summer images

Rainy days sums up most of the summer. Lots of water for the garden, the hay and the pastures. Everything grew, but slowly and the hay couldn't be harvested until three weeks later than usual. We are still at it.

The best memories:

Matty saddling up Tango all by herself and galloping through the newly cut hay fields while Tango thoroughly enjoyed watching all the activity.

Petra giving her new bunny "Finn Rizzell" a bath, which doesn't sound that difficult until you realize that the bunny weighs about 12lbs and didn't enjoy it!

Georgina and her berry patch. She scouted out the strawberry plants in early May with Willy and marked them. She picked lots of little sweet berries in July and Saskatoon berries from the same little area in August.

Peter jumping off the hay way up on the hay trailer and all his hay aerobatics most of which resulted in him landing askew on the ground or hay bales.

Driving the hay truck at dusk with it being loaded without me by Peter, Petra, Matty and Georgie.

Henry's grin as he drove the Ford 9N with the little rake on it over the cut hay.

Willy helping cut the hay, standing in the tractor with John for hours telling him what to do. He could probably cut the hay by himself at just 7 years old, he was so completely attuned with the process.

Maggie in a dress. Everyday if she had her way!

Covering the garden in a layer of plastic to protect it from frost on July 3rd and again on August 24th. Not a long growing season!!

Realizing that you just don't need to plant several packets of each type of seed for the garden. The seeds actually have a high germination rate and 200 lettuces was overkill. Although, I am looking forward to harvesting the 200 kohlrabi and all the red cabbages.

Going on a calf counting expedition with Willy to the 240. He hadn't been through the shortcut and was really excited when I took the quad through the foot deep water on the way. Then when we found the cows, I called them and we stood still as a whole bunch of them circled us. As soon as one of the cows got too close, Patch would chase them off to a safe distance. Then we started counting the calves and Willy kept track as more and more of them emerged from the bush.

Looking in the forest for the last cow to give birth. She had been hiding for the previous two days and I was pretty sure she had a new calf. When I went looking, I saw her with the three cows she was penned with and parked my quad to look for the new calf. I was walking along and I heard all this rustling and looked up, the red cow was gone. I didn't think she could move that fast. After chasing her and losing her a couple times I finally caught up with her as she was nuzzling her newborn red bull calf. Very cool.

The many gorgeous sunsets, oranges and red usually with a lot of clouds. Always so beautiful.

The girls putting all the calves they raised this year together in one pasture so they could have all 9 together.

Georgina putting a halter on Java, a small Angus calf that the girls raised for me and riding him for a few steps.

Peter getting so excited during a thunderstorm that he talked us all into going into the hot tub with him only to be pelted with hail and heavy rain and have the water getting choppy with the force.

The absolute joy in Peter's face as he opened his box of one day old turkey poults. And watching him build them a gorgeous indoor pen for when they were young. Finally he enlisted Henry and they reclaimed the chicken pen in the red barn and cleaned it out and fixed it up for the turkeys. The last step was recruiting all the kids and some help from John and his tractor to create an outdoor pen for the turkeys.

The morning calf feeding with the girls walking up the hill carrying their buckets of milk. Petra explaining to me how the Holstein calves get sunburns on their noses and sometimes on their skin under their white patches.

Peter walking by the apple tree and stopping us all to help thin the apples because there was just too many apples for the tree.


Its been a great summer.