TA DA!
We finally finished the new top bar hive. As per the
construction plans, I coated it with a mix of beeswax and raw linseed oil.

We used Philip  Chandler's top bar hive plans. They are available for free here.
I also highly recommend his bee keeping book the Barefoot Beekeeper. The forum on his site is a treasure trove of information.

All that said, we did alter the plans somewhat. The plans advise the use of
1X12" or 1X6" boards to construct the hive. Being from the UK, Mr. Chandler has access to finished boards that are a full inch thick; here in Canada we don't.
We could have purchased true 1" rough lumber from our neighbour but I would have then had to sand the interior surfaces smooth or risk the bees attaching comb to the side walls which is a real pain in the but to deal with. We decided to go with finished 1X6" and Gary doubled the wood and created an overlap at the same time to make the finished hive more water tight. (Did I mention how smart my guy is?) Given the winter we just had I see this as a prudent alteration. We did use the mesh bottom for the hive. I really wanted to keep this feature as it is
quite helpful in keeping the mite population in check. Referring back to the
winter Gary constructed the hive so that we can easily add a board when we close up the hive for winter. We decided on the cedar shingled roof, I just love how it looks. Gary added vapour barrier to keep things dry and warmer through the cold months.

The inside dimensions are true to the plans. We did use rough lumber for
the top bars as this is easier for the bees to attach their comb to. I applied
wax to the bottom edges of the top bars just to help the bees build a solid
attachment to the bars.
 
We did go with the 48" hive. This allows me the capacity to separate  nucs next year and increase our capacity. It also allows flexibility to capture a swarm if the opportunity arises. It is also easier to insulate the hive for winter as the dividers are placed centrally and the ends of the hive can be insulated.
 

So everything is ready, I am just waiting for the call to pick up my nucs. Hopefully next week. I have baited the hive with lemongrass essential oil, just on the off chance that a natural swarm happens before I pick  up my nuc. If I can find a willing helper to man the camera when  Reiley and I convert the Langstroth nuc
to the top bar. There may be some bribery involved.
 
If you have ever thought about keeping bees may I just urge you to step in
now. Our bees are in danger. We have completely ignored their health over the
past twenty years. Colony collapse is wiping them out at an alarming rate. Mono
cropping, pesticides and taking too much honey are leaving the bees exposed.
Pesticide resistance is creeping up in the mite population. Without the bees we
are in serious trouble. Please consider keeping a hive of bees, they are
fascinating creatures and incredible workers. They will repay you a thousand
times over.

You don't necessarily need to spend a fortune to raise pigs on pasture. While the ideal is a barn with access to pasture. It is possible to raise feeder pigs on pasture without a barn.

Before we talk about housing the pastured pig, please allow me to once again dispell the myth that you can turn a couple of pigs out into a field and expect that they will grow big and strong and then you can kill them for meat in 4 - 6 months.
This is not true. Your pigs will starve or at least fail to gain. Pigs cannot feed themselves on pasture alone. They need feed, specifically protein. Fully grown pigs on a maintenance diet can maintain on pasture with little supplemental feeding . Growing pigs cannot. Before commercial feeds were available, farmers supplemented their feeder pigs diets with turnips, potatoes, sugar beets etc. They also turned them into the grain fields after the harvest. Feeder pigs were born in late winter, raised through the summer and slaughtered in the late fall. The pigs were selected to grow on this routine. Todays pigs are not. Please see pasture pigs part 1 for an explannation.

If you are considering raising feeders on pasture you will need to provide a shelter, minimum of 4 X 8 feet for two pigs . For summer this should face east / north east or where it will catch the prevailing winds, providing this is not south. If there is no natural shade available you need to double the size of the shelter. The structure itself needs to be solid. Pigs will chew wood. Do not go out and
build or buy something that looks like a cover shoot from better farms and
gardens.  DO NOT use pressure treated wood.
The shelter should  be heavy enough that it can be moved when necessary, but bear in mind that if they set their mind to it, two feeder pigs approaching kill weight can move damn near anything they set their mind to.  The shelter must be water tight and draft free. It also needs good ventilation. It does not need to have cathedral ceilings. Especially if you will not be in and out of the shelter on a daily basis. Our shelters are four feet high. Patches and KW have dug out the interior of their shelters during the winter both excavated below ground level. As most pigs will do this to some extent drainage should be considered when deciding where to place the shelter.

