I'm certainly not complaining that winter has taken so long to arrive this year, but I do like the look of winter and enjoy some of those winter sports. Like tobaggoning. So I told the kids to put down the books were going outside to enjoy the snow! Hope you too are enjoying winter so far!
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I'm going to pause our tour up the laneway as to be honest, the only two things on my mind right now are these cuties.... And my kitchen. If you recall, I mentioned in a previous post that one of the reasons holding us back on deciding on our house a year ago, was this unfinished kitchen. It was pretty much an empty slate. The only thing in the kitchen was an island and a wood stove. However, it was the potentional in this empty slate that also sold us. Like the eating area/dining room just off the kitchen with it's bank of windows...loved it! Those funky chandeliers definitely had to go but the skylights above them...loved them! And the area was huge! Bigger than any kitchen I've ever had! But the woodstove was a different matter and something me and the hubs had different opinions on. I thought it was an eye sore right dab in the middle of my kitchen. He saw a heating source and indoor grill for his steaks and burgers. As I said, we moved into our home nearly a year ago. The above photos were taken January 30, 2011 and it has looked pretty much like this until about a couple weeks ago when we finally bought cabinets. The reason for that was a) we wanted to make sure we loved our new home and were going to stay before we put the time, money, and energy into it; and b) I seriously lack a decorating bone in my body. It might have been a clean slate, but I had no idea where to begin. I did know that the woodstove and brick wall behind it would have to be a consideration. I do like the look of bricks but I wasn't sure if I liked it in my kitchen. And I may not have a decorating bone in my body but I do have a general idea of what I like. With the brick wall in mind, I thought something rustic would be nice but I didn't want antlers hanging from my walls or deer skin on my floor. I then thought country but I'm not a huge fan of florals or gingham. So I thought what about cowboy country? I do like alot of horse /cowboy decor but wasn't sure if a kitchen was the best place for it. Saloon doors in the kitchen entrance just isn't my thing. I scratched anything antique as I like antique in moderation but that's it. So I began researching the internet and magazines and it was while I was looking up different styles of kitchen islands that I came across this image and immediately it spoke to me and the ideas in my head began flowing. I'm afraid I have no idea where I got the picture now as I was so excited I immediately saved it to my computer and clicked off the page I found it on. This has become my inspiration kitchen. I won't be copying detail by detail from this kitchen but it gave me food for thought and got my creative juices flowing. It blends country, rustic, and a bit of antique with a modern design in the stainless steel appliances and granite countertop. And it even has a brick wall!! I love it! And am now so excited to get started on my kitchen!
So to continue our tour from yesterday, we continue up the laneway. When you reach the top, your view of the house is now blocked by a wall of tall "bamboo" grass. It's not really bamboo grass but I have no idea of it's proper name so I've been calling it bamboo grass as it very similar as it fast growing and very tall with hollow stems, but I won't be building any huts out of it. It does, however, create a great windbreak from the open farmer's field to our right and in the summer the grass turns a nice shade of green. This is a view of our property looking west from across the farmer's field. And while we are discussing this farmer's field, let's take a quick detour and hang a right off the laneway to that strip of land I referred to yesterday. We went for a walk and I snatched my camera and took some images. We are now facing south in the photo below and the laneway is to your right, down a slight decline, on the opposite side of the hydro pole. When you reach the bottom, this is where the strip of lands bends and the neighbours property begins. