THINGS THAT PUTS SMILES ON MY FACE IN THIS RAINY WEATHER

It's been raining and raining here this week too and I managed to get one section of my garden weeded when the sun came out for a short time last evening. I weeded till 9:20 pm and it got dark. That brought a smile on my tired face.

The cool weather and the rain is making my crabapple blossoms to last a lot longer this year. They are so beautiful that it brings a smile on my old face. I took this picture yesterday when the rain stopped for  short time.

I love those blossoms. Just can't get enough of them.

Isn't Mother Nature grand. Thank you Mother Nature, they are beautiful.

My daughter picked, clean, blanched and froze 6 bags of nice fat fiddleheads for me. Now that brings another smile on my greedy face.

I've been begging for a genuine smile from Daniel. Today my daughter Christine sent me some photos in an email.  Now that's a genuine smile and it's catchy because it has caused me to smile the biggest smile of all. Thanks Christine.

Here's another one for good measure.

Seeing updates of James also is cause for smiling.  Hope his dad has picked up playing his guitar again.

It's good enough for another smile. I hope that my post has caused you to smile on a dreary day. I Hope that you are keeping dry.

My  blogger friend Kim is celebrating her birthday today and that should make her smile. It does me. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kim.  http://milliesmat.blogspot.com/

Having 142 followers  is cause to smile too. Thanks for visiting and keep on smiling.

Happy Memorial Day on Monday to my American friends.
JB

HAPPINESS IS RECEIVING A PACKAGE IN THE MAIL

Usually when I pick up the mail, it's mostly bills for the farm of personal bills like utility bills.   Today when I picked up the mail I found a huge box in the parcel compartment of our community mail box. My first thought was that my husband must have ordered something online. Then I saw my name on the box and Theresa's return address above my name.  It was heard to believe that she had spent all that money to send me a gift. International mailing isn't cheap any more. It cost Theresa $23.15 to mail the winning dove picture that she so beautifully  drew. It's priceless. I didn't expected that she would have it framed either. I expected a rolled up scroll or a flat parcel.

It was packed in bubbles foam and bubble wrap and arrived in perfect condition all the way from Texas.

What a beautiful drawing this is. We have mourning doves cooing outside early in the morning.

I also received a hand written message in one of Theresa's own card that she made from one of her many paintings including two 4 leaf clovers that she picked from her yard for good luck.

This is the picture on the card that I received. Isn't this just gorgeous?  What talent... Every month Theresa has a giveaway  on her blog of one of  her drawing or paintings that she makes. That to me, is extremely generous of her. As you can see, her drawings are exquisite.

I found a special place for my little dove on my roll top desk. Thank you so much again Theresa. You have a great talent and I feel richer for having met you on Blogger.

Here 's how you can find Theresa's blog and it's worth going to see her many beautiful drawings. http://run-a-roundranch.blogspot.com/

Theresa will only response to blogs who have deactivated the word verification  apt.  Word verification is very time consuming and annoying and since she has hundreds of blogs to visit each day, she will only comment on  those blogs who have no word verification.  Sounds fair enough. She's a busy girl.

Again, thank you for the generous gift Theresa, aka  TexWis Girl. Hugs...

 Welcome to my new followers, thanks for visiting and please leave a comment if you have the time. They always give me joy.

JB

THE DANDELIONS ARE WINNING THE WAR

I've been pulling dandelions off my back lawn every year and the seeds gets scattered in the wind from somewhere else and they come back every year. They are beautiful but they get into my flowerbeds and that's the only problem I have with them.

I've eaten dandelions before and they are tasty, as long as there is no pesticide on them. I've even had dandelion wine that my husband made one year. It was pretty potent though...

After supper, my husband and I picked  a wheelbarrow full of dandelions using pitch forks.

You can see that the lawn got really tramped on. We picked another wheelbarrow full  today.

Can you see the little rose bush growing on the lawn on the right of the wheelbarrow in the top photo?
 I dug around it today and weeded and fertilized it and added a border. It a John Davis rose bush that I planted a couple of years ago in honor of my dad who died in 2008 and at the same time I also planted one in honor of my mom who died in 2009.

