Winter on the farm

Warning: This post contains pictures of the stages of butchering and raw meat....read at your own risk!

Daisy the milk cow got retired around Christmas time- she raised two calves this last year and I wasn't getting enough milk from her to make it worthwhile. She did not get re-bred last summer/fall, so she will not be milking this year. We just weaned her calves about a month ago and she is out with the beef cows for the summer I guess....we'll see what happens come fall, but I think her re-productive life is over. I'm looking for a new cow, but with baby on the way, Trevor isn't in too big of a hurry for me to get another cow just yet...

My 27 hens came through the winter in great form - I didn't have a single loss and they consistently laid 10 dozen a week even in their non-insulated shed!

One rooster had escaped the coop just before we closed them in for the winter, and he spent the entire winter fending for himself in the barnyard - too skittish for us to get within 30 feet of him...he was quite the sight to see running around some days, scratching in the bull's bedding and crowing from the haystack. I've let the hens out a few times to free range in this nice weather, but I'm scared to put my electric netting up for fear of freezing rain or snow to destroy it....I'll wait a few more weeks I think! The 25 roosters were butchered with help from our friends over at Green Acres Farm It was an interesting day - since it was the first time any of us had butchered chickens (at least in our adult lives), but it worked out well. The weather was quite chilly and grey and we had 4 kids under 5 to keep track of, but the 4 of us still managed to get everything done! Once again the pictures are tied up on my other computer...
We also had my FIL's ducks here, 6 Muscovy ducks, they're interesting creatures, I'm not 100% sure what they're good for most of the time, but they do eat lots of flies in the summer and they are quite interesting to watch!



Della and Oliver enjoyed the extended nice weather too - as it meant they got a couple more months of comfortable life.

Their lives came to an end over the new years weekend, once again a learning experience, as we had never processed pork on our own, but it turned out quite well! The two little piggies combined had warm carcass weight of about 200lbs.

They were just over 7 months old and were runty little orphans, so I think they did pretty good. We spent somewhere around $200 on their feed and care for the summer, so the price per pound is pretty darn reasonable. We butchered them in about 3 hours on a Saturday, and spent the holiday Monday cutting them up and de-boning the venison we had in the freezer (Trevor had a shot a nice sized buck during the season in November, which we just quartered and froze to make sausage with when we did the pigs).

Sausage making started after Lolo went to bed on Tuesday evening at 8:30 and continued til almost 3am....no, I would not recommend that schedule, nor would I want to repeat that!

We ended up with 90lbs of sausage - 50lbs of that was breakfast sausage style, 20lbs Italian sausage and 20lbs Chorizo.

Bacon - rubbed with cure and ready to sit for 10 days or so.

We also have lots of roasts, chops and some ribs and we even tried our hand at making bacon....although we know that we'd have to do it a bit different next time - its far to salty to eat on its own - but makes great base for soup, chili, etc. We also made 23lbs of ground venison into jerky sticks and dried it. Those turned out great and we ate them all up in less than 2 months!

Just a couple weeks ago, we had another weekend of butchering. Trevor came home early on a Friday so we could butcher BB – Daisy’s blind steer calf from last spring. Time had come that we no longer had extra corral space to just let him be, and since we can’t turn him out in the electric fence, it was time to say good-bye. He was somewhere between 6-700lbs live weight, in my estimation and we ended up with 150lbs ground meat and about 30-40lbs of boneless tenderloin and boneless roasts along with 8lbs or so of liver. He turned out to be a good size for the two of us to butcher on our own – not TOO much work for one weekend! We processed 50lbs of the ground meat into jerky sticks again – Trevor’s favorite snack! It has been good for me to have this around too, since I’m borderline for Gestational diabetes during this pregnancy – its good to have a tasty snack that is low in carbs!

