Winter Wonderland

Hello dear friends and Happy New Year!  After sharing photos of the farm in the evening light I have a few more to share of the farm during the day.

All of the statues are enjoying snowy hats.

Even our solar powered duck is ready for winter.

We have been discussing what to do with the koi pond this winter.  We usually cover it with a large tarp on wooden supports but this year we might leave it open.  The koi pond has a small heater to prevent the surface water from freezing over completely and the bubblers help to eliminate carbon dioxide from decaying leaves and fish waste.  The pond is deep enough that it will not freeze completely allowing the fish to hibernate and survive the winter.

 We are expecting up to 15 cm of additional snow over the weekend to welcome in the New Year.  We will be tucked into our old farmhouse with the dogs and cats and will end 2020 by watching a James Bond movie.  Wishing everyone health and happiness in 2021 and thank you for visiting!

A Wintery Christmas

Hello dear friends, it is hard to believe but another Christmas has come and gone.  For so many of us it was a very quiet Christmas.   This year my mother had to celebrate Christmas with the residents of her seniors' home and to keep everyone safe was not able to have visitors or leave to visit family.  We have missed having our little round of pre-Christmas dinners and this year I havent even put up all of our Christmas trees! Our area in now under a full Covid lockdown until the end of January.

Still, we have many things to be grateful for.  Our friends and family are all healthy and well.  Instead of the forecast rain we had almost 25 cm of snow arrive over Christmas creating a beautiful wonderland.  We are more prepared for this lockdown than we were for the original one so our home is stocked with all of the essentials to keep us fed and watered!  We are nestled into our old farmhouse with our pets and I will be working on a new quilt.

Later I will post some of the winter wonderland photos taken during the day but here are some night shots to share with you!

We have a small collection of these deer which are now firmly attached to wooden bases and weighted down with concrete slabs.  The winds have been so strong that the deer and trees have all been toppled several times.

I prepared a little vignette on a cast aluminum bench on our portico deck.  The little bear and plaid blanket are only barely visible!

I havent done a very good job of stringing lights in trees this year.  The tops of the trees were missed!

Even the chicken coop has lights.

 Thank you for stopping to visit and we are wishing a safe and healthy holiday season for everyone!

Decorating the Living Room for Christmas

Hello everyone, I have been doing a bit of decorating around the house and wanted to share some quick photos! It seems that I cant keep track of all of our decorations....I found a storage box in the basement with these gold themed ornaments so I have added them to the mantelpiece.

I moved an assortment of liquor bottles to the living room to make an impromptu little bar.  I am usually a wine drinker but as we are going to be a little isolated this Christmas it would be fun to find drink recipes using some of the liquors in this collection.  Although there is really nothing positive about the current COVID situation it really does encourage us to find ways to make our homes more comfortable (and comforting!)

The tree is getting full!

The deer are flanking this antique clock from my mother.  We were able to get it to work for a while and once we got used to the chimes it was quite charming.  Now however it has decided it no longer wants to work and will need to go to a clock repair shop.

Most of our ornaments were chosen with our many pets in mind.  It only happened once but we did have a cat climb into a Christmas tree and tip it over.  Not every ornament survived! This lovely angel is glass and is hopefully high enough in the tree to escape the attention of the cats.

I like to think of this as a pear.  :)  I am not sure what it is to be honest. 

I noticed that this year the stores have a very limited selection of Christmas items.  It seems to be a combination of stores not ordering very much, and people going all out to buy things to decorate their homes this year.  I suppose with everyone being asked to stay home we all want our homes to be as cozy and festive as possible.  One of the shops had 2 of these glass champagne bottle ornaments so I snapped up both!  One for me and one for my sister in law.

I am looking forward to spending some extended time at home over the Christmas holidays and will be putting up more trees and decorations for us to enjoy.  I will share more photos soon!  In the meantime I am hoping everyone stays safe and healthy.

Thank you for visiting!

 

Preparing for Christmas

Hello dear friends, we recently had about 15 cm of snow which is putting me in the Christmas mood!  Of course for many of us Christmas is going to look and feel very differently this year.  COVID numbers are increasing alarmingly in our area and we are expecting another shutdown.  Still, we are grateful to be healthy here at the farm and will still put up and decorate our trees to celebrate the season.

Here are a few photos I took while looking for my car under the snow.  

Our good old garden privvy is nestled in the snow.

A view towards the gazebo from the driveway.

The lantern looks so picturesque topped with snow.

A quick consultation with one of our books confirms that these interesting paw prints are from a fox.  What a fascinating smell.  Abby is on it!

Once again we didnt manage to get this furniture put away.

I am making a few pomanders using reduced for quick sale mandarin oranges.  I use a wooden skewer to poke holes in the fruit, push in cloves, and then roll the sticky juicy mandarin around in a bowl of spices.  I am using cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.  To help them dry I have them on the heating grate in our main floor bathroom.  The house is smelling festive!

My mother still loves crafting!  Last year we sat together and made felt owls for our woodland themed Christmas tree.  This year COVID is restricting our ability to spend time together but she still enjoys surprise delivery of supplies and is making felt ornaments for my latest themed tree....a Boho tree that will go up in the library!