The rose bush was planted on the right and the next year, a branch grew on the lawn a couple of feet away. The original bush isn't doing well but I left it there anyway.  It has some buds on it although some branches are dead.

This is what it looked like last year. My lawn needs some lime. We think that the big flood leached the lime  out and the PH is low. The same thing happened in the fields. It was tested before the flood and after the flood, the PH was lower.

Here is the John Davis rose. They bloom all summer.

I'll stop for tonight and wish you all a good night sleep.

Thanks for your visit.

JB

IN MY CRAZY WORLD LIFE IS NEVER BORING

There is always plenty of adventures in my daily life but I find if I don't write about it, it's quickly forgotten. I'm not good at remembering things unless I write them down.

                           A flood in the barn

Last Tuesday, May 7th, after finishing work in the evening I came home to make supper. My husband was a little late and he came home with the news that one of the heifers in the back had pulled the float right out of the big watering trough that they drink from  and that there was a flood in the alleyway between the older calves and the big bull pen and the calving pen. He said that there were about 2 inches of water on the floor.

 I'm an action girl and I wanted to go clean it up right away. My husband is a procrastinator like my son and wanted to wait till morning. My concern was for the calves but he said that the water was not in the calf pens, just in the alleyway.  Their pens had been cleaned up and fresh bedding applied that morning. It's a good thing that the pen were built higher than the alleyway.

When I arrived the next  morning, there was a big water pool with about 4 inches of water in the alleyway. I got my Shop-Vac and  sucked up about 2 inches of water from the pool and carried buckets after buckets  of dirty water outdoor and when my son arrived later he brought in the skid-steer with the big bucket and filled it with the water and it went much faster. The floor was all cleaned up and dried up in no time. All I could think was all that manure tea I was throwing out could have been put on the gardens as everything was so dry for lack of rain.

While I was vacuuming water, my son and my husband were trying to rescue a weak cow that had gotten herself caught in her stanchion stall. When she went to get up, her front legs were too weak to carry her weight and she plunged forward with her face against the wall and no way could she get herself up.  She was good and stuck. They had to twitch her out, whatever that means... That was a tricky thing to do with a huge animal. She was brought limping in the calving pen to be treated and get some tender loving care and pain killer.

                                         ****************************************

                           Squash Fiasco at the farm

A photo of a Hubbard Squash that my husband gave to my daughter Christine a few years back.


My husband had planted about 65 pots of squash seeds for the church supper  the night before as we have been  providing  the squash for the church suppers for years. He has a lean-to shelter that has a plastic roof  in the back of the barn and the sun shine in there so he thought that it would be a great place to grow the seeds. He has always gotten the nursery to start the squash plants for us but this year, he thought that he wanted to start them himself.

 He came back home with a wheelbarrow full of his precious potted seeds all messed up. The raccoons got into his pots and ate all the seeds that he planted. He had planted  three seeds per pot.
He put back the soil in the pots and put some more seeds in and put the pots on the deck in the back of our house. I hope that they will grow, it's still early...
                                     
                                                ****************************************

                        Almost had another fiasco

Wednesday, May 8th, I had a bone density scan appointment at the hospital that had been rescheduled because I miss my last appointment because I had to help George pull that huge calf and I totally forgot about the scheduled appointment that morning.

I left the house early with plenty of time to go down town to make a bank deposit for the farm, go across the river to make a deposit at my credit Union, get some potting soil for my flowerbeds  at the feed store and  pick up a gallon of paint  up town at Canadian Tires for my deck rails. I looked at my watch and saw that I had still plenty of time to run up to Value Village. I thought that I was really efficient that morning.

I found a big crockpot that I have been wanting as my old one is way too small for a roast, I also found two nice pairs of short and I was on my way to the fitting rooms to try on the shorts when a man approached me and ask me if I was Julia. I recognized him right away and gave him a big hug.

 He was a refugee from Albania whom our church and our small group of volunteers had sponsored in 1999 because of  the war in Kosovo and Albania. He came to Canada with his wife, son and daughter with absolutely nothing as all their possessions were taken from them. His house was blown up in front of them, his car, jewellery, money, everything was taken away from them  except the cloths on their back. It's a long story.....

