Value Village for the Win!

Recently, Spruce Grove opened up a new Value Village.  It's big and exciting news for someone who loves a good bargain!  Often, when we go into town, we'll pop into "VV" to take a quick look around.  I'm a sucker for any sort of embroidered linens, antiques, or housewares.  I have my couple of items I always look for - quilts, hand painted barn pictures, aprons and antique crockery. 

The older I get, the more I place value on items that are either handmade, or have stood the test of time. For example, I have a hard time saying no to vintage tea towels and aprons.  I know how long it takes me to embroider one simple tea towel.  How many hours do you think it to someone to embroider these?  And on flour sacks, none the less.... how do you not take these home?

How I appreciate that the well loved items of yesteryear were actually cherished.  And reused, often times again and again.  It's so different from our culture today, isn't it?  Lately, The girls and I have loved looking for handmade wool sweaters.  Again, the time that was spent on these projects.... and I don't know how to knit, so I really do appreciate a beautifully knit sweater.  Throw in the fact that it's wool, and that baby is coming home with me!  Wool is so incredibly warm, we wear these sweaters for everything through the winter.  Here's my "choring sweater", which I found a couple of weeks ago... Incidentally, it's really, really great to have someone in your life who knows how to knit, because this beauty had a couple of small holes, but my SIL was able to fix them up fairly easily for me. 

Again, because I know how much time and energy goes into making a quilt, I rarely turn up any quilts.  And I really do love those old school polyester quilts, because you cannot wreck those things.  I've bought a few over the years, but this one takes the cake!  It's bright and beautiful and stays in my truck for when we need to spread out a blanket to sit on.  Or in case we ever get stuck in the snow.  My girls really don't love this quilt, but I think it's so bright and cheery.  And no one will ever steal it!

My "commitment to thrifting", as a friend likes to call it, has wielded me some pretty exciting deals, so I'd rather think of this activity as an "investment for my retirement".  I keep telling the girls that the junk valuables I buy from VV are actually items of worth, and that when I die they'll be able to sell them.  For example:  I bought this pretty sweet Hudson Bay Point Blanket.  It's an iconic Canadian keepsake! (And don't worry - I took it directly from the store to the dry cleaners!)

And then, I found a few more points blankets, all in great shape, all keepsakes, and all dry cleaned!

I also got Abby started on a little collection of her own.... enamelware.  She's even picked up several more pieces since this picture was taken.  She tells me that when she moves out, that's all she's going to use.... we'll see about that!

The most exciting find, I think, to date, has been a beautiful vintage, hand sewn, honeycomb quilt. 

The quilt was unfinished, and needed a bit of tweaking to make it back into a rectangle.  It pains me to think of the amount of hours someone spent making this quilt, and I've decided to finish the quilt myself.  I justified the cost of finishing the quilt by the fact that I bought the top for a mere $5...

I'm having it professionally quilted, since doing so myself, on this size and shape of a quilt is beyond my skill level, and I'm so excited to see it once it's finished!

I suppose I've realized that I really do love the thrill of the hunt when I'm thrifting.  You never know what you're going to find when you walk through those doors, and for a relatively small investment (I don't think I've paid more than $20 for anything I've ever bought from VV), it's a fun little hobby. 

Calving

The first week of March, when our snow was almost gone, we got a huge storm with -30C temperatures and about a foot of snow.  It was a bit of a blow, although completely acceptable for this time of year in Alberta.  We were crossing our fingers that our cows would cross their legs and not drop any babies until after the temperature had warmed up and some of the snow had melted, because friends, it.  was.  miserable..

Thankfully, the cows co-operated, and we had about a third of our herd have their calves in the nice, warm, muddy pasture.  It's always exciting to go and check cows during calving season, because you never know what you're going to find when you get to them.  Usually The Girls come with me, and it's almost as exciting as Christmas morning.  You scan the herd, piles of straw....looking for a mama who is licking a new baby, or seeing a new, fresh calf up and running about, trying to figure out how these things called legs work. 

This mama kept leaving her baby all over the place - under trees, in puddles.... the coyotes kept trying to get closer and closer, so we brought them in a small maternity pen close to the house in order to keep the baby safe until her mama remembered that she needs to keep a close eye on her baby.

