Icy Wonderland

Hello dear friends,

We had a cold and sunny day yesterday at the farm.  It is surprising that we still have so much ice on the trees from last weekend's freezing rain.  In the sunshine the ice glitters like diamonds.  Today we are expecting up to 20 cm of snow so our views tomorrow will be quite different!

We have the usual assortment of small birds including junkos, chickadees and sparrows.  I have seen blue jays at one of our feeders but we haven't noticed any cardinals.  

The trees in the far distance are at the end of our property.  This is a view from our kitchen deck.  The ice is still shimmering on all of the trees which seems odd as we have had wind all week.  I hear the constant tinkling of ice falling so I am surprised that there is still so much ice on the branches.

This is a view from our breakfast deck.  We won't be having breakfast here any time soon!  The koi pond is covered up for the winter.  A small heater is protecting the water from freezing over completely and 3 bubblers are providing oxygen for the fish.  Last year was the first year we had some fatalities so this change will hopefully allow all of the koi to survive the winter.

Ice on one of the hydrangeas.

 We still have ice on the pergola.

Abby is such a snow bunny!

A view from the pergola towards our front lawn.

A view over Willoughby Gate towards the evergreen forest at the front of our property.

We have had this old bird feeder forever.

This is apple lane, one of the mysteries of our property.  A double row of very old apple trees leading nowhere!

Our thoughts are with our friends in Eastern Canada that will be experiencing severe storms this weekend.

~Thank you for visiting!~

Magical Winter Evening

Hello dear friends,

It hasn't been warm enough enough (or sunny enough?) to melt the ice we received last weekend.  It does make for some beautiful night-time ambiance!

This handsome creature is the third member of our seasonal collection of deer.  The deer have all been taking tumbles in the strong winds we have been experiencing so they are now all wearing skis!  Advantage-they are all still upright! Disadvantage-we wont be able to take them apart so storing them will be a challenge.

I haven't quite done justice to the shimmering of the cedars from the lantern in the driveway.

We are loving our pergola in all seasons.  Yes, that is still our garden furniture!  As usual we dont quite manage to get everything put away for the winter.

The maple is drooping under the weight of the ice.  This is a view of our little portico entryway.

Ice is dripping from all of the lights.

A view from the driveway towards the house as I came home from work.

On my way back from tucking the chickens in for the night and checking on the sheep.  We have two new lambs!  Mommies and babies are doing well.

I don't think these ferns will have survived the winter!

The trees at the chicken coop are also covered in ice.

One final look back towards the barn before heading inside.

~Thank you for visiting!~

Winter Storm

Hello dear friends,

As predicted, we have had another period of  warm temperatures and record breaking rainfall this weekend followed by an ice storm.  Fortunately for us the storms seem to take place on the weekends when we can hunker down and stay safe....although we did have plans to have dinner with friends.  After watching the weather forecasts, and then the storm watches, and then the storm warnings we decided to stay home instead.  The fur-children were very happy about this decision.

All told we received just over 90 mm of rain from Saturday morning until Saturday evening.  The total amount would actually be higher as the rain started Friday night but we had already stored our rain gauges for the winter and had to take one out again!

The farm lane has been filling up with water.  The ground is already waterlogged and has a limited ability to absorb the melting snow and rain.

The fields are partially under water as well.

By late afternoon almost all of the snow had melted.

Then by early evening (also according to forecast!) the temperatures dropped and the rain turned to freezing rain.  I tried to take a photo of the ice on the large maple at the barn using my phone.  The photos on the camera were too blurry to share.

Freezing rain continued through the night but then we had some sunshine this morning.  This was the view before coffee!

We had icy views everywhere.  The wind started to pick up this morning and the air was filled with the tinkling sounds of ice falling off of the trees.