His wife was also at Value Village and we hugged when we saw each others.
We talked for a while and I told them that I had an appointment at 12:30. I looked at my watch and saw that I still had plenty of time. He wanted to go for coffee so we could talk some more but I had to go try my shorts on first and pay for my purchase.

I got in the fitting room and took the cell phone out of my pocket to check the time and I nearly had a bird right there. It said 12:18PM., not 11: 18...  My appointment was at 12:30 and I couldn't possibly miss this appointment again . I pull my sweat pants back on ( I only wear them for bone scan as they don't allow pants with zippers for scanning) and I ran to the closest cashier and asked if she would hold my merchandize until I came back. She would hold it for only an hour and got my name and phone number.
I dashed out the door, ran to the car and made it to my appointment at the hospital right on time. I didn't had time to go back to explain my sudden exit to my Albanian friends. I felt real bad but I did what I had to do.

That morning  I wore my good watch that I hadn't worn since I was in Ottawa, then I remembered the hour difference. I never adjusted the time on my watch when I got back home and my watch was put in my jewelry box as I use mostly my cell phone to check the time.   Duh...

                                                       ***********************************

This afternoon, when I went in the barn, I saw a black kitten who had an eye infection. I had tried to catch him  in the morning to clean his eyes and put some drops in them but he went and hid from me.

As I bent to grab him he started to meow really loud and the mother cat was near by, she came and attacked me in the face with her claws. She  hissed loudly and slapped me twice quickly and I screamed at her and she stopped but she had already pierced my skin in 5 places places. She pierced my nostril right through but I'm not going to wear a stud..., it just wouldn't sound right that I got my nose pierced by an angry cat, ha,ha,ha.

There were no scratches, just piercing  and I was bleeding. I let go of the kitten  and walk to the storage fridge to get the rubbing alcohol and a paper towel and I bathed the wounds. I put some Polysporin on. It hurt like hell. I may have to get a Tetanus shot tomorrow, I'll see how it feels in the morning. Stupid barn cats.

That is enough adventures for today. Sorry my post is so long but  I have to log my adventures or they will be forgotten.

Good night all.                                                       The END
                                                       **************************************
JB

THIS IS HOW MY DAY WENT TODAY

I have worked so hard these last few weeks weeding, digging and shaking clumps of grass in my flowerbeds and I managed to tidy up 5 large flowerbbeds. I am happy but tired.

I didn't sleep well last night and kept waking up with hot flashes. It happens at every change of seasons.

I was late for work this morning and felt  like sleeping in. Today being a wet day I worked inside and cleaned the veggie crisper in the fridge. My celery was getting disgusting and I salvaged what I could  and made a big pot of beef, vegetable and barley soup.  My husband, the hired hand and myself ate our fill at lunch time and I put the rest in my soup tureen to cool. My husband invited my son to come to get some hot soup  and my son arrived famished and took home a full container of soup  and there was only a small container left. There was nothing wrong with the soup, as a matter of fact, it was very delicious.

I made my spoon cheese and garlic biscuits and they are usually so light and yummy but today my mind was a little off. I didn't had buttermilk so as usual I use some vinegar to add to the milk as a substitute.
When it came time to add the oil, I grabbed the container of vinegar instead of the oil jug and poured the 1/3 cup into my milk. The milk curdled right away, ha,ha,ha. I poured out some of the milk out and added some more fresh milk, just guessing approximately and added my oil, mixed the soft dough and spooned it on the pan and into the hot oven. All this time thinking how good they were gonna be with the soup. I set the timer  on. After a few minutes I looked and they are puffing up, oh goodie.... and went to the garage to put something in the recycle bin. I got sidetracked on my way back to the kitchen, ha,ha,ha, and looked at a sales flyer that was on the freezer.

