Alle Farms

Better late than never! Our sunflowers finally bloomed after growing super duper tall 🌻

The ladies have embraced spring and are laying like fiends! 🥚🥚🥚We have fresh eggs available for sale, five for a dozen or seven fifty for eighteen!

Living in an old barn house comes with lots of fun features like a stone foundation. Luckily Mr. Farmer has some fantastic scribing skills to fit the Pine V-Joint tight up against the stone. Very happy with how the whitewash makes a dark basement brighter but still allows us to enjoy the natural grain of the wood 🪵 Feeling spring approaching and getting ready for this year's projects!

All tucked in and ready for winter ❄️ have a good rest ladies, you've earned it 🐝

24 Butternut squash harvested this year. A lot less than the 100+ we got last year but one significant difference, we didn't plant any butternut squash 😳 these grew completely of their own volition. Some have grown quite squat and I suspect they have crossed with the nearby sugar pumpkins or celebration squash, curious to see how they taste! Last year we learned that we needed to leave them outside to "harden" for a couple months before eating them. By allowing them to age a bit they became sweeter and more delicious. We'll try cooking one of these in December 😋

Processing week on the farm! 8 Muscovy Ducks and 21 Mini-Classic White Turkeys 🦆🦃 from that we grew out together to 16 weeks on pasture.

The ducks came with a learning curve, some difficulties, and a few losses. We used a wax dip to remove the final feathers from the duck after they went through the plucker which worked quite well. Compared to the 12 week Pekin Ducks we did in the Spring/Summer this year we found these Muscovy ducks were about the same weight with the females being a bit smaller and the Drake breasts being a bit larger. Muscovy duck weights ranged from 5 lbs to 9 lbs compared to Pekin weights which were 5 lbs to 8.5 lbs.

The Turkeys were dipped at 160°C for 90 seconds before going in our modified . Due to their size we had to remove the feet first and help move the bird around in the plucker but overall it worked quite well with turkeys up to about 18 lbs. The Toms were an average of 18 lbs and the Hens were around 12lbs. In the end we got 49 pounds of duck and 328 pounds of turkey to fill our freezers with home grown, organic fed, pasture raised meat 😋 🍗

Squash and Pumpkin season! These cute little pumpkins are sweet and meant for cooking. The beautiful multicolored vegetable is called Celebration Squash and will keep well through the winter ❄️

These Tiger Stripe watermelons from are growing wonderfully in our garden! They're so deliciously dense that our toddler couldn't carry it without a little help 💪🍉

The Buff Beauties are starting to lay! These Buff Orpingtons are from and have been great little gals. Hopefully we'll have eggs available again soon for farm gate sales

Our orchards are still establishing themselves and we're doing what we can to help! By removing all the (immature) fruit we encourage the trees to focus more energy on sending out roots. 🍎🍐🌳

The chickens we hatched this spring have started laying! Hopefully we'll have lots of eggs to share with our neighbours soon 🥚🐔

Misty morning mulching. The front orchard recieved a dose of home made mulch recently. Some awesome benefits include:
• Supress weeds while roots establish
• Reduce pest exposure
• Retain moisture during dry spells
• Provide nutrients as it decomposes

Saw the queen bee during one of my hive inspections today, isn't she beautiful 😍🐝👑

🦆 Duck processing today! We raised 10 Pekin Ducks to 12 weeks old on local Embrun Feed and fresh pasture. One duck was processed a couple weeks ago so today we did the final 9. After being dispatched they took a 2 minute feather loosening bath at 150° then a tumble in the Yardbird which did an excellent job removing most feathers. The final bits of down were removed by 3-4 dips in wax and a quick rest in an icy cooler prior to being peeled off. Final processed weights were between 5 lbs and 8.5 lbs with the average breast being 1 lbs. Final figures worked out to be 8 lbs of wings, 15 lbs of legs, and 20lbs of boneless breast 🍗

Processing Day 🐔 here's our set-up!

1. They go in the cone, we made our own from some buckets that worked well
2. The go for a 1 minute dunk in water around 140-150°F to loosen the feathers. Using a silicone oven mitt helped handling a hot wet chicken
3. They go for a little tumble in the modified plucker, thank you for tuning up the
4. Our feather-free friends are eviscerated on the table, bagged, and sealed
5. Finally we weight them before they arrive at freezer camp

The average weight of a finished bird seems to be around 9-10lbs for these 10 week old chickens from they were fed organic starter and grower from a local feed mill as well as lots of fresh pasture

Processing Day 🐔 here's our set-up!

1. They go in the cone, we made our own from some buckets that worked well
2. The go for a 1 minute dunk in water around 140-150°F to loosen the feathers. Using a silicone oven mitt helped handling a hot wet chicken
3. They go for a little tumble in the modified plucker, thank you for tuning up the
4. Our feather-free friends are eviscerated on the table, bagged, and sealed
5. Finally we weight them before the arrive at freezer camp

The average weight of a finished bird seems to be around 9-10lbs for these 10 week old chickens from they were fed organic starter and grower from a local feed mill as well as lots of fresh pasture

All pretty and ready to be processed 🐔 our fine feathered out friends will be joining us for supper in a few days

Lots of happy plants after the last couple days rain. We were a little late getting some seeds started but everything seems to be doing ok now. The broccoli has already gone to flower so we learned a lesson there and will start it much later next year

Starting to find our honeybees out and about collecting pollen and nectar from around the acreage. Thank you little buddy for pollinating our vegetable patch and orchard! We're looking forward to some sweet treats next season too 😋

Hello Hives! 🐝 Brought home two NUCs (Nucleus Colony) to start our beekeeping adventure this evening. A storm is expected tomorrow so I had to get them our of those little boxes and into their fancy new hive ASAP. It gives a whole new meaning to starting out in the dark 🌒 A big thank you to for making these langstroth style hives with beautiful shingled tops

These ducks and chicks are nearly the same age! 🤯 4 Week old ducks, 3.5 week old chicks. The chicks are Cornish Cross which grow faster than their feathers so they look a little patchy at the moment. In a couple more weeks they'll be nicely feathered out. In the meantime they have a heat lamp to keep them cozy. The ducks are Pekin.

These poor Japanese Maples were girdled (all the bark at the base removed all the way around) by voles this winter. We put protective cages on our apple and pear trees but didn't realize decorative trees were just as appetizing 😋😭 lesson learned

Wild Violet Jelly 😋 this pretty plant is native to eastern North America and is used to treat headaches, colds, coughs, sore throats, and constipation. I followed a simple recipe and have been very happy with how this jelly turned out!

https://practicalselfreliance.com/violet-jelly/

These bundles of sticks may not look like much right now but they're the first step in transforming our front field into another orchard! 🌳🍎

Brooder upgrade! The ducklings have lots of space now 💛 this brooder is made from a food-grade IBC Tote cut in half

The Orchard is beginning to blossom 💮 our first try at pruning has gone well thanks to pruning course 🍏🍎🍐

April showers are not meant to be frozen 🤦‍♀️ oh well. Glad we're following the Farmers Almanac and not planting until after the new moon on May 11

Baby Ducklings!! 🦆 and some new breeds of chicks 🐤 have come to join us on the farm 💛 our flock is sure growing 💗