JUST ENOUGH RAIN TO AGGRAVATE ME

I've attacked another overgrown weedy flower bed and got chased inside by a rain shower and everything is wet. Grrrr..... I could use some cheering.

Ah well, it could be raining bullets and missiles and we could be under attack. I just need to get a grip.   I'm taking a deep breath...
It's just that I had planned  digging this bed  for so long... I worked on it all afternoon  yesterday except shot little breaks  to rest my back. I knew that it was going to be a big job.         I shouldn't complain, that flower bed was planted it in  the spring of 1999. I had no idea it had been that long. Yes, I had to look it up in my scrapbook. It coincided with a friend 's death, actually a year before his death.

I'll have pictures on my next post.
                                                     ****************************
I figured how to take off my stabilizer lens and put my zoom lens on  after reading the instructions in my little camera book. It was easier than I thought.  I took a few shots, nothing interesting to photograph but I only wanted to see how far I could take a picture.

This is a picture of a crow's nest  in a very tall tree by the side of the river in line with my bedroom. The tree is loosing it's leaves and looks like it's dying.

Not a nice subject either  but again this is a tall tree way over in my son's yard and some kind of worm nest at the top. The picture was taken from my back yard...

This is the Princess Margaret Bridge in Fredericton. It's almost 5 miles from my house as the crow flies so I'm pretty impressed. The white that you see is a canvas covering the bridge as they work repairing the bridge. From our place we can only see the middle of the bridge. It was very windy as I was trying to keep steady and I had to lean against a tree so I wouldn't fall down the the steep incline.


That's it for today. Oh yeah, I got another little baby girl calf yesterday afternoon. She's so small.

I love you all, have a great day.  JB

MY HOME MADE BREAD FIASCO

I'm almost at my 10 year mark of my breast cancer survival and because mine was estrogen receptive, I'm not supposed to eat flax seeds and soy products as they have lots of estrogen in them.  I'm taking estrogen blockers to prevent the cancer from coming back but after I'm off the estrogen blockers, I'm on my own and want to be around for a while.

Lately I've been reading food labels and was absolutely flabbergasted at the numerous food that has soybean or soybean byproducts listed as ingredients. Bread, Becel margarine, cones, chocolate, some pasta, even in my chewable calcium supplements, spaghetti sauce and the list goes on and on and on I'm trying to check labels but it's very time consuming when I shop and the letters are so small and squished that they are almost impossible to read sometimes.

Since there is a by product of soy in my favorite store bought bread I decided , what the heck, I'll make my own in the bread maker. I made a perfect loaf last week and it was so good.  This morning I put the ingredients in the machine and started it and after about three hours it beeped and I could smell the aroma of fresh bread.

I opened the machine anticipating seeing a nice golden loaf and saw that the dough was cooked on the bottom but the top was still white with flour. Apparently I didn't pushed the pan down  far enough.
I'll try again tomorrow.

So I dumped the content in my compost bucket. I guess I won't get too many calories from that loaf, hahaha. This is just the beginning of the week. I hope that it's not an indication on how the rest of the week will go.

Early this morning, I got a Courier delivery. My Cannon zoom lens arrived. Now I feel intimidated by the thing,  just like I felt with my Canon Rebel camera when I first got it. I have to read up on how to use it. I'm the kind who reads directions even if I don't understand them.

My daughter Christine sent me some photos of James a while ago and since there as a lot I thought that I'll post this one for now.

Here he is in his Halloween costume. I think that he such a cute little lion.

I've managed to hook a tiny bit on my Childhood Memories rug in the last two evening but I'm having difficulty seeing the wool colors at night and it gets dark right after supper. I need better lighting.

  After barn chores  I mowed most of the lawn in the front and back but had to leave the section on the other side of the street by the river bank for tomorrow as it was getting dark and the long grass was getting wet with dew.   I ate left over spaghetti supper at the computer checking blogs. I'm pathetic, I know... eating at the computer.

