Summer Harvest

Its been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. My weekends have been full of canning and freezing food. Shortly after our return from Regina, I picked beans and peas and shelled/cut them, blanched them and froze them. I ended up with 8 bags of beans, and 3 bags of peas. I also pickled some beans in a dill brine for dilled beans. Last week peaches were on sale by the case, so both Velma and I bought a case. Velma, Jamie and I got together last Saturday afternoon and made peach pie fillings, I froze 3 fillings and canned 5 wide mouth masons of peach/apple pie filling. We also made a couple pies for the next day's farewell BBQ potluck dinner for Alex at Andrew and Jamie's place. One pie I made as kind of a combo of saskatoons, strawberries and apples. The other pie was peach with a strudel topping. Yum Yum! Yesterday I spent the day doing more canning - I made zucchini pickles, lemon zucchini butter and apple butter. I also made supper for Velma, Julie, Trevor and I after the others got home from work. After supper, Trevor and I needed to go and check the cows, so Velma bottled up my apple butter for me. Later (actually too much later!) we went over to Andrew and Jamie's with Julie and watched "Broken Bridges" It was a decent movie actually.

This afternoon when we got out to the farm after meeting, the cows were up at the water hole, so Trevor went down and closed the gate below to keep them contained, then we went and had lunch and relaxed for a bit, later we saddled up the horses and gathered the cows into the barnyard so we could sort out the bulls. Its been 65 days since we put the bulls out, so its time to cut off the calving season! We separated the bulls out and put CCIA RFID tags in them (the Canadian cattle identification association's radio frequency Identification tags which are mandatory on all cattle being moved from their home farm) The plan is to take the bulls to the auction mart on Tuesday evening for the Wednesday sale. Since we plan to sell the cows sometime before calving, there's no point in keeping the bulls through the winter! The fewer hay bales we have to buy the better! The horses and cattle(and us!) are enjoying the cooler weather and fewer flies - although it got up to 30C here today. The past two weeks have been cool and sometimes rainy - today was the first warm day but since the humidity has gone it didn't feel near as bad as July! After taking care of the cattle this afternoon, I made another batch of dill pickles. So my canning so far this year has consisted of:

13 jars of dill pickles

5 jars of dilled beans

5 jars of peach/apple pie filling

5 jars of lemon/zucchini butter

7 jars of apple butter

3 jars of zucchini pickles

and more to come!

Yesterday the horses were feeling pretty chipper, actually Guthrie even bucked a bit when Trevor was lunging him for me ( I was delayed in the kitchen!). Today the horses were lazy, at least until we started sorting cattle - when Guthrie, being his usual self, got somewhat riled up and decided to throw in a few bucks for good measure - at least I knew to expect it - that's what a night latch and a Cheyenne roll are for!! We had quite a time trying to restrain the largest bull, his neck was thicker then his head, so we couldn't keep him in the head gate, he's also the most ornery of the three bulls and likes to throw his head around, so reaching into the chute with him unrestrained was impossible. We eventually got him pinned between three fence posts in the chute and Trevor-the-brave got the tag in his ear. Sneef was a big help in persuading the bulls to move and keeping the cows moving as we trailed them to the barn yard - I am so happy to have a dog like her, even if she loves to be dirty better then anything else! She will go and jump in the dugout and then find the dustiest spot she can find or the freshest cow plop and roll like crazy! Its like battering chicken to fry! She ends up with a bunch of mud coated dreadlocks, which eventually become dust that she shakes off.

Another highlight from the last couple weeks was our clinic summer party. It was a fun time, we met at the local amusement park which has go carts, bumper boats, mini golf, human Foosball, beach volleyball and lawn bowling. We had a BBQ with all the fixings, some good visiting time and fun on the amusements! About a month ago another girl that lives out this direction started working at the clinic, so we've been car-pooling whenever it works out- especially on the days when Julie was staying in Morden. Jackie is very chatty, and it makes the trip go by very quickly when I have someone to talk to!

In other news, our move may be coming a little closer to reality. We still haven't had any bites on our house, but the house that the current tenants of our future house are moving into has finally arrived on its foundation, and they plan to move as soon as it is livable. Hopefully we can move into the farmhouse before the snow flies!! We're still praying to sell our house, since it would be hard financially to have to pay for rent on the new place and the mortgage here at the same time, yet we don't want to give up the opportunity to rent the house in the country. God has it all in His perfect plan, so I just have to wait and see what that plan is!

The next week is going to be busy, as Trevor and I plan to leave at 5pm on Friday night for Alberta and my dad's wedding celebration. We still have lots of zucchini, cucumbers and apples to preserve when we have time, I have quite a few projects started here and a few I'd like to finish before Jaime's baby comes...its going to be a busy week.

Trevor is hoping to get a wisdom tooth pulled tomorrow afternoon, as it is quite rotten - hopefully all goes well there. I have a couple of medical appointments this week too! Tomorrow evening I join 3 of my co-workers in Winnipeg for a continuing education evening...I guess I've got a lot to do in a couple of nights this week!

As some of you may have heard - My sister and brother-in-law, Jody and Nate have become parents for the next 9 months - click here for more info. Because of this development, they have decided they can't make the trip up to dad's wedding celebration. I am disappointed to not be able to see them, but I am not holding it against them at all - as their excuse is a very noble one!

Other then that, everything here is going well - we're all healthy, the cat is growing fast...

Here are some pictures of our cows and horses from this afternoon:

Me and Guthrie, ready to go cut out some bulls.

Guthrie and I - done cutting out bulls - feeling lazy.
Portrait of a great summer day
Trevor and Black Jack, cutting out "Piggy" the herd "mascot"
Trevor's portrait of a great summer day
Me cutting out "Steak" the next piece of freezer beef.

Guthrie and I cutting out one of our grass steers for a better look.
Headin' back to pasture