For anyone interested in techie bits, we have a Generac generator that will power our farm in the event of a power outage.  This is 17 kw residential generator and was a priority for us after having survived 5 days without power as a result of another ice storm in 2015.  We have had many power outages over the years but this one convinced us a generator would be a worthwhile investment.  Heating an old stone house using a fireplace and breaking holes in the ice of Lake Ophelia to drag buckets of water to the barn for the animals only seems romantic!

I dont know why Abby feels it necessary to remove our driveway markers!

Horatio is enjoying the sunshine on a bedroom windowsill.

Meanwhile Henry is enjoying sunshine elsewhere!

Now I will be going back to work packing up Christmas decorations while my husband investigates damage from falling tree limbs.

~Thank you for visiting!~

A Weekend At The Farm

Hello dear friends, here is a quick post courtesy of Google!  It seems like Google is a master at curating photos into albums and when it put this one together I thought I would share it with you.  These photos were from just before Christmas.

This is a super snowy pin oak tree in our front garden.  We planted it a long time ago...perhaps 20 years ago?...but at that time we had 2 pet pygmy goats.  Bob and Bert were escape artists and when they managed a prison break-which was often-no plant, tree or shrub was safe.  So this oak tree should have been much taller than the 30 feet it is right now because Bob and Bert ate it.

This is our Autumn Ash at the koi pond.  Everything looks so different without leaves.  It has burgundy leaves but as with all ashes in Ontario it is just a matter of time before it succumbs to the Emerald Ash Borer.  We haven't decided what we should do to replace it.

Here we have Horatio and Henry.  We are so incredibly lucky that Horatio (the poor little guy that is underneath Henry) has accepted his new brother so well.  In the past we had  2 male cats and they literally couldn't stand each other.  We ended up referring them to our upstairs and downstairs cats as they would not even stay on the same floor together.

Regular visitors will recognize the chicken coop which is dressed for the holidays.  Christmas lights, a wreath and large snow flakes complete the decorations.  This fall we poured a concrete floor for the coop to help guard against predators.  2019 was a terrible year for our flock.  Between a skunk, a weasel and a fox our hens were all killed off.  We now have a new flock of hens that are much safer.

This is our breakfast deck tree.  In much nicer temperatures we like to sit here in the morning having coffee and breakfast in the Adirondack chairs.  From this location we have a view over the part of our garden we call The Grove towards the sheep pastures.

These two trees flank our front door.  I have been adding little red, white and gold balls as ornaments.  For next year I think it should have some little garlands.

This little tree was a last minute purchase a couple of years ago.  It has a matching wreath that also has little lights in it.  We keep this little tree on our Portico deck.

This is such a great picture of Henry.  He was a smash hit at the vet clinic this week.  He is definitely personality plus!  Very friendly, cuddly and constantly chirps like a bird.  Henry is the 8th cat (Henry the Eighth!!)  to call our farm home.  All of the cats were strays and of course we made sure to have all of them spayed or neutered.

Passing through this gate will take you to an area that we call The Secret Garden.  It is really only a garden in our imagination right now, we have an idea of what we want to do with this secluded area but have not yet finished it.

This entire section of our house was built about 5 years ago.  The main floor of this addition has an entry way, bathroom with shower, large dining room, kitchen and breakfast area.  The second floor has a master bedroom and bath with a balcony and a second guest room.  The contractor that did the work has experience working with old stone homes and we were very happy with the work although it took much longer than expected.  As we are doing most of the interior work ourselves we are also taking so much longer than expected.  Note to self-when planning a project we need to anticipate the timeline for completion and then add 10 years.  😞

We have a Christmas tree in our bedroom which has been terrorized by the cats. A branch went missing, I have noticed hangers that dont have ornaments, a piece of a deer ornament was on the carpet and a broken decoration was in our bed.  The good news is that the cats have not toppled any of the trees over.

A lived in living room that needed a little tidying!

The same garden gate but this time from The Secret Garden looking towards the greenhouse.

I hope you enjoyed this quick collection of photos!  Thank you for visiting and wishing everyone a great weekend.