Pickling Alistair

When we attended Ian's goddaughter Peyton's baptism, the priest suggested that we think of the sacrament as the pickling of a cucumber - after pickling (aka baptism), the cucumber (aka baby) is the same yet different (now a pickle) in a wonderful but irreversible way.  This canning related metaphor really spoke to me - who doesn't love a good pickle?!

In a salute to my Dad, we chose his birth date to have Alistair baptised at St. Michael's Church in Corkery.  In spite of a lack of farm metaphors during Alistair's baptismal mass, under the watchful eyes of his parents, god parents, brothers, grandmas, aunt, uncle, cousins and Grandpa and Baby up in heaven, Alistair Scott got soaked, oiled and subsequently pickled.

Alistair with his parents, god parents and brothers.

Alistair slept through the entire event; thank goodness because no one wants to listen to a crying cucumber for an hour.

Alistair wore a knitted bonnet, sweater and booty set that has been
passed down through the Kehoe family for generations.

Alistair also wore the same Christening gown that I,
my Dad, Liam and Seamus sported on their baptism days.

Uncle Christian and Alistair admiring my attempt at a cupcake cross cake.

Ian holding our new pickle. 
Apparently sleeping through the day's events was exhausting!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this important canning event in Alistair's life.

When Generosity Meets Gluttony

Liam and Seamus are so excited when their cousins William and Elise come to visit.  It is a long and painful drive from their house to ours, so visits only happen a couple of times a year.  However, this makes them even more anticipated events.   Liam and Seamus love the opportunity to share their farm adventures with William.  A few visits ago, they took him for a Charlie ride - an adventure that I think William very much regretted once seated on Charlie's back.

This visit, William was fascinated by Seamus' morning chore of feeding Charlotte and Emily their breakfast.  As Liam and Seamus get bigger, we have been working with them to adopt certain household and farm chores as their own.  For example, both boys are now supposed to make their beds each morning and put their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper - this does, in fact, happen more often than not.  Liam is also responsible for feeding the fish five pellets each morning.  Meanwhile, we have trained Seamus to feed each dog 1/3 of a cup of dog kibble for breakfast.

In our household, it is important to know who feeds the dogs because they are super tricky, especially Charlotte.  She sees everyone as a potential sucker and will whip out her puppy dog eyes while running back and forth to point at her food bag.  It is the doggy equivalent of "please, please feed me.  I am so hungry.  Here is my food.  Please put some in my dish. Please, please, PLEASE!"

Having seen how easy it was for Seamus to feed Charlotte and the immense gratitude she showered on him, William was hooked.  Once everyone was otherwise occupied, he toddled back into the mudroom and scooped cup, after cup, after cup of kibble into a waiting Charlotte's bowl.  Charlotte (having already eaten breakfast, of course) played the part of the glutton perfectly.  She gobbled up this unexpected and immensely pleasing shower of food as fast as she could.  By the time Auntie Megan noticed what was afoot, Charlotte had likely eaten a week's worth of dog kibble.   Her stomach was as hard as a rock.

Now, the trouble is that eating dog kibble makes the dogs thirsty.  Water, unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, makes the kibble pieces expand.  Charlotte's overfilled stomach simply could not expand any further and thus, she spent the next several hours regurgitating all of the dog food that she had so eagerly gobbled down.  Puke patrol was necessary to clean up the aftermath of William's generosity and Charlotte's gluttony.  Charlotte also badly needed a bath to rid her of the stench of dog vomit in her schnauzer beard.  Let this be a reminder to us all - everything in moderation, my friends.

Moose & Microgreens

Our microgreen forest proved very useful in dinner preparations tonight.  We currently have peas, radish, clover and mustard greens on the go.

Ian knocked our socks off with moose and microgreen hoagies.  

The spicy radish microgreens added both crunch and kick to the delicious sandwich.  

Dinner was devoured by all with zero complaints.

Me: "We must make those again!"

Ian: "Fresh outta moose."

Me: "Call Brian.  Time to barter."

We finished up the meal by treating the boys to their very first ice cream floats - root beer for them and Guinness for the grown ups.  

