Blooms

Finally.

There are some blooms coming through.

The lilacs are starting to bloom in the front yard.

I've got the perfect jug that I can't wait to fill with all the beautiful flowers as soon as there are enough open.

Answers to dumb questions

remember me complaining about dirty chicks?

apparently you can wash chicks. as long as you don't allow them to get their heads under water. Do it with warm water. and dry them well before they can get a chill.

At least according to people on the the backyard chicken form

Backyard chickens is quite the information packed site about ummm...everything chickens. funny how that works.

I found it through the site hencam.com, which was talked about on the scratch and peck blogspot
Lauren is such a cute illustrator, and writes with such a passion about her little flock you can feel the love she has for them. Totally worth checking out just because it's so darn cute.

Dandelions

I won't even go into how many times I've cursed at dandelions in the yard at all our other houses.
I've attempted to dig them out by hand, be satisfied with just popping their little yellow heads off before they can go to seed and usually end up resorting to some sort of chemical spray rather than continue the never ending battle.
Of course this yard is larger than any of the others we ever had. And proportionally the dandelion problem seems to be even bigger.
I have to tell you I am less than enthused about even attempting this time to dig them out.

But at the same time. Knowing our water source is below us, Chemicals to me become even more of an issue in my head.
Chris and I have already battled about this. His point is that the farmers all around us are spraying their field with round up or whatever chemical they choose. So if it's in the water the small amount we spray is hardly going to compare.
but it still bothers me

I did a web search of organic dandelion control and came up with this...
dandelion fix Corn gluten meal
Although it sounds like I may have to go on quite the hunt to find it. And I'm not sure it will work this late in the season. Since it sounds like it needs to be applied just as the grass is turning green in the spring.

Nothin' runs like a deere...

Except maybe Nathan,

chasing after Dad when he wants a "Tractor ride"

I was so impressed we parked the Deere in probably October. and the little thing fired right up this week.

The boys had to do a couple of quick zips around the yard. Hopefully the actual mowing will get done this weekend.

Blessing in disguise?

This is my little fireplace in our mud room. It serves no real purpose at least not for heating the house or anything. But it made it oh so comfy cozy to strip off all that horrible wet winter clothing in the coldest months this winter.

When I went through our insurance policy because it was up for renewal. I found out they had excluded our fireplace. That just didn't sit right. I could just imagine (knock on wood) any fire in the house would automatically be blamed on the fireplace and therefore not be covered.

Thinking I was pretty smart. I decided to change insurance brokers and make sure it was included in the policy.

Well

a month later.

a lot of pictures. E-mails and phone calls later

our new insurer has deemed that we will not be covered unless we remove the fireplace.

So with Chris home for the long weekend we finally managed to get it out.

I miss it already. and am not looking forward to how cold that room gets in the winter when it wasn't lit.

It sure makes the mudroom look huge with it gone.

and with it out of the way, I went back to painting the walls. (much easier when your not hanging off a ladder sideways trying to reach around a stove pipe.)

And honestly when we took it out and looked over the condition. I'm not surprised the insurance agencies where worried it was a fire hazard.

The bricks in the back had obviously heated up so much most of them were cracked.

the stove pipe wasn't properly secured it was resting full weight on the top of the stove.

and the metal mat? we thought was underneath it?

turned out to be some sort of spongy mat with a thin metal coating on the surface.

Not impressed.

I guess it was probably a good thing we took everything out when we did.

My Evil Friend

Can you see what's made it self at home on my hay bale?

How about now?

For the first little while I couldn't figure out if it was injured and dying up there.

At one point I took the dogs into the field and tried to get Jasper to put the run on her.

( In case you haven't guessed I'm not a fan of geese, In fact I have pictures of Nathan and Daddy feeding geese in Lethbridge and went through the entire album when I uploaded them to Facebook and tagged each one Evil goose 1, Evil goose 2 etc.- so there was no way I was going to investigate on my own)

But Jasper couldn't get her off that hay bale. She stood up spread out both her wings to make herself as big as possible and hissed. He decided this was not something he wanted to tangle with and took off into the other pasture.

