Hello! I’m back! You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged for quite some time. It has been a long, long, long winter. We had lots of snow, wind, extreme cold and storms. Dave was either storm-stayed or exhausted from driving in poor weather so he often opted to stay in town rather than do the one hour drive home after his shift. This left both of us very tired most of the time. Blogging just wasn’t in the cards.
There was lots of ice on the lake this year so for me the first sign of Spring was the regular appearance of drift ice – or clampers as they are called out here. The ice would drift lazily to shore and then in a few hours it would disappear. Quite often I would see seals going along for the ride – always too far away for a picture of course. I am happy to report that Day Lilies and Tulip shoots are starting to appear.
We have a couple of new additions here on the farm – a puppy and a “tiny” horse. In February we added a Great Pyrenees puppy to the mix. Fauna, born Dec-15-2012, is in-training to be our livestock guardian dog (LGD). She is absolutely adorable and it was very hard leaving her in the barn. Congratulations to Ray Chartrand of Seaforth, ON for winning our “Name the Puppy” contest. In March we adopted a beautiful horse named Ebony. Ebony is a Belgian-Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred mix. We are training her to be our riding horse. She is a sweet girl and holds her own with the big girls.
We were very excited to find our Bed and Breakfast listed on page 276 of the 2013 Nova Scotia Doers and Dreamers guide. Did you know that there is an app for the guide? “Nova Scotia Travel Guide” – check it out!
In February Terri went to a 2-day workshop about Greenhouses. We are looking forward to some season-extension gardening this year. Dave and Terri also attended a workshop about growing hops. We are going to prepare our hop bed and trellis system this year in anticipation of starting our hops crop next year. The plan is that in two years we will be selling our first harvest of organic hops to our new local brewery – Big Spruce Brewery.
Lastly we are happy to announce that the 2013 WWOOFing season has started. We are kicking off the season with our very first Japanese WWOOFer! Welcome Kana! Kana and I have decided that we speak French best to each other … that’s not saying much knowing my French.
As I glance up from the screen and look to the window I see that it is snowing again. At least it is not accumulating (much). Winter just does not want to give up this year. <sigh>
Well, I hope you are warm and dry and that there are signs of Spring at your house. Take care. I’ll leave you with another sunset pic …
Until next time,
–Terri