It has been a while ....

We have had a small family crisis that has kept us busy . We apologise for being away so long and not posting our progress. But things are getting back to normal and so here we are again.

We have been very busy preparing for what we hear is going to be a harsh Canadian winter this year.
Our gardens have produced some beautiful gifts to last the winter ...hopefully.
We did not get as much squash this season as we thought we would. And our zucchini did not produce as well either. According to gardening expert Ed Lawrence  this years way too much rain in the spring and not enought rain in late summer hurt crops such as squash,turnips,zucchini and garlic. One organic farmer lost over 2/3 of their crop this summer ...wow
We have been very busy trying to fit canning of apples ,pears, tomatoes and whatever else we can get our hands on .I think we might have enough beautiful apple jelly to keep our grandchildren coming back for more for a while.
Ken has been fixing the shop/shed in order to set up his forge. he has added a second floor for storage , and it looks fantastic.He has worked hard.
We managed to buy another wood stove at an auction to put in the shop. Although I am sure the forge will warm the shop too.
We will need to get in more wood and build up our kindling supply. Between the wood cook stove and the wood furnace we use quite a bit of wood. Add to that the shop and well you get the picture.
I have been thinking about what this all would mean in the year 1865 and again I come back to how we would have survived given the loss of some of our crops. For instance our tomatoes. We today can say oh well, and then when we need tomatoes or tomato sauce pick some up at the local store. that would not have been the case here in 1865. Gardening would have been a pretty serious business. This is an area I can say we have failed in during this project and hopefully can improve on next year. We need to fence some of the gardens to keep the chickens from having access to the veggies. They really enjoyed the cucumbers this year, and the watermelon...they loved the watermelon.  Not sure what we can do about the racoons , they seem to be able to get into anything .
Speaking of chickens, our new breeds are doing well and are now producing eggs , wonderful green and blue eggs. Small but lovely.
We still have not purchased our quails , and I am thinking that will have to wait until the spring. We will be lining the outside of the chickens coop with straw bales this year for warmth and will let you know how that works. Until next time , I will say the wood stove in the kitchen is keeping us warm for now and the earth smells of fall. Thank you for being patient with us ...Margaret & Ken