Can you believe what I am seeing outside my window right now? I am shocked and dismayed.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Property for Sale: New Neighbours?
Our farm is bordered on one side by an equestrian park and on the other by nine acres of vacant farm land. While we love our front neighbours, we also love not having any next door side neighbours. There is something to be said for being able to prance around your backyard in your underpants and not have anyone see you (and think you're really weird).
So, we were surprised (and concerned) to see a For Sale sign on the vacant land beside our house this past winter. Since we've lived here, this land has been owned by our diagonal neighbours who purchased it eight years ago to prevent anyone from building a house across from theirs. They like their front yard privacy. However, they are now looking to retire and are selling the land to supplement their retirement income.
It was my dream when buying Gael Glen Farm that we would eventually purchase the property next door to expand our farm from two acres to ten. However, the increase in value of this particular piece of property over the last decade has been quite significant - from $90K in 2005 to an asking price of $249K now. Holy cow!
From what we have heard the land has now sold to a young family with two children a bit older than Liam. Word on the (country) street is that the buyer is a child of the cattle farmer that lives across the street and two doors down from our diagonal neighbour selling the property (the other way down the street from our maple tree neighbours). The new family will be moving from their current suburban home and is planning to build a single family home on the property in the near (though not immediate) future.
Given that there is no way we could afford to buy the property given the price (trust me, we thought very, very hard about it), having a young family move next door is really the next best thing. Hopefully we all become friends and their children will become playmates for ours.
So, we were surprised (and concerned) to see a For Sale sign on the vacant land beside our house this past winter. Since we've lived here, this land has been owned by our diagonal neighbours who purchased it eight years ago to prevent anyone from building a house across from theirs. They like their front yard privacy. However, they are now looking to retire and are selling the land to supplement their retirement income.
It was my dream when buying Gael Glen Farm that we would eventually purchase the property next door to expand our farm from two acres to ten. However, the increase in value of this particular piece of property over the last decade has been quite significant - from $90K in 2005 to an asking price of $249K now. Holy cow!
From what we have heard the land has now sold to a young family with two children a bit older than Liam. Word on the (country) street is that the buyer is a child of the cattle farmer that lives across the street and two doors down from our diagonal neighbour selling the property (the other way down the street from our maple tree neighbours). The new family will be moving from their current suburban home and is planning to build a single family home on the property in the near (though not immediate) future.
Given that there is no way we could afford to buy the property given the price (trust me, we thought very, very hard about it), having a young family move next door is really the next best thing. Hopefully we all become friends and their children will become playmates for ours.
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| Liam and the neighbour kid? Hopefully... |
Monday, 14 April 2014
Springtime Snapshots
It's been a long, hard winter but Mother Nature has finally decided to allow spring to make an appearance.
Below are eight ways we know the big thaw is finally here at Gael Glen Farm.
#1 Our backyard has turned into a muddy lake.
#2 We can dry Liam's diapers on the clothes line.
#3 Everything is crooked. For example, none of our gate latches line up...at all. Bungie cords to the rescue!
#4 Our tulips and daffodils have sprouted.
#5 We can see our box gardens again. They are no longer completely covered with snow.
#6 Our hens and ducks can play outside (in the mud, of course).
#7 Ian is putting the summer tires on the car.
#8 We are making maple syrup. We would like to extend a big "Thank You" to our neighbours across the street and a few doors down for letting us tap their maple trees. More details on this sweet endeavour in a future post.
Welcome spring! Come on in!
Below are eight ways we know the big thaw is finally here at Gael Glen Farm.
#1 Our backyard has turned into a muddy lake.
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| Lake |
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| Bigger lake |
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| Biggest lake |
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| Mud |
#2 We can dry Liam's diapers on the clothes line.
#3 Everything is crooked. For example, none of our gate latches line up...at all. Bungie cords to the rescue!
#4 Our tulips and daffodils have sprouted.
#5 We can see our box gardens again. They are no longer completely covered with snow.
#6 Our hens and ducks can play outside (in the mud, of course).
#7 Ian is putting the summer tires on the car.
#8 We are making maple syrup. We would like to extend a big "Thank You" to our neighbours across the street and a few doors down for letting us tap their maple trees. More details on this sweet endeavour in a future post.
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| Ian boiling sap |
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| Our first batch of syrup |
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| Someone is very excited about maple syrup even though he has never tried it |
Thursday, 10 April 2014
Bee Success!
We went into the hives today to check and see how our honey bees are doing given the immensely long winter and (what feels to us to be a) very delayed spring. We have excellent news to report - three of our four hives survived the winter!
We cleaned out the dead bees from the bottom boards, removed any moldy frames or leftover bee candy and added pails of freshly prepared sugar syrup. Things are looking great. Hopefully this bodes well for an excellent honey harvest this year. At least we're starting off on the right track. Happy bees make happy bee keepers.
We cleaned out the dead bees from the bottom boards, removed any moldy frames or leftover bee candy and added pails of freshly prepared sugar syrup. Things are looking great. Hopefully this bodes well for an excellent honey harvest this year. At least we're starting off on the right track. Happy bees make happy bee keepers.
Friday, 14 March 2014
Banana and Chocolate Chip Bread
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Black Bread
Verdict: A dense and not very sweet bread. It was good but didn't rise as much as I would have liked. The recipe indicated to use the "Rapid" setting on the bread maker but I would be interested to try this same recipe using the "Normal" setting to see if the bread would rise more. I'll keep you posted on my experiment.
Monday, 3 March 2014
Boston-Style Brown Bread
Verdict: Our nanny said this was the most delicious bread she had ever tasted. High praise! This bread had a very strong molasses taste and the raisins in it were delicious. I ran out of raisins and had to use some craisins too but you couldn't tell.
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