even fit) in most composting systems.

For these woody items, I prefer the Caprine Composting System. This effective and efficient composter takes large woody plant material, and reduces it to convenient, pelletised fertiliser in just 24 hours. No tedious chopping and waiting on your part, just throw it over the fence, and the Caprine Composter does the rest!

Bonus! The Caprine Composter is adorable, too!

Comes in fashionable and discrete colours like white, brown and black. No assembly required.

Caution! The Caprine composter is highly efficient, and can compost valuable trees, shrubs, and other plants if not properly operated and restrained. Read all instructions before operation. Use with care!

The Harvest Hangover

March 2, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The morning after

I woke this morning with a headache. It was one I recognised—the Harvest Hangover. It’s a combination of fatigue and dehydration that comes after a day of picking and preserving vegetables.

Back in the years B.C. (Before Children), I used to lose 10 pounds during harvest season. I’d forget to eat and drink as I picked and processed mountains of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, beans, etc. Ironic, eh? After a night of canning, I’d wake with a Harvest Hangover. I’d stumble to work grumpy and groggy, as though I’d been out carousing all night.

As I age, I’m more moderate in my preserving. Instead of weeks of late-night canning sessions, I do two or three a year. It helps that I can’t grow the quantity of tomatoes I used to during the hot summers in Pennsylvania, but I’ve also rationalised my preserving. Here, where winters are mild, I can grow cool-weather crops year round, so winters aren’t the fresh vegetable desert they are in a harsher climate. If I don’t have 50 quarts of tomatoes in the cupboard for winter, it doesn’t matter—we can eat something else instead. I preserve only what I know we’ll eat, so I’m not throwing away old canned goods every summer. I’ve learned to better manage my planting so that I’m not completely overwhelmed with any one crop (usually). And I allow myself to simply give away extra produce when I am overwhelmed.

Perhaps it’s a sign of aging that I don’t wake with Harvest Hangovers very often any more, but I like to think of it as a sign of wisdom. As they say, know your limits!

Changing Perspectives

February 28, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

When I first mentioned to a neighbour years ago that we were enjoying home grown watermelon, she was incredulous.

“Watermelon!? In Canterbury?!”

It’s true, melons are a hit-and-miss crop here. Summers are just too cold for these heat-loving plants. My first attempts were mediocre at best—we were lucky to get anything before frost killed the plants. Year after year, they failed. Since then, I’ve learned to start my seeds early in a heated room, and let the plants get nice and big before putting them out. They never go out into the garden until the end of November, and I try to tuck them into one of the more sheltered beds so they don’t have to deal with cold winds. With a bit of coddling, they do reasonably well.

Reasonably well for Canterbury, New Zealand, that is.

My standards for melons have changed dramatically in the last decade. If I were still gardening in North America, I would be sorely disappointed in my melon crop. The fruits are small and few—no giant rattlesnake watermelons or big fat cantaloupes here! Only the most rapidly maturing varieties give at all, and even on these varieties, most fruits don’t make it to maturity before the growing season ends.

But the few, small melons we do get are incredibly sweet and juicy. Even more so, because we shouldn’t be able to grow them at all here. Each one is a blessing and a marvel.

Milking in the Dark

February 27, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

It’s the time of year when milking gets difficult. The air is chilly, and it is still full night at 5:30 when I roll out of bed. I’ve already given up milking at 5—even I have trouble at that hour this time of year. If I start my day at 5.30, the sky is at least starting to lighten a bit by the time I finish milking and feeding the animals. In another week or two, I won’t even have that meagre consolation.

But there is something magical about stepping out the door in the pre-dawn darkness, the sky blazing with stars above, and no sound but the distant surf. Even the goats, who usually clamour for me every time they see me, are silent at that hour. They wait patiently for their turn on the milking stand, their turn to be fed. In the distance I can see the light from a neighbour’s milking shed, and I know I’m not the only one out in the darkness. While the neighbour works in the light and noise of a 60 cow rotary milking shed, though, I walk my goats one at a time to the solitary milking stand behind the shed. Weak light streams from the shed window—just enough to see the teats and the milking pail. I milk largely by Braille these mornings.

As I finish, and the eastern sky begins to lighten, a rooster crows in the distance, the neighbour’s peacocks mew. I stop for a moment on my way back into the house to admire the stars, listen to the sea. I won’t experience this stillness for the rest of the day; I need to savour it, store it up. When I step back into the warmth and light of the house, there will be a hundred frantic tasks waiting, and by the time I step back outside, the sun will be up, birds will be chattering in the trees, the goats will whine for attention, the neighbours will be passing back and forth on tractors, and the magic of the night will be gone.

And so I am thankful for this chore, the milking, that forces me out of bed and into the night, that I might have a moment or two of stillness in my day. Those brief moments are better than an extra hour of sleep any day.

Robinne Weiss

Fantasy / Sci-fi / Non-fiction

rural life