Dry, Dusty Week

We got lots done this week, everyone's corn is planted, all our seeding is done, and our grain is planted. Here is Bruce disking, and Jesse planting barley and another one of him planting grass seed with a borrowed Brillion seeder. We are fortunate to have great neighbours, because ours broke, and before we could take the time to fix it, Donnie and Brian were quick to offer us the use of theirs. It is very dry, and staying cold.

What's on T V ?

Willard, our flying llama, has spent more time out of the pasture than in it lately. We must be the only people on our block that have a peeping llama.

Happy Birthday Kara Bliss

Monday was Kara's birthday..she was 2..Sarah, Carrie & Bruce went over last night for a form of chocolate cake that I hear might have been made on Saturday. It was excellent!! Stacy is such a good cook!! Here is Kara wearing her new hat.

School Tours

Today Sarah started her school tours. We have about 400 children coming this year, over the next 3 weeks. The schools are from Hampton, Quispamsis, Rothesay and Saint John. For this years tours we have borrowed chickens, rabbits, piglets, a guinea pig, a pony and a horse from our good friend George, so with the animals we have we can show the kids a variety of animals.
Sarah first gets the kids to feed a few calves, and they look at the animals up in the calf barn, then go down to the lower barn and look at whatever is down there, up to the hay mow, out to manure pit, then back to see milk truck, then milk a cow, have a treat and get a ride on the horse or pony. Sarah really loves doing this, she tries hard to smile and not swear too much.
Today's class was from Leatherbarrow in Hampton, Ms. Davis & Ms. Kingston, and if I remember correctly, it was Christine that got this all started many years ago. Now we have parents coming with their kids that remember coming as children themselves. Yikes!!

LAC Mitham

Today, a bunch of us attended the Ceremonial Review for the 527 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Leading Air Cadet Carrie Mitham made us proud. Here she is pictured being inspected, and a pic of her shiny boots, with credit being given to her cousin Dan who polished them, and a pic of her and Dan.

Corn

Busy day today. I finished up planting our corn, planted our neighbours corn, and went over to Stacy's and started planting Gilbert's corn. I have 2 more farms after Gilbert's to plant corn for. Jesse planted barley today, and is packing it and the corn tonight and picking rocks. I guess we need a picture of picking rocks for May. What's packing?

Coring A Pineapple

This weekend we were fortunate to have Tanya come visit with Emma, Madilyn, and Sarah. This morning we cored and ate a very tasty pineapple with our handy dandy tool that our very good friends Fia and Jaap gave me when I visited them in Holland last September.

What do we do with all this poop?

I spread almost 200 loads of manure last week. At 20 minutes a load.


Last load and Empty!!

Jesse Spreading Lime

Jesse Harrowing

We had a busy week. Here is Jesse harrowing with a new John Deere tractor we were trying out.
Very windy week here.

My Old Brown Truck

The brown truck turned 20 this week. We bought it on May 12th, 1988. It still kinda looks good if you don't look too close. We have a lot of memories associated with this truck. Cattle shows all over the Maritimes, the North American International Livestock show in Louisville Kentucky, the trips to the Royal in Toronto and the World Guernsey Conference show in Stratford Ontario in 1989. And all those trips to Oklahoma to get trailers. (Peter came with me once and drove when I got tired..I didn't stay tired long! What composure I didn't loose going through the Airline to Bangor, was lost approaching toll booths at 100mph!) And Grandpa and Sarah had a good trip too...which Salem were they looking for anyways? This is a pic of the truck on the way back from dropping heifers off at the dry pasture tonight. The dry cow pasture..ahhh...fond family bonding memories are made there too! Anyone want to go help catch some dry cows ?

A Mother of a day

Today we had Grandma; Sheila & Art; Stacy, Gilbert, Kara & Bradford; Jesse, Carrie & Victoria all home for a Mother's Day lunch. Here is a pic of all the mothers and of course there was one who didn't want to be in the picture.

I guess llamas can fly...

Well, maybe not fly, but they can jump fences...Willard has been out a few times but never broke the fence! We are still going with the premise that he will return to the same spot to poop..Seems to be working so far. We got the cows out on Tuesday, spread a lot of manure this week and today got a rain day to get the bookwork caught up. Got April done and the HST filed. Tonight I talked to my good friend Barry Martin, the fellow that taught me all I needed to know how to farm. (Or as he would put it, the things you shouldn't do).

We hope Llamas don't fly.

Today we got some dry cows down to the dry cow pasture, our first ones out of the barn this year, and the 2 goats(Billy&Emmagoat), sheep(Santa), horse(Ginger) and llama(Willard, who if you remember is in charge of this blog) are out today too. We don't know how well the llama will respect 1 strand of electric fence, maybe we will know by morning!

Cows can Fly!

Sarah spent this past week with Tanya and her family, helping out with the new baby and also was on hand for Emma's 6th birthday. Here she is with a flying cow that Nanny & Papa found in the airport in London.

This Week

We spent this week getting back into the swing of things, and started our spring work. Here we are using the new set of plows.

While we were away

The farm was well looked after while we were away, here is our star pulling a calf. Remember Superman?

Homeward bound

On Monday we took a cab to Heathrow airport, and thanks to web check in, but more importantly, Sarah's cane, we were only 10 minutes from the time we walked into the terminal until we were thru security and in the midst of countless bottles of liquor and samples at the duty free. And that brings us to Sarah Allison, who wasn't born when we were at the airport in Halifax, but was by the time we got to Norton. Tanya did tell us that she would have her baby before we got home.

Sunday, April 20th

Saturday was spent relaxing after a busy week, then on Sunday we drove out to Windsor castle.

Friday, April 18th

Today, after visiting the farm again, we went to Chartwell, the home of Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England during World War II, and one who was largely given credit for the Allied victory. Then back into London, and we had a very enjoyable stroll (cold and windy, the buds were blowing off the trees and we thought it was snow!) down The Mall to look at Buckingham palace, then back past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. Friday evening we took in the musical Grease, a presentation of the school where Ainslie, Liam & Cameron attend.