not typical farm dogs ;)

Brody in one of my favourite pictures of him. This picture just makes me grin plain and simple. I don't know if we won any titles with the run; heck I don't know if we even got the "q" but we had a great run and thats what life with my dogs is all about for me!



Thea loves to jump and loves to please people. A real charmer she has friends everywhere she goes!

Brody and Thea don't fit the most traditional farm dog descriptors though they do a great job alarm barking when needed and keeping me company in the garden without trompling the plants!

I always defined myself as a big dog person ... after Brody joined us I can't imagine not having a mixed crew!

Things I've Done

Here's a list if things I stole from http://clayhillfarm.blogspot.com/ blog. You're supposed to highlight the things on the list you've done. Things I have done are green - things I cannot imagine doing are red ;)

Started your own blog
Slept under the stars
Played in a band
Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than you can afford to charity
Been to Disneyland/world
Climbed a mountain
Held a praying mantis
Sang a solo
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea
Taught yourself an art from scratch
Adopted a child
Had food poisoning
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Slept on an overnight train
Had a pillow fight
Hitchhiked
Taken a sick day when you’re not ill- if mental health day counts ;)
Built a snow fort
Held a lamb
Gone skinny dipping
Been to a Broadway show in NY
Ran a Marathon
Been in three states at once
Ridden in a gondola in Venice
Seen a total eclipse
Watched a sunrise or sunset - (both!)
Hit a home run
Been on a Cruise
Seen Niagara Falls in Person
Visited the birthplace of your Ancestors
Seen an Amish community
Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Gone rock climbing
Seen Michelangelo’s David
Sung karaoke
Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
Visited Africa
Walked on a beach by moonlight
Been transported in an ambulance
Had your portrait painted
Gone deep sea fishing
Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
Kissed in the rain
Played in the mud
Been to Grace Kelley’s grave in Monaco
Gone to a drive-in
Been in a movie
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Taken a martial arts class
Swam in the Mediterranean Sea
Visited Russia
Served at a soup kitchen
Sold Girl Scout cookies
Gone whale watching
Gotten flowers for no reason
Donated blood, platelets or plasma
Gone sky diving
Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
Bounced a check
Saved a favorite childhood toy
Visited the Lincoln Memorial
Eaten Caviar
Pieced a quilt
Stood in Times Square
Toured the Everglades
Been fired from a job -sort of
Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
Been on a speeding motorcycle
Seen the Grand Canyon in person
Published a book
Visited the Vatican
Bought a brand new car
Walked in Jerusalem
Had your picture in the newspaper
Read the entire Bible
Visited the White House
Killed and prepared my own meat
Had chickenpox
Saved someone’s life -I have no concrete way to measure this but I think so
Sat on a jury
Met someone famous
Joined a book club
Lost a loved one
Had a baby
Seen the Alamo in person
Swam in the Great Salt Lake
Been involved in a law suit
Owned a cell phone- been owned by one pretty much ;)
Been stung by a bee

If you want to play along, copy the list for your own blog and highlight the ones that apply to you. :) And let me know, if you do, because I'd love to see your answers!

well just maybe the stars are aligning ...

found me an adult angora bunny in need of a home ...very hairy indeed! Fibre animals seem like a good match - butchering isn't my style and breeding isn't really my bag either. A life without a bunny would be no fun at all!

seed time

I think ordering seeds is tough - I know lots of people love it but it's KILLING me

catalogs all over the place
scraps of paper with notes and codes I can hardly understand

a pile of magazines and books with their recommendations

too much choice - I can see why I usually just go with whatever the local nurseries have but I am determined to start my own seedlings this year and that means making choices

tomatoes
flowers
catnip
herbs
watermelon
pumpkin

not sure what else I'll start ahead yet - every time I look at a catalog I add more

YIKES

it's only January ...

And yet already I'm thinking about growing things!