Thanks for visiting.   JB

THE BATTLE OF THE WEEDS CONTINUES

The weeds are winning the war and my Irises are in desperate need to be divided. This is the before picture.  I made the mistake of planting a small potted Bugleweed perennial plant a few years ago because I love the blue color in the spring but it was a mistake. Even though I pulled all the small plants that seeded everywhere, they keep coming even on the lawn...

This is a view from the left side.  Dandelions and Blackeye Susan are sprouting everywhere, yes even on the lawn also and Creeping Charlies aren't shy either.

I raged through that flowerbed like a mad woman on a mission.. I stuck some Bearded Irises in but I want to change them location because they are so tall for this flower bed.

This is another nightmare of a flower bed gone wild. Chickweeds  and dandelions have definitely taken over  and even Creeping Charlies weren't far behind in the invasion.

Here's a better view of my invaded territory.

I'm reclaiming what's mine and I'm stepping on any toes that gets in the way. I'll show them weeds that I mean business.

These  Blackeye Susan I pulled out of the tier bed and stuck them in an old plastic pot. I have to dead head them before they self seed like crazy again.

Some of my bearded Irises that I divided from the tier flower bed. I had taken the trouble of cutting some plastic labels and written on them with what said was a permanent ink for plant marker  when they were in bloom this past spring  but the sun faded every trace of ink. That's what I get for buying it at the Dollar Store.  Now I have no idea what colors they are. Serves me right for trusting labels...

Another flower bed weeded and I decided to pull my clump of old fashion Daylilies and you can see them by one of the compost bins. That was a hard job to divide that big clump. I want to pull the serendipity lungwort that self seeded there and is getting bigger. but had to go to the farm and it's been raining ever since.

Now here is a fine piece of work if I ever saw one. I had weeded one section of my vegetable garden and cut the excess of the melon vines as they seemed to have been drying up and had to quit because of the rain and the next day my son Vaughan called me to tell me that I better check my garden as something had eaten my watermelons.  I can se that they were ripe even though they were rather small and they left the larger one for me with a few bite on the rind.

What ever ate my melon also dragged some of my cucumbers and ate part of them too.

This week has been a busy one for me and especially on Friday.  Saturday, I worked most of the day at the barn  had to clean calf pens too and my son help which was good.

 I have 5 new calves to bottle feed and all this milk to deal  with and carry to the other end of the barn.

Friday everything was happening at once. We had herd health with the vet checking all the cows and heifers that were bred in the past month to see if any were pregnant and one of the cow was calving and the feed truck arrived and I had to go round up some heifers because the truck driver needed the gate open so he could drive in the back of the barn to unload the feed in the big feed tank.  The heifers didn't all want to go in the barn so I had to stay in the back to watch that they didn't escape until the truck driver was done.

I called my son to come help this poor groaning cow who was calving and he pulled out the heifer calf and she was all yellow since she had a bowel movement in the placenta.  The mother cleaned her up pretty good but she still is a bit yellowy. The calf is doing well, the cow had to be pumped some medicated solution that I pumped into her with my husband holding the tube in her mouth this morning.

Friday I had breakfast at 11:35 am and I was pretty hungry since I was up since 6:30 am. Saturday I had breakfast at 10:15 am.  Today, Sunday I had breakfast sometimes after 9: am. I can't gain weight that way and most of my pants are getting loose on me.
I'll fatten up this winter I hope or the wind will go right through me, lol.

Have a nice week and thanks for reading my ramblings.
JB

IS IT TIME FOR THIS FARMER TO RETIRE YET?

Here are some pictures of part of the farm. We have lots of land and I wasn't up to taking more pictures after work. I had to go home and cook supper.

Farm life is hard work and the days are long and we work in all type of weather. Up early and dealing with mother nature 365 days a year. The cows are milk  and fed twice a day and when there's grass they are put to pasture and then moved to new pasture as needed.

I couldn't get all the cows in one picture as they were spread far and wide. I think that the white cow was mooning me. hahaha...

