Just another Day on the Farm

No Buy November 2024

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

I had to do some thinking on if i wanted to do a No Buy November as it can add a level of stress when i am already a little augh on a few things however the fact is its a excellent way to keep yourself from finding yourself at the stores with all the little gifts, treats and more that are filling for Christmas an holiday cheer and suddenly at the end of month. when you do the math between a meal or two out, stopping for a special coffee out once or twice, a few treats and early Christmas presents and you are a couple hundred less in the bank account.

I have a expense heavy month in Nov, including renting a 30 foot garbage bin, fall tune ups and winter tire switches on vehicles, possible dental floating on horses and a hefty vet bill coming for Remmi’s Alter and more

Still i do think i can save up to a extra couple hundred that can go towards the Christmas feast and fun fund. Its the Black Friday Sales that for me will be the most tricky.. I have a list of items that i want for the farm/barns/critters/house that i watch for sales on and if they hit up a good one on Black Friday i do not want to miss it.

We also have a motel cost coming in this month as we have a early morning medical at a hospital that is not close to the farm and we are booked in three blocks away to stay over the night before, i am counting that spending as Essential.

So yes, i will do the basic tracking of Essential vs Non-Essential and keep a running total for the month, but i also think to add a wee bit of fun to this. if i spend money on a IFFY, i will own up to it and put it the vote here on a Yes, that made sense of course you had to get it, or NO! you clearly broke the rules

Its in good fun, so everyone needs to be kind but sassy is allowed 🙂 otherwise, i will just decline your comment, all comments are moderated before being accepted or declined here on the blog.

And with that, it starts today so no coffee for me when in town for the first vehicle fall oil change and so on.

Posted in No Buy November | Tagged Cost of living, Farmgal's No Buy November, No Buy November, Personal Challenge, Save for christmas, Save some money, Track your spending, Watch what you spend, WHY not | 2 Comments

Hello November, The First Day of a New Month

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Its the first day of a new month and it is the turning of the wheel, its that switch from late summer to true fall, its the changing of the daylight savings so we will turn the clocks back by a hour and we will wake in the dark and go to sleep early in the dark.

Come on in, sit for a bit, have a hot cuppa, its a friday ramble at the kitchen table.. where i talk about anything and everything and or nothing at all lol

Time for heat bulbs and extra lighting for the laying hen flock, time for cool crisp morning, i saw my breath the other morning, the wonderful time when the bugs are almost all gone, just the horrid Asian Beetles and moths. I have cleaned out and killed over a thousand of those mock ladybugs and i am sure to do the same in the coming weeks, hundreds of acres of soybean crops around me this year meant that they were sure to come to the farm and the house by the thousands seeking winter sleeping spot..

Yesterday was summer glorious, the hottest Halloween locally on record, it was sunny, with a warm wind over 20c, Dear Hubby worked in the yards and gardens without a shirt on oct 31st, that just be crazy! Amazing for the trick and treaters and for garden puttering, the day before we had a big thunder and lightening rain storm and it poured for hours, topping up the main pond and putting back water into the catchments and so on.

That rain was a very good thing indeed as we have had dry October when it comes to rain for the winter settling in and down for the trees and bushes and so on. The sheltered micro climate phlox has still been putting out blooms and fresh flowers came in yesterday smelling so heavenly.

Still yesterday was the day to open the big taps on the 300 gallon water tubs and tip the water barrels over for drainage. The propane company surprised me by coming and topping up our tanks early if you ask me, we still had 40% in them but whatever they are topped up now, and the price per liter will only rise as it gets colder so i don’t really mind.

What is on the plans for November?

Cutting, splitting and stacking wood, Garden clean up and winter bed prep, barn clean outs, Yard clean ups, taking down the old red shed, canning, there are some fine looking duck drakes that need to be sent to freezer camp. Horse feet that need to be trimmed and maybe even a vet booking in to check and see if teeth need to be done.

We are getting in a big bin for all the stuff from the old red shed to be hauled away, along with any other bits and bobs. I have booked some work days with Miss R officially to help with this. Remmi is booked to be altered this month, its time. We both have a number of medical tests coming up this month and ideally we will get results soon afterwards.

