Author Archives: Elizabeth

A Blitz Update

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The past few months have been incredibly busy ones. But despite that, our family still managed to make a family trip to a train museum in June.

a still functional tramway
lots of railroad ties

At home, there is always plenty to do. One project was to take down the dead weeping willow in our front yard.

After that, there was a lot of brush to burn.

Our mini-farm has also kept us busy: just normal chores…

giving away the orphaned kittens…

selling our three ewe lambs…

and selling Bounty which took teaching her to load into a very small trailer!

And the garden is producing and giving us plenty of work!

Into the freezer for eating later on!
lots of pickle-making and applesauce canning

Evelyn found a more efficient method of doing applesauce than what we have done in the past.

toss the apples into the pot just cut in half
Then send it through a sieve to remove the cores.
It made delicious applesauce with very little waste!

The berries were abundant this year, too.

And a few honeybees have been frequenting our lawn off and on throughout the summer.

Honeybees… that reminds me… a beekeeper has been very prominent in the recent busyness!

Wedding decorations!

Michael and I will be married this Saturday! Praise the Lord for His goodness!

Engagement

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The past couple of months have been busy ones, but I’ll save that for another post. For the moment I simply want to share from this past Saturday.

While most of us were thoroughly engaged in a rousing water fight…

…another more momentous event was taking place.

Jérémie and Sarah, may God abundantly bless your relationship and may your love for Him always eclipse your love for each other.

Family outing

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Sunday afternoon our family took an outing to visit an old wool mill up in Ulverton. It was neat to hear of how the old mill was used in the past, fell into disrepair, and was recently restored – including bringing back in machinery that was used in the time period.

The shredder loosens tangles in the wool before it goes through the carder. Most of the machinery was up and running except for this one which still needed some work on the adjustments. When it is fixed, it will spin the carded and drafted wool. A “dévidoir” for unwinding spools of thread into skeins. An old hand-loom. It takes a lot of time to set it all up! And here is the machine that lines up all the threads to go on the loom. They had a more modern machine (from the 1950’s) that made socks in long tubes. One just had to cut them apart and sew up the toes!

Outdoors they had a few sheep just as “looking sheep.” They don’t actually harvest the wool from them. The covered bridge leading to the mill was burnt down the day after it was restored. So they built it again: the only covered bridge in Quebec to have a sprinkle system in it!There were also some paths where people could walk around and enjoy the outdoors. And while we were there, we took a quick family photo!

Kittens

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While stacking hay at work one day, Stephen came across four “orphaned” kittens. The mother was probably still alive somewhere, but the hay wagon he was unloading came from a different farm. So it seemed the best option to bring them home and feed them. Sarah and Evelyn (and sometimes others if they are available) have been doing this very faithfully many times a day.

So far they all seem to be doing fine and are growing quickly. And there are more kittens coming! Frosting is pregnant and expecting for sometime this week.

How many do you think she’ll have?

I thought pictures were supposed to be taken on my terms.

Bridal shower

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Thursday, my family surprised me with a bridal shower. I was taken totally by surprise!

The kids loved helping to open gifts! And there was a very interesting game of guess-by-feel.Thank you everyone who worked hard, travelled far, and made time in their busy schedules to bless me so much!

The 1st of May

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Here is what the 1st of May looks like in Quebec.

Yes, we still have some snowbanks around! Most of the snow has melted, however, and the spring flowers are beginning to appear.

The maples will open soon too.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I Corinthians 5:17

Honeycomb’s lambs

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Honeycomb lambed today – a very quick delivery! Evelyn had just checked on her at 2 p.m. and when I went out at 4 p.m., there were two little lambs standing under her drinking! Apparently they didn’t need any help!

Then Apple and her lambs got up from their afternoon snooze.

For a moment it looked as though Apple had quadruplets.

But they sorted themselves out in not too long.

Honeycomb is a little too friendly for photographing.

Cleaning her daughter up… The little ram lamb has ears like his Daddy! Congratulations, Marie-Pier, on your correct guess!

And one of Honeycrisp, just because she was looking so cute!

Surprise, surprise!

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Apple surprised us yesterday evening by lambing! We thought she was due in three weeks, but I guess we were wrong.

We needed to help the first lamb since it was coming out nose first instead of feet first, but the second arrived pretty smoothly and we just gave it a little helpful pull.

Honeycrisp is a pound smaller than Gala, but both sisters seem to be doing fine so far.Black Currant looks huge now! Will they make good playmates?

And the cat actually didn’t get into the pictures this time… because the sheep usually chase her out of their stall!

A Second Lamb Guess!

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Our purebred Finnsheep, Honeycomb, is due to lamb in about a week or so! We wanted to get some pictures of her, so Evelyn and I headed out to the barn.

Blackberry and Currant were easy to lead out.

Aren’t I cute?

The warm, sunny day made for a frisky lamb!

And of course, the cat had to come inspect.

Timid little Apple didn’t want to leave the barn even to get some corn.

But our subject for today was Honeycomb. With a little coaxing, she followed Evelyn out of the barn and was rewarded with some corn.

After a while, Honeycomb got curious and ventured farther.

She certainly looks pregnant! How many lambs do you think she’ll have? And will they be ewe lambs or ram lambs? (Just a hint, Finnsheep normally have more than one lamb at a time, though not always.)

Hey, what about me!?