Monopolies are as bad as mono-cultures.

Mono-cultures are a failed experiment in agricultural efficiency. After a brief honeymoon of bumper production mono-cultures require more work and more artificial inputs to produce the same amount of food as managed mixed agriculture. Mono-cultures are only feasible because diesel is so incredibly cheap when compared to manual or draft animal labour.

We need to stop the "Agricultural Growth Act". Sounds crazy doesn't it but Bill C-18 has a clause in it that has to be a deal breaker. It sounds simple and it is. It sounds harmless but it isn't. The Government of Canada wants to enhance plant breeders rights (giant corporations) over growers rights (people).

In a nutshell the Bill wants to change what is currently the right to save seed into a privilege essentially controlled by the plant breeder. Essentially transferring more control over food safety, food security, health and the environment to unaccountable third parties.

Benefits to you as a Canadian citizen:

1. Food costs will rise because the cost to producers will rise as more money will be transferred to giant multinational corporations that are already making huge profits.

2. Food production will be consolidated into fewer ever larger corporations as added costs continue to squeeze small and medium size producers out of business. (And if that doesn't get them the legal fees will!)

3. Food variety will shrink as plant breeders will decide what to sell based on their profit margins. And no, that's not the same as what sells well at the supermarket.

We all know things go downhill fast once one or pitifully few companies control an industry and well, the ugly truth is food is not a normal industry - food is a necessity.

So unless you like the idea of paying what was once your "fun" fund to eat flavoured starch as you wait for your next doctor's appointment (your malnourished) please write your MP.

http://www.nfu.ca/issue/stop-bill-c-18

Spring

I can now safely say winter is over. Apparently this was a really severe winter so that's not so bad. Other than running out of firewood I didn't find it bad. And I knew going in I didn't really have enough wood. That said, it was awesome to enjoy my first real winter in years.

All that is done now. A week ago my tractor implements were lost buried under the three feet of snow. Today even the pallets they were sitting on are dry. I've never seen so much snow melt so fast. The province has flooding all over the place and even the main highway between here an the city was flooded today. Which is good for us. Very little water in the basement and more erosion than I would like in the garden but for the most part the water drained away fast and furious.

During the late winter storms are ewes decided to lamb. We started off with Middy having two still births, then Little Mum and Shaggy only keeping one of each of their twins. We were lucky enough to give away the abandoned lambs to a petting zoo. Then Matilda had a sets of twins with no problems, Friendly had triplets and Tebow had a big one.

There are seven lambs in the barn. Friendly couldn't look after three so we have one in the house. And yeah, they are way cuter in person.

The chickens are doing fine, the cats are fine, the bees are all dead. It looks like the hives got wet with all the freeze/thaw and the bees froze. I'm sad but I will try again because I really like working with the bees.

Other than that all is well and I'm still looking for work but at least the opportunities seem to be picking up so hopefully I'll land something soon.

200th post!

So this is my 200th post. We built a barn. Half a barn. Maybe a big shed? I had a permit. And lots of help. Thanks BP, AF, AS, JF, RP and JP for all your assistance!

It all started with a dream. JF ordered a bunch of laying hens and the race was on to provide them with housing before winter.

AS helped BP and I harvest some tamarack posts from his woods. I got stung by hornets but we persevered - felling trees in a U shape from the road around the Hornet nest. AS also donated whatever I could use from a pile of old barn boards on his property left over from dismantling an old barn on his property a few years ago.

For beams I went to a local lumber mill and bought 2x10s. And then 2x6s for the wall supports. I returned later still for 1x3 strapping for the roof. It was much cheaper than buying lumber from the local big box hardware stores. I even price checked.

We elected to go with metal roofing when I contacted a metal roofing place that sold "seconds" at half price. So the roof isn't all the same colour. One side is!

The style is called a pole shed which means rather than putting in a foundation you sink your posts to below the frost line. I used my new tractor powered post hole digger to make this task surprisingly easy. I sunk 10 4 foot deep holes in about an hour. (OK one of them was only 2 feet deep because we hit sandstone the auger couldn't drill through but don't tell anyone.)

As you can see our poles were not perfectly straight so we soon began referring to the structure as either "the eyeball barn" or "The Dave Brubeck Memorial Chicken Barn" in reference to his song "Unsquare dance". Considering the starting posts I think we did a decent job at making things fairly squarish.

 Before the roof went on I found it was a nice spot to relax and enjoy the view.

And then the roof went on in a fast an furious weekend and there was much rejoicing.

All told it all went up faster than expected with no serious injuries.In two days I had the coop all set up and ready for the new tenants. 

And 44 chickens now call it home.

And this bad boy is our new rooster. His name is Pedro but I've taken to calling him Juan, as in Don Juan because despite his dismal performance cowering in the corner from the Lord Humongous he is clearly the ladies choice to this point. 

In his defense (and probably in defense of his flock) Lord Humongous has contracted mites. So we've had to bath him with diatomaceous earth and quarantine him for a few days.