Christmas at the farm

Hello dear friends, I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas.  This is our second Covid Christmas which of course means no parties, no friends, no overnight guests and the smallest gathering for dinner.  Still, we remain healthy and that counts for a lot!  We did have my mother, brother and sister in law come for Christmas dinner, so I have some quick photos to share.

We raised our own turkeys again this year at the farm.  This turkey is a whopping 27 pounds.  It seems as we get older we don't gorge on turkey like we used to so we have lots of leftovers.  This turkey was prepared very simply with a sprinkling of course salt and poultry spices and roasted with some onion, carrot and celery.

I saw this idea on Instagram....a turkey shaped loaf of bread!  I used a roll recipe but instead of individual rolls I fashioned the dough into the shape of a turkey for the final rise.  I added some golden chia seeds to make it look more realistic but they didn't stick very well.  It was however great fun and tasted delicious!

Our festive table.

We added a miniature picket fence around the tree before dinner to discourage the cats from nesting on the new tree skirt or our fur nephew from stealing the bears.  

I haven't said much about our ongoing renovations at our old farmhouse.  The truth is that it has taken us so much longer than we thought to finish the rooms in our addition.  When we first discussed adding onto our old stone house we knew we wanted a large dining room that would allow us to host larger gatherings with lots of room.  Although a contractor did the major building, we decided to do the finishing ourselves.  Between jobs and a farm though what we thought we take a year has dragged on to 6 years!  The good news is that my husband just finished laying down this flooring on Christmas Eve evening!  Getting the room ready for Christmas was a scramble.  He still needs to finish milling all of the wood for the baseboards and trim around the doors and windows.

Thank you for visiting my blog and wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2022!

Snowy Afternoon Walk

Hello dear friends, here I am after a very long absence!  We have had a very busy fall here at the farm with a great many (unfinished) projects on the go and that, my friends, is the reason I haven't been posting any updates. 

We have had a couple of snowfalls already including one this past Sunday so I thought I would take a little walk around while my husband was nursing a sore back after a slip and fall on our road.  As it turns out trying to walk around the fields wasn't much better than our trip down the road so the walk ended up being rather short!

The sun tried but failed to break through the steady but light snowfall.

This is our youngest Muscovy duck.  I was a little surprised to see him outside and then I was more surprised to see how far he travels based on his tracks in the snow!

Last year we snowshoed through this part of our farm.  I was only going to my office one day a week then but now I am commuting every day so finding time to enjoy the outdoors it a little more challenging.  (OK, a lot more challenging!)

We have 16 lambs at the moment and 4 of them have decided that they like milk from a baby bottle.  We use a bottle to supplement lambs if their mums are not able to produce enough milk for them.

One of the nice features of having a retired husband is have a fire in the fireplace each evening.  We have lot of old fallen or damaged trees that we can use for fuel and as the weather gets colder a fire feels very cozy.

Every year I say my little garden shed needs attention.  Maybe 2022 year will be the year I empty it, paint the inside, and reorganize the contents!

I love my Schwinn 3 wheeled bike!  It really should take itself off the barn for storage over the winter. 😉

We had a good year for hay.  Our square bales are stored in the barn and the round bales are stored outside.

The chickens still have access to forage outside, even in the snow.

This lovely little building is Rose Cottage and was a big project for my husband this fall.  He designed and built it from scratch, it is not a kit!  One day I will share another post on the construction.

Our lovely little garden arbour.

 Our gate nestled in the snow.

I hope you enjoyed this quick little walk!  Wishing everyone a good week.

Weekend Heat Wave

Hello dear friends, we have been gripped by a heat wave for the last few days and it is expected to continue for several more days.  Even in the country we are finding the heat uncomfortable!  Our temperatures are in the low 30s with humidex values approaching 40 degrees.  Even the night time temperatures are warm at close to 20 degrees so there is not much relief from the heat.

Still, things could be much worse.  We hosted a birthday barbecue yesterday and had an unexpected thunderstorm with 18 mm of rain but fortunately it blew over and cleared up in time for pre-dinner drinks.  This morning though we had misty conditions which I captured and am sharing!

It took quite a while for the sun to burn the mist off over our forest.  It is still quite hazy even now which is late afternoon.

We are getting so much enjoyment from our temporary fire pit.  We enjoyed a late drink and birthday cake at the fire last night.  The sky was clear and we enjoyed the moon and stars (but I didnt think to take a picture!)

