The art of timing

I am speaking at an event this coming Thursday called A Local M.E.A.L
It sounds like a great opportunity to spread the word of our farm and to meet some very committed folks who are striving to support the local farming industry here on PEI. The one interesting part of the evening which I had never heard of before is the presenting style, Pecha Kucka. From what I can gather from looking online its 20 slides per presenter at 20 seconds per slide. When I first heard 20 second per slide I thought, no big deal I can handle that.

Well last night I finally sat down to focus on the presentation (a tad bit too late in the evening I must admit) and you know what I discovered, 20 seconds per slide felt like forever!!!! Derek showed me how to automatically make the slides change after 20 seconds and I was convinced that they would never change. So, the pressure is on to create an interesting time approved presentation that will inform, educate and hopefully not bore the audience.

Wish me luck!!!

Social Media

A co-worker convinced me a few weeks ago that the farm should be on twitter. I have always considered myself to be rather up to date on the "social media" scene as I've been blogging for a few years, used e-mail as a farm outreach tool and have a personal facebook page. After a lengthy discussion with this co-worker about the importance of social media in the 2011 business world I decided to give it a try, so in the last two weeks the farm has joined twitter and has its own facebook page. I hate to admit the actual amount of time that I've spent trying to come up with something clever to write on my twitter wall but its also rather addicting every time someone "follows" me. Sort of like my own personal high.

Frustrations are also arising with this new social world. It's supposed to be possible to link your facebook page to your twitter account so you only have to post something once and it'll post to both areas. Seeing as my patience is sometimes thin and I'm probably not the most technologically savvy person out there I've found some of the logistics of this new social world to be a bit frustrating. But I'm plugging ahead and trying to keep up to date on what the world is doing.



If you want to follow our social media adventures join us at twitter @JenJCampbell or like our farm community facebook page

Now to learn about four square!!

Snow, snow and more snow

We have a lot of snow around the farm and it seems that every few days we get another dumping. We had some very nasty weather with high winds and blowing snow last week but we had a nice day thrown in there so the boys and I enjoyed playing in the snow during the sunny and relatively warm afternoon. Today is another storm day for the school kids.

My order of potting soil arrived last week but the tractor trailer was unable to get up the driveway as it was too slippy so our friends Gary & Kelly Hughes came with their truck to unload at the end of the road and then unload here in the yard. We are truck-less at the moment as we sold ours a few weeks ago and we are on the hunt for an extended cab which is proving to be difficult to find. We get our organic potting soil from Jolly Farmer in New Brunswick and sevearl growers usually try and coordinate the order to get a bit of a better deal. My main seed orders have arrived and I spent way to many hours checking and double checking my order sheets to make sure everything arrived. I ordered for a few other people as well which made the double checking a bit more painful.

I've been working at the ski park most evenings and on the weekends and my mind is starting to wander to seeds and the warmth of the spring sun. It won't be long now until the boys front play room will turn into the Campbell's "grow-op" once again. Here are a few pics taken the last few weeks.



Making the walk to the barn to see the horses


Ben


Jake


"Ben, do you think its ever going to stop snowing?"


The horses fence is now completly buried under the snow drifts and they have to duck their heads very low to even get into the old barn.

Welcome 2011

It's been awhile since I've sat down and put my fingers to the keyboard to write about what's going on here at the farm. It's been a busy couple of weeks with Christmas, New Years, going back to work at the ski park and just general life's craziness. So what is new around the farm? Well, we have alot of snow and the forecast is calling for a lot more!! It's been interesting with Ben and Jake and the new snow fall, at first they were not big fans of it at all but they are starting to actually enjoy it. Jake likes to take random found sticks and use them to dig under the snow and flip it at the kitty cats.

Derek has gotten the doors built for one end of the barn and the other we just boarded in for the winter. We had wanted to get both doors built and installed before Christmas but life got in the way and the horses will be spending the winter in the old barn yet again. They seem quite happy in there hiding from the winter weather snuggled in with the cats.

I have been spending the boys nap time pouring over the latest seed catalogues trying to decide which varieties to grow for the upcoming growing season. It is going quite well and I'm having lots of fun dreaming of all the yummy veggies that I'll be growing this summer. The four companies I'm ordering from include, William Dam Seeds, Veseys, High Mowing Seeds and Johnny's. We have to purchase certified organic seeds as per our certification regulations and in the past we have only been doing a fair job. Our inspector has noted for the past two years that we need to purchase more organic seeds so this is the year. So far so good.


