Dead as a Duck

So as I sit here Ryan is removing the heads and feet from our 11 (10 actually) ducks which were butchered today. We went and picked them up and I was pretty shocked when i looked in the bag and there was a beak staring back at me. The man before us had picked up some chickens and they looked just like at the grocery store so that was how i was expecting the duck. Ryan said that if he'd though about it then he would have known because restaurants like the whole duck.
Well the ducks are all in the freezer now and ready for sale and consumption. Its wed now because blogger wasn't working last night! Anyway its going to be another hot one today. I'm off to pick some broccoli for the freezer and then maybe swimming?

Compost Pile Vs. Car

So today I was at the farm picking some squash (honey boats, sunshine and spaghetti variates), which i failed to take any pictures of. The honey boats are my favorite they are yellow with green stripes and are small. I can't wait to try one, although they would make a very pretty table arrangement. Well i was getting ready to take them over to the barn and noticed kindly neighbor Darren working away on his tractor. Thinking that i would leave the road open for him i started driving on the grass up to where i had left my bins. Well it was one of those split second things where you think to yourself "hmm this is a bad idea I think that compost pile is straight ahead" and at the same time " while its small I can probably make it over". Well thought number one was the winner and i got stuck. But thankfully kindly neighbor Darren was there to push the car out! All ended well except that the car wheel got a little covered in compost.
We also have gotten our hands on a dehydrator which is a load of fun. Yesterday i dehydrated some carrots which was pretty exciting. I'm working on making a soup mix for our winter CSA boxes! Its going to be great.
Sorry about the upside down picture. I couldn't figure out why it was doing that! Perhaps it will correct upon publishing

Its Been a While...

Well it certainly has been a while since I last posted and boy has this summer been busy. Even my experience from working nearly 10 years with Whitty Farms did not quite prepare me for farming on my own with Amanda, but regardless I am enjoying every minute of it and have learned a ton about small scale farming that will readily apply to next years second round attempt at farming.

Speaking of next year (which we are already thinking about...yikes!!!) we have a great winter project we are working on which Amanda has already mentioned. Relatively unique in Canada (I can only find a few references) is our first attempt at a winter CSA. Rather than explaining it all here, I will provide a link to the document we prepared explaining our CSA. Besides a passing curiosity, it may be something you, our reader, may even be interested in being a part of (sorry Allison, but it might be hard for you). You can read more about it here:

Creek Shore Farms 2010 Winter CSA

Besides the regular summer routine and preparing for the winter CSA there are many other exciting things going down on the farm. Next week (hopefully) the ducks are off to the butcher in Smithville and we are looking forward to trying a fresher, younger duck on the bbq. Still havnt taken any lambs as I am having some technical difficulties, but that will hopefully happen soon.

We are also getting chickens! Managed to get an order in for September 14th and by a shear stroke of insanity I ordered a ton of them. It should be an interesting ride, but it is all in preparation for a hopefully larger leap into the world of a small chicken producer as a compliment to our vegetable production. We will see where it goes, but look for some super cute pictures of little red and white chickens (two different colours) come mid September.

We are still chugging along and hopefully we will get a bit better at updating the blog for you guys if we can ever get our act together.

Some pictures and suprises

As many know farming is always full of surprises and for us this week it came in the arrival of six new baby ducklings. We were not expecting the eggs to hatch and it was a great surprise when we went outside and saw a little yellow ball of fur in the nest! Two of them were only born this morning so they are not yet fluffy but they are on there way!

The male ducks from the first hatching are leaving us on Tuesday. They are going to the butcher and then will be for sale. Of course we will be trying one ourselves possibly on the BBQ.

I'm including a few pictures from previous weeks. These include a weird split tomato, a storm we had and few of our current veggies.