Its time to renew my outdoor card and my fishing license. There is still time for some late fall fishing before things start to freeze up and i might even do a bit of ice fishing this winter you never know LOL

The birds are happy, each day for about a week, the blue jays would fly out of the woods, check all the spots that normally have winter feeders and then would fly to the big tree close to the house and scream at me, if i went to see the fuss, they would fly over to their favorite spot and hop to the big branch and look at me LOL.. while i didn’t think they needed the feeders out yet, they clear did not agree.. Then i started seeing little birds peeking out of the willows each time i would head out in the morning, little wings would flutter and bright eyes would look at me hopefully.

So three feeders are now up with BOSS, they will need to wait a bit and soon i will get the mix blends up and more feeders lol and the peanuts and suit blocks and balls and so on

Winter is coming, lots to do yet before the snow fly’s

30 day blogging Challenge – Day 9 of writing and posting daily!

Posted in 30 day challanges, At the kitchen table, farm journel, Friday Rambles, Garden, Real Life | Tagged Bird Feeders, Bird Photography, birds, Friday Rambles, Gardening, geese flying south, getting the garden ready for winter, nature, Wild Birds, Wildlife, Winter, Winter bird watching, Winter Prep | Leave a comment

Pumpkin Time!

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Right now at stores all over the city, country lanes and locally at a one or more of our green houses, sales are happening, the value of the pumpkins and squash’s grown for Halloween just dropped like a stone.

Last night a big local greenhouse just put up a post with wagons and pallets and bins still a quarter or more full with hundreds of pumpkins with a note that say stop by today the 31st to pick you free pumpkin and squash up today only, clear us out!

Now i know that you will not find these sales from tiny market stalls because most of those folks would rather feed them as livestock fodder and in combo with processing it for their own add on value use and a few midsize growers have given me the look and one even said would rather compost them then let them go at a sale prices so take this with a grain of salt and shrug it off if you get a told no, its not personal, they just put a high value on what grew.

But if you hit the right farmer, the right stand or the right store you are about to hit the jackpot in terms of picking up reasonable priced pumpkins an squash. Ideally you are going for smaller pie pumpkins if you can do so, you will get a much better result then typical larger carving pumpkins but if you hit the jackpot and can get funky heritage pumpkins, oooohhh the flavor and such you will get!

When it comes to processing them, cut them, clean them and bake them to try and keep them as dry within reason as you can, then mash and portion and freeze into the sizes you like for soups, stews, baking and so on. You can also take that lovely baked mashed and dry it and then grind the dried into a powder to be used in soup bases, smoothies and baking with it being self stable.

One other source that might be available local to you is a seed grower, each year, one of our local seed growers hosts a harvest the pumpkin and squash days, where you trade some of your time to help pull out the mature seeds for future processing to be sold in exchange for getting to take home a good amount and selection of free pumpkin/squash, as they only need the seeds kept back, talk about a win/win and a great way to share out high quality food into the community!

What creative ways other then growing your own and not everyone has space to do so, what is your favorite place to get your pumpkins from? Do you shop the sales after Halloween is over? Do you find you have regular sales in your area on your pumpkins and squash? If you do a nice big display, do you process them afterwards, do you compost them, or do you drop them off at your favorite local farm for fodder?

As we have had a very wet year, i have learned what area’s in the new park garden hold water the fastest and longest and i have plans to use that information next year in terms of where some what will appear to be very random squash hills will be placed.

Farmgal Tip: put a notice up on facebook if you want to do so that you will take dropped off clean carved (not painted) pumpkins for livestock fodder, those that make it to fodder great and those that can’t make it to the compost pile.

30 Day Mini Challenge Day of Getting my writing mojo back! Day 8 and Happy Halloween!

Posted in 30 day challanges, Food Storage, frugal, Garden harvest | Tagged After sales, compost, Compost your pumpkins, Finding way to use things up, food, Frugal, halloween, Halloween pumpkins, Pie pumpkins, pumpkin, Pumpkin sales, pumpkin seeds, pumpkins, Pumpkins for fodder, recipes, squash | Leave a comment

Hultafors Splitting Axe

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

In a world where so many things are made fast and cheap, when you can try and support business’s that create items to last. I was thrilled to see that Hultafors who have been making and selling Axes from Sweden since the 1700’s offer a 50 year lifetime warranty on the axe head.