Ideally there should be access to a wet area where they can wallow, but they need dry bedding and cannot have their feet wet all the time. Pigs lose a lot of body heat through their feet, like us if their feet are cold, they are cold. If a pig is constantly cold, they will burn calories at a higher rate and will not gain weight. 
Bedding can take many forms, shavings, sawdust, straw and sand to name a
few. We bed our pigs with a good layer of sawdust in the pen and then they are
given hay, mostly hay that the goats have picked through, but some fresh in
addition. This is adequate bedding, especially for feeder pigs. Our sow does get
a bale of fresh hay a few days before farrowing so she can build her 'nest'. No
matter what you choose as bedding it must be dry, free from mold and cleaned of foreign material such as sharp sticks and nails. ( Check your sawdust. It
happens).

Your pigs must have access to clean water.  Water intake can be better regulated if you wet feed your pigs. Wet feeding is what we recommend. It allows you to know that they are getting water, they digest the feed better and it is easier to combine feeds if you choose to do so. ( I will elaborate on this more in the next post on feed). Supplying pigs with water from a bucket, barrel or trough is unreliable as they are apt to  turn it over looking for bugs and worms or just use it as a toy when bored. They will move what ever you think they can't.

 Despite their press pigs are clean animals, they will not manure where they sleep. If housed inside a pig will choose a corner of the pen, usually in a drafty or dead air spot, to use for manure and they will keep the rest clean. Pasture pigs will go outside, please consider runoff when choosing your site.Do not put your pigs on the best pasture you have. They will tear it up. If you
have some lovely alfalfa pasture, you can turn them out for a couple of hours
and they will graze a bit. Watch them!  It will not take long for them to decide
that they could find some good stuff under that green. Also, do not turn them
onto any good pasture in the spring or after a long wet period. If the ground is
easy to turn over they will. Please keep in mind pigs like to play with trees.
Our beef calf likes to hang out by the pig yard when KW is out as KW will pull
trees over and Ivan eats the leaves off if they come across the fence.

With regard to fencing, two strand electric fence will keep them in. It is what we use it is what we have always used. If you purchase weaner pigs that were raised in a barn or pens with solid fencing you will need to train them regarding electric fencing. This is easily done with a training pen. The easiest way is to put a visible barrier on the outside of the electric fence. Pigs are curious animals they will touch the electric fence. What you don't want is them sticking  their head through the fence while checking out their new environment and get shocked. If there is no solid barrier they can jump ahead and go right through the fence. Once a pig figures out they can do something they will do it again. This training period does not take long. A few zaps from the fence and they will stay away from it. You must check your fence regularly. If it is grounding out you will have problems. Pigs are very intelligent animals. Ours know if we turn the fencer off for maintenance. They will learn the sound of the fencer and will test it. You also need to check the level of the fencing. If the pigs are rooting they will pile dirt up against the fence. Electric fencing is most effective if it is at eye level for the pig when their head is down.

Pigs can be put out with other animals, providing the pasture is big enough. If you utilize rotational grazing be sure your fencing is adequate. The pig will remember where the fence was yesterday. It usually will not cross. We always recommend setting up rotational grazing via a corridor. Have the animals exit the barn via the same door everyday and fence off the corridor. This is the least disruptive way for all. We have used this system effectively to graze pasture and allow access to garden leftovers at the end of season It requires a little more planning at the beginning but makes for faster turn around in day to day operations.

KW in the treed area of his pasture. Note: the three strands of wire are due to both his size and the fact that this fence separates the pig pasture from the goat pasture. The bottom strand is to deter the baby goats from entering the pigs area.

Patches and KW hanging out in the shade. If you look in the background you can see the permanent fencing around the pasture huts. These are in place so that we can isolate Patches and KW at feeding and when she has piglets.
 They are doing a very effective job of removing the stumps and small trees in this area.

So your sample has been sitting for 24 hours, now is time to measure the ratio of your mineral components. You will need a ruler, a watch with a second hand, pen and paper.
BEFORE you move the jar, hold a ruler against the side of your jar and measure the total depth of your solids. Write it down.
Now for the fun stuff, shake your jar for five full minutes, set it down and let settle for 40 seconds then measure the soil that has settled. This is the amount of sand in the sample. Write down the measurement.

