Oops, we moved again! My blog silence explained.

Instead of blogging the last few weeks, I've been preparing to move house, moving house and now dealing with the aftermath. Since our last move, we've acquired a few more family members and their belongings. Meg the dog was simple to move - we simply lured her into the car and drove her to the new house. The chickens do not travel quite so lightly. We loaded the summer coop onto our trailer, along with the metal garbage can which holds their feed, then caught the girls, one by one and stuffed them into a dog crate. That is, until it came to Patty's turn. Patty was nowhere to be found even though we were offering raisins to sweeten the deal. We called and called and looked everywhere and I was beginning to fear she'd been nabbed by a coyote in the confusion. Luckily, Luc thought to look in the coop even though there had been no sounds coming from within throughout the coop moving process. Sure enough, there was Patty in the egg box just trying to lay an egg in a little peace. 

Our new house is just a few kilometres away from our old one. It's a 25 year old, rough-around-the-edges raised bungalow on 25 acres of quite lovely forest. The major selling point for me is its proximity to the beautiful town of Almonte. We are less than 2 km from the downtown shopping area and just about the same distance to the "strip" such as it is in Almonte. We can easily walk or bike to shopping, the library, a farmer's market, a beach, all kinds of activities, restaurants, and much else of what we used to drive to.

We knew we'd have some work to do at the new place, but there have been quite a few surprises, most of them less fun than finding a forgotten twenty in a coat pocket. So we've been busy writing cheques to various tradespeople in an attempt to bring the place up to the standard we thought it was already at. Tomorrow afternoon an exterminator is scheduled to hopefully address a bit of an infestation of .... rats. As a family who has had four pet rats this is a bit like having an exterminator come to take care of a puppy problem - but not quite. The body count is up to four and there is at least one that we haven't caught. That big fella was last seen scurrying away from a bag of dog training treats in the kitchen at 2:00 am. I expect a rat infestation might be a bit more traumatic for a normal family who hasn't been conditioned to feel all warm and fuzzy toward the rodents. Even the dog is pretty cool with it.

We haven't tackled the fairly daunting job of moving the compost and garden beds over from the old place yet. The new house has the same issue of shallow soil over bedrock as the old place did (should have moved a bit farther, maybe) so I'll be gardening in raised beds here as well.

I'm sure we'll be busy for months and probably years with improvements and repairs. A priority for me is improving the energy efficiency of the house to a very high standard from the rather minimally adequate state it is in now. Our to-do list has gotten rather long rather quickly. I don't want to think what our carbon footprint has been and will be with all the activity around the move, but I'm hopeful that we are setting ourselves up to be significantly more energy efficient over time.

Maggie disagrees

Some of the family went to the Museum Of Science and Technology today where they saw a travelling exhibit called Food for Health. Food for Health seems to be a production of the Canadian government in defense of industrial agriculture. Spoiler alert: it's for your safety. It included a video showing battery hens which explained that the caging supported the hens' natural instincts to gather closely together, while protecting them from weather and predators. One might assume from this that they enjoy the controlled climate, lack of coyotes, and the close company of 20,000 or so of their closest friends.

I didn't think so, Maggie.

Positively glowing Edna

What pleasure from sunshine and a little patch of bare ground.

Microgreens

About a year ago I picked up the book Microgreens: A Guide to Growing Nutrient-Packed Greens by Eric Franks and Jasmine Richardson. For some reason I kept putting off trying to grow my own until yesterday. We used to get microgreens from Bryson Farms when we lived in the city and always enjoyed them. I recycled a couple of plastic containers that salad greens come in to try my first two batches.

Microgreens are seeds grown in soil (or another medium) to the second stage of development. This is the stage where roots are becoming established and the first leaves, called cotyledons are opened. This only takes a week or two after germination. They are more similar to baby greens than sprouts at this stage, but have an intense flavour and very high nutritional value. According to the book, broccoli at four days past germination has twenty to fifty times the sulfuraphane as full grown broccoli by weight. This is the stuff that is believed to be so healthy in cruciferous vegetables.

First, I put some drainage slits in the bottom of the containers, then I put an inch and a half of organic potting soil in the bottom of each container. I sprinkled a mix of brassica seeds in one...

and pea seeds (both are organic sprouting seeds from Mumm's) in the other.

I covered the small brassica seeds with an unbleached paper towel and used soil to cover the larger pea seeds, then I watered well. The paper towel provides a good visual indication of the soil moisture.

I put the lids back on the containers to retain moisture, then set them in the warmest spot in our house.

Twenty four hours later the brassicas are already showing some signs of life. Being able to peel back the paper towel is a big bonus for people like me who can't wait to see progress. There is nothing to see in the pea container because of the soil covering.

Once the seeds have germinated, I'll remove the paper towel covering and the lids and set them in a sunny window. I'm hoping there will be enough light for them in the week or so before they're harvested. If not, I'll set up my seed starting shop light for them, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I'll post more pictures as things progress...

It would be funny if it weren't true.

Who's picking up the bill? Well, as always, those guys over there.

Can Meg come out to play?

Harrison, the rough collie lives next door. He's a charming fellow (and well-dressed). Meg has taken advantage of his gentle nature since she was a little puppy and he was a strapping young dog. She chases him mercilessly and steals his toys and bones without repercussion, even though he's three times her size. Still, he seems to think she's a fun playmate and they spend hours together running and wrestling and chewing on each other's neck fur.