When it comes to buying high quality tools locally in person, the best place to head to for garden tools, farm tools and wood working is Lee Valley who has a big old store in Ottawa. This is where i find and pay good money for high quality tools, like my steam juicer from Finland, and my garden tools from Germany and in this case a splitting axe from Sweden.

There were splitting axes at the local store for around 100 to 150, and i have had one for a good number of years or you could if you can afford to do so, pay another hundred including 13 percent tax for one that comes with this type of warranty

The first badly damaged set of old grandfather trees, was black willow so we had it hauled away by the semi truck load. However these were big old Norway maples and while not premium fire, it certainly gets the job done.

We have been very luck so far that we have had so few trees come down in some of the bigger storms, as others have had far worse damage then we have. Still when the storm brought down a number of my big trees, we knew they would need to be cut down and worked into firewood, but some of it is way to big to split by hand and we will be renting a wood splitter and or borrowing one depending.

Because we do not have our own forest, its not normal for us to do our big firewood, we do smaller trees and such but normally buy our firewood already dried, split and aged by 10 cords at a time delivered to the farm.

This year there will be a good amount of hand splitting on the smaller logs to stack and keep on drying them down. It was time for a new Axe. The first workout on the axe went very well indeed. Miss R got a very good workout and has informed me this morning that new muscles have been found lol, stretching is very good idea before and after.

What is your favorite splitting axe? Do you make a effort to buy from company’s that have been around for a long time? Do you buy your firewood or do you self harvest?

30 day mini challenge “get back into the habit of writing” -Day Seven! Thank you to the over 2 thousand folks who have read my posts and ramblings over the past week! I know that its been a while since i have been posting regular and i am grateful that so many are opening the posts by email and reading as well as the other ways folks get and read them.

Posted in 30 day challanges, Climate Change, homestead | Tagged Firewood, Hultafors Splitting Axe, nature, Splitting wood, Storm Clean up, Storm Wood, storms, Tree Storm Damage, trees, winds | 5 Comments

Fall Soups : Neeps aka Swedes Potato Bacon Recipe

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Neeps or Swedes or Rutabaga all mean the same thing, that amazing winter root veggie that was created as a cross between a cabbage and a turnip in the 1700 in Sweden. In the garden because its such a long slower grower, it means that it gets a single season planting, averaging 100 days and can easily go 110 or longer in our zone.

They are much firmer, sweeter then regular white turnips and are worth the extra time it takes to grow them. They can be eaten raw or cooked. In this case i peeled and cubed and over roasted them to bring out their depth of flavor and added sweetness.

Neeps Potato Bacon Soup

one med neep or Rutabaga, washed, peeled and cubed into 1 inch cubes baked till tender or cook it in a pot of just covered water till tender.

3 medium potatoes, washed peeled and cubed and cooked in water till fork tender

1 small yellow onion

6 cups veggie or chicken broth

3 slices of thick cut bacon or 2 tsp of real bacon bits

Bonus small amount of cream or sour cream if desired

Salt, Pepper, Garlic and your favorite veggie herb blend if desired.

In my case, I made this soup because we had leftover mashed Neeps (over roasted) and leftover Mashed potatoes in the fridge. These two made the perfect base for a hot lovely soup for lunch for the crew.

If starting from scratch, wash/peel cube your neeps and potatoes and cook till tender, drain well, mash till smooth as desired. In your stock pot, add a bit of your favorite oil and or if cooking the bacon, dice your bacon and cook till browned, add your onion and cook till clear and tender, add your broth, neeps and potato to the broth and onions, add back in your bacon, heat though just till simmering, taste and add salt, pepper and garlic powder and if wanted a bit of your favorite herb blend for veggies. Adjust to your own taste, i would start with half a tsp of salt, pepper, garlic powder and see what you like, i like the flavor of the neeps to shine so i go light on the seasonings.