I was multitasking of course and doing laundry and folding clothes and there are buzzers on all sorts of appliances these days. I heard the buzzer go off on the dryer and it has a wrinkle free feature and will buzz every now and then until you tend to it. I never heard the oven timer go off so I didn't knew that it had gone off . Then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that my biscuits should be about ready to come out of the oven.  They are supposed to look like the ones you get at Red Lobster but these were overcooked.  The boys saids that they were still good but I was really disappointed with myself for not hearing the timer.

                              They were way overcooked but not burned so they were edible.

I had been looking at the sale flyer because I was planning to go back to the Co-op after lunch to buy some butter on sale for $2.97 and some Barilla spaghetti that I can eat,

The 100 paver bricks I bought yesterday for my flowerbed before going to work at the farm needed to be unloaded out of my van first. Those things are too heavy to carry around everywhere.

I grabbed a light black pair of clean socks and a grey pair of work socks from the laundry basket and went and sat on the garage step to put them on when I noticed that one of my black sock was missing. Darn it, I know I had two of each colors. So I took one boot off and and went back in the house and picked another clean black sock and went back in the garage and when I sat down, I noticed that I had put on two black sock on my left foot.

 I managed to get it right  this time and put my boots and my raincoat on to unload the bricks but decided that something  was telling me that I better not get on the road with my brain on reverse so I decided to work inside the house instead  and forget about the sale. It might save me some money in the long run.

After  finishing up in the calf area, I swept the floor and cleaned my broom  by tapping it gently on the floor and broke the handle off at the base. Come to think of it, my day wasn't all that bad, the soup was good. I got an email from Christine and photos of Daniel.

He's  10.5 weeks old, over 2 feet long, nearing 14 pounds and filling his six months cloths.  He still wakes up to eat 2 to 3 times a night, and smiles off camera.
So how was your day?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the Moms.

Thanks for visiting and I hope that you are having a good day. Please leave a comment.
JB

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL LIVES IN OUR BARN

I've been getting behind in my blogging so I thought that I may as well give you a cow adventure before I completely forget. I can't remember the exact date but I have it in my records at the farm. Sometime around the end of April.

One sign that a cow is ready to give birth is that she will usually stop eating a day before. She may eat very little hay and get restless and may have mucus discharge, tail up. I had noticed this in a heifer who was overdue. She had been put in the calving pen before  her due date but didn't calved so the pen was used for another cow for some reason or another.

Her udder was swelled up and I noticed that she barely ate so she was put in the calving pen again for observation. After work  I checked up on her and she was laying her butts against the gate so I got her up and I noticed  that she had a big balloon of embryonic fluid  and it busted when she got up and then I saw two hooves sticking out. I stayed around and it wasn't progressing. I came home to supper and told my husband to go check up on her as her water had broken earlier. He called back that he needed my help to pull the calf out as the delivery had not progressed at all.

Routine stuff, disinfect the  small chain with iodine in warm water to attach around the calf feet, get the ratchet winch ready with chain and a pail of disinfectant in water. Turn on the halogen lamp on for better light.The heifer is lured into putting her head in the headlock gate with grain, as soon as her head is far enough, a lever is pulled and voila, she is your prisoner.  So far so good, just routine for this kind of delivery.

My husband gets me to hold the tail while he attached the chain carefully around the calf feet and tried to get the heifer to move closer to the back gate so the winch can be attached to the pull chain. Notting doing, she bucks and won't budge. It's not easy moving a 1300 pound animal .We try to pull her back to reach the  extra inch of chain needed but she pulls her head out of the lock while I'm holding the chain attached to the feet.

The pen gate was wide open and she bolted out of the pen with me holding on and she took off for the alley way. I'm in the back in hot pursuit and had to let go of the chain to save my wrists and fingers, ha,ha,ha. My husband still is trying to get the spare piece of chain from the gate. I'm bringing the cow back to the pen but she saw that the other gate was opened as well and she took off for the area where no cow should go in the small calf area. She made it into the double calf pen that was opened where the cat was bedding her kittens, missing stepping on a kitten by an inch. I quickly grabbed the kitten and threw it in an empty calf pail.

This was from a previous photo of the two cats babysitting the kittens while the mother was taking a break from nursing.


