The First year on…The Little Homestead on the Prairies, Part 2

Spring has sprung....mostly...sort of....

 Spring was our season of impatience.  We were impatient, because it never seemed to fully arrive, although it made several broken promises to appear.  It was preceeded by a season we are still trying to name. For now, we shall refer to it as, "Mudtime."  It would rain, then snow...rain a bunch, then snow a bunch.  Rain some more, snow some more. 

In Mudtime, everything is brown; light brown, medium brown, dark brown, with last year's dead, brownish yellow weeds thrown in for local colour. Oh, and it's muddy.  Very, deeply, bog-you-down-muddy.  Even the ponds are slate-grey in Mudtime.  I didn't take a single picture until Mudtime was over last year.  At least we finally got a good look at our land - it's pond, and other features.

We were impatient to see something green, or orange, or some other colour.  We were impatient to get working on the land, putting up fences and getting things organized the way we wanted them.  We were certainly very impatient for the mud to dry up and go away!  Eventually, the grass became the richest, most amazing deep emerald green and all the ponds and sloughs turned a very deep, brilliant sapphire... it was so amazing!  It was as if the same, bright sapphire colour of the waters of creation were suddenly present here - quite the notion, I know!  But, the colours were so utterly amazing.  Cheri and I marveled at them.  

The buds on bush and trees stayed stubbornly shut - forever, it seemed, no doubt protesting the frequent snows that accosted us all.  Then one day, when the girls and I were driving to the big city, suddenly it happened all at once: everywhere, all together, on one single day, the leaves all burst open their buds, spliing forth their rich, emerald green leaves, everywhere on every bush and every tree... all at the same time!  We were SO excited!

One treat happens during this time of year; the migratory bird flocks return - and a good portion of them go by our neighborhood!  We get ducks, Canada geese, and snow geese, to name a few.  Watching a flight of geese go overhead that numbers in the thousands and stretches as far as the eye can see in either direction... now that's impressive!  Snow geese in particular seem to enjoy the hospitality of our land, and this neighborhood in general.  This is Doran and Kami watching the snow geese prepare for the next leg of their journey.

In early spring, Cheri and Bryan bought their Arab horse Wildfire who turned out to be the "troubled youth" of the pasture.  He spooks easy, and is green as all get out - not like we were led to believe at all!  - But he has a good heart, and he loves anything young.

Cheri and Bekah (via the phone) have figured this fellow out, though, and there is a good plan in place to bring him along.  He has great conformation, and oh, he is SO amazing to watch... one's heart just lifts as he trots or gallops with his head held high, and his tail up, looking for all the world like some foreign-born horse-prince held captive in our pasture, running over the prairie grasses!

Of course, this is the same fellow who ran me over in a blind panic and put me off my feet for 2 months with one of the injuries that I got from it... still have the scars on my foot, but hey, I got off easy.  It came close to being much worse.

Mid spring, we acquired our Dexter cows; two heifers, (Dixie and Daisy) with calves (Rosie and T-Bone) at foot.  Dixie is our only full-blood Dexter; Dixie is half Gelveigh.  Both calves are mixes as well.  Dixie will be the "genesis" of our eventual herd, if our plans hold.  Often plans are subject to change without notice, we have discovered, so we shall see!

Daisy soon proved herself to be a terrible bully in the pasture of anything and everyone near her.  She actually used to stalk us people.  Trying to sneak up on us and bowl us over.  Of course, we naturally would have to have a predatory cow!  I have had to whack her a few good ones and chase her a few times to give her the idea that I am the alpha and not her.  She respected me once we had a few run-ins, but I had to watch her.  She has made great hamburger, I must say.  We butchered her and the calves this December just before Christmas, leaving Dixie as the solitary cow for now.

Next we got our first chickens, an endangered heritage breed called Chantecler.  They are a Canadian chicken, originally bred by a monk in Quebec to withstand our cold winters and to be good layers, even during the dark months.  They arrived as tiny balls of yellow fluff, and they grew so quickly.  This is Kami with a young chick.

Aren't they cute?

Here they are as awkward teenagers...

 

...And as Adults this winter.

The big guy in the foreground with the fancy tail is one of our two surviving roosters (we ate the others) with one of his many wives in behind.  The brothers get along just fine and seem to have no problems sharing guard duties...or anything else.

Right now we are getting 8 eggs a day on adverage, and no longer need to buy eggs at the store!  Soon it will be a dozen a day... wanna buy some farm fresh eggs?

Stay tuned for part 3 : Summer Summer, Where art thou, Summer?   Coming soon!