When we were stuck in the hospital after Alistair's birth waiting for jaundice tests, a super kind nurse suggested that Ian and I steal away for a top-secret "date" to breathe some fresh air and get a cup of coffee while she watched our baby for us.  We took her up on the date (it was a life saver) and stole away - not to the neighbourhood Tim Horton's - but for a quick visit to Nick at the nearby Crooked Mile Brewery.  Ever since our chat with him about the compatibility of milk products and stout-style beer and its long history of being offered to lactating women, I (a lactating woman) have been craving a vanilla ice cream float made with my favourite stout.  It did not disappoint.  Yum!

Range Change

Here on Gael Glen Farm we raise free range kids and farm animals.  Even though we have perimeter fencing around the property lines, a fence around our pond, and some other fencing separating the back paddock into three sections and the front from the back yard, everyone usually has plenty of space to roam and play. 

The huge amount of snow we have received this winter has challenged our ability to free range easily on the property.  There are some snow drifts that are now well over the kids' heads and some fencing that is almost buried under the snow. 

This is a 4 ft fence separating the chicken run from the donkey paddock. 
There is about an inch left until the top of the snow
reaches the top of the fence in some areas.

Even with Ian's snowplowing and my shovelling efforts, we can only do so much to free up some accessible play/walking space for everyone.

Ian is snow blowing paths in the back yard.  We have a big snowblower. 
It is crazy that yesterday's snowfall accumulation almost reached the top of the blower.

The snow in the chicken run is now well over the chickens', ducks' and goats' heads.

The path I keep dug out for the occupants of the chicken coop allows them to, at least, get out of the coop if they want to.  However, with the drifts now almost as tall as Liam, the space I am able to clear for them is getting smaller and smaller.

Interestingly, the snow has both limited and extended the boys' explorations.  Seamus got stuck in the middle of the yard yesterday after venturing to the play structure through a snow drift that was almost up to his shoulders.  It took him a solid 15 minutes to wiggle, roll and crawl his way out.  

At the same time, the boys have discovered that going up is now much more of a possibility than it is in the summer.

It is hard for them to resist climbing trees whose trunks have disappeared leaving their branches at the exact right height to be climbed by energetic munchkins.  "Just because we can climb Mama's sugar maple/apple/walnut/plum trees, doesn't mean we should." has become a constant refrain for me lately.

Even with their ability to get out and about currently compromised by the snow, the ducks of Gael Glen Farm remain particularly optimistic that this winter weather will not last forever.  As evidence: one of our runner ducks laid her first egg of 2019 yesterday!  Our ducks are spring layers, so this is a sure sign that warmer weather is on its way - hopefully sooner rather than later.

Check out the white duck egg in yesterday's egg basket.

A Model Sibling

Charlotte was our first family pet and Ian's and my first attempt at raising dependants.  Charlotte's ability to adapt to many new family members over the years is quite remarkable.  Our old girl has persevered through the addition of a second schnauzer, numerous farm animals, and our three boys.  Through it all, she has been consistently gentle and kind; this is much more than I can say for most of our other dependants.  You may remember when we introduced Cobalt the lamb to Charlie the donkey, Charlie tried to stomp Cobalt to death.  Or when we introduced Kate the duck to Cornelius the rooster, Cornelius attacked Kate with his spurs blinding her in one eye.  In my opinion, everyone could learn a thing or two from Charlotte's lovely disposition.

Charlotte sharing her nap blanket with a snoozing Alistair.

Emily, in contrast, waited for Alistair to leave so she could
stretch out at her leisure and not be bothered by him.

Venturing into the Bee Yard

As the possibility of another huge snowstorm looms, Liam and I were curious about how our honey bees are faring.  It is obviously much too cold to open up the hives to check but I did venture across the ditch and into the bee yard to see if I could glean some clues based on how the hives looked from the outside.

As far as I could see it is so far, so good.  There were no telltale signs of colony collapse, like huge piles of dead bees in front of the hive entrance or destroyed hive bodies.

There were several dozen dead bees scattered on the snow's surface throughout the bee yard.  Ian suggested that it might be a good thing seeing as they are on top of the snow as it might mean that the colonies were alive at the last snowfall, which was only a week or so ago.

At this point it is anyone's guess whether our colonies survived.  I really should put an old stethoscope or an infrared attachment for my iPhone on my Christmas list next year to help me hear/see what is going on in there during the colder months.  Anyways, here's to hoping that our best guess is correct and that our bees are still alive.  If they have made it through this much of this very long, very snowy winter, what is one more blizzard?