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we maintain this strip of land after the bend because it wraps around to the entrance of the woods and is far easier to walk on then the open farmer's field, especially for Chase. To be honest, I'm not sure who this strip of land belongs to...either the farmer who's land runs adjacent to it or the township who owns this small old graveyard at the end of the strip of land. The strip of land is the only means of reaching the graveyard with a lawnmower. The only other entrance is a rickety old metal staircase. We do not mow the graveyard, the city comes and does that and has to drive across our property to this strip of land to do so. It is rather inconvenient. Anyway, on the opposite side of the graveyard is the gate opening to the trails beyond. We don't go any further then that nowadays because after last summer's wet and warm season, the grass grew unbelievably high...and nobody was willing to mow that! I love this piece of land and when the boy isn't with us, me and the hubs will often venture past the gate to go exploring. We actually have dreams of renting this land for our herd of sheep some day. For now it sits empty and unused...well except for the wildlife that has made it home and the odd hike we make through it. Can't you just picture sheep doting this land? But back to our tour and the laneway. Once you reach the end of our laneway, it forks in two directions. I'm not really sure what the point was in the development of this fork other than a rather lazy person who couldn't take the extra few yards to go around that small patch of land between them. It is in that small patch of land that I keep my compost. The fork to the left leads to the horse barn and the back of the house. And the fork to the right leads to my least favourite view on the property. And I hate that it is one of the first sights to greet my visitors shortly after arriving at the farm. Yes, that is our manure pile sitting wide open at the end of the laneway for all to see on a slab of cement. I would love to move it behind the driveshed where it is out of sight and actually closer to the barn, but I have an immensely huge fear of setting off an unwanted fire, that until I can think of somewhere else to put it, it will sit here wide open on the cement slab for all to see where it cannot reach any buildings thank you very much.
Now not wanting to leave you with that image above, I'll leave you with this shot I caught of Skeeter standing in the garden next to the pond. I officially welcome visitors to this website on my home page, but I don't think I've ever given you a "virtual" welcome and keeping to my new blog goals, I'd like to pull back and welcome you to the farm. We live in an old farmhouse set back from the road on the top of a hill. The front pasture is to your left. It is lined on the one side by old railroad ties. Those railroad ties been there awhile now and sit on the slope of a hill. They are a pain to maintain as you can imagine. Anyway, let's head up the lane toward the house. Most of our property sits to the left of the laneway, however there is a strip of land approximately thirty feet wide on the right side and runs the length of our property. It wraps around the farmer's field at the base and continues on to an old graveyard. That parts not really ours but we mow it and keep it maintained as it is the only trail to the woods next door. As we drive up the laneway the house will come into better view. This is my favourite view of the house. The same view in winter. The bottom window on the left side of the chimney is where I took yesterday's photo. Here is the same shot but taken outside the window. You can see the driveway and the strip of land on the opposite side. If you pan to the rght, you will see my favourite view found anywhere on the property. The pasture has rolling hills and a valley that empties into a culvert at the bottom left corner beneath the fence line that drains into the swamp across the road. Yes, we live across the road from a swamp but it is more wetland like than swampy and very very pretty. The mosquitoes during summer, however, are not so pretty and I discuss their invasion in this post if you missed it.
I will stop today's tour here and continue tomorrow's tour up the laneway which reveals my least favourite view of the farm. I was thinking the other day about what it was that drew me back to some blogs and not others. And the answer was rather simple. Farm life. But more specifically, that part of which farm life appeals to me personally. I love country living. Growing up in the city I earned for the wide open spaces of the countryside. For so long I would drive down a country road and dream of the day I would live there. Out there something would speak to me. And now that I live here, it continues to speak to me. Blogs that depict images of the countryside or a farm draw me back again and again. I love blogs that welcome me to their home, their farm, their part of the country. I love being a virtual visitor. I may enjoy a few images of your critters, those buds on your plants, your superbly delicious dinner plate, that amazing sunset...but pull back, let me see more. I want to see your critters playing in their pasture, in the barnyard or on your front porch. I want to see that front porch, just not a bannister. Invite me into your kitchen and make me feel like I could pull up that stool in the corner and watch while you cook. And when you take that sunset photo, take it from your back window and let me see what you see, let me see the whole picture. I also love blogs that don't sugarcoat country life. It isn't all picture perfect. It's a tough life at times. From finances, to death, to downright filthy jobs, there is