Words of the Wise Acres

A BC lexicon of three words

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:26:00 +0000

An interesting facet of living in a new place is acquiring the local wording... Here are some we learned in moving to BC... Pro-D day - not a tough one, but on Ontario we called it a PD day and if you use that here, people are confused. Stuffies - again, not hard to understand, this is what we call stuffed animals like Teddy Bears. Gym Strip - what students wear for gym class, e.g., "go throw on you gym strip and do 10 laps". This one makes no sense to me. A sunrise is still called a...

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Chipotle

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:27:00 +0000

I just came across this video/ad made by Chipotle, a restaurant chain in the US (and apparently there are a few in Ontario) and I just had to share it. Here's to going 'back to the start'! Happy New Year!

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The Cabin - Part 5: The Roof

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:35:00 +0000

In the weeks since I last posted, I spent one weekend fastening the rafters, and the next weekend Damon, plus my neighbors Reiner and Florian, came over to help add the strapping, then the roofing tin. Where the rafters are exposed, where they extend past the end of the building, we had the strapping laid out contiguously so you can't see the tar paper under the tin. It's gives those spaces a by warm look. Today I nailed some 1x2's to the inside of the rafters to hold onto our blockers,...

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The Cabin - Part 4: Posts and Beams

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 06:52:00 +0000

We woke to a foggy but beautiful morning. Today Damon came back and we were joined by my friend Florian. We set the final logs up, placed the porch posts and put up the roof beams. While Damon finished up the logs, Florian and I braced the posts after setting them onto threaded rods. These allow me to adjust their height later, as they are perpendicular to the logs, and though logs will shrink across the grain over time (and drop my walls as much as a few inches) the post won't...

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The cabin - Day 3: The Trench

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 03:34:00 +0000

It's been a few weeks since we could do more on the cabin project, but we made come great headway today. My friend Matt came over with his farm-size Kubota and used the backhoe to dig an 18"-wide by 30"-inch deep trench from the house to the cabin. It was amazing to watch the skill needed for what might seem to be a simple job... And it brought out way more dirt than I'd expected. According to Jim, our local electrician, Telus recommends a foot between their communications lines and any...

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The cabin - part 3: Deck and more Walls

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 05:26:00 +0000

Sunday morning we started up again, with Bobbi and Tim laying the boards on the deck, and Damon and I continuing on the walls. The deck looks great, with the reddish fir being a nice contrast to the pale pine. The tarp went back up to keep any rain out. Today G and I fastened the 3/4-inch subfloor, and that was pretty much all we could do without help. I'm not sure when we'll tackle the rest - there's still so much to do, but we can't start a lot without the roof on, and sometimes...

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The cabin - part 2: Partial Walls and Floor

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 04:53:00 +0000

It was a great day, and we are so lucky to have friends and family willing to be a part of this. We started pretty early , but let me show you what the foundation looks like. These are pressure treated posts set about 2.5 feet deep on a 3"x10"x18" board to spread the weight. (Did you know wood needs water and air to rot? Since the wood here is buried snugly, air will not access it.) Damon helped me start digging and setting these, and I've finished them over the past few weeks. We cut...

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The cabin - part 1: Plans and Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:02:00 +0000

This weekend we are raising the majority of what will be my new office - a square log cabin. With much help from my cousins at Zirnhelt Timberframes, who formalized my design and milled the logs, we are finally at the build phase of the project. But to get here... It took us a while to settle on a design and a building technology. It was too easy to add a little here and there, and blow our meager budget. After much advice was sought from many sources, we settled on a small (10'x14')...

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Raising Chickens

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:38:00 +0000

The meat birds are seven weeks old now and time sure has flown...hard to believe they go from this... to this, in such a short time! The time has really flown by this year and I have actually enjoyed it this time. This is our third year raising chickens and I think we have finally figured things out. Our first year we brooded them in our drafty tool shed on two levels...it was stinky and messy until we moved them out to chicken tractors over at Big Bear Ranch. I loved...

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Ah...the great outdoors!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:30:00 +0000

I spent most of yesterday preparing the outdoor pen for the chickens and turkeys. I had to do a little brush cutting to make a clear path for the electranet fencing, cut out a door from the coop to the pen and make a gangway for the chickens to go down. Here they are enjoying the great outdoors...well sort of... They were not exactly running outside... I had to entice them by pulling their feeders through the door and then they reluctantly followed. The sheep have been enjoying...

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"Sympathy" Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:56:00 +0000

Image from Simple Bites Recently, one of our good friends had some medical issues and they happened to be in the middle of calving season. This left his wife and his Dad with the task of staying on top of calving out a couple of hundred cows and eighty heifers (first time calvers), not to mention caring for the rest of the ranch and three children under the age of five! Yikes! My friend and I decided we really wanted to help and she came up with the idea of preparing some meals, so...

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Why I Choose Organic

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:55:00 +0000

I am an organic food consumer and an organic food producer. Because of this, I sometimes get a lot of flack. From my friends, my family and even people I hardly know. Yet still...whenever I can I will choose organic. This is my choice...others make different choices...but often I get questioned about why? or challenged...in the form of "what is the point of buying organic when it is only 85% of the ingredients?" or "you know that fields that are considered...

