The Hopeful Homesteader

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  • When life gives you chokecherries…

    When we moved into our house and I was looking at our yard, I was most excited about the fact that we had apple trees. I had already made apple sauce from my mother-in-law’s trees for Cece when she was a baby, and so I was thrilled to have my own. I was also excited about the possibility of expanding our garden from what the previous owners had initially set up and enjoyed looking at all the different plants and trees. Not once did I get excited about this giant bush/tree that was growing near our apple trees. It had little tiny black berries, which I naively believed must be inedible. I was quickly informed that they were chokecherries. This did not increase my excitement. First tasting one of them also made me less than thrilled. If anyone has ever eaten a chokecherry right off the stem, you know how bitter it is. Not to mention that the seed is pretty sizeable compared to the size of the cherry. All in all, I thought, it was a complete waste of a plant. However, I also did not like the prospect of trying to take down this giant bush/tree and Brent liked it and said we would end up using the berries. In my head, I laughed, as I saw no way that the berries would ever be enjoyable. Cut to this year, where we harvested over 7 gallons of berries and suddenly found ourselves with a ton of juice that needed to be dealt with. So, without further ado, here are my 3 suggestions for dealing with a bunch of chokecherries other than leaving them as bird food and a lovely wasp attractor (I do not recommend this).

    1.  Chokecherry Jam

    This is by far the favourite for Brent and the kids. The girls would gladly eat the jam just with a spoon out of the jar. I feel like this is the most palatable way of eating the chokecherries however, it is also the most time consuming of the three options we tested out this year. For starters, you need to make your chokecherries into juice. This is necessary for all three of the options. I am sure there are many different methods to do this, but here was our approach.

    First, we washed all the berries. This was extremely time consuming because we had to pick out the leaves that had been thrown in by letting the girls help us with the harvest. Once the berries were all washed and leaf free, we put them in batches into our biggest pots that we had with enough water to just cover the berries. We let the berries come to a boil and then let them boil for 15 minutes. I would highly suggest anyone planning on trying any of these methods to keep a close eye on your pots to avoid boiling over. After the berries were done boiling, the real fun started.

    You cannot eat the pits of the cherries as they are poisonous when crushed and consumed. So you have to smoosh the berries to extract the juice while keeping the pits and pulp separate. Some methods I saw online suggested using a sieve and the back of a spoon and then running the whole thing through cheesecloth. Luckily, we had inherited a fancy gadget from Brent’s aunt called a food mill. I have no clue how old this thing is, but it was ordered from the Eaton’s catalogue so that should give a hint. With the food mill, you put it over your bowl or pot then place your cooked berries and juice mixture in the top and then you turn the crank repeatedly to extract all the juice. What is left in the mill are the seeds and pulp with we had to continually dump into a bowl to be thrown out in the back field. It took many, many, many batches to get all 7 gallons of chokecherries through the mill, but finally it was done. I have to give a big shoutout to Brent at this point because he did most of it as I had carpal tunnel surgery in January and my hand and wrist are still not back up to 100%.

    Once we had the juice extracted it was time to make jam. We found all our jars, seals and rings and sterilized all of them. We then went and bought 10kg of sugar and 5 boxes of Certo (pectin), figuring that should be good enough. Spoiler, it wasn’t. The recipe we followed had the following measurements:

    3.5 cups of chokecherry juice

    1 tsp butter or margarine

    1 box of Certo

    4.5 cups of sugar

    0.5 cups of lemon juice (OPTIONAL)

    First you take a pot and combine your juice(s), margarine and Certo and bring it to a boil. Once it is boiling you add your sugar and continue to boil for 2 minutes. Once done you pour it into your jars, place the seals and rings on. After that, you place the sealed jars into a boiling water bath for 15 minutes and voila you have jam (once it cools and congeals).

    This recipe was very simple to follow, however it warned, as did Brent’s mom, that you cannot double the recipe you need to do separate batches. Apparently, it is something to do with how the pectin works. At any rate, 3.5 cups of juice were barely making a dent in our buckets that we had harvested, and it became very quickly apparent that our 5 boxes of Certo and 10 kg of sugar simply wasn’t going to cut it. We had to make a few more trips to the store during the few days we spent processing all the chokecherries. In the end, we ended up with 53 jars of jam, varying in size from pints to full quarts.

