The Snow Melt Continues :)

I took these pictures last Saturday the 19th of April.. exactly a week after we got 13 inches of new snow.. 

Looking out to the road.

Kids play area. 

Looking into the front area from the yard. 

My strawberry bed! 

Looking into the place. 

The front of the house/driveway. 

More kids play area.

The front of the cow pen and the new pig pen. See Papa sitting under the tree?? 

The laying hens winter pen.. with the cement mixer. 

Now this is what it looked like last Saturday!! 

Amazing what a bit of rain and some nicer temps can do in a week!! 

Spring might actually be around the corner!!! 

Dreaming Of Spring! Thankful Thursday Post!

We like to keep our front window decorated :) This morning we took down the last of the winter decorations and this afternoon we did this!! 

From the inside.. note the snow and the green grass showing through!! 

From the outside! With R's little smiling face in there and a reflection of the truck/calf pen and you can also see part of the bus and the chicken barn through the window on the other side!! 3 different perspectives in this one photo!!

We had a blast making flowers, some with hands, some with just fingers, some free handed and cutting them out. R even cut out a few! 

J says 'Maybe this will encourage Spring to come!" 

I told him it might :) but it will for sure encourage us as spring comes!! 

It's been raining all day and the snow is melting, mud is everywhere and we are keeping busy inside. 

IT'S MELTING!!!

March 21st/13

6 days Later on March 27th/13.

5 days later on April 1st/13

This really doesn't show the snow melt as well as some other areas in the yard and cow pen but these are the pictures I have. Under the trees in the yard we have grass and the cows have a LARGE patch of grass showing. The driveway in front of the house is almost totally dry except where the snow melt rivers run thru it off to huge puddles below the driveway. Yesterday we got rubber boots out and washed the snow pants and put them and the snow boots away!! Spring is coming!! :) 

Forgetful Fridays. March 22.

I think everyone who lives in the North has a selective memory. Wait hear me out. I know I have a selective memory.. Every summer/fall/winter I choose to forget how long it really takes for Spring to come to the North. My sister in law posted on FB yesterday that work she planted peas and got some rows ready for corn. Here are some pictures of our place I took yesterday afternoon... about the same time, as it turns out, she was planting peas. 

The yard. 

Looking into the place.

Looking out down the driveway. 

The plow line.. that lump in the middle there is one of my raised beds....

J on a pile of plowed snow.

L on his 'ship' making a railing beside his captains chair.

OH and this is what it looks like in the summer.....Oh I can't wait to see green again!!  

General Farm Update.. January 2013

It's been a while since I did a update so here you go.

Maggie is home now and her and Isabel seem quite happy together again. We have not yet had her preg checked but the fact that she's not gone into heat since she's been home and the waddle in her walk makes us think we should have a calf arriving in the next several months. Isabel has also not gone into heat since we had her AI'd and we are hoping she too is bred!! IF Maggie was bred the month she went to the Bull's place we should have a calf in March. If Isabel is bred she should calve in August. Isabel is still giving about 5 or 6 gallons a day. Lucky pigs and chickens.. I just wish I had the energy to make cheese!!! Maybe soon :)

Chip is getting less exercise now that Tucker seems to leave him alone more and is no longer loosing weight.. Papa thinks he is about 120lbs. One bonus from bringing the ski doo home to give the kids rides is that Chip follows it around, Papa is ON IT!!, and gets some exercise. He has made himself a new bed under the floor of the new house and seems to revert to puppy hood with numerous naps and unawareness. He's only 3 so I'm not sure why or even if he's changed or if Tucker is just so much more active that I've actually noticed how inactive Chipper really is.

Waiting for Papa's return one snowy day! 

Tucker has a annoying habit of chewing on bike helmets, gloves, baseball gloves, odd shoes and whatever he can get his mouth on. Other then that he seems to be fitting right in. He's about 5 months old now and quite large. I barely have to bend to pet him. He has learned to stay off the porches and to sit if he wants attention but he still has a ways to go. He tried to follow us out the driveway the other day and Papa had to chase him back a couple of times. He is very bright though and that works in his favor.

Laying hens are laying eggs again!! YAY!! Some days we get a dozen other days only 1 or 2. I'm sure I have an egg eater in there somewhere but finding them is the thing. We've lost a few older hens, as we do every year, which is life. We haven't got a hen under almost 3 so it's no wonder we loose one here and there. Most of them are between 3 and 5.

Pigs.. Well we finally butchered the last two butcher hogs 10 days ago (and had bacon for breakfast YUM!!) and got the sausage done 2 days ago and Papa smoked a side of bacon yesterday to see how it was. It was YUMMY!! Anyway that means we have 8 growers (5 months old) to butcher next year left, two proven sows and one gilt. Papa picked the friendliest gilt and kept her to breed. She is not purebred and is multicolored so it will be neat to see what her babies look like. The pigs just got a new large straw bale in their pen and Papa forked a bunch of it into their barn so they are happy pigs these days with the warm weather and something to play with.