This mama and baby are so quiet, and she loved it when the girls would come and hang out in the fresh straw.  The baby would come and lay her head on the girls' lap, just enjoying the attention.

Good thing her mama was nice and quiet - we had plenty of opportunities to pet this little lady.

This handsome guy surprised us being red.  We expected to have only black calves out certain cows....and as you can see, he is certainly NOT black.  But he's my favorite.  He's a big lug of a guy, and he reminds me of our giant dog, George.

We still have some cows to calve, but are expecting a bit of a break for a couple weeks until our next set of cows start calving. 

I'm telling you, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Homeschooling and 4H

 January marks the start of a more intense couple of month of 4H involvement for us.  We started off the year with our Awards Banquet, and Hannah, Abby and Molly all won awards.  This year, for the awards, we put what they won on the back of a hoodie, and all the kids seemed to like that.  The Girls worked hard last year, and they can be proud of themselves!

This is the first year that Ellie Mae is in 4H, and she has waited many, many years for this, so to say she is excited may be a tad bit understated.  During our busier season of 4H, one of the things the Girls have to do is sell raffle tickets to raise money for our achievement day in May.  I took the girls to the auction market the other day, and they sold a whole lotta tickets in a short amount of time, which was great!



The beginning of February starts off with public speaking in 4H for us, so the Girls spent a whole lotta time preparing their speeches.  The all did really well, with Abby winning in her age category, after a speak off.  Molly competed against Ellie Mae in their age category, and Molly came in 2nd and Ellie Mae came in 3rd, and Hannah would've won in her age category except that she ended up with time faults, so she came in 3rd.  They all worked really hard, and we are super proud of them.  It's been so great to watch their progress and confidence increase over the years in public speaking, so much so that Hannah volunteered to emcee our district public speaking event which her sister will compete in.  I would've never thought I'd see the day that would happen!  Hooray for 4H!

We haven't started calving just yet, but some friends of ours have.  We've been over there a few times to walk through the calves, and it makes me extra excited for our calving season to start, in just over a month from now.  You must check out this sweet, silver calf!

The other day, we were at their place and they had to pull a calf.  This was a first for us to be up close and personal in helping/watching a calf be pulled.  We haven't had to pull any of our own calves....yet, so it was a great learning opportunity for all of us!  In my mind, it was the perfect homeschooling day!

First, we had to bring the cow into the barn, which she wasn't thrilled about!  But we got her in and got her checked out, and sure enough, she needed some extra help getting this calf out.

After some pushing on her part and pulling on ours, she had a big (huge, really) healthy bull calf.  We figured he was about 120 lbs.!  After he was born, our friends showed the girls how to make sure he was breathing, and recovering as quickly as possible.

Then, the Girls got a lesson in how the placenta works inside of a calf.  This was laying outside, from another cow that had just calved, and the Girls were fairly fascinated to see how everything works.  Things like this always make me amazed at how God has created us!

Our last task of the day was to bring in a twin who's mother decided she wasn't interested in mothering it (she took the other twin instead), and give it a bag of colostrum.  Did you know that calves aren't born with any immunity, so it's imperative that they receive colostrum from their mamas within 6 hrs. of being born.  After that, their intestines start closing up and they aren't able to receive those good antibodies after that time.  Fascinating. 

Anyhow, after this twin got loved on by our girls, and got some warm milk in him, the next day she got a new mama - a jersey cow that our friends had bought at the market.  Hooray for happy endings!

Indoor Winter Activities

The great thing about winter is that it gives us a chance to relax, and instead of working outside all the time, with short days and long nights, we spend the majority of our time inside.  It feels good to start a fire and hunker down inside, while the cold wind and snow blows outside. 

One of our favorite inside winter activities include Lego (lots and lots of Lego!!).  The Girls have collected much Lego over the years, and they also have Art's from when he was a child, so their imaginations run wild with Lego!  Thankfully, I've only stepped on a few pieces this year!

Every year, around Christmas, we pull out a puzzle.  We do a new puzzle every year, and it usually stays out until it's complete.  Not all of us are puzzlers, so those that aren't can often be found curled up the couch, reading a book, while the others puzzle.  It's just nice to be in the same room, hanging out together.

We also enjoy baking.  Lots and lots of baking!  Truth be told, this happens all year round at this home, but it's fun to work on special baking projects, especially around Christmas!