a price to pay living in paradise. But I love hearing those stories. Maybe because it makes me feel less alone, or that I have a mutual connection with the author of that blog, but whatever it is those are the ones that draw me back. With this realization, I gave my own blog a good look. Was I offering the same open frankness? Was I being honest to the hardships of country life? Was I drawing back and letting people in? I believe I have been fairly open with the realities of country living, but truthfully won't remember to post about an incident until much later. Sometimes I can get so caught up in those incidents that I forget to mention them in my blog. I will make more of a concscience effort in the future to share with my readers all the good along with the bad. And I know I'm guilty of taking far too many close-up photos of my critters. I suppose that is an easy one to succomb to as we adore our critters and think everyone will love them just as much as we do. Even though we forget that our readers don't get a sense of our critter's personality through photos. So I will work on pulling back. Inviting you into the barn first before I slam you with a photo of my adorable goat's nose shoved into the camera. And this one is a hard one, but I will work harder at inviting you, my virtual visitors, into my home. I'm not especially proud of my home as it is a work in progress so maybe I will bring you along on this journey of renovating and redecorating. Just as long as you bring a hammer or paintbrush along with you. :) So with these new goals for my blog theme in mind, I will share with you my view from my windows next to where I'm sitting right now. We had moved my computer to another room to accomodate the livestream camera hooked up to the new puppies and I'm so liking it's new home. My view before was the pond on one side...and our manure pile on the other. Lovely. Not. But here in this new room, I still have a partial view of the pond on my left.... And on the right is a view of the driveway, some of the front yard, and the tire swing where I can watch my boy play. So much better. I know it's not much but it's a beginning. In the next few weeks I'll take you along on a tour of our farm and property, hopefully teach you a thing or two, introduce you to some old friends, and hopefully some new ones, maybe try out a new recipe in my brand new spanking kitchen and learn how to carpet a stairwell together. Sounds fun, doesn't it? See you at the farm!
Or should I say livestream! Check them out LIVE! (Link on photo.) I've also added a Puppy Cam page above for those who are interested in watching puppies grow.
Oh my gosh, we can't get enough of these little guys. We are so enjoying their company in the house. I may just have to keep this one.
The best New Year's gift of all...new year babies! Our goldens, Emma and Ryder, gave birth to 10 beautiful puppies. For her first time, Emma did extraordinary! The birth went without incident on Emma's part and after she expelled the afterbirth after the eigth baby, we thought that was it and left her alone with her babies and went to make supper. I decided to pop in for a quick peak to make sure everything was fine and found two more babies! Dogs give birth two at a time but generally five minutes apart in order to give mom time to clean up baby and have them breathing on their own before the next one arrives. Then about half an hour after that the next two appear and the process begins all over. Emma had given birth to both babies at the same time (assuming because she had already passed the afterbirth) and the one was still lying in her sack unattended. I quickly moved the baby up to Emma for immediate care and she worked on it but it was too late. There was barely any life in the little thing. I performed CPR as per instructions in our breeding book and though the tiny creature made a few gasps of air, it had no life in it and far from able to feed. I layed it next to Emma and watched as she cleaned it up some more, rolled it around until it was tucked under her cheek. I started to cry as I realized that Emma was comforting the baby until it eventually slipped away. They stayed in that position for a long time, while I sat and cried. Then remarkably, I noticed the baby's belly rise and fall and knew it was still alive. Then it cried...and moved. It had lived! Somehow Emma had saved it's life. Not sure if she did it intentionally or not, but she had placed the puppy over her arm and pressed down on it with her cheek, forcing the fluid out of it's lungs. It still had no interest in feeding but it was rolling around and crying as the others and this morning it still lives and has been eating up a storm. We are so thrilled and extremely happy that Emma got through the birth without any trouble or health issues. She is by far our most favourite dog and it would have been devastating to loose her. But now, we are able to enjoy miniature versions of her. Ten little versions!
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