The horses spent the winter along with the bulls here, eating tasty hay, and when opportunity knocked (IE, Trevor left the gate open after feeding bales) they followed Grandpa home to his place for a short vacation – we brought them back a couple weeks later. For most of the winter, the cows that we’re custom feeding/calving have been at my in-laws. Trevor would go over every Saturday and put out bales in two different places and then go over in the middle of the week to let them into the second feed area.

Putting out hay with the bale unroller.

The cows enjoying a fresh meal of high moisture hay, fed on top of the straw.

Lolo loves the animals and the chores too!

Watching the cows eat dinner while we wait for another bale to take the strings off of.

Once we used up all the feed that was put up over there, it was time to move the cows over here. This happened around the end of February. Here are some pictures of that adventure:

Leaving the corral at Grandpa's place.

Out through Grandpa's yard - he's in front with the tractor and a bale, then the cows, then Trevor on Guthrie while Lolo and I bring up the rear with the truck.

The cows didn't really think it was necessary to stay on the road the whole time...what fun would that be?? About this time Lolo is yelling "No, cows, on the the road, bad cows!! Sooo Boss!"

Back on the straight and narrow...

Heading into our yard - 1.5 miles down the road.

Lolo had to get a ride with Daddy too - she can't stand to miss out on these things you know!

The dogs seemed to have enjoyed the mild winter, and of course all the butchering that we did helped ensure they stayed well fattened for the duration of the season! Now we have to clean up their mess, but at least we didn't buy much dog food! Sneef will be 10 next week...hard to believe! Dazzle is showing her age quite a bit too (I think she'll be 13 this year). There was a day a couple weeks ago when I wasn't sure if she was going to make it, but she seems pretty normal right now...just waiting it out as long as she seems comfortable...

Cootie the house cat still isn't convinced it is spring - she has a long standing tradition of staying put in the house from the first snow flake until all the snow is gone in the spring, and this year she must be going by the calendar rather than the appearance of snow, because she STILL doesn't want to go outside!

Trying to get back into things...

Consistency has never really been my thing I guess, I get a good "schedule" going for a while and then things change and I never put all the pieces back together, something always gets left out! The last 6 months or so its been the blogging that's been left behind. I don't have too many excuses left, my house is mostly clean right now, the baby's room is ready, and I had a decent night of sleep last night...so maybe its time to write a bit about what's been going on in our lives the last 6 months or so.
One of the foremost things on my mind for sure has been this:



That's the little guy that we're waiting on to make an appearance. I'm not due for another 3 weeks, but I keep telling him...."Any day now you could come out and have a whole lot more room to squirm..." He has definitely consumed much energy and preoccupied much of my thought time in the last 8 months or so. Having the thoughts and memories of the unexpected outcome of the 2 previous pregnancies to deal with during this one has definitely been a challenge, but with the Lord's help, I've been able to deal with them much better than I anticipated. I just can't wait to hold this baby boy in my arms.

The winter seemed to be fairly uneventful - we didn't even have much for winter storms or snow - a rarity in these parts! There was only one snow fall where we used the tractor to clear the yard...of course it IS only the end of March, and many a blizzard has come to Southern Manitoba in April and May! In November we traveled to Alberta and made quite a round trip, seeing many friends/family along the way. I'd love to share some pictures, but they're on my currently crashed laptop....I'm having power supply issues with it, I don't want to buy a new battery because there is some issue with the power cord connection, and at 6.5 years old, its outlived its life expectancy and isn't worth putting money into. Trevor is supposed to be getting a new work computer, so we will have his computer at home...I'm waiting rather impatiently for this to happen, but am thankful for my Iphone, so I can at least keep up on some internet stuff during the week when his computer is at work! Someday I need to figure out how to make my computer stay running long enough to rescue my pictures and such off of it....

Back to our Alberta trip - we were gone around 10 days and did a bit of a circle - Regina, Carbon, Winfield, Athabasca/Boyle, Edmonton, Lloydminster and home again. It was a good trip - we saw many people along the way, but of course we didn't get to see EVERYONE...there are just too many people to see in one trip!

