It is soon all hallow's eve.  Today autumn has disappeared into the dreary, cold rain of pre-winter here on Dogstar Farm.  The morning promised a warm, sunny day, even such that I had to pull the sun shades down over the windows.  Our house is south facing, with large windows taking in sunshine during the winter months, but shaded from the sun during summer months.  However, the afternoon brought rain and cloudy, grey skies.

Dennis will finish his two month teaching at the College of New Caledonia tomorrow.  He has been teaching full time since September.  September is not the best time for him to be teaching as that is usually his time to get in firewood (6 cords), prepare the equipment for winter and do general clean up before snowfall.  It was a tough slog for him this year.  He had a new course that required development along with teaching.  He spent many a late-night hour working on material to cover the course objectives.

Back to the farm.  We have a neighbour down the road who has a sturdy backhoe.  I hired him to fix my pond outflow so the pond would hold more water.  He also tore apart a pile of wood debris, made from creating the pond, and re-piled it to remove most of the dirt so the pile would burn better.  I like a pile to burn quickly, hot and clean.  So here are a few pictures of the activity:

You can see what a beautiful day it was - and timely too, considering the pouring rain we have this afternoon.  You can also see frost on the grass in one photo.  I have yet to armor the outflow with rocks.  I will wait for a drier day and for help from my chief rock mover, Dennis.  Note where Mike is moving the debris pile.  That is where I plan to build my cabin.  For years I have talked about building a cabin.  The pond is a perfect location.  I have visited the site throughout the year.  It has sun all year round, even in mid-winter. It is nearly in the centre of the property and far enough from the road to be quiet and peaceful.  I look forward to getting started!

I don't think I mentioned in previous ramblings that we sold most of our flock.  We retained 2 ewes, both purebred Katahdins.  We also kept Ben, our big ram.  We felt that Ben was too lonely by himself so we acquired a wether, which is a castrated ram.  He is a handsome, purebred Barbados Blackbelly.  He is very friendly.  He and Ben get along nicely. Our new boy's name is Calypso.  Here  he is with Ben:

Granted, it's hard to see him, but if you click on the picture you'll see him better.  He thinks he's a wild sheep. He has horns.  Apparently, the horns stop growing upon castration.  Other Barbados blackbelly rams have full curls.  Calypso has partial curls but he's a handsome boy all the same!

Here are a few pictures of the pond area:

You will note there is a thin layer of ice on the pond.  As much as I tell myself that fall will never end, the fact remains that winter is around the corner.  We have the winter tires on the van so for once we're ready before the first snowfall.  Usually I slip and slide into the tire shop, along with just about everyone else, and beg to have the tires put on while I'm in town.  One time the tire shop owner chastised me, reminding me that I have lived in this country most of my life and that every year winter arrives at the same time.  He was basically telling me that my lack of planning should not constitute an emergency for him!   I agreed with him and have brought in my vehicle near end of October, depending, of course, on the weather forecasts.  Not that they are always right, but it's the best we've got to go on.

Once I figure out how to get pictures from my iphone to my computer, I will update you on our visit with my second cousin Brad and his wife, Rebecca.  They came all the way from New Hampshire!  It was an excellent visit!  More on that later.

Ok, time to go put the kettle on and have a piece of Dennis' birthday cake!
Bye for now.

A hot day today.  September 1st, blue sky, temperature in the mid 20's.  As it is Sunday I decided to do the old fashioned thing and not work at all.  Of course, dogs need to be fed and exercised, but that is not exactly work.  I have taken the day off from canning, basically.  I have made zucchini relish, mustard pickles,

pickled beets, and canned peaches,

nectarines

 and tomatoes.  I have made nectarine jam, strawberry jam, raspberry jam, gooseberry jam and saskatoon jam.  I have made batches of borscht for the freezer.

A large garden is a lot of work, both in preparing the soil, planting and weeding, then processing the produce.  I give away a lot to friends and family who have no gardens.

We are dog sitting a couple of extra dogs for the weekend.  Lily, our neighbour's jack russell terrier is here until Monday evening and Bella, my son's akita, is here until Tuesday.  Bella tends to be somewhat aggressive towards Rhaq and sometimes Finn, so we usually exercise her separately.  Today we walked Bella, Finn and Niko up to the pond on the back of the farm.  As long as they have enough room around them and there are no toys to fight over, they do well.  Bella behaved well and had a good run.  It's hot, as I said, so the dogs all had a soak in the pond to cool down.  They are all napping quietly now.  You wouldn't know there were 6 dogs in the house.

On August 22 we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary.  Dennis planned the day which included a hike to Norse Creek falls.

It was a short hike through a very steep canyon.  At one point, Niko decided to look over the edge and went too far.  Luckily there was a large ledge that allowed him to regain his footing and work his way back to the trail.  We had a picnic lunch at the lower falls then turned back. We then went huckleberry picking.  What back breaking work!  With two of us the task was pleasant.  Niko kept eating the berries though, so when we came back the next day we just took Finn.  He was happy to explore for a while then lie down in the shade.  I made some muffins from some of the berries:

As you can see, not much exciting happening around here.  Just canning, canning and more canning.  We froze the saskatoons we picked from the yard to make wine later on.  I showed pictures of the Saskatoon bushes in bloom, so here they are with the berries on them.  We had a bumper crop.

 I guess that's it for now.  Tomorrow will be the day I get to work harvesting the rest of the garden.  We'll leave the potatoes, carrots, parsnips and turnips until just before frost, or just after.  The crinkle cabbages need picking because they are going to split, so they will be picked before frost.  The rest of the beets need picking and processing.  The zucchini plants need their final picking, then the plants will be removed.  I'll leave the tomatoes until just before we go on our week's holiday so they can ripen on the vine as  much as possible.  The cucumbers and peppers will also be picked just before we go.

