Sorry I haven't wrote on here in awhile.  I have been busy with the fall harvest but more importantly I have been concerned about my dad.  He was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year ago and has been struggling with it these past few weeks.  He has recently been hospitalized and will most likely not come home.  It has been extremely hard for me since we have been so close my whole life.  When I moved onto my homestead it was only down the road from my childhood homestead so I have seen my parents at least 3 times a week.  This has been a hard struggle for the whole family and therefore I might not be on here as often as what I have been. 

My Precious Little Girl

A few weeks ago my little girl turned 5 years old.  I can't believe that she is 5 already but at the same time I cannot imagine my life without her.  She has added so much joy to my life, of course she had also added all other kinds of emotion to it as well!

I remember one moment when Sadie was younger when I said "How can you love someone SO much one minute and then be so annoyed with them the next?" hahaha I think I still feel that way sometimes. 

She is definitely challenging me in many ways but also encourages me.  I know that if I need her to help she is there to help.  She has a kind heart and is always giving out hugs and kisses.

She has grown and developed so much over these past 5 years, she is truly becoming her own person.  She loves to draw and print and make up little stories with her "little people".  She loved the colour blue until she started school and now likes all colours equally. 

Her imagination baffles my mind and you will never know what game or story you are going to be a part of next.

She is the first grandchild for my parents and they couldn't have been happier.  She took their hearts before she was even born and has been the twinkle in their eyes ever since.

Grampa introduced her to her first bonfire where we cooked hot dogs and marshmallows.

She has been a wonderful big sister, most of the time looking out for her younger brother.

I couldn't ask for a better daughter.  I cannot express the joy and love that I felt when I became a mom and am so proud of the adorable little 5 year old that I am honoured to have call me mom.

Happy Birthday Sadie!

"Imagination has always had powers of resurrection that no science can match."
         ~ Ingrid Bengis

Thanksgiving Weekend Walk

There are many things to be thankful for and we tend to think of those things around the holidays.  One of my favourite things to do is take a walk through the bush.  When we were visiting relatives over the holidays we went for a hike in the bush.  It was spectacular and smelled of fresh fallen leaves, what more could you want?

These pictures speak for themselves.

Enjoy.

Monday Book Review

Wolfsbane ~ Andrea Cremer

This book is a sequel to the book Nightshade which I talked about  in this post.  I just had to know what happened to Calla and friends!  I am not one to let a story stay unfinished, it drives me crazy if I don't know how a story ends.  I didn't realize until about halfway through this book though that it was a trilogy and I had to wait for another book.  So the whole time I kept thinking, there is no way they are going to wrap this all up in 200 pages, 150 pages, 100 pages.  I did want to "google" Wolfsbane in fear that I would read spoilers. 


I found this book told a lot about the 'ligistics' of the sci-fi side of the story and didn't have a lot of Calla's story.  I wanted more Shay and more Ren conflict.  I wanted more action.  This book had a lot more back story and introduced a whole new string of characters, mostly searchers, and even had some killed off too. 

Wolfsbane is a good book, not great but still worthy of reading.  I was just expecting more from this book which was supplied in the first one.  I am hoping the third one, Bloodrose, does not let me down but I'll have to wait until January to find that out.

Overall I would give this book a 7.5 out of 10 because it still had all the great characters from the first book but just lacked the action and speed of the first one.

This moment ~ My little chicken whisperer!



A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

Turkey Time

In Canada this weekend we celebrate Thanksgiving.  It is a time for remembrance and thinking about what we truly are thankful for.  We gather together as a family and have a huge meal reflecting on the meal that the Native Americans and first English settlers shared together.  They celebrated their differences and shared knowledge of survival and had a huge feast together.  The main part of a Thanksgiving dinner is the turkey, almost all dinners include a delicious turkey.

On this Thanksgiving Monday I awoke sleepy with the wee ones sleepy as well.  It was a slow start to the day until I looked out our hallway window and saw turkeys in the backyard!!  I quickly told the kids and ran to get my camera.  I snuck outside and counted about 12 wild turkeys eating fallen apples from our crab apple tree.  They didn't even seem to mind me taking pictures until the kids came flying out the door to see too.  When the door slammed it was like a gunshot going off so needless to say the turkeys started to run but not before I got a couple pics!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

This Moment ~ we have a tree climber!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment

Chicken Day

*Warning/Disclaimer: This blog post contains photos of the process of killing chickens. If you are at all upset/sensitive about animals, easily grossed out please do not read further.  You are more than welcome to read ahead but I am just letting you know some photos are graphic.  I don't want to upset anyone or start a debate but it is just to inform you of what happens on most rural farms around this area.

A couple weeks ago it was time to kill our meat chickens here on the homestead.  I remember as a teenager we use to kill all our chickens ourselves.  It was a nasty, long process which I couldn't be part of.  I didn't like seeing what happened to the animal before it ended up on my plate.