Do NOT shake the jar again, just  let it sit for 2 more hours, then take the measurement again. This will give you the sand + silt measurement. Subtract the sand total from this total to find the amount of silt. Write this down. Next subtract the amount of sand + silt from the total depth of soil. This will give you the amount of clay in your sample.

Now you should have numbers for the amount of sand, silt and clay in your soil. We need to convert these to percentages. For those who need a refresher course in percentages here's how:
To find the percentage of sand divide the total sand depth by the total soil depth, then multiply by 100.
        My total sand depth was 0.9", my total sample depth was 1.75" therefore;
      0.90 divided by 1.75 = 0.51. multiply by 100 and sand makes up 51% of my sample. Write down the number. Complete this for silt and clay. You will then have the percentages for all 3 components.It is time to consult the Soil texture triangle.

Print off this chart and draw in your measurements from your sample.

So my sample measurements are:
                    51% sand
                    34% silt
                    14% clay
A good rule of thumb is a 40:30:40 ratio of sand silt and clay. So while my plotted graph puts me in the loam category on the graph, I need more clay. Referring back to yesterday and the action that each mineral component plays in the soil, clay is vital to healthy plants.  It is the clay that facilitates the transfer of water and nutrient to the plant roots. So we will add clay from another part of the farm to this area. By the  way, the sample shown came from the newly tilled area next to the driveway that is serving as this year's veggie plot. We have planted some gooseberries  and  have moved my sweet cherry to this bed in a last ditch effort to  save it.  
So overall, this soil is better than I anticipated. The silt and sand have
allowed the worm population to exist. Not flourish, but it is there There is
almost no organic matter in this soil. Hopefully your samples have lots of good
organic matter floating on top. We have added clay and composted manure to
the plantings. I will keep you updated on the progress of this garden.
Now obviously this test is not going to tell you everything you need to know about your soil. This test is useful in determining the structure of your soil. To test  the pH of your soil you can purchase those small little kids that are available
at every garden center, the old trick of adding a pinch of baking soda to a
small quantity of wet soil will only work if you soil is very acidic. It is much
more informative to take the kit test. If you are concerned about the chemical
composition of your soil you can take for a sample and send it away to
Department of Agriculture for testing,  however if your soil structure is good
either naturally or via amendments you make to it, the plants you have will tell
you what you need to know about your trace minerals and the chemical make up of your soil.
I will be writing another post about soil  chemistry, trace minerals and changing them early in the fall. These are much easier to alter than structure and best done in the fall. If you are still  shopping for your new homestead, remember to take some zip bags with you when  you view the property, take some samples from different locations, label them,  and test the soil structure. It helps to know everything going in! Have a great evening.

Hey everybody as promised here is a quick and effective way to test the composition of your soil.
Caring for your soil is vital to homesteading. The health of your soil is directly related to the health of your plants and since we and our animals are eating the plants, our soil is directly related to our health. Soil provides support for the plant roots, it's a home for beneficial organisms and a reservoir for the wate,r oxygen and essential nutrients required by the plants. You will find that insect and disease damage, as well as most poor growth issues are caused by unfavorable soil conditions. You must learn to think of your soil as a living organisms which has certain needs, abilities and limitations.  Only then you can effectively maximize the potential of your soil
Before you can test your soil, you need to take a soil sample. To do this you will need a shovel and a 1 litre jar with a lid. To take a sample:

1  choose a patch of soil you wish to sample

2  Shovel the top 15- 20 cm depth of the topsoil into a pile.

3  Mix the soil with your hands, breaking up any clumps.

4  Place 1 cup of soil into your sample jar.

5. Bring your jar into the kitchen and fill to the shoulder of the jar with water. If you are going to use this sample to test pH you should use distilled water.

6. Placethe lid on the jar and shake vigorously for 5 minutes, then set your jar on a  flat surface and let it sit for 24 hours.

So how do you tell if you have good soil? All good soils are composed of 4
components, they are: minerals, air,  water and organic matter. It is the balance of the four components which is critical. The 'ideal' soil will have 45 - 50% mineral, 25% air, 25% water and approximately 5% organic matter.

