Flashback Friday

Two years ago today, this is what our house looked like!!!! Crazy how much is changed!! I also took the sunrise picture two years ago today.

Ashley

Q-tip Painting

The other day Tanner & I did some Q-tip painting. He really enjoyed it. I did one with him so he could kind of copy me. I have a couple of other fall projects for him yet.

Ashley

Keepsake Recipes

A couple of weeks ago I stopped at my Grandma's for a sporadic visit while Tanner was in Nursery School. We got talking about canning and whatnot and I asked her if she had a recipe for Beet Jelly. I have a row of beets and the only reason I planted them is to use the beet leaves for soup...LOL. I remembered my Mom making Beet Jelly when I was growing up so I it might be a good way to use up these beets. (Well my Hubby informs me that he loves pickled beets but no one makes them anymore....after six years of marriage, I still don't know everything about him!! ;)) Anyways, Grandma dug out her little recipe box full of typewritten recipes. While she was digging for the Beet Jelly recipe she found other recipes that she thought I might like...One or two of them actually come from her Mom, so my Great-Grandma. Here they are:

As she handed them to me I snapped pictures of them with my phone. Much easier than writing them out! So once she got through them all and I handed them back she says oh you weren't interested in any of them? I laughed and said, Oh Yes! I took pictures of the cards with my phone! She laughed, shaking her head, well isn't that handy. lol.

Anyways, I was gald she shared these with me. I'm sure she doesn't realize it's very special to me!

Have a great day! We did finally finish that field of canola but we are having a heck of a time plugging both combines....Not fun! I'm on supper duty this weekend.

Ashley

A Trip to the Winnipeg Zoo

 They have done a fantastic job with the Journey to Churchill.

 Unfortunately there was nothing swimming in here but it looked pretty neat.

 This is the skeleton of a beluga whale.

 These things just crack me up!

 So cute!

 To scale sized skeleton of a bowhead whale.

 Hudson the polar bear.

 A bear trap. This was set up in the 'Town of Churchill'.

 The tigers put on a really good show. They have a much bigger enclosure since the last time we were there (2 yrs ago). They were fighting in their pond and it was really neat.

 There is a picture of my Dad with either my sister or myself on his shoulders at the Zoo from years ago...I should look for it.

 She loves her horsey rides. She clucks and spurs and the whole bit!

 The kangaroos were new there. They were in a big space with some emus. We were allowed to go right in a see them. Pretty neat.

Emus are the second largest bird in the world with the Ostrich being the largest. (at least twice the emus size)

This was a very spontaneous, spur of the moment trip, last Sunday. We had rain the day before and we knew there was no combining going to be done. So I said that instead of sitting at home and grumbling about the weather we should go do something. This is something I had really wanted to do this summer with the kids and I'm glad we got there. In fact, I would say Fall is the best time to go. This is the most animals we've seen out and about there and probably because it was typical cool Fall weather. The kids really enjoyed themselves. They did have the tunnel closed where you can see the bears swimming around in the water but they also had a 10% discount because of that. Compared to the Calgary Zoo, I do think they have a ways to go to make it comparable when they are almost charging the same amount to get in. But still worth our afternoon.

Have a wonderful day!

Ashley

I'm telling you, put meatballs in the freezer!

We can finally say we have two field combined under our belt! One oat field and one barley field. We had hoped to move onto canola today but as I was typing this it was raining once again! This time my mother-in-law operated the new to us combine with my Hubby in the other one. Uncle Bob was trucking and my father-in-law 'trying' to swath oats. They are tough to deal with this year as they are flat as a board. We also had a neighbor down baling straw for us.

SO of my wheels start turning. What are we going to have for supper today?? I had put a perogy/farmer sausage casserole in the slow cooker at lunch time for us. (at that point I was not sure how the day was going to turn out) But it would not be enough for everyone and wouldn't suit my father-in-law as he has Celiac. The other day I put a couple pounds of meatballs in the freezer. Just in case! Well I just pulled them out, cooked some rice and s/s sauce, corn for a veg and sliced fresh tomatoes. If my mother-in-law or sister-in-law are reading this I'm sure they are laughing at me. I just can't stop talking about how happy I was with myself to have been a little more prepared and organized for once! lol. There I was with a full spread of food on the table and I'm pretty sure I did not spend a whole hour preparing it. I will be using my freezer more often. Why have I not done this before! ha ha. Ok, I'm done now.

I forgot to mention how pleased my hubby was with me because I spoke for a new bed for Tanner that I seen for sale online. Just 15 minutes away. So Ali and I left at about 5:30 last night to go get it. That's another reason I was so pleased with myself. I got the bed and had supper ready by the time everyone walked in the door around 7:30-8pm. Then because they love me sooooo much, him and his Dad carried it in and even set it up after we had supper. ;)

We have a sick little girl on our hands, she did not sleep well last night for being completely plugged up. I thought she was a little warm this morning too but it might have just been because she just got out of her warm bed. She has been picking fights all day long with everyone! So I'm glad it's Friday and the weekend is just around the corner.

Ashley

Tired, but for a good reason!

Yesterday we were back at those oats again. It felt so good to get in the field and stay there till it was too tough to combine any longer. I have been itching to get out of the house and into the field for days now. Looking after extra kids day in and day out tends to make you feel house bound. So when everyone left yesterday I stole (mwahahahahahha) my Hubby's combine from him and took over. With my father-in-law in the second combine we were able to get something accomplished while the sun shone. Of course that demoted my Hubby to the trucking position. Let me tell you, trying to concentrate on driving a combine, trying to not get it plugged or wreck it in any other sort of way with a two and four year climbing the ceiling and walls in there is interesting to say the least! But I'm a mother, so multi-tasking is a piece of cake......right?;)

Once we were done, it was so nice to come home to a meal all ready for us. Big salute goes out to my slow cooker! ha ha. It has to be one the most wonderful inventions of all time.

So when my day was finally done (our kids were asking to go to bed and were out like lights) I was pooped. BUT I'm OK with being tired when we've been able to accomplish something. And that something is our crop laying out there, so that makes it a very important something.

Happy Harvesting!
Ashley

Nursery School & Back at Combining!!

 On Thursday Tanner had his first day of Nursery School! He did great and had a lot of fun. He said he wants to be a Skidsteer Driver when he grows up.

 With threat of frost the other night we went out to pick everything that would be vulnerable....let's just say I totally underestimated how many tomatoes were out there!!!! This is maybe a third... The kidlets were happy to help me!

 Ali's new obsession is wearing a toque 24/7. Except she gets them mixed up with mitts and calls it her mitt all the time. lol. At least it easier than trying to fight with her to get her to keep it on.

 We FINALLY got back to combining yesterday. We have not combined since August 17 and even then it was only two short days worth. One field of oats that we have cut is dry and ready to go so that's what we were working on last night. One field of canola is ready to combine as well. Our winter wheat is still sitting out in the field in the swath...it's pretty much a write off and very poor in grade so we won't worry about it too much till the better crop is off. Of course my hubby (glad it was him and not me) managed to plug the combine. Very badly. So while they were working on unplugging it, the kids had a blast playing in the swaths of straw. Lots of fond childhood memories came back to me of the fun we had playing on the farm as kids. The bale yard was highlight year round.

Ah, the life of a farm kid!

Have a great day and if your harvesting, stay safe and I hope you get lots done!
Ashley