With all the "stuff" going on about our food, how the animals are treated, what they are fed, and where it comes from, it left me feeling good about our chicken meat in the freezer.  I did feel slightly upset about killing our meat birds but knowing that they had good food, a good coop and were free range for their whole lives made it a bit easier.

Of course, this time I didn't do any of the killing process either.  A local man with a processing trailer comes right to your farm and only needs a water hook-up and then he is good to go.  My mom and dad brought over their chickens as well which made our total 50 chickens.  They were killed, processed and in the water trough cooling all within the hour. 

The chickens are hung upside down on this rack.  One of the men hangs them and then has a knife that also electrocutes them and then pierces them.  This is done so quick that within seconds the chickens are dead. 

I should mention that this method is quick, clean and very professional.  Once this is done they go into the trailer to be put into boiling water to clean and loosen the feathers. 

Seth was ready to help too.  He had his gloves on ready to catch a chicken! 

After the boiling water they are then put into a plucker.  This invention always amazes me because we have plucked MANY different types of birds in the past and it takes SO LONG!  Within the minute the bird is completely plucked and clean, ready for the next step.

The rest of the process is fairly easy as well, removing head and feet and gutting them.  The men said that our meat birds were pretty impressive and looked really healthy.   I think it was the free range part of their lives.  It made all the difference.

The chickens are then soaked in salt water, lots of salt, to draw out the rest of the blood and cool.  Then they are bagged, weighed and ready to be frozen.

Most of our birds ranged from 5-8 pounds which means that they weigh a little less but they don't have heart attacks or broken legs which happens very often with meat birds that are forced to get as big as they can. 

I am very grateful for our meat chickens and what they provide for my family.  With money being tight in the winter it supplies us with that little bit of comfort knowing that we at least have our meat chickens in the freezer.

*I should let you know that I couldn't resist and cooked one a couple days ago.  I did it in a maple syrup glaze (also from the homestead) and it was DELICIOUS!

Monday Book Review

I wanted to come up with a brilliant title for this new part of my blog but I couldn’t come up with anything brilliant.  Monday’s Book Review it is!  I love living in the country and running a farm but I also love reading.  I am going to review some books that I have read every Monday and maybe encourage some of you to read some of my favourites and give you fair warning of some that I don’t like.  (It does happen)

NightShade by Andrea Cremer

I received this book from the library where I ordered it on the picture alone.  I saw it when I was looking up another book on amazon and loved the cover of the book and read enough to get it from the library.  I had no idea really what it was about. 

Let me tell you, it was GREAT!  The main character is Calla Toy who is a guardian – which means she can turn herself into a wolf whenever she wants.  She is also the alpha wolf of her pack.  The Guardians are basically the bodyguards for the Keepers, which are some sort of magicians, and they protect the sacred sites for these Keepers.  This is what the book is based on but it is more about the struggles that each character must face, mostly Calla.

Calla has a chosen mate, Ren, but saves a human boy while in the woods, an act which is against everything that she has ever been taught.  Later she is told by the Keepers to protect this human boy, Shay.  She is now torn between two loves, two worlds and everything that she has ever known.

This book has enough sci-fi to keep you guessing what is going to happen but not too much of it to dissuade you if you are not that into sci-fi.  The romance and friendships are well thought out, hold your attention and make you want more.  This is obviously not a “deep thinker” book but it is a very good, light, entertaining book. 

I would definitely recommend this one to anyone wishing for some fun entertainment. 

I should mention this is the first book in the trilogy and I will review the second book next week.

*I do realize this is posted on Tuesday, it was wrote and will be wrote on a Monday :)

It's the little things...

Yes I finally got something I've been waiting a long time to get!  When you live on a farm with only one person "working out" the money tends to be tight.  Add some growing children and the money gets tighter.  There always seems to be something that needs repair, something that needs to be done to the fields, something that needs to be purchased for the livestock and of course there is always something that needs to be purchased for the wee ones.  So with that momma doesn't always get what momma wants. 

When the kids went to check on the cows at pasture the other day (which is just outside the nearest "town") they came home with a surprise.  A dehydrator!!!

It's the little things right?  I was so excited.  I got a bucket of apples right away and started slicing.  It took awhile to dehydrate them but after filling up the dehydrator I had 4 lovely jars of dehydrated apples to eat.

They look so yummy.  I also had another use for my mason jars with the glass lids since I can't find any rubber bands for them.

And to top it off this week there was a lovely harvest moon shining down on us.  This is the view from my front porch.

Pumpkins, Gourds and Corn Oh My!

I love Autumn decorating, the oranges, reds, yellows and browns are some of my favourite colours.  The problem with Autumn decorating is that I never seem to get it done on time.  With Thanksgiving right at the beginning of October, I never seem to remember about decorating for it until the beginning of October!  Then it's too late and I tell myself next year I will get on top of it early.  Did I mention I am also too cheap to buy pumpkins or gourds or corn for decorating also, because I am.  This year I decided to eliminate this problem and grow it all myself. 

