Updates

We had a busy day yesterday lying on the beach and snorkelling with turtles...

Oh, did I forget to mention we are on vacation in Hawaii?? Updates when we get back next week and find out how things went with our awesome farm sitters!

Fun Weekend

We had some farm visitors this weekend!

Loic is so so good with Zoey (and she's good with him!). They would play fetch endlessly if we let them... Loic even did some field agility with Zoey!

Pippa and my dad spectated. 

Meanwhile, Maelle was being super gentle with Darla.

Awww, nice petting!

The farm visit ended in tears, but only because Loic didn't want to leave yet! On Saturday, he and Nathan carved a Minion pumpkin while Erika and I took Maelle to the spa for a haircut.

Meanwhile, Pippa ate. My parents and I built that new feeder in the top barn. It works perfectly! All made from found materials, as usual.

Tired boy and his farm dog snuggling.

This hammock swing provided an afternoon of entertainment!

Duck Duck Duck Tomato!

Nathan finished pulling all of the tomato plants out of the garden and the ducks were very happy to eat the fallen tomatoes. These sisters were fighting over every little cherry tomato even though there were about 20 on the ground! 

A super cute 10 yr old girl came and picked up two of the ducklings (the blue and white one above and her almost identical sister) for her 4H project. She also took Silver the drake. I only want to keep one drake and I thought it would be nice to keep Victoria's male duckling from this year. He's the one eating the tomato in the photo below. 

Bossy ducks telling Ryan to back off from their tomatoes!

Zoey and Lucy had a full zoom-y chase session around and around the ducks. The ducks didn't really care. Zoey was jumping over them and Lucy was racing around them.

 My parents came to visit overnight to pick up Lucy. They might end up with a Pippa in their car!

Who, me? I wasn't eating the last green leaves on the plum sapling...not me!

I dropped the two ram lambs off to the abattoir today. They were both pretty big - they barely fit into the large dog kennels in my car. We're keeping the last ewe lamb for a few more months since she is still small. One of the ram lambs burst his kennel open in the back of my car! Luckily he settled down back there and rested instead of jumping into the front seat. Abby and Zoey would not have been impressed!

Afraid of chickens?

 Probably not the farm to visit...

Incoming!! Always wondering whether I have something yummy for them.

Duck house expansion is complete! The ducks are finally starting to use it. Before they were acting like the new part of their house was going to eat them...

Underneath a mess...

I know I've posted some before and after shots before, but I was looking at the photos we took when we first saw this farm and was amazed again by how it looked before..I'm sure glad we were able to see through the mess! 

Before:

Now: Looked better in the spring and before a certain naughty goat stripped those raspberries bare!

This one is just...wow:

Now with our stairs up to the driveway. Eventually that oil tank will go and we'll repaint the outbuildings. 

This is our current project. Before:

We'll still use it for chickens or turkeys when need be, but we're turning the run into a seedling house with all the windows lying around. 

I always liked this before picture - nice spring grass (but you can see it was over grazed and lots of brown patches in the pasture).

Hard to tell but the grass looks much better now:

Pond? What pond? At this point we didn't even realize that there was water in all that brush.

That's a big drop off after the dock, now!

Just a mess...

Chickens favourite spot out of the rain, now:

The potential garden:

Became this!

The worst corner of the property:

 Turning into a nice little pasture!

Some forgotten photos

Nathan took this lovely photo during our overnight trip to Tofino in the winter:

My mom watching the sheep a few weeks ago

Zoey watching the sheep...always

 One of these things is not like the others! But oh so naughty and funny...

The sheep will move when Zoey or Ryan are asked to herd them. Pippa pays no attention and usually runs with or behind the dog instead of with the sheep...

She is so short and wide!

This is a typical morning scene...ready for chores!

Any bucket will do

Go away, kids - Mama's taking a bath!

Can't get any privacy around here...

And also, is there a competition for the worst moult of all time? 'Cause DoZ wins, wings down.