Caught Pail Faced

Someone on the farm needs to learn to share her night time grain ration with her fellow goat.

Who?  Me?

Sharing is caring, Mellie.  Sharing is caring.

Seedy Saturday

Today we packed everyone up and headed off to Almonte's Seedy Saturday sale.  The boys were not so much interested in heirloom or organic seeds but they were on the hunt for samples.  Much to their delight they found hand creme, lip gloss, pretzel sticks with BBQ sauce and Lindt chocolate balls.  Once the sample options were exhausted, we kept them interested in the outing by encouraging each one to pick out a packet of seeds to plant in their very own garden.  We have promised that they can share a pallet garden this year and plant whatever they like. 

Liam went straight for the colourful carrots - they were his favourite from last year.  Seamus had a harder time choosing.  He initially selected spicy mustard greens, then switched to pumpkin seeds, and finally (with a bit of direction from Dad) settled on a chocolate sweet pepper.  Even though every year I vow not to purchase any new varieties of tomatoes (we have so many already!), I could not resist a beautiful heirloom variety from Greta's seeds. 

Greta's photo sold me.  That is one gorgeous tomato!

Ian, ever the economical spender, opted to stop at Richie's on the way home to buy a package of daikon seeds (the only thing we actually needed) that was half the price of the packet being sold at the seed sale.  We also picked up a square of Pro-mix soil since we are itching to get our first seeds planted.  Spicy pepper, onion and eggplant seeds can be started indoors any time now!  And so it begins...

Lamb From Farm to Table

Despite Ian and I functioning in a state of perpetual sleep deprivation, life is still puttering along on the farm.  The vast majority of our energy lately has been directed toward making sure our animals and little humans are safe, fed, clean and warm.  However, we have managed to fit in some "extras" since welcoming Alistair home.  There have been fun extras like taking Alistair for a baby photo shoot.  He slept through the whole thing. 

I captured this photo on my phone during the shoot
(with the permission of the photographer, of course).

We have also undertaken some less fun, though necessary, farm tasks.  For instance, we typically celebrate the life and poetry of the poet Robbie Burns by inviting friends over for a dinner of haggis (a sheep's offal mixed with suet, oatmeal, and seasoning and boiled in the animal's stomach) and other Scottish delicacies each January 25th.  This year, while sheep meat was still involved in our Robbie Burns Day festivities, it was in a different way; Ian's hunting buddy Enzo came over to the farm and taught him how to harvest lamb. 

Sadly, the time had come to send Cobalt and Lego to Freezer Camp.  As much as I love the idea of growing our own food, I am the first to admit that it is much easier to harvest vegetables than meat.   I found it difficult to say "goodbye" to animals that I had bottle fed as babies and loved for the better part of a year.  Upon speaking to life long farmers, slaughtering one's animals never gets much easier. Yet, harvesting is part of farming and I knew that I needed to "put on my big girl panties" (as one lady farmer on a homesteading group I follow put it) and give Ian my blessing to proceed. 

Under Enzo's tutelage, Ian did an exceptional job for his first time harvesting our own livestock.  By doing it himself on the farm, he saved us hundreds of dollars in transportation and processing fees at an abattoir and butcher.

Ian involved Liam and Seamus in the butchering process.  The boys supervised while he deconstructed the lambs into various roasts, steaks, chops, etc.  Like we try to do with field dressing during hunting season, we used this as an opportunity to normalize obtaining meat from our own farm animals.  It is important to me that our boys are informed about what meat is and that they are not squeamish about how it gets from farm to table. 

This time spent together also provided the boys with the opportunity to work through the emotional side of harvesting the lambs they saw born and raised on our farm and for us to validate their feelings by assuring them that is okay to be sad when we have to say goodbye to members of our farm family.  It was a learning process for all of us but we weathered it together and nobody seemed upset when we served lamb neck stew, feta lamb burgers or garlic crusted rack of lamb for dinners in the following weeks.

Lamb Stew

Lamb Burgers

Rack of Lamb

Except maybe Alistair...

...though I am not convinced that his angst has anything to do with eating Cobalt and Lego.