Now my husband was trying to get her to back up in a very tight space not made for a cow. I worried about the mother cat and the 5 kittens.  We got her back to the calving pen, again I enticed her with grain and locked her head in a the other head gate this time. Sometimes a cow has a bigger head and the make adjustment to the width of the head gate lock.

Time is of essence if we want to save the calf and the heifer is not helpful in the least.

The calf was a hard pull out , I got my husband to stop pulling while the calf is hanging half way out so I can clear the mucus from the nostrils and mouth so he can breath. It's much easier to clear the mucus out with the calf upside down as opposed to lifting the calf with his head down. I use paper towels to wipe as much mucus off as I can.

I'm frantically trying to get him to breath and it always feel so good when he takes that first breath and bawls.  The disinfectant is poured on the cow's bottom and the calf umbilical cord is dipped in a stronger solution of iodine to help it dry up and keep it from getting infected.   There was no way the heifer could have delivered the calf on her own. It was a  dry birth.

I vaccinated the calf and gave him some warm colestrum milk from the cow that calved earlier.

After all the commotion was done with, I went to turn the light off and i counted only four kittens in the pen. I told my husband that a small baby kitten is missing. He said, "you  threw it in the calf pail" Sure enough, he was still there safe and sound in the pail. With all this ruckus, the mother cat never moved an inch.

We went home, showered and went to bed.
The end.

Thanks for coming by. I appreciate you comments so much.
Stay safe,
JB

KIDS GROW FASTER THAN WEEDS

Happy May everyone. The new month is finding me busy with trying to catch up on my weeding. It happens every spring so that's no news to you or to me...

I was planning on getting some hoeing done in a few flower beds today but instead I spent some quality time with my granddaughter Nicole. Her school had an open house today for parents and grandparents. They had turned every classrooms  in different activities. She had chosen the Scrap-booking activity in another classroom.  Of course, I took my camera along but  I can't show all the 70 photos I took today.

Nicole working on her scrap booking and surprised to see me.

The glossy surface did not photographed well but it will give you an idea of her work.

A closer shot of her in the scrap-book. She is quite the diva... looking chic in her nice little hat.

Mama arrived in between meetings and had to go back to work. Since it was a half day for the school kids today I took Nicole shopping with me. I bought lots of stickers for her scrap booking  but no pictures of the purchase. Since it was lunchtime I took Nicole to lunch at Cosco but didn't took my camera in so no pictures either. I needed to buy some vegetables and a big bottle of pure vanilla.

I went to The Depot and I also bought a new toilet seat that goes down silently with just a gentle push and as a bonus it has this kiddie toilet seat that goes with it.  No more slamming the toilet seat down.

Nicole thought that the kiddy seat would make a great frame. I agree, lol...

Waiting for me in the sun room trying different poses. She love being photographed. I told you that  she's a diva.

May first  today and my poinsettia is still blooming although it lost a lots of the green leaves through neglect.

I wish I could sit in the lotus pose like this but I can't sit in full lotus because of  a bad knee cap.

Nicole is tying her sneaker lace on the big rock out front. My tiny little blue flowers are blooming but my boxwood bush got winter damage this year.

We took a little hike to the field and there was one of the eagle in the nest.  It looked so big that Nicole didn't want to stick around for long as she was a little scared.

Here are the two flower beds I worked on yeterday. My daylillies are doing well but not the irises since I planted them so late last fall. They may survive but I won't get any blooms this year in this bed. I bought some potting soil on sale last fall and I put it in there to mulch the tiny weeds. I hope that it'll work. Brown and green looks nice, don't you think? Or  I may plant some flower seeds for this year. lol...

Nicole also came to help me in the barn. She help feed milk to the calves and hay to the bigger ones and the big bull and his consorts.  I put warm milk in the cat bows and shortly after, one of the little kitties walked in the milk and decided to lay down in the warm milk. Nicole thought it was funny.He needed a bath after that, luckily I keep towels at the farm.

After she finished work she said"Mamoo, I don't know how you can do this every day. A grandmother should be at home cleaning house and cooking, not doing this kind of work"  Maybe, she right.

Thanks for dropping in I appreciate your comments so much.
JB