Serve into your bowls, can put a swirl of cream or dollop of sour cream on top, if you like a small pat of butter with a handful of herbed seasoned croutons is also a delightful touch..

In keeping with my post on beets yesterday, turnips and swedes are rock solid root veggies that grow very well in our zone. I personally find it harder to enjoy regular turnips then i do the swedes or neeps which i enjoy much more.

Farmgal Tip, Swedes have much less sugar per the same amount of potato so for those that are watching their sugar content, if you can take a recipe 50/50 you will cut the carb count by doing so.

30 Day Mini Challenge – Day 6 of writing blog posts

Posted in 30 day challanges, Garden harvest, gardens, recipes, Soups and Stews, Winter Eating Challange | Tagged A little bacon is always a good thing, dinner, Eat what you can grow, Fall soups, food, Garden harvest, Garden Zone 5, Neeps, Neeps and Tatties, recipe, recipes, Roasting veggies, soup, Swede turnips, Use up your leftovers | Leave a comment

Roasted Beet are a late fall garden treat!

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

A fellow blogger from many years gone by who i am connected with still said something interesting a few weeks back (Yes Jess, that would be you) in regards to if we needed to eat more of what we can grow what would our food choices be like and while others listed different counties, given our zones we would be very German/Russian/Northern etc

It got me to thinking about my seed order for 2025 for the gardens and that while i am always game to push the edges of growing things for my zone, if i am really truly worried about food costs and availability in 2025 and beyond, then i need to make a list of plants that grow well, store well and can be eaten in a number of ways

First on my list without a doubt in our Canadian Zone 5a is beets! There are so many kinds of beets, spring ones that are perfect for itty bitty baby beets and their tiny green tops, golden beets, bullseye beets, round beets, and cylindrical slicer ones perfect for canning or pickling. With their fast germination rate and their hardiness to handle light frosts or in micro zoned even harder frosts. In our area, we can get three crops of beets, the early spring ones taken small and fast, with the thinning’s being done for salads or chopped into spring soups.

Late spring planted that planted right yield the canning push in mid july which is ideal as its a slower canning time, letting you put up pickled and making deep rich grated stuffed jars for winter soups, then the late planting in the first week or two of aug for the fall harvests, which is where we are right now.

These are being grown in a micro zone in the kitchen garden and they have a large full hedgerow of protection one side with the garden and then the house offering secondary wind protection along with a heat effect. They are beautiful!

I love roasting beets, whole beets, cubed and seasoned beets or as part of a veggie mix for sheet roasting, so good. Roasting brings out that deep earthy flavor that you either love or hate, i carefully put the leaves unwashed but sorted into my fridge keeper and then cut and washed put the stems in a different one. This picking of six big beautiful fall beets will serve up three different choices and uses, the beets themselves was washed, peeled (peelings go to the chickens and ducks while adore them) they were given a bit of olive oil, herbs and covered to slow roast away, then when done, butter added, everything tossed very gentle and piled into their tinfoil lid and twisted shut to let to sit for a few min in the turned off but warm oven.. till ready to serve.

Do you have a type of beet that you love growing that you think i should try? Let me know its name and type? Got a favorite beet soup recipe that you adore? that you have a link for, would love to have it and give it a try.

Mini Challenge 30 days of blog posts

Day 5 of 30 of writing a daily post!

Posted in 100 mile diet, Garden harvest, Goals, Kitchen garden | Tagged 0 mile food, 100 mile diet, Beet Greens, beets, Beets as a staple food, beets heart health, food, Garden Zone 5, Grow what you eat, growing beets, Harvesting beets in oct, Kitchen garden, micro zones in your garden, Northern garden staple, recipe, recipes, Roasted beets, vegetables | 6 Comments

10 Tons of Well Rotted Wood Chip Based Compost

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

What a gift this pile is! I am so thankful to our friends that gifted these piles to us for the park garden. This is a mix of wood based bedding in a free stalled cow dairy by a friend who also raises most of the crops that are being used.