The mineral portion of your soil is derrived from the erosion of rocks. the particles in the mineral portion can be sand, silt or clay. Sand silt and clay are simply different sized particles; all three particles come from the break down of different rocks  So how do they function within the context of your soil?Sand particles are the largest, silt is medium size, and clay has the smallest particle size of all.
Within the soil sand and silt particles keep the soil structure loose and workable. ( this is referred to as friable in the scientific literature). This helps to facilitate the movement of air and water within the soil. Clay  particles, the smallest, have an affinity for both water and nutrients. It is the amount of clay in your soil which makes those nutrients and water available to plant roots.

So go and take your samples, late spring and late fall are the best times to do this, mainly because those are the best times to add augments. Tomorrow I will show you how to check the composition of your soil. Have a great evening.

I was at a meeting Monday evening and I met a woman who, along with her son, daughter-in-law and two small grandchildren, recently moved to the area.  They have purchased a property and her son wants to homestead.
Like about half of the people we meet through our homestead and consulting business he has no background in farming. This lady commented that he was working probably harder than he ever had in his life trying to get everything done.
It is something we see a lot of. I wanted to address that age old question of "where do I start?"
Unless you have recently won the lottery, or you are going to gamble your entire life savings on your property, you most likely will not be purchasing the picture perfect homestead featured on the cover of the last country magazine you bought.
Lets face it, homesteads or hobby farms, are about living a lifestyle. People tend to want  a connection to the land, to know where their food comes from, and generally a slower pace of life. Although some may argue with me on the slower pace of life after 12 hours of chores and garden weeding when, just at dusk, the neighbour calls to politely inform me that my pigs are digging up her tulip bulbs and could I please come and catch them.
The biggest mistake we see people who are new to this life style making is the idea  that everything has to be done NOW.  That within a year of purchasing your property everything has to be in place. The gardens have to be immaculate, all the livestock penning and shelter has to be built and looking like something off the cover of chicken home and garden
These are the people who will burn out after year, they're just setting the goals way too high and in the process setting themselves up to fail.
The  truth is most of the good homestead are ones that are built slowly. You need to take the time to get to know your land, to see how the sun moves across your land throughout the entire year. Where the prevailing winds originate in summer and winter. Does that bottom land flood every spring or just in very heavy snow years?
You also  have to consider how you are going to use your property, are you going to build a 2 acre market garden, or only produce food for yourself? Do you plan to use tractors, draft animals or hand tillers?
When you buy an existing farm or homestead you're probably going to
inherit the concept that the person who had the land before you had. Sometimes
it's a great and sometimes tit's all wrong. Hopefully hopefully whoever built
the farm knew what they were doing. However more and more we are seeing people buying raw land, or a small acreage with just a house and possibly a garage or shed. There are drawbacks and advantages to both but you need to realize that it will take time to build. 
You need to have a plan. Not a drawn in stone plan, but before you start throwing time and money at building infrastructure you need a priorities list. You should also have a land use plan in mind, especially if you are planning on making income from your homestead.
Now I realize that if you are bringing animals with you, you need immediate shelter, (been there done that). But that does not mean that you lay out $5000 for lumber and build a barn the first month. You need to see where you are going.