    • Chokecherry syrup

    After 53 jars of jam, we still had juice left and wanted to try something different. Brent had the idea to make syrup as the recipe seemed simpler. It said to boil 3 cups juice with 4 cups sugar for 15 minutes, then put in jars. No water bath, no pectin. It sounded so simple and easy. It probably would have been very simple if one of the pots hadn’t boiled over with sticky syrup all over the stove top and then leaked into the oven door. We can still see the marks on the door. The house also smelled of burnt sugar and we lost a few good towels to the incident because chokecherries really stain. All in all, this one gets second billing because I believe it to be an acquired taste, and Brent is determined to acquire it to make sure the terrible boiling syrup incident was not in vain. We only made 4 jars because we weren’t sure whether the girls would eat it, but Brent refuses to let things go to waste and has vowed he will learn to love it and eat all 4 jars.

    • Chokecherry liqueur

    This one was really out of jam fatigue. We didn’t want to waste any of our harvest, but we also really didn’t want to end up with 100 jars of jam. So, I found a recipe that would use up more of the juice without requiring mountains of sugar and time spent boiling and water bathing cans. Here is the recipe:

    2 cups chokecherry juice

    0.5 cups sugar

    0.5 cups clear alcohol (we chose vodka)

    You heat the juice and the sugar, just long enough that the sugar dissolves, then take it off the heat. Allow to cool slightly, then add the alcohol. Pour into a sealed container or bottle and let it rest for a month.

    Now truth be told, we have not yet tasted this one as it needs to sit for a month. It did however, allow us to finish the chokecherry juice and wasn’t super expensive as I was able to buy 1.14 L of vodka for around $30. I will update on my Instagram page when the official tasting occurs to see whether or not it is really worth doing. But I was happy, just to have the juice out of my fridge.

    This is only the beginning of the harvest season. We have started making pickles as our cucumbers have taken off now, we have harvest about 30 lbs of green beans and the plants are still producing more, we boiled several cabbages to be used for cabbage rolls and even more that was turned into sauerkraut. The next thing to be harvested will be our apples, followed by tomatoes (if they ever start ripening), then potatoes, peas, beets and the last will be our pumpkins at the end of October hopefully (weather permitting). Needless to say, I will not have my kitchen for the next two to three months as it will be continually covered in jars, or fruit or vegetables.

  • And then there were sheep…

    I am not entirely sure where the idea of needing sheep for the farm really started, all I know is that once I had that idea, I was dead set on it. So much so that I used Penny’s cuteness to my advantage to persuade Brent that we absolutely needed to have them. I didn’t even really care what kind of sheep we got and did very little research into which ones would be ideal for our climate and farm size, I just knew I wanted some. I liked the idea of seeing little lambs running around, even though I am not a big fan of eating lamb and generally only buy it once a year when I am making my annual batch of tourtière meat. Whatever the motivation, I was dead set on getting some sheep and we lucked out that our neighbour down the road happened to be selling some lambs which we put a deposit down at the beginning of April, and we got to pick them up last week. Finally, we had my sheep, although technically they are the girls’ sheep as they were part of their Easter presents. So now, we have Snowy and Fluffy.

    The process of picking them up seemed much simpler than when Brent picked up our calf Buttercup which was about an hour and a half away, all on the highway. This was just going to be a 30 second drive down our dirt road, much simpler. This time around, all four of us came to pick up the new additions. The girls were excited to be getting their sheep but also excited to be going back to our neighbour’s farm. They had been once before to visit the sheep and thought that it was the coolest place. They have donkeys, pigs, sheep, several cows, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks and turkeys. When we went to visit the sheep the first time, they had just gotten their chicks in and had piglets as well and the girls were so excited. This time, Penny was initially disappointed that the chicks were no longer small and, in the barn, until she saw that there were 3 calves all under a week old in there instead. Suddenly, she didn’t miss the chicks anymore. We finally tore the girls away from all the other animals and went to get the lambs. I will say that I felt a little sad taking the two lambs away from their moms, especially when I heard the ewes baaing, but as soon as they were given some food they stopped, and I felt less guilty. Brent felt pretty confident about getting the lambs into the trailer as they were only about 25-30lbs, and he had gotten Buttercup in when she was about 85lbs. However, Buttercup was much more docile. When he put the trailer gate down and popped Fluffy in there, she immediately ran out. This led to the funny sight of Brent trying to catch this little ball of fluff. It became apparent that we would need to have the trailer gate closed and pass the lambs to Brent. This also meant that I would have to hold the lamb and pass it to him, something I never thought I would be doing. When I held Fluffy, I just couldn’t get over how soft and fluffy her wool really was! Definitely one of the cooler things I have done since starting the hobby farm.