This is the third time i have had a delivery from them over the past five years, the first pile was 5 tons and it was delightful and dropped closer to the gate you can see the areas in the park garden that it was used in because you can tell the color of the grass where it sat even though most of it was used in creating beds, that’s how much the land wanted and is using what this provides.

The second deliver was much closer to the front of the park gardens and in truth we still have around a ton or ton and half to use up. They closed and sold their cattle, keeping only back a small amount of meat type to raise up, so I knew that access to this resource was limited, I asked if could get one more big load and was very happy when told yes.

What you ask is the difference between this compost and what i can produce on my own farm? The answer is turning, they have bedding fluffer that means that the wood based bedding, the urine and the poo are turned, spread and mixed to create a living always decomposing deep pack for the comport of their animals.

I have old aged sheep in aged hay/straw bedding, I have hot fowl in wood chip/hay blend and i have lots and lots of picked horse piles. What i don’t have is the ability to blend my horse piles with wood chip bedding and turn it over and over and over again in a living active way.

This pile will have some very small clods in it but overall its going to be loose and friable aged compost, its already a year plus in age as we had to wait for the winter freeze to end, the spring to wet, the spring/summer/fall crops season to be done to find just the right day to deliver, when crops were off, the ground was dry enough for them to drive in on the ground and so on

If you are looking for manure tea for use, then you want to make with much more fresh then this and i have to be very careful where its used this year, i can make new beds with it, i can add it to the garden to rot in over the winter etc, but i can’t put it on any overwinter plants or canes, or fruit trees etc.. it is totally the wrong season to be adding in extras to encourage growth. I want everything to shut down right now..

Once everything is fully died back, I will do some early winter spreading, a great example of that would be on the rhubarbs, they will all get a good solid inch of compost over the whole area to feed the plant for next spring.

As we have this pile now to work with, the plan for the remaining pile by the front of the park garden which is across from the main garden is to clean it up/edge it out and flatten it into new garden itself, take advantage of the fact that it has smothered everything under it, that at its age, anything will grow in it, i am going to plant it out into started plants for the next few years.

What type of compost are you working with in your gardens/food forests/or raised beds? Are you able to access locally produced extras be that sawdust, or switch grass/straw or wood chips or ? Different areas and different small farms/homesteads produce different types of compost, in 2024, we will wood ash, fowl compost, horse, plant based (nettle/comfrey and so on)

This pile should if used carefully allow us to amend and increase our production in the park garden as we continue to expand it.

Day 4 of my personal 30 day mini challenge to back into writing daily for the blog! Trying to get back into the habit of writing often.

Posted in 30 day challanges, compost | Tagged aged compost, compost, compost from deep pack bedding, compost in the food forest, compost in the gardens, composting, deep bed pack compost, Deep Pack Bedding, Feed the soil, Garden, Gardening, gardens, how the type of carbon in deep pack bedding effects end compost, Improving garden yeilds, soil, Soil improvement, Soil structure | 2 Comments

Ticks

Posted on October 26, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

How has it been in your area this year in regards to ticks? With the crazy wet garden season it has meant that we have not been able to mow things as low as we have been over the past two or three years in terms of the walking paths and people spots.

We have even taken to mowing a huge part of the big dog yard down to make most of it non-tick habitat friendly, but there is still edges of the dog yard that provides idea pick up places.

Earlier in the year Dear Hubby picked up a nymph tick on his back, it was full in by the time it was found but was successfully removed, still he went the very next day to get the full treatment from the local pharmacy, never had any redness or bullseye pattern.

Boy are the ticks out at this time, they have been pulled of the horses, dog ear even though the dogs are on meds, and even much to my anger full feed females have been found, thankfully i have been able to kill them before laying.

Into a nice killing bath of rubbing alcohol! I have a feeling that we will be finding at least a few more yet before the season is done. Locally the rise of tick born illness and ticks carrying issues is increasing and i expect with our warmer and longer springs/summer/falls we will continue to see even more .

