Love and Oregano

Bugs Sent to Destroy

June 17, 2015 Jenn Entomology

One of the many joys of living on a farm/forest/acreage, is the pests you encounter. Mice, voles, moles, spiders (so many spiders), ladybugs, flies, larder beetle (did you know they live in cat litter???), wolves, coyotes, coywolves, muskrats, beavers, horseflies, deerflies, mosquitoes, blackflies… I will stop here.

I have a reel mower. Two of them, actually, and I love pushing it. I love plugging in my ipod and cranking the tunes while getting a sweaty workout. And it is a good workout, let me tell you. Especially going uphill. But two days ago, while the boy and I were mowing, he started getting weirded out by all these…bugs. Bugs don’t normally bother him. And I try to keep my screams to a minimum when I encounter bugs, so I usually scream (habit) and then call out in cheerful voice, ‘It’s ok! Just startled a little!’ So when I investigated, I found all these flying…bugs. Everywhere. I googled them. I googled, ‘tan, small beetle, farm’. Nothing. ‘Beige, beetle, Ontario’. Nothing. Ah, they’ll go away, I said to myself.

Yesterday, they were everywhere. I looked high and low for our usual insanity of dragonflies, but they weren’t really around. I chose to mow anyway, and after 40 minutes, I had to stop, because these disgusting things kept landing on me. Creepy. Small beetle. Tan. Orange, prickly legs. Still couldn’t find anything.

Today I sat down and looked up, ‘Insect Identification Ontario’. I scrolled through about 300 bugs, when I finally found it.

Behold. The rose chafer.

Isn’t it disgusting?

Guess where they lay their eggs? In sandy soil.

Guess what they eat? E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

They love roses. But I don’t have any. So they love grass. I have tons. They love fruit trees. I only have two. They love all flowers, all foliage and all vegetation. And they are ridiculously destructive. And get this: they kill chickens because they are toxic.

They skeletonize leaves. DAMAGE IS MOST SEVERE IN AREAS WITH SANDY SOIL.

Oh, how I cried.

Guess how you kill them?

1-lay out floating row covers (too late)

2- throw down some parasitic nematode stuff (I have 150 acres)

3- go out and collect by hand and kill them.

I cried some more.

Then I inspected my compound (incidentally, I need a nicer name than compound for my vegetable garden).

Oh, crap.

So. This is how you kill chafer beetles:

-don long jeans, long socks, long sleeves, hat and tall rubber boots. They fly, y’all.

-don long thick rubber gloves. Cause they squeeze ooze.

-large pail of super hot, super sudsy water

-psyche yourself up with loud, angry music. I recommend ‘Firestarter‘ by Prodigy. Because YOU ARE the ‘trouble starter, punking instigator, fear addicted, danger illustrated’ and YOU CAN dispose of them (I’m such a 90’s girl)

-convince boy to come out and help.

-after five minutes and capturing exactly two without vomiting, offer to pay the boy $100 if he comes out two times a day for the rest of the summer to collect all gross bugs and dispose of them.

you’re welcome.

Lately…

June 9, 2015 Jenn Flora - Pemberley

It’s been busy around here. Getting ready for the Farmers’ Market…

getting ready for the market with a plethora of tomatoes…

Getting the vegetable garden ready with seeding and transplanting…

Planting corn in the ground to see it sprout a week later…. strawberry popcorn

My gorgeous white wheat has sprouted…

Collecting large rocks to create borders for vegetables…this rock wall is outlining many tomatoes

Using minion to build brick walls around fragile asparagus…

Taking walks to see the farm change seasons…

And finding strange things…such as this large asparagus on the side of our driveway…hubby thinks a deer pooped out a seed? Sadly, we didn’t notice it until it was already too late to pick…

So I take these few rain days to plant more vegetables into the ground and see if I can encourage my basil to grow more quickly to sell this Saturday…

Why Are We Doing This?

May 21, 2015 Jenn Food

Hubby asked me why I am pushing so hard to get these vegetables grown and sold.

There isn’t a lot of money in it, and I’m sure considering the time, materials and effort it takes to grow these little darlings, is just not worth what I would make if I sold them all.

Because people matter, I said.

Our family has made a change in how we eat (blah blah, hasn’t every family?). I now make my own bread with organic flour (huge change in my rashes), I try to limit processed food as much as possible, and we try to only cheat on Friday and Saturday nights with Cheezies (they should be their own food group). We can’t really afford to buy organic, but I try to make the exception on lettuces. I’m not sure why. I’m sure apples are the worst culprit, but I do make some kind of effort in washing them hand soap. I’ve even changed our ice cream treats to Haagen Daaz, simply because they have simple ingredients. Triscuits are our cracker of choice because they have 4 ingredients. I’m not psycho about it, because we can’t afford it. I’m not milking my own cow (lactose-intolerant here), I’m not growing my own wheat…yet. And we do love our bacon, although I’ve tried to cut it down to twice a week. Wow, I sound like a nutcase. Regardless, my family has not been sick since March 2014. Not one cold, not one flu. I had spent all of March with pneumonia, and maybe that was the time I changed? I’m not sure. I know when we get a tickle in our throats, we rely on Jim Beam, sipped slowly (not the boy of course, I’m not a monster). But we haven’t been sick in over a year! That says a lot to me. Especially considering the stress we’ve been under with moving to our dream home. And I know for a fact that God has something to do with this awesomeness.

Organic vegetables are expensive. Crazy expensive. And half the time, they look weird. Buying organic vegetable plants are expensive too. Which means that people who don’t have a pile of cash (me) can’t afford to feed their families in the best manner. So why should these families have to suffer, just because they can’t afford organic?