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New goats!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:58:00 +0000

Meet Rosie and Gaston... We picked them up last week-end from Hunny-Do Ranch in Quesnel. Rosie is the little doe with horns and Gaston is our new buck. Originally we went to just get him because we have had a tough time deciding if we wanted to borrow a buck or not for breeding Faith, we decided it was just easier to have our own so off we went to pick him up...but then we met Rosie. She is bred and due to kid in a few months. She is quite adorable... it is difficult to...

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Third Hotspot Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:37:00 +0000

This week's hot spot in Simple Mom's Project Simplify is the kid's toys or clothes. Since we did a big sort out after Christmas of their toys, I decided to focus on the girl's clothes. For the past few months the girls have been getting dressed out of laundry baskets in my room...the laundry just didn't make it up to their rooms. Their drawers were filled with clothes that either didn't fit anymore or that they wouldn't wear. So this week I spent one morning with each of...

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A Good Start

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:44:00 +0000

I have been itching to get my house organized for Spring, but as usual things come up and must be dealt with, so I am a little behind but today I made a good start! So the first challenge in the Simple Mom Project Simplify was the master closet...Erich is out of town at the moment so I couldn't really get him on board, but I did manage to tackle mine. Here are the before pics... Before I post the after pics...the picture above is where I usually get my clothes...

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First Lamb of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:06:00 +0000

This morning I went out to do my chores and found this little surprise in the barn! So nice when it happens this way...the little fellah was dry and already feeding. I haven't had a chance to get in there yet...Mom is already stomping her foot at me, so I will have to be careful. For now, they are bonding in the maternity suite...away from the other curious ewes. The goat has already been in to check them out...she is leaving them alone though. So all is well...Zara is...

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"Spring" Cleanse

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:27:00 +0000

Even though it is still snowing at the moment, and the four feet that has fallen over the course of the winter shows no signs of disappearing or perhaps because of that...I am gearing up for some spring cleaning. One of the blogs I follow...Simple Mom has just launched "Project Simplify"... the challenge is to pick one 'hot spot' in your home and declutter/simplify/organize it by the end of each week for five weeks, with some great suggestions by the blog author. Click on the button...

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First Year in 4-H

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 01:04:00 +0000

This evening was the final event of our first 4-H year...the 17th Annual Horsefly 4-H Club Banquet. Reflecting on the year I have to say, it was a successful and fun year, it was a steep learning curve and most of the time I felt we were shooting in the dark, but we did have lots of help and next year will be a different story...I hope. So the year started off in January with our first meeting. I was very impressed at the leadership of the older members and how they knew how...

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Raw Milk Controversy rages on

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:19:00 +0000

This is so infuriating!! I have pasted this post from a fellow bloggers blog Carpe Diem Acreage. She is from around Prince George, check out the rest of her blog. She just expressed what I think so eloquently that I had to post the whole thing :) Raw Milk Controversy I had planned on a completely different blog post for today; that was until I saw this morning's local newspaper with the following story. I will let you read it first and I'll put in my 2 cents worth...

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Making Sauerkraut

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:19:00 +0000

My friend Sara and I have been after Gigi up at Big Bear Ranch to teach us how to make her delicious lacto-fermented sauerkraut and today was the day! Steffi, another friend joined us and we had a delightful morning chopping, pounding, gabbing and eating Steffi's yummy apfelkuchen. It is a simple recipe, found here in this book... The ingredients are basic...chopped cabbage and salt. The fun part is the pounding... you add small amounts of the cabbage and then pound it until it...

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A Productive Week-end

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:40:00 +0000

This week-end we bottled Erich's third batch of Pale Ale. It should be ready in 7-10 days. Looking forward to cracking one open! Yesterday we butchered turkeys. After our chicken experience last year, we felt pretty confident we would be able to manage it. I found this video which gives a good description of the process from start to finish. It worked pretty well, although we did end up scalding the birds before plucking them after the first one took us two...

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Faith, the goat

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:46:00 +0000

Way back in May, my friend Sara, always on the look out for new livestock ;) called to say that our neighbour was selling her goat. I jumped at the chance, she is a mostly alpine goat and related to Sara's goat Josie who I love. So Faith arrived and we love her or at least I love her (Erich, not so much, after the apple tree incident). She is very beautiful but intensely curious, as goats are known to be. She has a very funny relationship with my ram...she likes to lick his horns...

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Excited about Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:43:00 +0000

It has been a while since we've blogged...what can I say, life has gotten busy. I have also spent the last year as the editor of our local newspaper the Horsefly Buzz, which has meant that I had to spend about a week per month in front of my computer, didn't leave me much time or patience for blogging :) Anyways, another volunteer has taken over the Buzz so I'm hoping to be able to post more often! Would you look at that sky? We have been enjoying the most...

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Ups and Downs

noreply@blogger.com (Joanne) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 01:46:00 +0000

It's been a while since we've blogged. We've been hopping this Spring with many projects, like upgrading the garden boxes, building a new chicken brooder house and fencing...lots of fencing. We are wrapping up many of these projects and getting ready to enjoy the Summer months, hopefully I will update with some more pictures soon. Recently we had a bit of a setback...the 'down' part of this post. The other night a coyote or possibly a bear attacked and killed my treasured...

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Time Lapse Webcam for Weather

noreply@blogger.com (Erich) — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:02:00 +0000

In case you missed it, we now have webcam pointed slightly southward from my office window. What I really like is the the wundergound.com site stores the images for time lapse video:

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