 Here are some cheery sunflowers, one of my favourite plants!

Do double click on the pictures to see them better.  Bye for now.

Good morning, everyone!  I am squeezing this update in as I wait for my mint and apple juice to simmer away.  I had some apples that we were not eating so threw them in for good measure.

I will simmer the juice, apples (and a bit of water) and the mint for a while, until the mint is very limp and the juice is very minty.  Then I will strain the juice which will then become mint jelly.  I have an abundance of mint in my herb bed so I will also make mint pesto to pop in the freezer.  Mint pesto is great on steamed potatoes or other steamed vegetables, or mixed with a bit of mayonnaise for a fresh vegetable dip.  Of course, it is great with lamb!

Today we have more people coming out to view our sheep.  Our last showing on Sunday went very well.  After a meal of roasted home grown chicken, fresh potatoes and carrots from the garden and a broccoli salad, pickled beets, fresh sliced tomatoes from the greenhouse, not to mention a bottle of wine and chocolate pudding with fresh raspberries and blueberries and vanilla yogurt for dessert, we went to see the sheep.  The potential buyers were very impressed with the quality of our sheep.  They all want them so we'll see what happens.  Of course, there is a long distance from wanting something and paying for something.  Sheep farmers here in the north do not have deep pockets!

Back to my garden.  I wanted to show you my cabbages!  I love cabbage rolls and borscht so I grew a few white cabbages and a few crinkle cabbages.  Here is one of my white cabbages.  It weighed in at 11.9 lbs, and that was with the outer leaves off!

This cabbage, and our whole garden for that matter, is grown organically.  We do not spray nor use chemical fertilizer.  We rotate our plantings and use sheep manure, chicken manure and compost to rebuild the soil.  I have always wondered why our super markets have small, shriveled organic produce at exorbitant prices.  Really, our garden had minimal tending and produced huge cauliflowers, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, etc.  We still do not have our root cellar built so I give a lot away to those with no gardens.  

The above potatoes and carrots were taken from the garden several weeks ago.  I needed to thin the carrots so made up a bag of baby carrots to take to our daughter in Smithers.

As I mentioned, our garden is prolific.  Zucchini is one of the items that just keeps on coming!  Last year I had a lot of beets so canned them without pickling them.  I did not care for the flavour of the canned beets as a vegetable on it's own, so decided to make borscht.  For you purists, it is not a traditional recipe.  However, through my research, I found there is no real "traditional" recipe.  Some make it vegetarian, some make it with lamb, some make it with beef.  I have two recipes in my Mennonite cook book that don't use beets, yet it is still called borscht.  So, there you go.  Borscht seems to be a soup made from fresh garden vegetables, whatever kind you wish to use, with a meat stock or a vegetable stock.  It can have potatoes or not.  Beets or not.  I will share my recipe with you in my next post.  Right now I have to attend to my simmering mint!

Bye for now!

After all the negative, depressing writing about the cougar and sheep deaths, I thought it would be good to share some positive news.  I thought a report on my garden would be in order.

As you may remember, Dennis built raised beds in the garden this spring.  Planting was delayed due to the beds being built, but we are now enjoying a bountiful harvest.

The topsoil we had brought in was good, but did contain a lot of weed seeds.

So, the weeding began.  It was a lot of work, but easier because the raised beds allowed you to sit on the edge and pull the weeds, or kneel beside the beds.

Here is the finished product.  I think it took a week with us both working on it:

Here are some more recent pictures, taken today.  The following photos are of my herb bed which is out between the house and the lake:

Here are some pictures of the roses that grow in the flower bed around the house:

And finally, here is the garden as it looks today.  The weeds have gotten away from us between the beds and in the potatoes, but all in all, things are growing nicely.

 Butter lettuce - lots of it! (above)

 Turnips and parsnips. (above)

 Carrots.  Plus a lot of weeds that need pulling from around the beds.  We are planning on mulching. (above)

 Cabbages.  One red cabbage, some crinkle cabbage and regular white cabbage. (above)

 Cauliflower and broccoli. (above)

 Zucchini.  There's also one butternut squash, but it hasn't flowered yet so I'm not positive we'll get a squash off it.  (above)

 Beets. (above)

 A few peas

 and a few more peas with their companion onions.

 A volunteer squash of some sort.  It is growing in among the potatoes.  It has not bloomed so not sure if we'll get fruit from this guy, but it's interesting that it survived the winter, plus the rototiller and is now growing away like it belongs there! (above)

You can see a lot of weeds to the right of the bed.  There are potatoes in there, but the weeding has got out of hand.  Dennis has had the flu for a couple of weeks now so has slowed down significantly.  Not to mention that he got stung by a huge black wasp yesterday, on each hand and on his ear lobe.  His neck and hands are so swollen now, even after 3 antihistamines.  Poor guy is ready to move into a condo in the city!

 About 10% of the peas actually sprouted, but the rest is doing well.  We have more broccoli than we can eat and it goes without saying that we are begging people to take lettuce!  We are eating baby carrots now and new potatoes.  The zucchini grows like a weed.  The greenhouse is also doing well:

If you look closely, you can see the peppers and cucumbers.

One more topic for today.  One thing I do enjoy doing each year when the wild roses are in bloom, is making wild rose petal jelly.  It is a mild, gentle flavoured jelly, delicious on warm baking powder biscuits.  A nice treat for afternoon tea.  Here is this year's batch:

I hope this post has left you feeling a bit more positive!  It certainly has done a lot to lift my spirits!  As you can see, life goes on.  One cannot let the sad days overwhelm the rest of one's life.  Bye for now.