So. I’m growing these heirloom, organic seeds in a organic manner (Myke’s fertilizer, Jobe’s Organic Fertilizer, Muskie Fish Emulsion organic) so that they will produce healthy plants, which I can sell, which in turn will produce organic fruit for ANYONE to eat, at the same price as regular produce.

Because that is fair.

More Photos

May 13, 2015 Jenn Fauna - Flora

I’m very excited about the oriole because I have never seen one. They seem to prefer nesting in elm trees, and we just happen to have an elm tree out front. In front of a manitoba maple (Betty) and orioles loooove their seeds! Their song is beautiful.

The cat brought me a mouse. Er…good girl.

Bit by Bit

May 13, 2015 Jenn Flora

I convinced hubby to let me buy two reel mowers. Those are push mowers. I’m not so much concerned about the environmental impact of gas (and I really should be) but it’s really good exercise for someone who is nowhere near a gym. And they wouldn’t let me mow when we brought them home.

Then the tractor came to till our land!

But his attachment tiller wouldn’t stay down in the ground. So he came two days later.

In the next week or so I will get to plant these:

There are more plants in cold frames outside, on the shelves in the laundry room and shelves in the pantry…and I’m seeding more basil.

Homemade Chai Tea

May 13, 2015 Jenn Food

I am an ex-Starbucks lover. I have spent a fortune on venti, soy, no water, no foam, chai lattes. And then I downgraded to buying the syrup and making it myself at home. Except the stuff they sell in the box isn’t strong enough, so it never tasted right. Unless it was on ice. Then it was delicious.

And then I switched to David’s tea. Their chai tea took some getting used to, but I’d doctored it with Silk Extra-Vanilla soy milk. But Silk doesn’t sell that brand near me, and I’d buy it by the case whenever we went to Syracuse, NY (yes, I’m a cross-border shopper). So then I made myself get used to just the regular soy milk. That took two weeks. And then I noticed that every single time I had David’s tea, I would be sick later. Like…in the washroom way too many times. So I cut it out for a week. And my issues stopped. So I had some the next morning. Regardless, I am no longer purchasing David’s tea (how could it possibly all of a sudden make me sick?)

So I broke down and found a recipe on the internet for homemade chai tea. I never wanted to try making it before, because it looked like too much work, but I finally did.

Dude.

I have to share the recipe because it will blow your mind when you taste it. I have changed the amount of ingredients slightly, and then added a bit of my own to perfect it. You be the judge.

Ingredients:

4″ piece of peeled fresh ginger

4 cinnamon sticks

4 tsp black peppercorns

20 whole cloves

9 cardamom pods

12 c cold H20

9 bags of Darjeeling tea

Put your sticks of cinnamon into an unsealed sandwich baggie. Grab your little hammer and cutting board for smashing.

and smash….Hulk smash. I find if you hold the baggie with one hand, keeping it closed, it’s less messy. And while smashing, don’t smash too hard, or you’ll put a hole in the baggie.

Drop into large pot on stove. Next, your peppercorns go into the same baggie. And smash. If you like it spicy, smash more peppercorns.

Then you are going to gently smash your cardamom and cloves. Cardamom is a funny spice, and once you smell it, you’ll recognize it. From curries and from certain teas.

Peel your ginger and chop into half-inch pieces. Then smash gently with knife to get the juice oozing out all over.

Add your cold H20 (I like to use Brita water because we are on a well) and bring to a rolling boil. Once it is boiling, cover with lid, and reduce heat to a simmer. Let simmer 15 minutes.

Then remove pot from heat and when it stops boiling, drop in your tea bags. The instructions say to brew for 60 minutes, but I love a good strong tea, so I let it brew for like, 4-6 hours. And because the recipe calls for 20 bags and I’m cheap. Then drain it into a large bowl through a pasta strainer to catch your bits of spices. Then pour bowl of contents into a pitcher and refrigerate. Every morning I heat up half and half (with soy milk) on a pot on the stove, whisking every minute or so until it’s steaming. Then I inhale.

I highly recommend it! I try to use the best ingredients, but I can’t get my hands on organic ginger. Do you best to buy slave-free spices (buy fair trade!) and you’ll feel even better when drinking it.

Enjoy!

More Weird Things

May 1, 2015 Jenn Fauna

I have two large rubbermaid containers to hold my bird seed. I leave one of them on my porch because I’m too lazy to walk it back to the barn and put it away.

Twice I have found the lid opened and chewed. Oh, I think to myself, I must have left it open. Huh.

Yesterday I found a chipmunk inside. Well, I had no idea how to get him out, and there was absolutely no way I would pick up the container and shake it (because what if he climbed out and attacked my face?) so I yelled a lot and tried to look menacing. He inhaled 5 more sunflower seeds and then took his time leaving. I shook the container to see how much he had eaten.

And there was something fuzzy inside.

Not moving.

So I calmly put it down on the ground, in the sun, walked back inside the house and waited for hubby to come home the next day and deal with it.

April 7, 2015 Jenn Flora

Growing seedlings takes time. So much time. But here are some little rascals.

Transplanting while watching a Hallmark movie. Best way to do it.

This is where they live now. In my living room, with grow-lights.

Asparagus. Aren’t they adorable? Like little pine trees.

Excited about this variety. A Grappoli D’Iverno

Weird Stuff We Find on the Farm

April 7, 2015 Jenn Fauna

We’ve only been here a few months, but we’ve found some very odd things. And some magical things.

Yes, that’s a turkey foot. All by itself. Just sitting on the ground. Two days ago we had turkeys. About 14 of them, just feeding off the ground. And then we went up on Zero Point Mom (a hill) and found this. No feathers, no guts.