This was a long shot this morning of wild turkeys in our back pasture.

The sheep are heading out for the first stroll of the morning in search of windfall apples.

One of our farm tractors in case you are wondering!

The mists are lifting from our front hay pasture on the other side of Willoughby gate.  This area is a work in progress and is going to eventually to connect our "old" driveway with our "new" driveway so that we can enter one way and drive out the other way.  Even though we live on a gravel road in the country many passing motorists have no regard for the speed limit and we have more than one had a close encounter with a speeding vehicle as we were trying to back out.  This will allow us to enter the road way where we have better visibility.  In all the driveway will be about 500 feet long when finished.

More misty views

These are some of our new laying hens.

 

We have a bumper crop of apples this year.  The crab apple tree in Bailey's garden is drooping with apples

Henry posing for us this morning.

Thank you for visiting and wishing everyone a great week!

 

Misty Mornings

Hello again dear friends, we are in the midst of a heat wave with humidex values around 40 degrees which I find very uncomfortable.  A week or so ago though we had some cool nights that produced some misty mornings.  I took some photos and hope you enjoy them!

Bailey's garden was expanded ever so slightly this year by changing the shape to take into account a new and unexpected landscape design change. More on that some other time!

I haven't done any bike riding because of the heat but as we get closer to fall with cooler temperatures I will start again.

I love echinops even if it self sows too readily.

We don't have a name for this garden and I have been thinking about turning it into a memory garden for another one of our pets. I am still thinking about it.

I am saddened that Ash Alley is now showing signs of the ash borer.  There is no cure so in a couple of years these trees will be bare. 

Our garden arbour.

Usually the ligularia flops around and mopes but this year it looks good.

This is part of Kodiak's garden.

No fire at our fire pit this morning!

We get so much use from our Adirondack chairs.  Lake Ophelia is in the distance and is quite low.  Even with all of the rain lately the water level has dropped a couple of feet. 

 I hope you have enjoyed this quick tour.  Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Bees and Bee Balm

Hello dear friends, a few days ago we heard a lot of buzzing outside and after a bit of sleuthing discovered that the sounds were coming from lots of pollinators in our monarda!  I bought one of these plants several years ago and have been able to divide it several times.  The flowers are now past their prime but I thought you might enjoy seeing the bumblee bee and honey bees at work.

 Wishing everyone a great week!

Enjoying the kitchen deck

Hello dear friends, here I am again after a long absence.  All is well at the farm and we often remark that we feel terribly busy but dont seem to get much done!  Today I thought I would share some photos of the area we call our kitchen deck.

When we started a major addition to our old stone farmhouse 5 years ago we knew that we wanted to have lots of outdoor living space.  We really enjoy sitting outside and when the weather cooperates we like to entertain friends and family outside as well.  So a priority was to have a veranda wrap around 2 sides of the house with lots of space for seating.  The area I am sharing today extends past the covered area just outside of the kitchen.  

The colour theme for this area is blue.  This seating area comfortably seats 4 and after buying one solar powered umbrella I ordered a second one to flank the little love seat.   The umbrellas are in heavy stands that are concealed inside the special little umbrella tables.  Unfortunately this area can sometimes catch wind so the umbrellas and the tables have taken many tumbles.  

A little night time ambience!

The comfort of our fur-children is paramount!  Willow is enjoying some reflection time.  She spends a lot of time thinking.  

This is an old Ikea table that has been repainted many times.  It has 2 small spectacularly uncomfortable chairs that go with it so it doesnt get much use.  The table however is very convenient for serving.

Lucy's turn to assess the comfortability of the sofa.  She approves. 

Here is a view from one of the lawns.  The stone wall is part of our koi pond.  You can see the 2 blue umbrellas on the left and there is a small gazebo visible in the background. 

A different view from a different section of deck.

We are now one month into summer and have been experiencing some very hot and dry conditions.  Of course now that we want to cut hay we are getting what I like to refer to as "nuisance rain"-not enough rain to make up for the drought conditions we experienced through late spring, but enough rain to make trying to cut hay a challenge.

I hope you enjoyed this quick visit!  I finally downloaded the photos from my camera so will curate other photos for new posts so we can enjoy our seating areas together.

Wishing everyone a great week!