This incident combined with the fact she's been there for nearly a month now. made me think the stupid thing has probably made a nest on there.

None of this would be a real issue but I would have liked to pull apart that hay bale and use it in the chicken coop. and her there hissing has caused that plan to go out the window.

But 2 days ago she finally disappeared. I immediately sent Chris over to investigate the bale (still not going anywhere near it in case she came back meaner than ever.)

He reported that there had indeed been eggs.

They were all broken in rather large pieces, and there are small chick like feathers scattered around.

So I'm not sure if she hatched them, or if they fell prey to something. (although Chris said there wasn't any gore to make him think that something happened)

Now I've seen a goose hanging around our front dugout. I'm wondering if she's moved the chicks to the water finally (would the weeds around the pond not have been a better place for a nest in the first place?) I just have to work up the nerve to get close enough to sneak up for a look.

Fiber Farm

I'm still quite convinced that the best way to work with animals around here would be to do a fiber farm. Sheep, rabbits and Alpacas.
I found this website, and am madly in love, especially because not only is she able to make her farm work on this concept. But she also offers online courses to share her vast range of knowledge. So excited to sign up for the next one.
Herbal Maid Fiber Farm

and thought this was an interesting site too...although I haven't explored it enough to know if I'd be accepted into any of these courses they seemed to be based out of Texas from what I saw. But still worth a look when I have a moment later to pour over the details more carefully
substainable farming course
I believe most of them are free.

Everyone is just so darn funny

So yesterday, I made a flurry of phone calls with one specific question.

"Can you wash a baby chick?"

Everyone laughed at me.

Yeah guys like I have nothing better to do, I just got bored and decided it might be fun to give the chicks a bath?

No.

Actually we have really crappy waterers. The kind that slosh everywhere when you set them down. And leak all over the bottom of the chick pen if they are not completely level. or if they bumped or pretty much for no reason at all.

Anyways they created a little puddle in one corner of the pen.
The chicks then pooped in the puddle.
They then proceeded to play in the poop puddle.
and now?

Now I have 26 very VERY dirty little chicks.

I changed all the hay in the bottom of the pool pen. I washed everything out.
But I still have very dirty little chicks.

and I'm torn.
I have 2 trains of thought on this.

One. washing a chick and getting it wet seems like a really good way to get the chicks sick

but

Two. Any animal should never be covered in its own feces. That in itself could cause it to get sick.

So I made a ton of phone calls asking for advice on washing the chicks. EVERYONE LAUGHED at me. The suggestion is, if I feel like I should clean them probably just do it with a slightly damp paper towel. Don't wash them,
Right guys
Like I was going to stick them in the dish washer or something?!?!

The Chickens little

We finally have chickens (well we have chicks at least)

The arrived yesterday. Nathan is in LOVE with them, and constantly wants to hold one.

I, on the other hand have been totally stressed. Rigging up coat hangers to drop the heat lamp another 6 inches. Putting cardboard over the window entrance/exit to stop the wind. And now were having crappy windy rainy weather and I'm realizing there are a million drafts in that old coop. I'm thinking I have to go out this afternoon and try to cardboard and duct tape??? a bunch of the cracks and spaces around the door frames or I think these little peeps are going to freeze to death.

2009

Create a free picture collage

2009 -was a pretty busy year around here. Not quite as busy as we'd hoped but there were still quite a few additions.

You can click the play button to go to smilebox and see all the photos better

Top left - the new John Deere lawn tractor (our sets of parents got together and that was our wedding gift)

next- Nathan riding a pony for the first time at the Capital Ex- I was so impressed with how solid he was in the saddle and I'm so tempted to buy him a pony of his own.

Top right- One of the few wild strawberries that I was able to get a picture of before Nathan found it and immediately ate everyone he found.

Bottom Left - We finally bought an old pick up truck in August- makes everything easier to haul. This is a picture of Nathan and I collecting some small pieces for firewood and kindling.

Bottom Middle- Our New Guard Dog Jasper. He's teaching old Maggie to actually bark at the coyotes to keep them away.

In the centre -one of our many hikes into the field.

and our biggest (smallest) addition of the Year- Baby Greg was born Christmas day.