I have finally decided to buy a hand grain mill for my wife. Because of her candida, we have come to learn a whole variety of grains. We used to eat just wheat and rice and now we have tried quinoa, buckwheat, millet, armaranth, etc….. Having a grain mill is handy because the store-bought flour turns rancid easily. Fresh grounded flour should be consumed within 2 weeks for peak nutritious value but I believe most of us keep our bag of flour at least 6 months.
After some search, I decided to buy the Wonder Juionr Hand Grain Mill. It is not cheap but it is solid built and comes with 2 sets of burrs, 1 for dry grain and 1 for oily seeds. We have tried it and it works wonderfully. It is pretty tiring to mill just 1 cup of flour but it is good exercise afterall. I don’t think I need to work out if I use the mill everyday. Surely an electric mill will be a time saver but our kids enjoy turning the wheel. I can’t wait when Kay recovers we can have some fresh yeast-free sourdough bread made from fresh grounded grain.

We have been using our new wood stove for a week now. It is wonderful. Initially I am worried that since we put it in the basement the heat will not travel up the main floor. It does take a long time for the heat to travel up the stairs but eventually it is warm (about 20 ºC). The trick is that the wood stove has to be hot and the basement is warm enough before the hot air rises up. It is very comfortable in the basement so sometimes we would sit there and talk or sing hymns together.
Burning wood is a lot of work and I can’t believe the amount of wood we burn everyday. If we want to heat the whole house we need at least 20 pieces of wood (16″ in length and 3-4″ across). Nevertheless, it is cheaper than oil and the kids like watching the fire. If there is a power outage, we know we are not left in the cold.

After much consideration, we have decided to install a woodstove this year. Our oil furnace is an old type and low efficiency. Heating oil is getting more expensive and the furnace does not always start. We have decided to spend about $3000 for the new wood stove, including the Pacific Energy Super27 stove, installation fee and chimney pipes. It is very costly but with firewood, the installation can pay itself in 3 years.
But heating with wood is a lot of work. First you need to buy seasonsed firewood. It is better to buy in spring and season them yourself. Since we did not know this we simply paid a premium for seasonsed firewood. However, most comercial firewood is not splitted small enough for the wood stove so we have to split it further ourselves. This is where technology comes in handy. I bought a small electric log splitter with 4 ton force. And it is fantastic. It slices through the firewood like butter. This sure saves my back. After splittig the firewood to a range of pieces 3″ to 6″ across, we have to stack them properly.
I don’t have a wood shed to store the firewood so I am going to put tarp on them. I laid down a row of pallets (free) and pound some steel rods on the ends. While we stack the firewood about 4 level high, I tied a twine around a piece of firewood about 4′ away from the steel rod. I make a knot on the other end of the twine and tie it to the rod. This will stablize the pile.
The girls are a big help to me and they are having fun stacking and operating the log splitter. Hopefully we can get our wood stove this year.

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I was cutting the grass and the tractor suddenly stopped moving. I checked the engine and it was running fine. I took a look underneath the seat and found out the driving belt was broken. I called up Kubota dealer and was told a new one cost $71. I brought the old belt to Keswick Rental and I got a B84 V-belt for $32 (generic). I disengaged the mower and tried to put the belt one. It was so hard and tight to put the new belt on. Thank God my neighbour Henry saw me and offered help. He is a tool and die professional and is very good on mechanics. Together we fixed the tractor and it was up and running again. What a good experience for me.

We have added some good articles for those of you who are interested in finding out what we believe on some controversial issues regarding Christian life. But be prepared that you will be surprised that when it comes to these topics, the Word of God is very different from what the world presents.

• What Happens When a Mother Works Outside of the Home
• Consequences when TV is allowed in the Home
• Purpose to keep out of debt

One of the many tasks we need to do in early spring time is to prune the fruit trees. This involves removing dead limbs, removing suckers from the root and cutting back some branches to let more sunlight into the tree. The goal is to shape the tree so that only a few main trunks bear fruits. It is better to have less but large fruits rather than many small ones. We have to do this before the buds start to grow. As you can see in the photo we have cut down a considerable amount of brances. Don’t be afraid to prune (not excessively, but moderately) because it is good to the tree.

If you chop off brances more than 1 inch in diamemter, it is better to seal it with tree paint. Since I don’t have it on hand, I use latex house paint. This is to prevent moisture loss and infection to the tree and it gives the tree a better chance to heal overtime.

Last weekend we had a major snow storm. It was snowing from Friday night to Sunday morning. After the storm we had an accumulation of 25-30 cm. Thank God I had a snowblower, but even with the help of it, it took me an hour to clear the driveway and made a clear path to the chicken coop. Because of the drift, there are spots where the snow is as high as my waist. Everywhere you lokk there are snowbanks along the road. This is a great year for skiing.

One of our apple seedlings we planted last spring was killed by rabbits.  They totally girdled the tree bark off the Pristine tree.  One side of the pear tree is gone and so are the side branches.  All the side branches of the Honeycrisp are gone too.  When I found out what happened, I quickly brushed some latex paint on the exposed stems and the tip of branches that were eaten.  We should be able to save the pear tree and Honeycrisp.  The next day I added chicken wire to surround all 5 remaining trees. 

Before winter last year, I already put hardware cloth around the root of each seedling so the mice cannot access it.  True enough, there were no damage to the root part.  However, because of the accumulated snow, the rabbits were able to reach above the top of hardware cloth and helped themselves to the young tree.  Well, thank the Lord that we still have 5 trees left.  Good lesson learned.