 

The living room tree is up and almost finished.

Wishing everyone a safe week and more Christmas trees will be coming soon!  Thank you for visiting my little blog.

Rebuilding Lake Ophelia

Hello dear friends, today I wanted to share photos from one of those projects that was not really on our agenda earlier this year but then suddenly was!  This is a picture of Lake Ophelia which is not really a lake, but our farm pond.  We originally had this pond built about 20 years ago to help drain water from one of the hay fields.  At the time the pond about 150 feet long by about 75 feet wide and about 10 feet deep.  Over the years our pond has become home to many different frogs as well as the goldfish that we used to keep in our waterfall garden then would relocate to Lake Ophelia each fall.  Having a large pond is such an educational experience.  The large numbers of frogs that live here mean that our pond is healthy.  Birds can be seen visiting regularly.  Several years ago our pond was the subject of a research project into water quality being done at the University of Guelph. The goldfish that we would relocate each fall have multiplied and now we have schools of them.

Over the years bull rushes appeared around the edges of the pond.  Bull rushes can help to purify water and also provided cover for many of the birds that would come to the farm to drink.  Frogs could frequently be found between the stalks of the bull rushes, and we were told that over the winter the stalks that protruded from the ice allowed the fish to receive oxygen by ensuring that the pond did not completely freeze over.  In the last few years though these bull rushes have become very established and by this year they had taken over the pond, soaking up the water and obscuring the views.  The bull rushes posed another problem which was to provide cover for the coyotes that sometimes prey on our sheep.

So this year we have taken action and hired a contractor that is experienced in building ponds to help fix up this area.

Here is a view of the pond from late summer.  The tracks are made by the sheep that like to go to the pond to drink.

In order to prepare, we had to drain the pond which we did with a heavy duty pump.  It took 3 days to empty the pond and the water was dispersed over our hay field.

We wanted to save as many of the gold fish as possible.  As the water levels dropped eddies formed allowing us to catch the fish.  We moved the fish to our waterfall pond until we can move them back to Lake Ophelia again later in the fall.

Before the excavation started we dug up some of our irises so we could transplant them later.

The contractor used an excavator, a bull dozer and a rock truck.  About 18 inches of sludge was removed from the bottom of the pond and deposited onto the surrounding hay fields.  The bull rushes were dug up and the sides of the pond were dug out and sloped properly.  The bull dozer was able to do much of the grading although we had a run of wet weather after the initial excavation so were not able to finish the final grading.  

Of course we imagined how much fun it would be to have this kind of equipment here at the farm all the time!  

It only took a couple of days for water to start seeping into the newly dug pond.

I was also worried about the frogs.  The excavator operator assured us that as he removed each scoop of dirt and silt he could see the frogs hopping off in all directions.  

The sheep were a little confused.  What happened to their old watering hole?  What is is this great big hole?

Now we need to patiently wait for Lake Ophelia to fill up again.  We expect it will take until next spring for the water levels to rise above 10 feet.  Even though the weather was perfect for the contractors working on this project we have had lots of rain since and haven't been able to finish the grading or seeding the area.  Since this construction was done in mid-September we have had rain every week and now the area is saturated.  The pond is starting to fill up fairly quickly but the surrounding dirt is now so wet we won't be able to finish the grading until the spring.

I took this photo with my phone and you can barely see the heron in the distance.

For those of you that follow our farm stories you will know that we are easily distracted by new projects!  We are so excited about the new and improved Lake Ophelia and cant wait to landscape and finish the area.  The irises have been replanted and we will add some other bird and bee friendly plants as well as some native trees.  We will be fencing the area off to protect it from the sheep and plan to build a tiny lake house.  We have already started working on a dock and will have great fun paddling around in our canoe.  When finished this will be an extension of the property we have around the farmhouse.  

 In the meantime, we enjoy dreaming about this area from our chairs in our grove.

Thank you for visiting our blog!  Wishing everyone a safe week.

Fall Colours

Hello dear friends, we are having a glorious autumn here at the farm. The sugar maples are putting on a great display of traditional orange, red and yellow colours.  In the sunlight the colours are ablaze.

Round bales of hay are lined up and ready for use later this fall and over the winter. 

I love the contrast of our cedar hedge against one of our ancient sugar maples.  

I may have mentioned in the past that I have plans for this arbour!  Once upon a time this arbour was located behind our house at the path to our driveway.  We had to move it when our addition was built and although we planted it here we never did decide how to incorporate it into its' new area.  Now I have a different idea!  We have an old wooden gate that leads from the grove to the barn and I think it would look great there. 

My favourite garden privvy.

One of our old sugar maples.

A view towards our garden gate.  This year I must remember to try to save the tuberous begonia in the clay pot.  My mother was very successful at saving tubers each year.  I always forget to move them before they freeze. 

This is Kodiak's garden.  We often say that he was the smartest dog we ever had!  He was a very special boy and also our farm manager and sheep herder.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tour.  There is lots happening at the farm!  I will soon share pictures of our rehabilitated Lake Ophelia and we are making progress on our new kitchen!

Thank you for visiting my blog and wishing everyone a safe and healthy week.