We kept expecting the seasons to change, all through November and into December - "We better get it done before it snows" or "I gotta finish this project before it gets cold". We were blessed with an amazingly warm winter though, and there were few days where it was majorly unpleasant to work outside.

This is Lolo with one of her favorite Christmas presents - a Lightning McQueen stereo that I bought her with some of the money she got for Christmas.

Christmas was fairly low key - with just our local family together for celebration. January was again much more mild and beautiful than typically found in these parts! I continued to work 2 days a week at the local credit union, enjoying getting to know more of the local community members and all the laughs and scowls that come with being in the service industry. I finished up and went on maternity leave the third week of February - its nice to be at home with Lolo now!
February brought a little more activity around here - at the beginning of the month we took a quick trip down through North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri and then back up through South Dakota and home again. Why Missouri? Two simple words would explain it for anyone who knows my husband....Allis Chalmers.... Yes, we did 4 days and 3000km just to look at some bulldozers... It was a somewhat interesting trip... We did stop at the Mall of America on the way down and let Lolo go on some rides, saw the dam and locks on the Mississippi River at Keokuk and did a bit of shopping at an outlet mall on the way home...mostly it was a lot of sitting in the car.

Here we are looking south off the observation deck which is the old bridge over the Mississippi. You can see a very long coal train, the old train station and an old riverboat in the background.

Looking across the bridge - you can only go a little ways out on it now, but its a neat old bridge!

The dam and the lock.

The old riverboat

Info about the dam and locks - what a huge project to be undertaken at a time of mainly manual labor! From my reading, there were MANY dams built around that time!

I did get lots of handwork done in the van - I made Lolo these Moccasins for her birthday:


And crocheted this wool diaper soaker for the babe:


The week after that trip was the long weekend. Along with the others gathered to the Lord's name at La Riviere we hosted a family fun weekend - skating, games, food and fellowship with a number of young families from the area and some from Saskatchewan as well. It was a nice time to visit! We had my cousin's family stay with us, she and I are due the same day in April, so it was interesting to share about our pregnancies and compare bellies :)


Here's Lolo skating...just her second time on ice, she did alright!

Back at Christmas, Trevor had surprised me with tickets to see "Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe" on the friday of the long weekend, so our guests actually arrived while we were out on our date. We had a great time at the concert - lots of laughs and some neat music!
The Long weekend was also Lolo's birthday -

Very excited about her "Lightning Queen" Jammies

Three Happy Cousins!

March has rolled by somewhat slowly for me, as I anticipate the due date and meeting this little guy, there have been lots of uncomfortable, sleepless nights and such, but I AM encouraged to see the days are ticking away...however slowly it may seem to happen! The weather has been gorgeous though, with days getting up to 20C and sunshine....of course the ever present spring wind hasn't let us down, but its been a beautiful month anyways, Lolo was excited to get her swing out last weekend and I've even had clothes drying on the line a few times already...yes in March....in Manitoba...who would have guessed?! I took this picture the other day of the green things growing in my flower bed already! The garden already has weeds in it and is begging to be tilled, while the lawn shows many a green blade poking through last year's brown thatch...If you can see it among the bones and garbage the dogs have left behind on the lawn all winter... I really wish bending over wasn't so painful right now, I see many things that should be picked up out there...but I guess they're not likely to go anywhere! Trevor did help me rake up a wagon load of sticks and bones right along the sidewalk, so visitors don't get too grossed out by the "leftovers".

Lolo enjoying the beautiful weather!

6 months gone..

One Sunday evening at the beginning of October we went for a little drive and had a wiener roast on the edge of the valley - it was beautiful - just our little family in the late fall sun, watching the sunset across the valley.

Lolo and I in the door of "Forresters Cabin" on the site of an original homestead along the valley on my in-laws land.


The site of the former bank barn on the above homestead.

Beautiful views of the valley in autumn twilight - this is the same hill our wedding pictures were taken on.

I think Lolo was a little shocked by the flash - but she had a great time roasting wieners and marshmallows on the fire.