it's been a while

Good day to everyone who's reading this..  It has been quite a while since I have added to this blog. We have had some busy years here on the farm. In 2010 we had to deal with allot of extra water and the sloughs and feilds were  extreemly wet.  Driving truck for our harvest was a difficult chore for the old loadstar truck..  You were unable to drive in most fields with a load so we only ever loaded with half a load.. This entailed quite a bit more driving and unloading for the poor old truck. Our fields were also quite a bit smaller because of the water takeing ove.. Now in 2011 it was better. still quite a bit of water but the fields were not as wet and driving for harvest was better than  the year before.. This year it seems to be improving again.  we had a very wet spring but did manage to get the crops in   a little late but in none the less. Then in June we had it  dryer and now the beginning of July we had it HOT and dry. some places still got rain with the storms that came through but all in all dryer..  I was just thinking I'd better start watering my garden when this past weekend July15 we had an inch of rain so that will go along way with the garden and the crops.. The crops have just been flowering and the wheat has heads so this rain will help fill those pods and heads.. The  over all weather is quite a bit more humid than normal but we are getting used to it. I am hoping to pick some of my early peas today or tomorrow that will make a delicious meal. We have had beavers in every possible slough around here and the R.M. has had a bounty on their tails. They are causing a lot of damage to water ways by damming them  up and they just make messes and kill trees everywhere else. Looking over the landscape there are a lot of dead trees and bushes because of flooding and that is sad. Well I will have to go check my chickens now and I will hopefully get in some pictures soon. Take care everyone and enjoy your summer.

Christmas

Christmas time on the farm is always interesting. This year we were definatly not  wanting for snow as we have lots of it everywhere. Here in Sask it is Definatly a WHITE CHRISTMAS ..We had the fire lit and it kept everyone warm and toasty  and just gives the general comfort fealing to the house ,,  We had all the family over to our house on Dec 25.. It was a fun day with 18 people roaming aound the house visiting and have  good food. Tables were set up in the living room and in the basement and later taken down for more comfy seating. We had a later dinner this year so ended up not doing much outside.. Most of the people showed up from 2:30 to 3:30 and then we ate.. By the time dinner was done it was dark out so  the kids played downstairs with their Playstation 3 and us adults had a wonderful visit upstairs. It was a fun time..  Next on the list is New years.. how time flyes by as come new year it it is time to start planting some of the little seads that need to grow into wonderful flowers in the summer.. The days start getting longer and all the plants in the house start looking happier.. I usually start my onions and leeks  the first week of Jan so that will be the next job for me..

handmade fitted cloth diapers for sale

price $10 for size sm/med without velcro
$11.50 for  ones with velcro
New born $8.25 without velcro
$10 for ones with velcro
Plastic pants new born 3 for $9
sm/med 3 for $15

shipping extra

The Diaper adventure

Well Life on the farm is supposed to be kinda layed back but in reallity it can be stressfull. It seems that growing a crop and selling to the hungry people in the world just isn't enough to raise a family .. Out here I do as much as I  can naturally  and produce as much food for ourselves as I can..  I have a huge garden to supply my vegetables and I raise chickens for eating..   I also have chickens for laying eggs.. so if push comes to shove I  guess we could just about live on our own food.. The farming opperation however is not enough to pay for everything else.. It seems eveything  else is more,, your phone is more as there is a distance charge added on because you live far out and everywhere you go is at least a half hour drive away or more .  So I try to  do other things to make some extra money, they say the trick to farming is to diversify... I   make willow baskets and my latest adventure is Cloth diapers.. This adventure started when I had 6 nieces/nephews all having babies within 6 months of eachother.. some of them wanted cloth diapers  for their babies but the diapers are so expensive.. I took the challange and checked things out and made them some diapes .. Now I am trying to sell them as a small busisness..  I make them out of sherpa cotten it is a streach kinda sweat shirt material but it is 100% cotton and then the soaker layer is a material that absorbs 10 X it's weight in liquid in 1/10 of a seccond..  the layer close to the baby's skin is a stay dry liner that wicks water away into the soaker layers.   I either add velcro or you would use pins or a "snappie fastener " to close it .. I also make plastic pants to cover the diaper  out of PUL or basicly cloth with a rubber backing or I could make each diaper have it's own plastic pants.. I make a new born size and then  a small/ med size,,haven't made the large size yet but it would be possible. this second size is two sizes  in one to save you having to buy small and med diapers..  you just fold over the front of the diaper for the smaller size and unfold it for the larger size. The nice thing about diapers is that  weather does not bother them,, they do not need watering or keeping them from frost and it is something I can do in the winter months while staying nice and warm beside my wood fire place ..

garden produce

some of my garden produce,, you can see how muddy the carrots are and the beets..  and now I know how to upload pictures to this blog.. The sun is trying to peek thorough the clouds today but it is haveing  a tough go. I hope it  is successful soon..

rain again

This is a new experience for me.. I will attempt to do some blogging..This has been an interesting year on the farm so far .. I  have not needed to water my garden at all this year except for the baskets and pots. It seemed that everytime my meager 17 gallon rain barrel was empty it rained once again and filled it up.. I never had to use my big 40 gallon one  and now with the frost here I  just drained it on the grass.. What a waist. I figure all in all we have had 35 inches of rain or more since the end of May... sloughs are huge  vehicals parked for storage are under water and parts of our field there is no way to get  to as they are surrounded by water..The fields are so wet that I'm thinking we will be spending allot of  our time out there harvesting  pulling out the vehicals..Our neighbours tried combining and from what I heard the combine was stuck a few times the grain cart pulled by a tractor got stuck a few times and the swather was also stuck.. I'm not sure how much they actually got into the bin as the days are so short now and with everything getting stuck I'm thinking they didn't spend much time actually combining..  We haven't even turned a combine wheel yet...All in all my garden was ok this year except for certain crops..  the tomatoes got blight, the cabbage went to seed and had no heads and the corn froze before  the cobs matured. The rest of the vegetables were fine.. the wonderful flavorfull onion, the tasty cellery, the  colorfull carrot, the beans and the  pop in your mouth peas and the not that bountifull potato.. My freezers are full and ready for winter..  just think of all the delicious stews and soups  we will be eating this winter..  The chickens turned out well and I have 6 to 9 lb chickens in the freezer as well.. yum yum.. I raised 110 chickens to compleation and had wonderfull help for the final  job of  getting them ready for the freezers.. We were all happy to take home the wonderful looking birds for our freezers. thanks to everyone who helped with the final job.  we are now hoping for nice weather so we can actually take in the crop..   they are promising us by the end of the week but they've promised that before and it hasn't happend so we will wait and see what the days bring.