We are in deep summer on Dogstar Farm.  Hot temperatures slow things down, especially with me!  My greenhouse soars to 118 degrees F by mid-morning, with door open, both windows open and the fan on 24 hours a day.  Last night I left the door open to try to keep it cool but the temperature still rose to 115 degrees by 10:30 a.m.  I have ordered a shade cloth from Lee Valley.  I will fling it over the greenhouse when temperatures are in the 30's C.

In order to beat the heat we take to the lake.  The water temperature, according to our fish finder, is now a balmy 17 degrees C.  In one spot it was over 20 degrees C.  That is where I jumped off the boat and into the water.  I can tell you, it did not feel like 20 degrees, rather more like -20!  I did get used to it though and had a quick swim around the boat to cool myself off.

 The usual selfie!  Feeling good!

 Enjoying the wind in his fur!

As you can see from the above photos, the lake was calm as glass.  Very unusual for Francois Lake, which is a 100 km long, narrow lake.  The winds pick up quickly, making boating difficult for small boats and novice captains!  You will also notice the sky is not blue.  Normally, the sky would be a deep, clear blue.  Right now we are receiving smoke from a huge 13,000+ hectare fire west of Quesnel.  We see the smoke billowing up each afternoon from over the hill south of us, across the lake.  Even though it is many kilometers away, we are still impacted by the smoke.  Yesterday we could smell it and feel it in our eyes and lungs.

The above pictures were taken on the beach just a week ago - notice the beautiful blue colours of the sky and lake!  And here we are, enjoying something that is now, or will be on Thursday, prohibited in our area:

Marshmallow roast for dessert one evening!  What a great visit we had with our two beautiful grand daughters, daughter and son-in-law.  We hope we will continue to have times like these after their move to Halifax, which we just found out about today.  So congratulations are in order to son-in-law Chris, who is now promoted to Sergeant in the RCMP.  We are very, very proud of you!  And now is the time for a huge THANK YOU to all the Mounties who place their lives on the line every day to provide us with safety and a peaceful life.

Now, before I close, here are a few pictures of my roses, who never fail to delight me with their colours and fragrance.  Dogstar Farm is such a beautiful place in the summer!

Here are a few more pictures of the yard, greenhouse and the trails.  The wild roses were exceptional this year.  I made 2 batches of wild rose petal jelly and 2 batches of wild rose petal with lavender jelly.  Every jar tastes like summer!

 Beautiful colours of the wild roses.

 Calm afternoon.

 Wild roses at their peak!

 At the pond.

 Thimble berry.

 Wild columbine.

 Thimble berry

 Beautiful Indian paint brush and wild clover.

Along the eastern fence line.

On the way home.

You can see how lush everything is.  It gets so jungle-like where the cow parsnips grow tall, over my head.  I hope you've enjoyed our little tour of Dogstar Farm.  Bye for now.

Summer solstice has passed, at around 3:15 this morning apparently.  I had to have the heat on in the greenhouse last night.  Nights are still cold.  Even with the heat on the temperature dropped to 6 degrees inside the greenhouse.

Nevertheless, it has been an auspicious week.  Thursday late afternoon, the last of our sheep were sold.  Ben and Calypso will stay a bit longer until their new home is ready, but the ewes and lambs and all the equipment were picked up on Thursday.

Getting the truck and trailer out the lower gate was a bit of a challenge.  We just did not leave enough room for large units to make the turn through the gate.  So, the tractor was called into service and the post was pulled.  That made enough room to make the turn and get out onto the road.

 I'm sad to see them go.  But, it's time for a new chapter on Dogstar Farm.  Bye for now.

March was the last posting - it looks like this blog is becoming a quarterly.  Oh well.  As usual, things have been busy on Dogstar Farm.  Lambing went without a hitch.  Our two lovely ewes gave us a pair of twins and a set of triplets.  3 ewe lambs and 2 ram lambs are all doing extremely well.  Here are our beautiful, purebred Katahdin lambs:

 Triplets born April 1st.

 The two in the foreground are ram lambs, the ewe lamb is in background.

Two beautiful little ewe lambs born April 2, 2014.

Spring is also the time we get busy cleaning up the debris of winter.  Burning fallen trees and branches is our usual way of tidying up and keeping warm at the same time:

 Diesel, not gas!

Very, very hot!

The next project was building the greenhouse and getting the garden ready.  We debated planting a garden since we will be spending our winter in Arizona this year.  However, since we have listed our farm for sale, we determined the garden should look its best.  Plus, we can always give the produce away.

 Cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts.

 Believe it or not, these are volunteer lettuces from last year's crop.  Self seeded and survived our winter.

 The mint has gone crazy!  An incredible crop!

Called "Love lies bleeding," but also known as Amaranth.  We'll see how it grows.

I forgot to take pictures of the greenhouse project as it was going along.  We used an old canvas shed frame. The canvas finally rotted off after 12 years but the frame was solid.  We bought some roll ends of greenhouse poly, taped it together with Gorilla Tape, and taped and stapled it to the frame.  Dennis built a frame inside each end wall, built a door using a gate kit and there you go.  I ordered some heat-activated openers from Lee Valley, which came yesterday.  Dennis is now in the process of building a couple of windows to allow better air circulation.  It gets very, very hot in the greenhouse in the morning when the sun hits it directly, but cools in the afternoon as the sun goes behind the trees.  In the early evening the sun hits it again to warm it up nicely before night.  Of course, the days are long now so things are growing rapidly.

 Trying to circulate the air until we get the window built.

 We drilled holes in the bottom of the tubs, then some rocks, then manure, then the soil.  They're great because they don't rot like wooden beds.

 Trying to get some basil to grow.  They were pretty weak when I bought them.  Next year I will start my own.

 Cucumbers enjoying the opaque view.

 Tomatoes and peppers.  

Min-max thermometer.  Shows the extremes in 24 hours.

That's it for now.  I have to get busy filleting salmon for smoking.  Here are a few more pictures of Dogstar farm in early June 2014:

 The calm before the storm.  June 11, 2014

 It must be summer!  The boat is in the water!

 Storm brewing over Colleymount.

 Rhaq - retired from herding, still wanting to herd.

Bye for now.