In fact, I think you can watch the seasons change just over this blog post!
The farm is pretty quiet now. The veggies are all harvested and stored away for our winter enjoyment. The pigs have been raised and sold, the chickens are tucked into the greenhouse for the winter and the horses have begun to whicker for their daily hay. Snow has been lightly falling and the puddles have frozen smooth and hard. Still, we have still been humming along.
Almost everything on the winterizing list has been checked off, and yet we still find plenty to do!
We were looking forward to a quieter weekend when suddenly the laundry room started to puddle, and just like that, the weekend will be spent on an excavator re-digging the washing machine run off into the yard.
But before I go into anything else, I will share some farm pictures from a few weeks ago.
The greenhouse is pretty much done. Its pretty awesome! Matt ran power to it and installed some lights and its all closed in out of the wind. Once the sun hits in the morning, the whole things warms up!
We finished off our fall with a visit from my parents. Little farm girl had been looking forward to teaching them a riding lesson for a long time.
This was one of my favourite things of this year. Being able to ride with my daughter.
Playing in the pasture and follow the leader through the trees. I have a feeling she liked it just as much as I did!
She has come a long way as a rider over this summer!
Finishing up our garden. We rented a dump trailer and moved loads from the dirt pile in the pasture.
The area with rows is last years adventure. The area with the piles will be next years attempt!
We also picked out two farm kittens! This is Momma Huckleberry giving her babies one last nursing before they ventured out into the world.
Such a cute paw peeking out.
This is Pumpkin. He was the littlest of the litter and is purring machine.
And this is Rainbow, she does her own thing, all the time.
The kitties are super cute but Cola still holds her place as little farm girls favourite. She has been learning bird tricks and it starting to get picky about her rewards. Popcorn is the current favourite. I do think I need to find a more appropriate box for her though... (and yes, I know its actually a him...)
Here is Cola (in the wagon) going for a walk with Little Farm girl and Uncle Mikey.
These girls are doing well. As the temperature drops they are spending less time outside and more time building hay nests to disappear into. Popcorn still remembers to sit if a go in with a treat for her.
The snow has been holding off but I know any day it will come! I am actually looking forward to it because I am having a hard time riding with the ground frozen so hard and choppy.
And speaking of riding, I had the riding weekend of a lifetime last weekend!
Charlie and I attended a Jim Anderson Clinic and it was absolutely amazing! Jim Anderson is world renowned and is an extremely talented horseman. It was such a privilege to get to learn from him!
I often play with my horses and work them in fairly non traditional ways and once I get stuck on something, its hard to get past. Jim had so many insights and was able to shape up my cues and fill in the blanks I was missing in my training. I am quite excited to see where we can go from here!
We worked on so many things and I learned a ton. I have so so many things to work on and teach Charlie and I am just itching to work with him! Which is really hard just going into winter...
As awesome as this summer was, there are still some things I am really looking forward to more of this winter.
Some time spent with my back against this delightful thing, a stack of library books and some little minds thirsting to explore them.
And those cold winter nights: the chores done, little farmers tucked in and and a whole evening ahead with nothing to do but curl up somewhere warm with my favourite man and Hogan's Heroes.
Winter is not so bad after all...
