Kelly Archives - Small Prairie Farm

Garden 2021- The Sunflower take-over

Sunflowers everywhere in the garden- 2021

We planted ornamental sunflowers one year to attract bees and now they are an invasive weed. This year we tried to use them as a wind block to the garden. They soaked up more water than prevented water evaporation. Now they are a pretty weed in our garden.

Kelly started new experimental planters on the Northside of the farm for herbs and heirloom seeds.

We added hundreds of flower bulbs in the fall! We’re excited to see what comes in in 2021.

We started Virginia Creeper along the deer fence line around the garden. On the same fenceline, we are trying to get Hollyhocks to grow. NO LUCK. Open to suggestions.

May 3, 2021

Wildlife on the Critter Camera

CRITTERS, CRITTERS, EVERYWHERE! WE HAVE THEM ON CAMERA.

We’ve had several Critters families stop in to try and figure out the cameras. We’ve also had a few who didn’t notice the cameras at all.

Birds, raccoons, deer, coyotes, fox, MOOSE, Owls, house cat, bald eagle, hawk, cougar, rabbit, white weasle, and more. We’ve had the pleasure of catching a few photos of some of Saskatchewan’s wildlife wandering through the yard. We just use our simple outdoor Nest Cam. These little Critters are always welcome until chickens start going missing then we’ll reevaluate.

FOX

COYOTE

GANGSTER DEER

DEER FIGHT CLUB

PHEASANTS

RYDER AND TROPHY GOPHER

We are itching for the season to start. The family has already started staying overnight at the farm with the camper furnaces in the campers on overnight. Until the snow of course.

In the fall over 200 bulbs, were planted. We are very impatiently waiting to see what comes up. Last year we also planted Virginia creeper along 1 side of the fence line, Hollyhocks, Delphinium, and more. We are excited to see what’s going to bloom.

We bought a used metal/fabric Gazebo just to test it in the violent Saskatchewan wind. Hopefully, it can withstand a year as an outdoor TV room. We are considering the heavy COSTCO one. We just need everyone to fall in love with the idea first.

This year our 20 chickens will mainly be providing eggs for Over the Hills Orchard and Winery (A local Lumsden company).

Seedlings are growing in windows waiting for the farm. This year we are eager to plant an extra-large garden to help supplement the 2 piglets we are raising (spring to fall). You will see pictures of the new pen soon!

We will be posting more updates about the beginning of the year as the weather changes.

We are excited about spring!

Garden 2020

Summer 2020- Social Distancing!

Summer 2020 was my (Kelly’s) first full season living primarily at the farm. What better place to social distance is the farm. That’s a LIE! The Rice farm has been a haven for people looking for outdoor retreat! Bon fires, hiking, biking, sledding. We even showed up for Christmas.

Garden

Our giant garden produced a little before the swarm of grasshoppers wiped everything out. Cucumbers, carrots, garlic hardly produced. Corn surprisingly well again this year. Of course beans, peas and beets did fine. We used all heirloom fingerling potato seed this year as we couldn’t find red potato seed. WE HAVE CUTWORMS! Gross!

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Water

We ran mostly off of rainwater this year. Our dugout went dry. We shipped cooking & shower water from Pence and Regina.

Chickens

We had a flock of 20 birds on the farm laying eggs in the new chicken coop. During the grasshopper invasion they hardly had to be fed. Their Eggs were sold by Malcom at SIAST. Next year there will be a price increase in eggs, so we can make our money back. At the end of the season October 25, the chickens were sold.

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Critters and Such

For the end of the season we lit all of Jeffs old brush on fire.

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January 3, 2021

Spring 2020

Spring 2020 is in on a confusing roller coaster ride

With Covid19 we all started the season early. The more we could get out to the farm the better. Whether Malcolm’s fixing the truck, Tania’s family is out hiking or Kelly’s recluse to her camper the farm acted like a getaway for all of us.

The dugout is way down of course, the wind has been brutal, cold toilette seat, cuddling up to the heater at night, all totally worth it not to be in the city with CovIdiots.

This spring we’ve got a lot done (write ups to come):

Malcolm and Sebastian build a wind generated battery to power the front driveway camera.

Tent Alley Rejuvenation- Malcolm has filled in the spaces between the trees in Tent Alley to keep the garbage and the wind down. Malcolm always loves visitors and Tent Alley is one of his favorite places.

Malcolm got the old International truck running in order to get water from Pense.