    Once we got home, it was time to unload the lambs. The problem was, they were still very wary of us. They knew we had just taken them from their usual surroundings, and they were not going to come easily. This of course provided me with another fun visual of Brent crouched down under the tarp of the trailer trying to grab these little lambs. He passed me the lambs one at a time and I brought them gently into the barn. We had locked Buttercup in her outdoor grazing area as I feared she might think the lambs were playmates and she would squish them seeing as she already tries to mount our two golden retrievers. Once they got settled in, we started figuring out what we would do for sleeping arrangements in the barn. When we first got Buttercup, Brent had made a little sleeping stall out of old pallets, and we were still putting her there at night for bed. We concluded that the sheep would now have that area as Buttercup is getting considerably bigger, and she would sleep in the open area of the barn. The additional upside to this is that I no longer had to try and herd her into her little sleeping stall at night which often was a challenge. After sorting that out, Brent got to building the sheep an outdoor area of their own. This was slightly more challenging than when he built Buttercup’s outdoor area because a) there was no door on the side of the barn that their stall was on and b) the pasture on the back side of the barn had a lot more stuff on it from Brent’s jobs and the previous owner of the house. I was pretty amazed at how quickly Brent moved the old lumber and random items that had accumulated over the past couple years and then marvelled at him once again building an outdoor pen using stuff he already had around the yard. This is yet again another advantage of having a carpenter husband, he always has extra materials. I had been complaining for two years about the piles of chain link fence he was saving as I was convinced it was trash because we were never going to put chain link in our yard…It is a good thing he didn’t listen to my nagging because now we have an outside pen for the sheep and for Buttercup, and it didn’t cost us a thing. The only issue with the design is that Brent had to use of the many doors he has stored up from renovation houses and had to cut it down to size. This means there is no easily accessible handle to close it, so when I was trying to close the door quickly last night before the lambs ran out again, I accidentally slammed the door on my pinky finger which meant I spent last night with an ice pack and ibuprofen hoping that the swelling would go down.

    The thing the girls were unprepared for, was the fact that the sheep would be scared of them. When we bought Buttercup, she immediately let the girls hug her and pet her. The lambs, however, were not so accommodating. As soon as the girls would get close, the lambs would run in the other direction. All they wanted was to be able to cuddle their fluffy lambs and the lambs were terrified of them. Cece has more patience and has been getting closer and closer to them by being very still and slowly moving their grain tray closer to her so they can get used to her. Penny’s approach is to run at them and tell them it is fine, and she loves them. I felt pride that tonight I was able to pet Fluffy which is our brown one, for a couple seconds while she ate, before Snowy, the white one, got freaked out which then freaked out Fluffy. This brief interaction though made me confident that by the end of the month we should be able to pet them easily without them running away.

    It has only been a week with these little lambs, but I am so happy we have them. Brent might say too happy, as I am already talking about wanting to grow our little flock and was asking our neighbour how easy would it be to find a babydoll ram to breed with our lambs. She informed me that we would need to wait until the sheep are two years old before they can be bred. When the time comes, I do think I want to breed them with a babydoll ram to maintain that breed as much as possible because they have such nice wool and just the cutest little faces that always look like they are smiling. A little research into the breed taught me that they are generally pretty docile sheep, usually very friendly and up for being pet (fingers crossed) and that their wool is very soft and almost like cashmere. The articles I read said they were ideal as hair and meat sheep and best for small farms, cottages and petting zoos, so basically perfect for our little homestead. I would love to say that all those reasons factored into me buying these particular lambs, but it was just sheer luck as I didn’t even think to ask what breed they were until we had already purchased them. Having only had the sheep for a week, I can say with complete naïve confidence, that these are great animals to have around and I simply can’t wait to have more of them!