So many different varities of carrots to choose


My daily nap time homework

The 2011 Federation of Agriculture calendars came out this week and we are quite excited to see our faces on the June month. Ben & Jake were only 11 months old at the time and I can't believe how much they have grown since then.


Federation of Agriculture's 2011 "PEI faces of Farming" Calendar


Early morning reading


Ben


Jake

We are looking forward to the upcoming season and we can't wait to start providing our CSA members with farm fresh organic veggies once again.

Odds & Ends

Ben laying down on the job

Here are a few pictures of Ben & Jake helping me plant garlic in the garden yesterday. They mostly chased the kittens around and played in the nice soft straw but it's nice to be able to take them outside and actually be able to get some work done while they are there. My boys are growing up.


Getting ready to plant the garlic, the soil was cold


My favourite trowel


Garlic all ready for planting, over 600 cloves put in the ground yesterday


The strawberries are all mulched and ready for a winter's sleep


Ben


Sprout


Jake


My two favourite helpers


The barn is looking great. We just need some doors

More Progress & Public Speeking

It has been very mild the last few days and all our snow is now gone. We have gotten most of our farm clean up finished but there still a few projects still on the go. I still have not gotten the rest of my garlic planted but this mild weather should help to get that completed. I'm hoping to get my soil samples taken today and submitted to the lab by the end of the week. I will be curious to see if the pH levels have increaced since we started in 2007. I have a big round bale of straw waiting to be spread over the strawberries and the garlic whenever it gets finished. Other than that the fall to do list is pretty much completed.

Last Saturday was another great weather day so we made the most of it by working on getting the ends of the new barn closed in. My uncle Ronald and my brother Andrew, along with my Dad and Derek spent the day measuring and cutting steel to complete both ends of the barn as well as the back wall. Now when you drive by it looks like the barn is finished. When you get a bit closer you can see that there are still quite a few odds and ends left but the main work is done. We still do not have doors on the barn but Derek will hopefully get started on those this weekend.


Dad checking on Derek and Andrew's progress, he had the noisy job of cutting the steel


Andrew and Derek fitting the steel


Almost finished


The back wall all finished, just needs the corner piece


The first end wall all completed

The boys were not too happy with all the noise being generated by the saw so we spent most of our time admiring the work for a distance. Here are a few pics from our day while the guys were working.


Ben & Jake enjoying their apples


Ben laughing, who knew I was so funny


Mr Smiley Pants

On another note.....
This past Wednesday evening I was asked to speak to the North River 4H club about our CSA farm. I had not done a public speak in a long time so I was very nervous. The room was packed full of 4H members, leaders and parents. After a few technical difficulties in which my computer decided to not connect to the projector (luckily Kelly Hughes had brought her laptop as a backup) I was able to proceed. I was pleased with the talk but when I was over I realised I forgot a few very important points that I wanted to cover but oh well, maybe next time. The North River 4H club owns their own clubhouse in the community of Kingston, what a lovely building. I can't wait till the boys are old enough to join.

Progress - Told through pictures

How the barn looked before the work crew arrived (ignore the date, I did not get a chance to actually get a picture before the crew started)


The first picture I was able to get after the boys went for a nap. I could not believe how much they had gotten done already


John & Ronnie measuring for the steel along the front wall


John working on the front wall and Allan and Derek are on the roof just finishing up the front side


Cutting steel, now that was a loud experience.


Ben & Jake were very curious about all the noise at the new barn


Ben & Jake supervising Dad & Ronnie's work.


Chris working on the front wall


Team work


Chris & John


Derek installing the soffit & fascia


Derek & Kenny


The last piece of steel for the roof


Ronnie holding the last piece of steel


The roof is finished


Dad - our hard-working foreman. There is no way we would have gotten as much done without his expert organisational skills. Thanks Dad!!


Derek and Jeremy starting the ridge cap


Finishing up the front side


The front side all completed


Still lots of work to do but having the roof completed is such a relief


Taken Monday morning, looks awesome if I do say so myself

We had a great work day on Saturday. We had 7 people show up to help us put steel on the roof and the front wall. It was beautiful weather, sunny and warm and absolutely no wind. We could not have asked for a better day. Thank you to everyone who came out to help including Dad, Ronnie, John, Chris, Allan, Jeremy & Kenny. Thanks also to Mom for the yummy lunch and for watching the boys.

Here's a few pictures of the boys playing

The boys trying to figure out where the kittens were hiding, it was so nice and warm on Saturday we did not even need coats


The boys enjoying playing in the newly covered barn


The kittens basking in the sun


The boys learning that kittens love to chase strings


Hours of fun with the kitties


Ben & Jake exploring the wood shed


Jake, what a little monkey