Will it ever happen?

We've been talking about "retiring", selling the farm and blowing all our money on vacations, boats and fancy furniture.....just kidding, but we have been talking about down sizing.

Our original plan was to sell the pasture and some of the hay land, keep the 2 home quarters and only run about 30 cows. Just enough to keep our hand in the farming business and free up some time so we can maybe do a little traveling or even fishing.

We bought another quarter of land this spring (couldn't resist it as it fit in so well with what we have and it was a good investment) turns out this quarter has an old, old building site on it. None of the neighbours can remember anyone living there, but there is an old rock foundation - probably from a log cabin with a lilac tree growing beside it (first picture). There are lots of really old maple trees and I'm guessing from the size of them they must have been there at least a 100 years (third picture). If we moved there and kept the quarter of hay land beside it we would have the same amount of land as the keeping the home 2 quarters but we'd be off this *&^%$* highway and away from the noisy compressor plant to the south of us that runs day and night.

This is the whole site, it's about 10 acres in total.One of the old maple trees.
Where the house would sit, just to the left of the mule in the 2nd picture.
There is a power line running beside the site, so power could be brought in fairly easily. There is a natural gas line running about a mile and a half away and because we belong to a co-op the cost of bringing that in is relatively cheap compared to what others have told us they would pay in other areas ($5000.00 as compared to $25,000.00!!!). We would have to drill a well (that could be costly) and *gasp* I would have to be able to get high speed internet!

Then there is that little thing called a house, I suppose we would need one of those and Dennis wants his "dream" shop, a few corrals and shelters for the cows and we'd be all set. The really big question is can we sell the other land? We do have a couple who have expressed an interest in the pasture and hay land and maybe even the home 2 quarters...... but, do they have the money and are they serious?

So many questions, so much planning, I wish I had a crystal ball.

The End of Summer

Summer is fast disappearing! The flowers in my planters are getting leggy, most of the perennials are done except for the roses and a couple of long blooming ones. But, larder is beginning to look filled.

The first two are the shelves in the cold room with canned tomatoes, strawberries, cherries, raspberries and some venison from last fall (hopefully I'll have some more this fall).Dill pickles and sweet mixed pickles by the wall, raspberry jam up by the bottle of wine and the case of beer (cold rooms are great for more than storing food)!
The potato bin, not as full as last year, but this summer I tossed out pails of wrinkled sprouted potatoes left over from last year so I didn't plant as many. There is more than enough for the two of us till next year....I hope!
Beet pickles cooling on the counter and I still have enough beets to give away to a lady who didn't have any.
Some of the tomatoes from the greenhouse, I still have a ton on the vines. Think I'll pick them so they ripen at the same time so I can bottle them too.

And finally the bale yard. There is only about 400 bales in there right now, we still have close to 900 to haul home from the fields.

Not only will we eat well this winter, so will the cows.

Holy moly it's been a year since I blogged! Just thought I'd drop in and post some roses (I do love my roses) and a bug. It's a Gold bug, at least that's what we called them when I was a child, it was my favorite bug. I would have posted some lilies but sadly they didn't do well this year, we had a late frost and the early ones didn't bloom. The later ones did, but were not as nice as some years.

There's not really much that has happened in the last 12 months, but maybe I'll drop in more often.

Hope For Humanity

Bug!

Angel FaceFlower Power a miniature rose
Morden Sunrise

Pasquali

Smoke and Roses

I haven't been here for a while, I guess I didn't have much to say. This summer has been different, not so much hot as humid. Even those days that were only about 75 degrees felt like 90! And it seems like almost every late afternoon or evening we've had a thunderstorm - not a lot of rain, but enough to put a stop to the haying. Last year we were finished by this time, this year we are way behind and the hay is laying in the fields to damp to bale.
My flowers on the other hand have loved the rain and warm temperatures, so sadly have the weeds!
Today they promised us sunshine but the smoke from forest fires 800 miles away in B.C. has drifted in on the jet stream pretty much blocking it out.

I thought I'd share some pictures of the roses and lilies - the colours are so vibrant this year.
This first one though is of the smoke!

Our new family member

This is my dog Mollie the collie, I like this picture cause she looks good. Sadly she has many medical problems - hypothyroidism for which she has been on medication for years. This has caused diabetes and her adrenal gland to shut down, which has now caused her to go blind, loose most of her hair and just last week, to have a mini stroke. While at the vets last Friday, the vet asked if I wanted to take a rescue dog - another border collie. My first reaction was to say "No, I don't want another dog till Mollie is gone". But, Dennis and I talked it over and he thought it was a good idea he knows I'll be a complete basket case when she dies. So after a few days I decided to take her in.
Please meet Reilly a seven month old border collie.

She was taken from a farm where there were two border collies owned by a elderly gentleman who had no control over either one of them. Border collies are extremely intelligent and love to learn, but they MUST have RULES! Luckily the vet (who raises border collies herself), had her for two weeks prior to me taking her and gave her some basic commands such as come, sit and stay.

She is very sweet, timid and submissive, but very eager to learn, sadly I've learned the hard way she is not house trained!! She will run to the door (but then she runs everywhere else too) but doesn't ask to go out. She also - in true border collie fashion - want to chase anything that runs which includes the cats. When they are in the house she's not bad, but if she sees one run across the yard, that's another story.

It seems I have my work cut out for me in the next few weeks, she has lots of learning to do such as no chewing shoes (she does), not digging in the flower beds (haven't seen her digging..... yet) and kitties are not squeaky toys. But, she is a welcome addition to the family and I'm glad I took her.

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?!?