Full credit to these goes the Ottawa public health and as they would not allow me to save these other then in a pdf, forgive the screen shots. The information however is very on target and useful to what i am talking about.

and as if lime is not enough.. sigh!

Given the cost of testing your ticks, it is far to say that many people do not send them in for testing https://geneticks.ca/ I am glad that we do have the ability to send ticks out for testing and i have to admit that if i had one really into me, i would be willing to spend the money to get the results back to know how to move forward but i could not afford to test all the ticks we find here on the farm.

Have you ever sent a tick out for testing? Can you get testing in your province, state and do you have free tick testing anywhere near you?

For us we choose to use Deep Woods Off but i know lots of folks that prefer the treated clothing and most small homesteads an farms do try and use their bird flocks to help keep their populations down, of course our hunting cats and the local skunk/Snakes help reduce the mice populations which in turn helps reduce the ticks as well.

One trick for in the gardens where we tend to spend a good amount of time is wood chip pathways that are at least three feet wide, the ticks do not like the wide open and very dry tops of this and will go around it on the moist green, this means that if you have these types of pathways in the right spots you can help prevent the ticks from traveling into your gardens in the first place and second you can work in your gardens more safely but still always remember to tick check yourself daily!

Which brings me to the tick removal tools, there are many on the market but they are all a version of each other, some are for your key chain, you do need to two sizes one for the smaller ticks and one for the bigger. I personally like this tick kit i picked up a few of them, they have the standard tick removal type slide and pull slow, but also tweezers and magnifying glass and tick collection tubes along with a id card etc.

You can tell that mine are a few years old and have been hauled on trips, camping and so on, its looking a bit worn but that is a good sign, all the tools have held up well to years of use and while you do need redo the wipes and so on replacement wise i have found them to be of good value

Farmgal Tip Hunters and or on farm butchering, if your deer or ? had ticks on them, once they are dead and starting to cool, the ticks on them will release, drop off where that body is and start looking for its next warm blooded host. That very much could mean you, yours or your pets or your truck bed or yard etc as you work on the processing, worth being aware of and keeping a eye on for sweeping up and removal.

Posted in Climate Change, Critters, Food Forest, Health, homestead, Personal Care, Real Life | Tagged Checking for ticks, Dogs, Health, Hunters and ticks, Increase in tick born illness, lyme-disease, mowing low for ticks, pets and ticks, poetry, preventing ticks, Tick habitat, Tick removal, tick removal kits, Tick testing in canada, Tick tracking, Ticks, ticks on the homestead, wood paths in your gardens | Leave a comment

Lets make some goals! Getter Done

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Written Goals are such a good starting point to at least try and direct the coming time.

Miss R and I have the same tracking and thought journals and we are enjoying finding a time (perhaps not daily) to work on them. We are also sharing the cooking and i must say that its delightful to hand over the kitchen and or meal planning to such a creative mind.

I took the goal list for 2022 done on our 50th year and used it as the starting point for this post.

They say that you should pick a word for the year. I very much want a Hygge house, garden, farm and year.

What does that mean you say.. it means good food, use the pretty dishes, buy the good coffee and tea, drink it out of the good tea cup or the big pottery mug with soft lap blanket with purrpot or puppy snuggled in while listening to music, or reading a book or gathering around the table for games night or card games or watching a movie together, outdoor gathered by the fire, walks down the garden paths and picnic’s..

Spend as much time in as many ways to enjoy and strengthen with continued active communication with Dear Hubby and in our overall household. The above really goes for everyone in my life that matters to me in different degrees..
Continue to work on different health issues within our household, some of which are stable an or improving and some which are currently not stable and are actively requiring care, surgery and treatment plans at this time. Ideally i would like to end the year in a full stable health place for the whole household.
Live, Love and Work with the land/farm.. Expand the plantings, working the current gardens, work the food forests, Meat, Milk, Eggs, Fruit, Veggies, Herbs and Medical Plantings..
Work on creating spots within the food forest, the kitchen garden and park garden that are both use for photography and for company.
Blog, Ok really i am paying for the blog and will continue to do so as long as i can afford it as there is a huge wealth of knowledge and i can see that every single day so many find and read posts but i really need to make a effort to write new posts, share photos and recipes and so on
Feed the birds in winter, continue to create haven on our farm for the wild birds
Continue support my gardens that have active breeding programs for my natives bees So MANY BEES