  • The joys of cow ownership…

    The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur because we had so many family things going on. May is known as the month of birthdays in our family. There are 8 birthdays in the month of May, and five of those birthdays fall between the 8th and the 13th. This year, we were celebrating my dad’s 70th birthday and we planned a surprise for him by having my sister fly in from Luxembourg as well as some of our aunts and uncles and one of our cousins. He was blown away and it was definitely worth it, but it meant that for the first two weeks of May, it was go go go with the kids having many late nights and us constantly prepping and cleaning the house for all the different family gatherings. As much fun as it was, I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing week last week. I had even planned for the girls to go to my mother-in-law’s for a day so that I could enjoy a day of doing nothing. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for my week. The week started off with both girls sick, coughing, leaky noses, and Cece had a fever to really round it out. Now after 5 years as a Mom, two sick kids isn’t enough to wreck my week. In fact, often it means the girls need a day of resting and watching movies which is when I am able to get a lot of housework done. The real wrench in my blissfully carefree week, was our beloved Buttercup. I got a nice crash course this week about some of the less glamourous sides of having a cow. The stuff they don’t put on the Instagram reels where the women are walking around effortlessly in their handmade dresses as they tend to their perfect gardens and farm animals.

    For starters, Buttercup gets very impatient about getting her bowl of milk, which should be really fun when I start weaning her in the next couple weeks. There have been a few instances where she has been so excited about her milk that she knocks the bowl from my hands which leads to her getting milk all over the barn floor and sadly lapping it up before it soaks into the gravel. This is frustrating of course for her, but also for me as it generally ends up on my clothes as well. For those who have never smelt calf milk replacer, imagine a sort of sweet popcorn smell and that is pretty close to it. I never imagined that having a cow would actually increase the amount of clothes that I have to wash either from having the milk spilled on me, or her incessant need to chew my clothing. I now keep my flannel shacket as a barn shirt so that I am not constantly having to get changed every time I come back from the barn. Now I know the saying, no need to cry over spilled milk, but nowhere does it say no need to curse over spilled milk, as that has definitely happened.

    The milk mishaps aside, I felt like I was getting a good handle on taking care of Buttercup. Now that she drinks out of a bowl, it is significantly less work. She also has a larger outdoor area now and is generally pretty content just sunbathing and munching on her grass clippings that Brent puts in her pen from the lawnmower. She still enjoys a nice chin scratch and of course we have to keep her pen nice and tidy, which means raking the gravel when she pees and getting rid of the poop. Having had dogs now for almost 11 years, picking up poop was not a big deal for me. In fact, hers takes less time because it is generally just one and you just take the big shovel and throw it in the wheelbarrow. Simple. Or at least, it was simple, until last week when I had a very unfortunate mishap. One day, after I had shoveled her pen and was walking toward the gate and I tripped over a hose that was on the ground. I didn’t drop the shovel or hurt myself but it was enough force to send the poop flying off the shovel and onto the chain link gate. Anyone unaware, cows poop stinks, it is also very difficult to clean off a chain link gate as it gets in everywhere. I first attempted with baby wipes, feeling confident that if they can tackle the biggest blowouts my babies had they could tackle this. I was wrong. All it did was make the mess bigger. I thought about using the hose, but then realised that would make the entire barn wet and we were due for some colder temperatures. I finally came to the reluctant realisation that I needed to let it dry, before I would be able to clean it off. Which meant we had to deal with cow shit being on the gate for a couple days. Ah, the joys of farming.

    The poop fiasco however, was not to be my most challenging situation of the week. Brent was working long hours and even had to work late on the Saturday so I decided I would make a nice dinner for once he got home. I was going to make mashed potatoes, sausages with roasted peppers, gravy, peas and most importantly of all Yorkshire puddings. For those who have never made Yorkshire puddings, you need to get the muffin tins smoking hot in the oven before pouring the batter. I had timed everything out, and once my potatoes were boiling and my muffin tins were in the oven, I figured it was the perfect time to go and feed Buttercup quickly. The girls were watching a show, I mixed the milk and went out to feed her, which generally takes only 2 minutes…Buttercup had been in the barn all day because in the morning it had been snowing (thank you Manitoba spring), so when I opened the barn door I could tell she was eager to have the fresh air on her. The problem was that I was holding her giant bowl while trying to open the chain link gate, all while trying to get Brinkley back so that he wouldn’t make me spill the milk. This resulted in me opening the gate a smidge too wide and Buttercup busted out.

