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 :)