Replace, Repair, Rebuild in regards to continued farm/land/pasture needs. Drylot the horses again this coming spring and do a full reseeding and close off of some small sections of the pastures, clear the pastures carefully enough that i can use the big lawn mower to cut down and mulch for the soil health anything that the horses do not eat that the sheep would.
Photography, while i will continue to offer it for clients, i would like to also try and continue to do at least one passion project per month for the joy of it

Finish the kitchen to get my certification even more then i have now
Teach small classes again on all kinds of homesteading things
Host small classes, in the past year i have tree pruning and propagation including tree grafting courses offered here with me acting as the host.
Cut down trees to cut/stack for firewood, plant more tree babies for future fence posts and firewood
Would really like to do more fishing this year

Travel?? hmm maybe some short trips for my girlfriends and ideally at least one girl trip, otherwise no real travel plans for this year, its a stay at home year really.

Posted in At the kitchen table, Goals, homestead | Tagged Blogging, Blogging in your 50's, Enjoy your coffee, family meals, Garden, Gardening, Goals, homestead, Homesteading, Hygge, Its the little things, Keep it simple, Native Plants, nature, pets, photography, Small comforts, trees, Writing out your goals | 3 Comments

Another turning of the wheel onward to my 52nd year

Posted on October 24, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Its hard to believe that the year has come and gone and that a new one is starting today. My 51st year was filled with ups, downs and lots of steady as she goes. You know when they say to think back on the past year and figure out what the “overall year” was like.

My highlights words of the year would be “creative” ‘flexible” “travel” “family” “friends”

Having said that i would also need to add a few more words for the rest of the year “health” “boundaries” “worn”

In many ways, it was a excellent year, including a month long trip across Canada with time spent with family in Alberta, visiting the mountains and more

Yet it was a year filled with health issues for me, for dear husband and even for our pets. The loss of Paris is felt even with Fancy taking up so much space in our home and hearts. Even when they pass away from old age after living a amazing life, they are still very missed.

Dear Husband continues to be his amazing self, i could not ask for a better partner to walk though this life with. He has allowed his creative side out at a few of my hosted themed photography events as a model so proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone on these!

So far he has modeled as “trapper” in my western event, and mad doctor “Halloween Event” as well as personally modeling different ideas for me. I think its fair to say that we are both surprised and thrilled to find that he really enjoys stepping into a “character” as a model into a set. I am looking forward to seeing what “who” he will become for our next themed photoshoot project that we work on together.

I have worked very hard in the past year with regards to my photography and i have to give a HUGE shout out to the amazing folks i have meet in the ottawa an Eastern Ontario in terms of models, fellow photographers and clients.

The household end the year by growing by one person and a few more pets, as Miss R joined us here on the farm, she had been visiting and staying on the farm for farm sitting and just cuz for the past five years (man time fly’s by) I am also honored that she seemed to enjoy being one of my muses in front of the camera.

My own health has been up and down this year, rocky is the best way to say it, i have good days, holding on days and way to many rest/down days for my liking.

The farm itself had a major change in the past year, this spring, i made the very hard choice to send my remaining flock of ewes to a dear friend of mine farm, for the first time since we moved to the farm, we do not have a sheep flock, bringing our livestock down to chickens, ducks and our two horses.

I am happy to say that with the adding in of Miss R that the horses are getting back into work mode, Caleb is her hop on good old boy and take it nice and slow but she is actively getting Bojangles back into shape for a much more active work/ride life.

I am not at all sure what the coming year will look like but i am willing to say that the odds are in my favor that it will include the farm, the gardens, pets, farm critters, time spent with friends and or family, photography, some travel, creative outlets and more.

There is a lot of outside factors at play globally, in country in effect, Inflation is very much a factor, the increased cost in living is clearly seen everywhere and on so many levels. I am going to do my best to focus on things within my control and deal with things as they come.