This is Big Boy. A bull that I raised from a small calf. We use him to breed the cows that we can't catch in time for the breeding technician. He's happy when he get a girl friend, not so happy when they are taken away from his harem, hahaha...
Big Boy is huge although he appears small here. He's mean when he gets upset and sometimes scary.

This part of the barn is the old barn, it has low ceilings.

These are my bigger calves. The black one in the centre laying down is one of the triplet. It was difficult to photograph them inside the barn as the bars are in the way. I had to hold the camera high and hope for the best. They are all getting big and heavy.

Some more of my bigger calves. There are 13 in these three pens.

Looks can be deceiving as it looks like the heifer calf is knee deep in hay but the hay in the bottom of the  picture is in the manger. They stick their heads in between the larger bars to eat hay from the manger.

This is the one of the old red barns. We store hay up in the loft of the red barn. It's huge and high up there. A big hole was cut in the side of the barn to hoist the big round bales up there. One of the employee last year rip the side of the building with the tractor and didn't bother to repair the damage. It's still  has not  been repaired and the employee is no longer working here.

The cows do not bed in this old barn. It is only used to hold them until they are all milked and their bedding barn is cleaned out and they are let go in the new barn to eat hay and drink and lay down.

 This barn is built in an L shape. You can see the other roof going the other way by the silos. I work in the area by the silo.

This is our new red hay wagon.  It's an amazing piece of equipment. It holds 12 large round bales of hay and it unloads them in a neat double rows. It has taken the place of all the other hay wagons.

Here in the distance, are the 5 big hay wagons that we no longer use since acquiring the new red hay wagon. They were used for small rectangular bales and were labor intensive.

These two silos are out of commission are no longer holding silage. They have deteriorated a lot and need to come down.  I work in that section of the barn. The older heifers are mostly housed in this shelter in the back. They are out during warmer weather and inside in the winter.

All the hay that was in these three piles have been moved into the new tarp building so our hay will stay dry. The low tarp building wasn't big enough to hold all the hay.  So now we have two tarp building full of hay plus the hay that is up in the hay loft in the red barn.

This is our older tarp building full to the brim.

This is grass silage bales all wrapped in white plastic. They look like huge marshmallows. We no longer use the silos to store the hay silage and it would be very expensive to replace.

Here is another shot of the grass silage and you can see the wrap hanging on the side. You can see part of the new bedding barn behind the grass silage bales.

This is the side of our new barn. Not a great shot but it had rain and I didn't want to walk in the mud without my rubber boots on.

This is the lane that runs by the silos and leads to the highway. On the left of the picture is the short cut to my house.

Can you see the path that leads to my house which is hidden behind a big maple tree on the other side of the hedge and a big cedar tree this side of the hedge?  There's an opening in the hedge  to go through.

I haven't showed the big tractors, and other machinery or even the milk house. Maybe when I have more time I'll take some more pictures.

Thank you all for visiting one part of my world.  JB

THE TARP HAY BARN IS FINISHED

Not so long ago I was helping levelling the trenches for the footing and then the cement was poured for the footing.

My son Vaughan is guiding the wet cement in the form for the footing while my husband George levels the cement with a rake.

Then the forms went up to pour the foundation on top of the footing.

The foundation is ready and the soil and some sand is shovelled against the foundation.

Next the building rafters are taken off the truck.

The frame is connected to the foundation.

That big grey roll  on the left is the tarp.

Then the rest of the reenforcing cables are put on.

The heavy tarp is hoisted up with the help of three winches.  One is hidden behind the big truck and the other is behind the red hoist on the right and the other is in the middle.

The tarp is slowly draping the frame.

The tarp fully draped over the frame.

The building fully assembled and ready for use. Soil will be mounted against the sides to help the tarp stay in place near the foundation.

Some hay bales being placed in the new building.

My son is carrying two huge bales to the tarp barn.  The outside layer of the bales got wet and turned dark but the inside is still OK.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing the building process of our new tarp barn. Next time I'll have some pictures of our farm. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment.   JB