Soooooo how’re you doing? Anything been going on since I posted a year and a half ago? Didn’t think so…. So I thought that I would try and blow the dust off the old blog and use it as a place to track thoughts, cute critters on the farm, homeschool stuff…whatever comes to mind. I’m not really sure if it will stick but I think if I can keep things relatively short and sweet, without putting too much pressure on…
I don’t think anyone round here would argue that it’s been a sloooooooow start to spring and summer. It feels like we get little glimpses of warmer weather and then it’s snatched away again in favour of cold days and LOTS of rain. Despite the slow unfurling of the green season, we’ve kept ourselves busy. Seeds have been planted, buns are waiting to decant from their ovens (I’m talking cow babies!) and the first batch of chicks have turned into…
On what felt like the first warm day of the year, our cow Daisy birthed out a beautiful heifer in the afternoon sunshine. I know it wasn’t actually the first warm day of the year, but it was the day that seemed to herald a run of warm days, the beginning of the end of winter. In fact, exactly one week prior, an ice storm had smacked the province around quite heartily and we had spent the day huddled without…
Two and a half weeks ago (to be precise), Mrs B. went into labour on a cold and breezy April afternoon. In all the years we’ve been breeding our pigs, this is only the second time that Mrs B. has birthed out during the daylight hours. We were grateful for this miraculous eventuality, but it didn’t detract from the fact that it was a very, very cold evening for sitting inside an unheated barn. Despite our familiarity with the pig…
There are days that just beckon you outside no matter what you are doing. The warm breezes, the shining blue sky, the melting snow…. Monday was one of those days. Plans for table work and house chores went out the window as I gathered up my camera, dog and child and headed outside into the warm spring day. The sun was beaming, the snow was beginning to recede and I have learned over many, many years that these days are…
Theoretically it is spring, as in the first day of. I know this because the calendar says so. Begrudgingly I will also concede that yes, the days are in fact longer than they used to be not so very long ago. But. It’s really, really cold. And when I say cold, I am really not messing around. I’m talking overnight temps of -21C, which in countries other than Canada is cause for nationwide shut downs and a wailing and gnashing…
It seems almost impossible, at this time of year, to resist being caught up in the frenzy of diet and health ‘advice’ that is in abundance. We are meant to begin the calendar year with a sense of purpose, a redefining of ourselves and all at the time of the year when we most want to pull the duvet over our heads and sleep for the next quarter year or so. Doesn’t sound fun. Like everyone else I struggle to…
Around here we are used to being the ones who decide which critters live, which breed, which die and when. We work our hardest to control their environment to keep them safe, happy and content. But as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall once said, Sometimes you don’t get to play God. Sometimes God does. While the abundance of our farming life is the thing we try to keep most in mind, it is the losses that we feel most keenly. Over the years…
The air at night smells like burning sugar, that deep, caramel smell that tells you something delicious is on the way. I don’t know what combination of plants and warmth is required to make that smell, but every summer it catches me by surprise. The light is always dipping behind the horizon when I catch this scent, I always wonder at first if it is something cooking somewhere. But then I remember, standing on that spot the year before and…
Of course the pig would have to choose a windy, icy night on which to birth out. It just had to be 3am after I’d been ill for a few days. Her milk just had to come in on the night Stephen had to work late and she just had to be in the wrong field and we just had to herd her into the farrowing barn through the ice and wind instead of being cosy and warm by the…