The garden has shrunk but all is planted. Spinach, lettuce, kale, dill, cucumber, carrots, potatoes, beets, garlic, peas, 3 different kinds of onion, zucchini, squash, Radish’s, pumpkins. We have everything.

The Cherry, haskap (Honey berries) , apple, plumb, trees are budding leaves.

We have a new chicken coop this year made by Jeff. Kelly Decided to up the number of chickens. More chickens, means they needed more space. Jeff magically made the plans up in his head and built it from there. It turned out amazing!

Also new to the chicken fair grounds we’re trying in ground gardens with coop wire over top. This is so the chickens can at the greens but not destroy the plants. We planted different lettuces, spinach, chard, beets, cucumbers and a few more.

Kelly’s spice garden planted by the trailer. This year Kelly planted (experiment saved seeds) pea seeds. Onions, chocolate mint, dill, garlic chives, chives, snow onions, basil, parsley, lemon thyme catnip, saffron and there’s more to come.

We have finally picked out new strawberry patch location. We’ve been humming and hawing on a new place to put them. The old place was downing in grass and wasn’t producing garden. We are only on the first layer. If you know where there are some excellent rocks let us knowing. So after a few years we came up with something! A strawberry rock pile.

See our previous years in gardening

Some of the silly stuff we come up with

May 27, 2020

Garden 2019

Garden 2019 was huge in spite of lack of water!

This year we planted the entire Garden plot!

In the Garden 2019 we grew cucumbers, corn, raddish, (yellow, purple, green) beans, soy beans, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, (yellow, green) zucchini, (heirloom, orange, purple) carrots, (green arrow, sugaranne, sugarsnap, mixed)peas, (red, yellow, mixed)potatoes, dill, cucamelon, garlic, onions, peppers, hot peppers, Spaghetti squash, pumpkins, beets, Dads tomatoes,

Added tomatoes along the one grapevine row.

Volunteer:

Tomato, spinach, sunflowers, chard, dill, watermelon, squash, borage

Annual:

Asparagus (not producing yet), chives, snow onions

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Fruit Trees/Shrubs/Plants

Kelly had to nurse the goji berries back from a hard winter. We’re still searching for the perfect spot to put the strawberries. This year we had ground nests in them so we had no great opportunity to get to the berries.The ones we do find are tiny. We got a sandwich bag of hascaps. Lots of plumb and apples, cherries and a few grapes

Added

2 Black currant plants, 2 Rhubarb, Gooseberry

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Canning

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Pickled:

cucumbers, swiss chard stems, beans, eggs, peppers

Pressure canned:

Beans

Frozen:

Peas, spinach

Some ideas for seeds:

See all of our garden adventures!

September 3, 2019

The Little Neighbour Boy Gets a Surprise Swarm

The surprise swarm that took Jeffs grainery by storm!

In just 2 days honey bees had created a swarm on Jeffs exterior wall of his grainery. This isn’t the first time bees have been around before but never a swarm like this. This time it was more of an adventure.

Wanting to get rid of the invasive swarm he got Shawn Maskwa a seasoned beekeeper to come out and asses the situation. The first day he came out the clouds were overcast.

*Fact- Bees are grouchy when the clouds are overcast

So, we waited until the next day. The goal was to find the queen and transfer the swarm. We suited up. We started out trying to use a vacuum bucket. The swarm was too big and thick and was clogging the vacuum hose. So Shawn scooped the bees with his hands and moved them into the beehive.

*Fact- The swarm would have come from anywhere in a 6-mile radius

I got to “bee” a beekeeper for an hour or so until I got so hungry I had to leave. Never been stung by a bee before I didn’t know if I was allergic. Good thing Shawn keeps an EpiPen on hand. Dad (Malcolm) was nowhere to be seen because of his irrational fear of bees and wasps. Mom (Diane), Jeff, and Drew were standing on the sidelines.

After a few hours of scooping, vacuuming and pulling boards off the side of buildings most of the bees were removed! The bees were surprisingly docile. Shawn was able to remove the main honeycomb. Although we didn’t get to see the queen he was pretty sure we got her because the bees were content in their new hive and all the ones not transferred were trying to get into it.

After a lot of work by Shawn and Jeff, the bees were contained and were transported to Shawn’s farm (after quarantine) where they can hang out with the rest of his bees. They will be well taken care of and producing honey, not so close to Jeffs tools.