Playing catchup!!

Forgive me Blogger for I have sinned, it has been three months since my last Blog!

Oh it has been quite an eventful 3 months.

The Animals

Poetie on our tractor

On my last update I mentioned that we had 2 new ducks and on August 17th one of the ducks went missing.  We were not able to find him, I thought it was Donald that went missing.  I am now suspecting that Daisy is really the male but oh well.  We got three new ducklings and they are Widdle Waddle, Piddle Paddle (females) and Little Quack (male).

Daisy with the three ducklings

I still have 17 chickens but one must be being picked on, or has found a more handsome rooster, because she won’t sleep in the coop at night and I only see her lurking around the yard in the morning looking for food and then she takes off once the other chickens are let out of the coop.  Strange but true.  I thought she was eaten up by a wolf, fox or coyote but no, she shows up in the morning every few days starving.  I have no idea who’s coop she is sleeping in at night.

Inside the chicken coop, one white sex link is on the perch, I bet it is not the one that keeps running away

We get some very interesting eggs, some that we call egg farts (far left) and some crazy sized double yolkers (2 on the right), and of course all different colours!!

I still have seven rabbits, anyone want one?  My cage is a bit small for all of the males!!

All of my 4 babies are male, anyone want a cute fluffy bunny?

The Garden

My garden came and went, time flew by and all that is left growing out there are some ground cherries and a few tomatoes that I didn’t harvest yet.

We put bars to hold plastic over the veggies on cold nights

An early harvest of onions, beets, tomatoes and leeks

My garlic harvest

I only made 9 jars of salsa so far, I hope to get more made from the tomatoes I harvested but the blight made a lot of them not too hardy and since I haven’t gotten to them they are going bad quickly.

Onions

More tomatoes and beets and onions

And yet again more tomatoes!!

And more still!!!! As well as a few cucumbers.

I still haven’t made my jam, I froze the strawberries and rhubarb for future canning.  I have since taken in my potatoes, about 35 of them, some celery and more cucumbers.  I had strawberries all summer and fall, there may even be some out there still if the chickens didn’t get them.

The Family

I took a leave of absence from work from Sept. 24th till Dec. 6th.  Time is flying by.

My last day at work held an eventful “suspicious package” that the bomb squad had to show up for.

Willem and I had two occasions to play with parrots this summer

In August our baby’s adoption was final, after 2 years of waiting!  I got a new Birth Certificate and ordered his OHIP and SIN in his new name, now we just need the passports for the kids and the identification will be complete.

Laurens at his Therapeutic Riding Lesson

The Students

In August we had two Japanese students come for two weeks each and every weekend we were out somewhere with them.  It has been such a busy summer.

Kurin with Willem

Kurin’s first taste of poutine at the Lombardy Fair

Reo in the background at a farm fundraiser this past summer

We have two international students right now, one 16 year old from China, he came in September and is here for the full school year and one arrived at the beginning of October and is 11 years old from Columbia and is here for 8 weeks.  Things are always busy around the Windmill Motel!!

Michael’s first day of school

Santiago’s first day of school, a cool day!!

We took everyone to the museum of Civilization to the Children’s Exhibit a couple of weeks ago.

Willem the fisherman

The boys riding

Laurens on a Safari

The House

I have finally got back to decorating my home and we have our renovation plans and attempts underway as well.  There is always more to do also.

Something unexpected from the garden

We actually had 17 unexpected things!!

The Motel

Our tenants that were in the unit that was part of the house moved out and we reclaimed the rest of the house.  We renovated the bedroom and are turing the kitchen into a bedroom and turing the living room into the Drawing Room, the place the adults go to get away from the kids.

We had several guests leave the motel at the same time, two of the rooms I had never cleaned myself and they really needed it.  Walls were steamed, bed frames painted and everything scrubbed to within an inch of its life.  Our housekeeper/nanny has been very busy around here. We need to move around some electrical and satellite coax cabling so that we can mount the TVs where I want them to go.

GJ put up a privacy wall that I decked our with an herb garden, this separates our deck from the motel guests better

Next up: planting fall garlic, tulip bulbs, bringing in plants that can’t get frost, finish the harvest, till the garden under, fertilize and renovate the rest of the house. Till next time…..