    Now, Buttercup has not been tagged yet, meaning if she were to run off down the road or to another property, we have no way of identifying her other than saying, hey that looks like our cow. So there I am, standing with this bowl of milk having a “holy shit what do I do now” moment. I put the milk down in the barn in the hopes that it would entice Buttercup to come back in, but she was not having it. Finally, she was free! Brinkley got her riled up because he finally had someone to run around with, and man did they book it. One thing I never realised, is how fast a calf is. I knew the girls were inside, my oven was on, and I needed to get this cow back in the barn. I swear anyone who has known me since before I lived in the country, would have probably paid to have seen me desperately trying to herd this calf back into the barn. I know that cows don’t like loud noises so I was trying to speak to her softly, and gently, but when you are running after a calf, sometimes your gentle voice starts to fade. I had almost gotten her into the barn, just in time for Brinkley to coming running up and sending them both on a sprint again. She went through the pumpkin patch, thankfully we haven’t planted anything yet, although she did scare some ground nesting birds. Then she was ripping around the play structure kicking up her legs like this was the greatest day ever. Once I finally got close enough to her I managed to pet her, and slowly lead her back over to the barn and get her in there with her milk before securely closing the gate. After checking the gate about 3 times, I closed the barn door and went back to the house, where the girls were none the wiser. My poor muffin tins however, were extremely smoky when I pulled them out and I was forced to open a bunch of windows and turn the fan on.

    I learned a few lessons this week. One, to make sure the path to the wheelbarrow is clear when cleaning out the cow pen. Two, make sure that you block the gate when you open it to get into the barn and three, cows are very fast. A bonus lesson learned is that no matter how many cute Instagram reels there are about owning cows, do not let that fool you into thinking that it doesn’t come with its own unique set of challenges. I am sure there will be many more and in two weeks we pick up our lambs, which will lead to a whole bunch of new experiences I am sure.

  • 5 things I learned my first month as a cow owner…

    Before getting Buttercup, my experience/exposure to cows was limited to seeing them when driving, adorable Instagram reels of mini cows frolicking around their yards, and visiting a baby cow at the petting zoo in our area. Despite having done research beforehand, there were still quite a few things to learn when we brought her home. Now, almost a month into cow ownership, I have learned a few things that I would like to share for any other novice cowgirls.

    1. Bottle-feeding is overrated.

    Ever since we started discussing getting farm animals when we bought the property 2.5 years ago, I had this vision in my mind of how amazing it would be to bottle-feed a cow or sheep. I had seen many such adorable videos of the bonding happening between the owner and their pet. I thought it looked idyllic. So, when we started looking for animals I told Brent in no uncertain terms, that I wanted it to be young enough that I would have the chance to bottle feed it. Buttercup came to us at only 4 days old, and Brent and the girls gave her, her first bottle with me only getting the chance to help at the very end. Not to worry I thought, I would get to do the next feeding solo.  The next morning, I got up and mixed the bottle and had that experience of solo feeding and it was a very sweet moment. However, the sweetness wears off very quickly when you are having to mix the formula, which is multiple litres, twice a day and then clean all the bottles and mixing equipment in between each feed. The other aspect that helps the sweetness wear off quickly, is once the calf starts to realise that you are the one that brings the food and therefore tries to get milk from you every time you enter the barn. She has licked and chewed pretty much every article of clothing I have worn in the barn and seemed particularly fond of my Uggs (yes, I know, not appropriate barn shoes, the search for good cowboy boots continues). As she got older and more confident in her surroundings, she would start nudging looking for more milk. At the beginning it wasn’t a big deal, I thought her little nudges were cute, but as she has started packing on the pounds and getting taller, it has become more of a nuisance.

    Another aspect of bottle feeding for which I was unprepared, was the amount of froth and drool that it would create on her very large snout. The process of sucking on the bottle, or chewing it as she seemed to prefer, creates an amount of froth and drool I didn’t know was even possible. I am not unaccustomed to slobber as our goldens’ will drool when playing fetch or even my girls when they were babies, major drool queens. None of that prepared me though for the cow drool. It’s not like I can put a bib on her, so feeding quickly became a very messy affair. Whatever I was wearing to go feed her, would have to be washed right after. The need for overalls has never been as apparent for me as it is now that I am cleaning my clothes after going in the barn. All of this made me long for when I would no longer have to bottle feed her, which thankfully happened this week.