We haven't been to the land since my last post ..well we drove by the next day to see the damage to the neighbours house and it was very sad. Most of the house looks ok to the outside eye - so I hope everybody and most things were saved .. won't know for a couple of weeks though.



I'm daydreaming about spring though.

i think therefore i blog

Personally, I have been very impressed by the slow food movement. It is about celebrating the culture of food, of sharing the extraordinary knowledge, developed over millennia, of the traditions involved with quality food production, of the sheer joy and pleasure of consuming food together. Especially within the context of family life, this has to be one of the highest forms of cultural activity. Prince Charles



Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield. D.Eisenhower



Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. We plow under habitats of other animals to grow hybrid corn that fattens our genetically engineered animals for slaughter. We make free species extinct and domesticate species into biomachines. We build cruelty into our diet. J. Mason (included cause I've met him and he's passionate and thought provoking!)



Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days. H. Alain



yup diverse thoughts to keep my mind going while I'm packing adn cleaning and packing our city home some more!

not so much fun on the walk today

Kcat - Kali- Kaylie - that damn cat - is gone. Everyone's friend she fought a valiant battle against her cancer for over a year and obviously was not ready to go - however her weak body couldn't match her indomitable spirit and she died on Friday. I wrote a much longer piece on the cat blog for her.

That is not the only reason today's walk wasn't as much fun as usual though.


Our neighbour's house is on fire.
when we arrived for our walk all seemed normal - deer tracks were neat to follow - the dogs had a blast
by the time we left fire fighters (volunteer) and fire trucks were coming from all directions and black smoke was filling the air

I feel so hopeless.

more walking

a couple of snaps from our most recent walk - on camera phone so they aren't great but you can see the pond overflow a bit and the broken tree so typical of what we found!






It's a planning time of year - looking for wood, deciding on locations for hives, cabins, barns etc..watching the pond overflow it's banks and hearing and seeing flocks of birds. There was some substantive wind damage last week (apparently the winds got up to 120 kilometres an hour just south of us. Interesting to see that we know our woods well enough to easily be able to see where trees have come down from the wind.

a lovely, sad, walk

Ashlynn G. Porter

Hank, Sally, Brody, Big T and I went for a long walk at the land today. It was beautiful. Really cold but really lovely. We walked places we hadn't walked before - including some serious bush whacking through the back of the woodlot. We have wood for years just waiting to be cut. We also have posts and rails for the whole property.

I spent much of our walk wishing my aunt Ashlynn would be able to see it some day. However she died on Christmas Day. She was in palliative care in hospital for a week. She had known her cancer had returned last spring but doctors were optimistic that her cancer would be manageable and chronic in nature. Her death was peaceful and calm and she knew she was much loved right until the end but that really doesn't help those of us she left. I'm glad she's not suffering but the ache is amazing. I ache for my mum who is all alone now - no family in her generation at all any more (and she's watched most of them die - her mum, dad, aunt, baby sister, and now little sister). I grieve for Ash's daughter. Another only child (like me), at only 23 she's way too young to lose her mum and her friend. I am saddened for me. Ash was my aunt, like a big sister too (only 12 years my senior she was the same age as my hubby's oldest brother) and a dear friend. She called and left messages often on our answering machine - just cheery little 'notes' saying hi and keeping in touch. I have a collection of physical notes from her too. She made sure people knew they were important to her and she included her immediate family in that effort. She had such a positive life force - she is in large part responsible for Mum and I taking on our crazy projects.
She loved to ride - I'm sure I was allowed to ride because of her efforts. She inculcated me with her competitive spirit as well as the need to be gracious in victory and defeat. I realized today I had been looking forward to riding horses on our property with her in the future.

Life is just not kind sometimes.

wooding once more ...

some pictures to bring this event of wooding home to you all

the woodstove burning up the wood we work so hard to bring in



the wood pile as it stood when we unloaded the truck this afternoon




snow is on the ground but we got another truck full of wood in .. and the dogs had a blast ...and maybe, just maybe, I'm building a different kind of fitness than running agility