This year, I taught The Girls to embroider.  I sat down to embroider a few flour sack tea towels as gifts, and a couple of the Girls asked me to teach them.  I was surprised at how quickly they caught on - the little girls especially.  They enjoyed embroidering some tea towels, and especially loved giving them away to friends.  I thought they did a fantastic job, and I'm always a little sad to see the towels go, after spending a few hours working on them.  An extra fun thing was that when my parents came out after Christmas, my Mom also got in on the embroidering bug, and her and I spent time visiting and embroidering together.  After my Mom went home, she was talking to my Grandma, who is 97 yrs. old, about flour sacks, and this is what she had to say: 

Flour sacks were precious as they were used for many things like aprons, boys boxer shorts underwear.  They were always in short supply.  Curtains were made from flour sacks and cut them with a scalloped edge, then crocheted around the edges.  They were the prettiest curtains and really make the old rundown house more beautiful and homey.  Nothing was ever wasted so even the thread from the flour sack was used to crochet around edges.   Women crocheted around edges of almost everything like tea towels, tablecloths, pillowcases, and aprons.  Anything to make it look pretty and some items were embroidered like the aprons.  My Grandma said she did a lot of embroidery even before 10 years old.

I'm fairly certain my Grandma could out-embroider me any day of the week, even when she was 10 yrs. old!  I really didn't learn, as a child, to embroider, so this is my attempt to try, and also to teach my Girls.  I think embroidery is such a lost art (as is baking such things as pies and bread!), but I'm thrilled to pass it on.  Here's a fact about me: every time I go to a thrift store, I look for hand made items such as embroidered table cloths, linens and aprons.  I just can't help myself from buying them, knowing how many hours went into making them.  And to buy them for a dollar or two.... it seems like they're grossly undervalued!

Of course, many hours are also spent reading, playing games, doing crafts and watching the occasional movie....

The great thing about living in the Prairies during our long winters is time spent together!

4 Months

It's been 4 months.  4 short months since we've had snow on the ground.  As some of you may remember, we had snow on the May Long Weekend, and then we just had a good dump of snow on Thanksgiving weekend.  4 short months since we've seen that white stuff!

We had a house full of company for Thanksgiving, and I knew that they were forecasting snow, but I didn't really believe that it would happen, especially since our Thanksgiving weekend was early in October.  Alas, I was wrong, and the weather forecasters were right.  We got almost 5" of snow on that weekend.  It was cold and wet and miserable!





  The Girls were excited to get outside and make snowmen....which they did.... The worst part was that as they rolled the ball for the snowman, green grass turned up again.  Such a bizarre scene - leaves on the trees, snow on the ground, and patches of green grass everywhere.

 

Thankfully, I had harvested my garden the day before the weather turned, so my root veggies, along with my pumpkins which overtook the world (or my garden!) were all safe.  Phew! 

Being the optimist that I am, I thought the snow would disappear pretty quickly.  I was, however, wrong.  Boo for me!  We received another 2" of snow this week. 





My optimism is starting to wane that the snow will melt.... however, I took a look at the forecast this week, and it's supposed to warm up, so here's hoping the green grass will show itself again before winter sets in... for good. 

We did get to do a couple of other really fun things this fall... and have a few more to come.  We helped friends round up cows on their lease land about an hour and a half north of here.



 It was a cool start to the day, but by the afternoon it had warmed up considerably.





 I suppose cool is relative - heck, I'm thankful there wasn't snow on the ground!

The other really fun thing we were involved in is City Slickers, which is a program put on by the Stony Plain Multicultural Heritage Centre, funded by Ag for Life.  The whole idea of the program is to continue to show urban children how food is produced, since the average Canadian is 2 generations removed from a farm.  The Girls were involved in this program 2 years ago as presenters, and this year they were asked to be presenters again.  We talked about what they wanted to present about, and they decided that each of them would choose a tool that we used on our ranch, and share it with the kids.  The subjects they choose to present on were branding, roping, what we used our horses/dogs for on our ranch, and how to care for our horses.  The Girls all did a spectacular job on their presentations, and the years of 4H public speaking sure got put to good use! 