I didn't even plant pumpkins this year thinking that we would get them from my mom and dad's garden.  I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed in amongst my gourds some pumpkins growing.  I received about 10 from my garden this year. 

The straw is from our farm and if you look closely there is ornimental corn on the straw as well.  I have cobs drying all over the house.  Our garage is open so the birds would get it (and probably the chickens too) and our basement is too damp for drying so every doorknob in the house has a couple cobs hanging off them.

Everyone seems to be enjoying the fall decorating and the best part is that it all came from the garden!  Now I just have to finish the other produce from the garden and I will start to feel on top of autumn. 

Canning

I have been trying to keep my kitchen under control these past few weeks but it doesn't seem to be working.  I tried for the first time to make dill pickles.  I am finding that like most things you do for the first time it is taking forever to can all this food.  I am not complaining though, I look forward to eating all this good, home grown food during the cold winter months when everything is covered in ice and snow. 

I think the dill pickles turned out rather well and am happy with them, next year there will be more for sure.

Even though we don't have hurricane's, tornado's or big earthquakes here in Canada the weather does seem to be getting a little fiercer.  We had our first tornado warning this past summer and of course that meant that everyone who had internet had to google what to do in case of tornado.  It was something we always took for granted.  The flip side is that in the winter we can get some wicked snow and ice storms that can take out hydro for a few days at a time and leaving roads unaccessible. 

The hurricanes that were hitting North America this past summer did have some lingering effects on our part of the world as well.  When we took a walk through the woods recently we saw the damage the high winds and rain has done.  There are many trees that are uprooted, snapped and even hanging midway all throughout the woods.  This also means a lot of work ahead of us to get the trees cut up and cleared out.  Luckily we have an outdoor furnace that we can keep going with these trees so they don't have to go to waste.

( I do have another reason to clear these out - they are blocking my cross country ski trails!)

This Moment ~ Finding a toy dinosaur when getting jars to make pickles.

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

Peek-A-Boo

We have a strange concept happening on the homestead.  Usually when a farm has free range birds it is the laying hens that have the opportunity and not the meat chickens.  We are the opposite here.  Our meat chickens can be seen all over the farm while our poor laying hens are kept in their coop.

There is logic behind this, I promise.  We received our meat birds from chicks and it was about 2 months before we received our laying hens.  I couldn't bear to keep them locked up in a coop for so long so we started free ranging them and they love it. 

Unfortunately these birds are scheduled to be killed on Monday morning.  A man has a trailer that he sets up and does it all quickly and very humane.  Then the laying hens can come out to play.

Project 2,996

There is a project that has been going on for some time now across blogs.  It is like a memorial for those that died during the September 11th terrorists attacks.  I remember being at University in a house with 3 other girls, waking up and getting ready for class when one of us turned on the tv.  We all stood around the tv in complete shock and confusion.  Could this really be happening so close to home, Ontario is not that far away, and why would someone wish for others to die not even knowing who they were.  That day 2, 996 people died, some being as young as 3 years old. 

I picked a woman on the list of victims that was only 23 years old.  Her name was Alysia Burton Basmajian.  She was a wife, mother, daughter, granddaughter and friend.  She had many struggles in life but perservered.   While in college she became pregnant and had a daughter, Kaela, who was 2 years old at the time of her mothers death.  She finished college, got married and moved to New York to work at the Trade Center on the 101st floor as an accountant with Cantor and Fitzgerald. 

My thoughts today are with her family and friends who still love and miss her today.  Her daughter will be 12 years old and starting her teens years where a mother is so important. 

Such a loss was had on this day 10 years ago. 

Remember.

~ this moment ~ walking in the woods

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

Eggsellent!

The farm is growing here.  We have 35 meat chickens and now we have 10 laying hens.  The laying hens are completely different from the meat chickens.  Laying hens are pretty, clean and don't go nutso for their food.  They graciously leave their eggs for us each morning and only ask for clean water and some food in return.  It's funny because I thought our family used a lot of eggs, it seemed like every time we ate them we would use at least a dozen.  Now that we are getting SEVEN a day I don't think we use that many eggs!!  Right now our fridge has 2 cartons of eggs, a bowl full of approximately 20 eggs and have just started another bowl with 7 eggs in it. 

The eggs are beautiful, just like the chickens.  Seth says that the chickens "poop out the eggs".  Right now I am becoming very familiar with any possible recipe that calls for a lot of eggs, quiche, french toast, egg salad sandwiches, devilled eggs etc.

Here is the flock.  I haven't named them, maybe once the meat chickens "leave" and I have more time to focus on the laying hens they will start to have names!

I wonder what these two ladies are talking about, maybe wondering why I am taking pictures of them and not giving them their food.

I am so thankful for these 10 ladies and the fresh eggs that they provide for us.