Papa slicing bacon for breakfast! Check out that pan behind him!! 

As for the rest of the place it is surviving winter well. Papa has mornings to clear snow with the bobcat and he's made great big piles of snow every where for the kids. The kids have tunnels and caves and trails and all sorts of fun stuff out there in the snow. The snow on the entrance side of the roof has not come off in almost 2 months.. it's been too cold for it to move. The other side gets more sun and has come off once in the last month. Right now there is A LOT of snow up there and we are awaiting the BOOMING THUNDER OF FALLING SNOW!!! Papa has taken the bobcat and cleaned out the snow on the ground on the entrance side so it won't pile up and make a mess this spring. We thought the snow would fall today as it is 4C/40F here today, I even kept the kids inside because I was that sure, and so far nothing, but it is overcast and normally the snow goes on sunny days. It's already cooling off here so I think if it is still warm tomorrow it might fall then. If not it will wait until our next beautiful sunny day.

The snow by the front door... this actually fell this morning but only the part hanging down. 

Some of this fell but not all of it. Every warm meltly day on the farm we have red patches... butchering spots that show up as the snow melts.. looks terrible but you get used to it. Isabel was waiting to be milked and she was watching me with interest as I took the pictures. 

 As for a house building update.. there isn't really one. Between butchering, holidays, sickness, and work we've not had much time. Papa is waiting on a few quotes for trusses/i beams for the floors between the two additions. 

I almost forgot the cats! They are spoilt as per normal. The two kittens we got this summer have learned how to get up on Midnight's perch above the back porch. There is a bit of a ledge up there and they all 3 fit nicely and make good use of the heat coming through there. Hunter, the orange male, is still giving Tucker a hard time which is good for Tucker. I have no idea where he sleeps but I would guess in the large addition in the spare bales there. His brother showed up 2 nights ago after having been MIA for almost a year. They look a lot more alike then I remembered. The brother (what did we name him? I'll have to look on old blog posts.) is a bit more rough and tumble then Hunter and Papa says his eyes are goopy. If he sticks around we'll have to do something about that. I've only seen him once, that I know of they do look a LOT alike!, and I'll be surprised if he stays. Here is the original post on the two orange cats.. whom we were told were females but both were males. The one that stayed was renamed Hunter.. I wonder if the other just left before we knew they were males?? Anyway the 4 regulars are very friendly to each other and we often see them all 4 on the Travel-all's hood when it's warm. I hope the return of the other male doesn't mess that up! Anyway that's the farm update. Hope you enjoyed hearing about life on our place :) 

~Spring Fun~

Roasting marshmallows in the sunshine. In the back ground you can see the last of the snow. There is also a patch just out of the picture behind L, in the blue, where Papa piled up all the snow all winter with the bobcat. The kids picked the sticks, helped light the fire and added to it for several hours. We also burnt some grass and my front, and only :), flower bed. Ahh.. hello spring!! 

Today on my little walk I noticed little shoots coming up at the end of the driveway.. :) 

4 Wheelin'

Our very cool friend Mr. G brought over his 2 kids, a GT and his 4 wheeler 

and took all the kids for rides around the place! Super cool! They had a BLAST!! 

Afterward they drank hot chocolate and watched R's new movie with us!

THANKS for the fun visit G's!! :) 

Ice Rink.

With all the nice cold weather we had there for a bit in January Papa expanded the natural ice rink we had beside the house and made it quite a bit bigger.. it's not huge but it's a nice size for a learning ice rink. He flooded it several times a day when it was -38C and now it's a nice smooth rink. This picture was right after the kids had been skating so there is a lot of snow on it.. it's a bit longer then the picture shows as well. 

Papa is such a Redneck!! Winter Fun!!

Papa told me he was going to take the kids for a 'sled ride' up and down the driveway :) I went out a bit later and found this!! Now he's taken the pitch fork and is using it to keep the rope higher then the car to make it easier to turn around!! Too bad it's too dark to take a good picture!! The kids LOVE it and I can hear their giggles inside from the front of the trailer :)

Car? What Car?

The load of snow that was hanging out on the roof for roughly 2 months came CRASHING down the other day! The right side came down at about 5:30am and woke me and Baby J out of a nice sleep! The trailer actually seemed to move when the almost 2 feet of snow on our 70 foot long roof.. and there is about 30 feet of incline! Which makes for a LOT of snow! Here is that side. The snow pile off the roof is higher then the floor level on this side.

That morning the boys went outside to play with a strict talking too about staying out of the snows way! The girls stayed inside as we realized they didn't understand where the drip line was.. never mind to stay out of it! Before the boys could get out side the front of the play side went! BOOOM!!! Good-bye car! LOL. Papa went out and only had to shovel a tiny bit to get the car out.

 The black thing in the middle is all we could see of the car from the top!! What a lot of snow! 

The view from the back! 

The car after Papa drove it out! 

 The boys on top of the pile and the indent where the car had been! They had a great time jumping off of the hill!