Seedlings!

Pepper newly emerging

Tomatoes and Peppers

Here we are with all the new seedlings.  I have tomatoes already getting their true leaves and will have to plant into larger container in a couple of days!  I have more onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and spinach getting started today  so I can get a really good start to the year!  We are working on an out door greenhouse this coming weekend and if we can get it done I will have pictures next week.

Xander is doing really well and would like to meet the rest of the herd but he still has to stay in to get use to me.  I want him to know that I am not going to harm him and also if I notice if something is not right then I don't have to try to get him into a strange barn!  I am hoping by the weekend to let him out as long as thing stay good and he is eating and drinking well.

My mini greenhouse

Welcome Xander (aka XXX or Triple X)

Xander in the barn

Whisper hearing Xander bawling in the barn

Whisper at the barn trying to figure out who is in there!

Boy what a beautiful day for March Break and exciting news.  We have a new addition to our Dexter herd...a wonderful bull named Xander (aka XXX).  I like his real name Xander but DH thinks it should be XXX like after Xander Cage in the movie XXX. It is his turn to do the naming so I can't complain as I got the name I liked for his registered name.  His father is Saturn's Galaxy and his mother is Royle Nora.  He will be our herd sire for the next couple of years!  We hope he will produce some great offspring in the future.   We picked him up yesterday in Alfred, Ontario. It's a 2 hour trip when we have to pull a trailer behind our van with kids in tow.  All went well though and we had a good trip home.  Xander is adjusting to his new home very well and even let me give him a rub this afternoon!  He has such a docile temperment for a bull it still quite amazes me.  I had to keep the girls out in the field yesterday as we had to open the gates so that we could get Xander in the barn.  So this morning I let them up to the barn for water and a treat of grain, when Xander bawled!  Well our herd boss ,Whisper, heard this she was quite concerned and ran to the barn doors and started bawling back.  They won't get introduced right away as I like to quarantine new animals and get them use to me before they get out with the herd.  Well after the bawl fest, which means Whisper is satisfied for now, thing went back to normal for the rest of the day.

I took the boys to the library to learn about the Science of Flight and a Magic Show using Chemistry!  They sure had a lot of fun!  As they were doing this I was entertaining our youngest so that he would not be tempted to take all the books off all the shelves!!  This is a favourite pastime of his at home and it is one that he itches to do every time we go to the Library.  The rest of the afternoon they played outside making a rocket that the "magicians"  showed them how to do at the Magic Show.  They took a film canister put some baking powder in it, then added a bit of water, put the cap on, turned it upside down and then waited for the gas to expand and then shoots the canister up in the air!  I kept an eye on them while they did that and I finally managed to get some of the maple trees taped.  Nothing is running yet, so I will try and head up to the bush to get the couple of trees tapped up there before it starts to rain!!

Warm Days and Cool Nights

Here they come! The nights are cool and the days are warm...time for the sap to run. I haven't done maple syrup in two years as we had such a surplus. Well I finally ran out just before Christmas...I guess we had too many Pancake Tuesdays! Well it will be fun as I now have 2 kids old enough to help a little more. I love getting them to help and Ethan, who is 4, is super excited as he thinks its his first time. Little does he know that I would put him in the backpack and trudge through the snow in the bush to collect the sap. That's quite a work out that's for sure.

I am also getting a pen ready for the new bull we are getting. I will post some pictures when we actually get him home.

We had a really nice day and I let the roosters out and took the little one out to meet the Dexters and roosters.  He looked at them and they looked at him, neither of them impressed with each other. The cows were more concerned with the roosters as they were eating the leftover grain that they like to spill on the ground.

On the seedling front, my onions, lettuces, and tomatoes have sprouted...just waiting on the spinach and the peppers!!  I found out our market starts at the beginning of May so I will have to get working on that green house soon so I can plant out the lettuces, spinach, radishes, chard and beets so I can hopefully have something by then!!

Whisper and Willow...My Sweet Little Dexters

I was just looking back on here and realized that I don't have any pictures up of my 2 dexters!!  We got our 2 girls from Dan and Ellen Riopelle in the Ottawa Valley about one and a half years ago.  I wasn't really into the cattle as I grew up with Shorthorns but I needed nourishment for my gardens and these came up so my cattle herd began.  As we have 3 young boys and a city slicker husband, we were looking for a breed that wasn't high strung and large like some I have been around.  We did some research and realized that some of these mini breeds might be good for us.  I knew after seeing the Dexter breed at a local farm that if I was going to have cattle again, then this is exactly what we were looking for. In a couple of weeks we will have a new addition, a bull, to help get us on the way to expand the herd and I am looking forward to trying to milk the one dexter I have been conditioning to do so.  I am also looking forward to having our own meat, but that will be a couple of years for that!  For now we will enjoy them as they are!  The top picture is of Whisper and the bottom picture is Willow. 

One Blistery Day!!

March is really coming in like a lion that is for sure!!  We has 15 cm of snow on Monday and today the wind is just crazy!!!  However,  the chickens are quite cozy in their coop!  Finally have the egg production back up and running regular enough that I can offer eggs for sale once again!!  There is still so much to do before spring planting. We are getting our seeds started, plans for the gardens and new idea's brewing for the market!!  Today is a good day for that.  I also have to get my maple syrup equipment cleaned and accounted for this year as I ran out syrup this winter!!  I think we had too many pancakes and french toast dinners :)  So that is on the menu today as well as getting more seeds planted.

Frosty Morning Fun

Wow!!  Yesterday sure was a frosty morning!!!  It is one of the things that gets me excited about winter.  While heading out to put the kids on the bus, I snapped a couple of pictures around the farm.  It sure was a cold nippy morning too!!  Sometimes it's what keeps you in the fight to make living on the farm all worth it.  As my husband has to work in the city, he doesn't always get to see the beauty that I get to see at those special parts of the day.  In other news, we had a good dumping of snow last week and we tried something new.  My husband took the tractor and snow blowed a path so the kids could get their x-country skis out and not have to wade through the snow.  I think it was the first time too that the little one in the sled wasn't carrying a load of snow :)  It sure adds a lot of weight and you know who is pulling the sled....mom sure gets tired after that!!  Well I am sure it won't be here too much longer so we will enjoy it while it last as we start heading into March in a couple of weeks and the sap starts to run!!

The Newest Addition!!

Happy Belated New Year Everyone!  It has been a while but we have been busy getting everything else done.  The picture to my right is of our new charolais heifer.  We don't have a name for her yet but Ethan seems to like to call her Olivia??? She is suppose to have a name beginning with 'X' but Ethan doesn't know any 'X' names and to be truthful, neither do I.  The baby book that my husband wishes that I throw out doesn't have much either.  I wish it was a lot warmer out as you can see she is quite dirty and I would like to hose her off but that will have to wait till it warms up.  In the meantime, we are still getting to know her and she us.  She has a fairly quite temperment but will let you know right away if you are doing something she doesn't like.  Unlike my Dexters, she eats and drinks twice as much but she is also a larger breed and has a whole other purpose than the Dexters.  Willow and Whisper are still letting her know that she is last in line for everything, especially when it comes to grain time!!