First: What do you want to do? Write it down. Be specific. Be realistic. We have 2 sayings here; they are based on over 25 years of experience.
# 1 is  first you get good, then you get big. (# 2 is garbage in - garbage out but we will deal with that another day.)
Start small, figure out the bugs in your systems. For example: you want to raise chickens for your own food, instead of ordering 65 chickens for your first run, order 10 or 15 hopefully on the first order date of the season. You will know within a couple of weeks if there are glaring problems with your set up. You may build a fabulous chicken co-op, but then come home the first day the chickens have been outside to discover a hawk has taken some of your birds. Better to find out you have a weasel or feral mink with 10 birds vs. 60.
The same applies to gardens, test your soil. Even if it is only a basic ph and soil structure test. It is a lot easier to augment your soil before a crop is in the ground than after.
Second: plan it out. Get out the graph paper or software. Note the location of buildings, large trees, the driveway. Mark the compass points. Does the plan work. Make use of the zoning principles in permaculture. Zone one areas are places you utilize everyday, usually more than once a day. Take seasonal differences into consideration. The first big snowfall is not the time to discover that the most logical place to pile snow is now covered by your young fruit orchard. Think about leaf fall, access to buildings and water movement. If you are going to be hauling several hundred kilos of feed a month you probably want fairly convenient access to your feed storage, same with hay. That leisurely stroll up the path to the barn in summer becomes a treacherous ice field trek in January. Talk to your neighbours. They can tell you that the wonderful spot you have for your garden was where the former owner parked the school bus for 20 years.
I'm going to wrap this up  for today as I have already blathered on way longer than I had intended. That's what happens when you are passionate about something; and I am very passionate about helping people establish their homesteads. I want every person who dreams of having this lifestyle to be enabled to succeed. I firmly believe that small farms, homesteads, self sufficient suburbanites, what ever you want to call them are imperative to feeding the country. I also know that planning and patience are the best way to make sure that each one is a success. Hopefully I have given you lots to think about, for those of you just starting out don't be discouraged that you are not where you thought you would be.  First you get good. Then you get big.

As I mentioned last time, the property really was a wreck when we purchased it last June. Here is a 180 degree view from the door step..

Can you see the potential?  No? It took us a few hours to see what it could be. First, sort the garbage and mow the grass.
 The sorting took a full 8 days of heavy work. And remembering we were coming down for a couple of days at a time.. this was how we spent last July. 

I know.. but that is homesteading.. vacations are a day at the lake. Literally.
Now throught the magic of the internet... and hindsight, we fast forward to early October. We have been living in the house for about 6 weeks, and this was about 1 month post shoulder surgery for me

Putting in my garden.. well at least the start of it

   Last fall and winter we concentrated on a couple of things. First was
getting our animals settled in. With no existing barn structure on the
property we brought the pasture shelters we had from our previous place and
these were weather proofed. The pigs were fine. Their shelters were pretty
much bomb -proof and they made short order of excavating the interiors.
Pasture shelters work best when they have a roof that is about 12- 18 inches
taller than the animal they are housing. You then dig out about 6
inches inside the shelter. The extra room allows for a deep pack bedding.
With a deep pack you remove the wet bedding and add to the pack. The
decomposing lower layers give off heat, (think compost), and actually warm
the animal from below. The low roof keeps the heat down at the animal's
level. All you need is a door, facing south if you can mange it, that does
not fit tight to allow some fresh air to circulate in.
As I said the
pigs settled in comfortably, the goats I was more concerned about. They
had their shelter but as they are grazers, they spent their days eating hay
and were not as comfortable as the pigs. So we put one of those portable
garage shelters up. Their pens were at the back and there was room for them
to stand outside the hut and graze at the hay rack while out of the
wind.
 
Second was getting familiar with our new community; locating
services and people. We also had a bit of a PR job to do here at the house
as the people who were here before us had some issues with the neighbours,
apart from the mounds of garbage.

Third was water control. Water is a huge issue here. We have a great
artesian well, water is almost always pouring out of the top of the well
cap. In addition to that there are a couple of springs on the property, and
previous owners have filled in some natural drainage areas that handled
run-off from the neighbours property. To add insult to injury when the house
was lifted and put on it's present concrete foundation, the basement
entrance was placed at the back of the house and an entry was cut into
the slope creating a 12 ft channel that was dumping every ounce of
run-off from the property into our dirt floor basement.
The first thing
we did was dig a trench from the corner of the basement out to the ditch.
There had been an old french drain there but it had collapsed at some point.
(On the pictures above that is the dug up area in the picture with the
weather vane) We put a 26 ft drain pipe about 6 feet below ground that lets
water flow from the basement to the ditch. This alleviated the standing
water problem in the basement but we were still faced with a small river
running through the basement. What we needed to do was stop or decrease the
water coming into the basement. To accomplish this we dug a drainage ditch,
on contour, across the back of the house to carry water away from the house
and into a more natural drainage basin. We began lining this with stone
and have a temporary bridge across as this is our access to the animals.

Then the snow hit, and all work came to a screeching halt. A further
reminder that homesteading is about planning and working with mother nature.
Sometimes though we just need reminding that we can't control nature and its
just better to sit back and watch the show.