Cedar Woods Farm

We get our share of double yolker (and even two triple) eggs but this morning’s haul is worthy of sharing.

Giant egg, double the weight of a standard large egg

As the picture shows, at 119g it’s twice the weight of a regular large egg (that needs to be between 56 and 63 grams). This blows away our previous record big egg that was at 93g (if I remember correctly). Here’s how it looks compared to the other eggs from this morning, all well into the large size range.

The giant egg compared to 3 large eggs

When I moved the chicken pen to fresh pasture on the grass this morning there was our first egg lying there!

The first egg from our Pastured Chickens

Time to get the nesting boxes built. With almost two dozen hens we’re hoping to get at least a dozen a day when things are at full production. Lots of yummy breakfasts ahead

This morning is one of those classic winter days filled with potential. The sunrise was worth sharing.

Looking across the snowy front field with the sun rising

Rebuilding a 3 point hitch back blade that I bought for scrap.

This makes 6 calves in a row that I haven’t been around to see born. Sometime mid day (I suspect) Marigold had her third calf.

Marigold and her 2010 new born Calf

Here’s a close up of the little heifer calf.

Marigold's 2010 Heifer Calf

Shortly after I took these pictures I helped the calf up and she had a good suck. I think all is well, I’m not completely sure that Marigold’s milk is full coming in, but likely that’s just me being a worried “uncle” (or some such).

The only cow left to calf now is Charlotte, but she won’t be due for several months yet I expect. This given her calf last year wasn’t born until Labour Day (fittingly perhaps). I’m now 1 and 1 on the sexes this year.

I thought I’d share a view of our new high tech lawn mowers. This model has some highly desirable features:

• Autonomous & self propelled
• Run on renewable, green energy
• Low emissions
• Thorough
• Self renewable
• Fertilizes while it mows

My favourite moma cow Squiggy came through again with her fourth calf today. He seems to be a healthy bull calf who was born without any assistance (from me anyway).

First Calf for 2010

After running out of patience for nature I eventually helped him stand up and before long he was enjoying his first meal.

Squiggy's 2010 Calf having his first meal

This first drink is so important because the colostrum has all the antibodies that get the immune system of the calf off and running. Once I’ve seen this happen I’m a lot more confident that everything will work out for the best.

It’s been an early spring here this year, and I think overall a fairly mild winter. We looked across a week ago and saw spashes of colour from last years vegetable garden. We were happy to discover that most of the pansies we planted last year made it through the winter and were flowering already. We also have more pansies growing in other places that have self seeded themselves from last year.

We grew the pansies to use as garnish on our plates at the Yellow Canoe Cafe. I picked the second batch this morning and here they are ready for use today:

Spring Pansies ready for Garnish at the Yellow Canoe Cafe

Daffodils are Susan’s favourite flowers. We’ve planted quite a few about the farm in the past few years and need to put in more. I noticed this morning that they’re blooming.

Spring Daffodils

One thing I like about heating with wood at the farm is that I can fill the “oil” tank in half and hour out the back. My goal is to only burn dead wood. With this warm spell we haven’t had the wood stove going for a few days, but tonight that has to change. I went out this morning and brought back this load of dead elm (darn that Dutch Elm disease) and ash (ditto, Emerald Ash Borer I guess).

This morning's load of firewood. Dead Elm, Ash & Poplar