They each wrote their own portion of the presentation, and then they used props to illustrate.  We brought along 3 horses and Hannah's stock dog, as well as a dummy roping head, ropes, saddles, branding irons and various brushes for the horses.  I believe there were 900 kids, grade 3-4, that went through the program this year, so it was a full, exhausting day. 

I was sure proud of our Girls, and how they used their knowledge about our lifestyle and shared it with other kids.  

The Never Ending Job

We've been planning, since last summer, to do a major fencing project this spring.  We wanted to fence both sides of the creek which runs through our property, and although some of it was fenced, there was lots that needed to be repaired or replaced.  Since the creek bed is an environmentally sensitive area, we also want to limit when and how much time the cows have to graze it, and limit their access when it's most vulnerable - in the spring. 

The majority of our free time these days has been spent doing the preparation for the fencing project, and it feels like the work is never ending!  We had to mark out where we want the fence to go, clear a 10 ft. wide swath through the bush, take out all the old fencing nails and posts, and wind up the wire.  Oy.  In addition, we had to repair a bunch of fencing on another grazing quarter in order to be able to move the cows to that pasture so that we could pull out the old fencing around the creek.

Thankfully, the weather has been a bit cooler, although lots of rain has definitely increased the mosquito population around these parts.   During the day, I had my fencing crew help me come and pull the nails.  Those little fingers worked well, and the Girls actually quite enjoyed that job!

I love the look of concentration on their faces!

Art (a.k.a. Mr. Patient) took lots of time to teach the girls how to repair broken or loose wires, and they caught on quickly to that as well.

I don't think we've been in before 10 pm any night this week, and a couple of the girls even fell asleep in the ranger as we drove home, but everyone felt quite proud of the job that we have done.

Shed Hunting

Since moving onto our farm, we've had the opportunity to start (another) new hobby as a family.  Our land has provided ample opportunity to start doing some shed hunting, and we've sure enjoyed it!  It's like a giant treasure hunt....or looking for a needle in a haystack.... Either way, it's pretty fun to get outside and look for animal sheds.  We've found mostly moose sheds so far, but I'm hoping to come across some more deer sheds, as well as possibly an elk or two?  When Art was driving home the other day, a few miles up the road he saw an elk with only one antler still, and since then I've been dreaming of finding the other one!  That is a long shot, for sure, but who knows what the future holds!

The first set of sheds we found in the fall, along a trail in the bush.  We had gone out for a walk, after the Girls had showered, so they were in their pj's.  First we found one, and then a few feet up the trail, we found another.  That was awfully exciting!

These sheds held a place of honor in my family room for most of the winter, and now they are on a shelf in my kitchen.  Naturally.  Because isn't that where everyone puts their moose sheds?!

This winter, while out on the ranger looking at some land, Ellie Mae yells, "STOP!  I see a shed!"  Truthfully, I didn't really believe her, but she jumps out of the Ranger and runs into the bush, where she starts digging like crazy.  A few minutes later, she comes out of the bush, triumphant.  Holding this little beauty.

That was added to our pile of deer sheds, of course in the living room.

A few weeks ago, when the snow really started to melt, our shed hunting began in earnest.  On another walk, the Girls found these two beauties. 

And promptly asked Art to carry them home.

We were over at some friends the other day, and went out shed hunting with them.  Abby came away from that walk with this little buddy....

See?  Apparently this is a social thing, because when we have friends come over, this is also what we do.  Shed hunt.  Again, Abby found this bad boy - it was covered in snow, and she actually stepped on it! 

 

I think we've found the "easy ones" now, and maybe caught up on the last few years of sheds, so perhaps we'll have to wait until next Spring to find another set of moose sheds, but that's alright.  Because we've accumulated quite the stash of these beasts, and I'm not sure how much more room I have in my house for them!

Here are some pointers for those of you who may be new to Shed Hunting:

1.  We appropriate clothing.  It's no fun having wet feet, or being cold, so dress in layers.  That way you can take a layer off if it's too hot.

2.  Go for a walk.  This is a great excuse to get outside for some fresh air.  We live in the bush country, so every trail leads to new adventures.  Pick a game trail and walk it.

3.  Be aware of your surroundings.  This has been so, so fun to teach our girls.  We all look for rubs on trees, poop on the ground, places where animals may have bedded down or eaten the plants.  It's a great time to teach your kids about the land, and animals that live on it.

