Life is Good?

This picture is taken on April 9th, the snow is all gone, there was water everywhere and the geese were looking for special places to nest.

This is the same area taken on April the 10th! One of the worst blizzards of the year blew in.
This is Suzy Q one of our cows - she is a big cow and standing behind a panel of wind boards to the right. The snow drift in front of her is about 4 feet high and would end up being nearly 6 feet before the storm let up. It blew so hard that it built up drifts both in front of the wind boards and behind them, making it very hard for the cattle to find anywhere to shelter.

This is south of the barn and the snow has built up and covered a 6 foot steel fence along there. Sadly many farmers put out straw on the sheltered side of the fence for their new born calves only to find that the snow had covered them up and suffocated them in a matter of a couple of hours.

Looking towards the barn and corrals from the deck of the house - that's about 300 feet and at times the barn wasn't visible.

The poor birds didn't even try to come to the feeders - the wind was so bad they just hid in the spruce trees till it let up a bit.

They are now calling for temperatures into the 70's for the next week - can you spell flood,

or at least mud?

If anyone asks me what my favorite season is, remind me it's not spring!

This and That

This is a hard time of year for me. The weather is warming, the Canada geese and crows have come back, the snow is melting and there is water running in the creeks and low areas. It feels like spring but, although it's too lovely outside to be indoors working in my little room in the basement, it's not nice enough to be doing any gardening yet!


I do have some yard work things to do, I didn't cut down any of my perennials last fall, thought I'd leave them up the a winter garden look, I still have that to do, but it's a little muddy in some of the bigger beds. I could be raking the lawn, but it's a little wet for that. I want to cut some low branches off the spruce trees to the west of the house, but after cutting two with a handsaw I realized that with about 100 more to do, it was becoming apparent that my shoulder wouldn't stand up to doing it by hand. It's even still too early to start anything in my greenhouse - that won't happen till about the 15th of April.


So, other than looking after the cows that are calving - which is one of those jobs where you are super busy one minute and then sitting around waiting for hours or even days the next - I have decided to concentrate on getting back into shape.
I have changed my eating habits - rather than trying to diet. Cut out sweets and desserts, added more fruit and veggies to my meals, upped my fiber content by at least 200% and am trying to eat more small meals rather than one big one in the evening.
So far it's working, I'm down 12 lbs and I'm not feeling hungry or craving anything silly. I still eat chocolate, butter, but in much smaller quantities than before. I have switched to tzatziki on my veggies and high fiber tortillas and hummus for snacks. I have also been walking a mile to a mile and a half everyday. Hubby and I running out of gas 3 1/2 miles away from home yesterday (thus having to walk) didn't hurt either! I'm feeling quite proud of myself at the moment as I am sitting here typing this while wearing a pair of jeans I haven't had on for over 2 years!


Anyway I had best go get busy, it's time for my large navel orange snack and time to have a look at the cows, as we do every two hours.


I thought I would leave you with a picture of Lil Ralphie, he is one of a set of twin bull calves. Mama initially took both of them but 24 hours later decided it was too much work and pushed the littlest one out. He is now being bottle fed by me and becoming very demanding! If we loose a calf before the season is done which is almost a certainty, he will be grafted onto the mother cow and raised as her own.

Isn't he just a cutie?!?