4.  Have fun.  Even if you don't away with the prize, it's still a win-win, in my books at least.  Fresh air, family and friends.  Really, how can you go wrong?!

Summer In A Nutshell

When things like "summer" come along, I've always said that I'd rather be working outside than stuck inside.  This philosophy has permeated our lives and affected how we make decisions.  Case in point: Homeschooling.  We like to be done the beginning of May so that we can be outside once the weather turns nice.  This has also proven true with blogging.  Apparently, I've been quite negligent in the blogging department, and you know what?  I'm not sorry.  Not even a little bit.  Now that we have that out of the way, I'll give a quick little blip about our summer, and we'll call it a day. 

 

So.  Summer.  It was hot and dry and glorious and exhausting.  Par for the course, yes?  We made it out to BC a few times, not really for vacation purposes - they were work trips.  We still made it a great time and had fun and enjoyed being away.  We were involved in a wedding during one trip, and a demolition/renovation on the other trip. 

 

My goal was to do a couple of fun day trips with the kids, and we were able to accomplish that, which was loads of fun.  At the beginning of the summer, we loaded up horses and kids and took a day trip to the Ft. Assiniboine Park.  We met up with friends, in 35C heat, and went on a ride.  It was hot and dusty and beautiful and loads of fun.  I was a bit nervous about the day, seeing how we'd never done anything like that, nor had our horses, but it was a stellar day and the horses and kids all did great.  Let me tell you, air conditioning has never felt so good as it did that day, after we'd finished loading horses and headed home! 

 

I was especially proud of my new 2 yr. old I bought this spring - he didn't bat an eye as we crossed streams and climbed steep hills and went through the bush.

 

 

 

 Another fun day trip that we did was the Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail.  We took Art's sister along on this trip, and it was a great day.  At the zoo, there were lots of big animals who were very active in their homes.  They had shows with the animals, you could watch training sessions, and you could also get your picture taken with some of them.  Art's sister had her heart set on getting our picture taken with the bear.... so we did.  And I was slightly terrified.  Truthfully, the bear looks fake, but let me assure you....it was most real.  And here he is, doing his "Scary Bear" trick.  You choose which trick you wanted him to do while you had your picture taken with him.... And I think he looks quite scary, don't you?  I think I'd definitely wet my pants, should I run into a bear like this in the wild...

 

 

We took another day and headed to town.  Em-Te Town, that is.  We went to this old ghost town when Hannah was a baby, so it's been many years since we were there.  It was fun to take the Girls again, and since it's only about 40 minutes from our farm, it's an easy day trip.  Incidentally, we also took them to Ponderosa City, which is just a few miles from Em-Te Town.  It's a very cool western store with a bakery and some new-built-to-look-old buildings on site.  They hold Cowboy Church every Sunday during the summer, so when my folks were out, we went and enjoyed a pancake breakfast and church there one Sunday morning.    

 

Another afternoon was spent at the Lacombe Corn Maze with some friends, and that was also a great time.  The fun thing about the corn maze was that all the kids loved it - from our teenager to their 1 yr. old.  The weather was beautiful, the company was good, and we had farmer sausage for dinner there, which was the icing on the cake!

 

 The last day trip we took was just last weekend, and actually ended up being a 2 day trip.  We started off by going to a great gun store a few hours away, and then spent the night in Three Hills and took the kids to The Badlands for a drive.  We were in Drumheller many years ago, when Ellie Mae was a baby, so again, it was great to go somewhere fairly close by that the Girls didn't remember.  We hiked along the river valley, saw the hoodoo's, went up Dorothy Hill, and saw the other local sights.  It always amazes me how the landscape of our province changes so drastically, even just 3 hrs. away. 

I suppose that about sums up our summer.  Of course, we also spent many hours going to the river, just a few miles down our little gravel road,

 

 

Going for lots of rides,

 

 

And playing with the 8 kittens that our 2 cats had. 

 

 

My folks came out for a few weeks, the girls attended VBS, and we got to visit, on a couple of occasions, with old friends, which was such an unexpected treat!  So there you have it.... our summer in a nutshell!  I suppose I didn't talk about all of the projects we did on the farm this summer, but I'll have to save those for another day.  I hope y'all had a great summer too!