    2. Bottle calves don’t just inherently know how to drink from a bucket.

    I finally got the nerve up yesterday to try giving her the milk replacement in a bowl instead of bottles. The milk replacer bag said that she should be bottle fed for her first 14 days and then use the milk replacer for at least 28 days total before weaning. We were getting close to the 28 days, and I still was using the bottles, so I decided, enough with the drool and bottle washing let’s put it in a bowl. I honestly assumed this would make her happier as she could get it more easily. So blissfully ignorant I walked over to the barn feeling very pleased that the trouble with bottles was over, I opened up the gate to an eager Buttercup and set the bowl down. Well, she was not delighted at all. In fact, she got frustrated thinking I must be holding out on her and immediately started to nudge/ram me in what seemed like an attempt to get me to give up the bottles that I clearly must have been hiding in my coat. So, I tried showing her the bowl again, she sniffed it and then came back to me again looking for her bottles. Frustrated, as was she, I put my hand in the replacer and brought it up to her nose, she simply mooed at me like I was some sort of terrible traitor who had given her milk away. This continued for some time resulting in me getting milk replacer all over my arm, which made it very sticky, and trying my best not to get Buttercup to step in the bowl. Finally, I got her to put her nose into the bowl, at which point she hoovered the whole 3.2 L in less than 2 minutes. We had success! Clearly everything was going to be easier going forward, or so I thought until the feeding this morning. Confident that she knew how to drink out of the bowl as I had witnessed her guzzle the whole thing the night before, I brought Penny along with me. We learned a valuable lesson that if we sit in the chair where I used to feed Buttercup with a bottle, she will abandon the bowl, thinking I have bottles to give, and proceed to search for them. This resulted in me trying to get her back over to the bowl while Penny said “it okay Buttertup pie-pie” as Buttercup knocked her bowl over spilling half of it. I am very proud of myself for not swearing in front of Penny in that moment. Thankfully the evening feed went much smoother, and we learned a valuable lesson: don’t sit in the bottle-feeding chair when Buttercup is drinking from her bowl.

    3. Just because your calf doesn’t moo the first few days, doesn’t mean it will be a quiet cow.

    When we first brought Buttercup home, I was stunned by how quiet she was. I had expected her to moo when she was being taken off the back of Brent’s truck, or to make a sound when she first checked out her surroundings. I waited to hear her when we put her in her pen for the night and closed the barn door, but there was nothing. The first few days the only sound was the faintest little moo, that almost sounded like a little pig oink. How adorable, I thought, we have the most well-tempered, silent cow around. The last couple weeks though, she has been letting her personality show and that includes her big girl moo. The first time she did it, I was honestly pretty proud. I told her she was a good girl, gave her a nice chin scratch and went about my business. However, now she moos, and loudly, the second we leave her sight. She has gone full on cow diva. We (Brent) installed a chain link fence on the inside of the barn door so that we would be able to leave one barn door open so she could look outside and enjoy the sun while still being safely secured in the barn. She isn’t big enough yet to be left alone in the field, particularly at night with coyotes around. The problem with having the barn door open, is that she expects us to stay right there and wants us to continually feed her grass. The girls started feeding her grass through the fence and thought it was the most fun activity ever. Buttercup agreed, and she loved eating from the girls’ hands. The problem becomes the second we must go inside, or we decide to go play, she now lets us know that she is displeased by mooing very loudly. Now, when it is me, she moos once, realises it doesn’t work, and then goes and lays down in her nice hay bed. The issue is that Penny has a real soft spot for Buttercup, and the second she hears her moo, Penny goes rushing back to the fence. She tells me we can’t go inside because Buttercup is sad, and it is very hard saying no to Penny.

    4. Just because your calf is calm when you bring it home, doesn’t mean it will stay that way.

    Again, when we brought Buttercup home, she was calm, even a little timid. She sort of slowly walked around the barn.  When the dogs ran around in there, she showed us a little spunk and kicked up her back legs. As the days went on, she got more comfortable with us and with the dogs. She started ripping around the barn, kicking dust up, getting on top of things. She started nudging me more and more knowing that I was the one who brought the food and who would give her the good neck scratches. The more she grows though, the less she seems to be aware of her size and strength. She got me with her leg on the second day we had her when she kicked up her back legs in excitement, and I barely felt it. She was only 85lbs. She is probably pushing 110-120lbs now and when she steps on you, you feel it! This is why I need to find better barn shoes than my Uggs, and I am looking into steel toed cowboy boots, which I discovered is actually a thing! Today she got so excited and wanted to be out with us in the yard where all the fresh grass is that she tried jumping against the gate to open it. She didn’t manage to open it, but her hefty weight did shift the locking mechanism and Brent had to adjust it. He decided today was the day that we needed to build her a little outdoor space that she could enjoy until she was big enough to be in the back field. This is yet another reason why it is handy being married to a carpenter. In about 10 minutes he had built a little cow run along the side of the barn that she can access through a little door. She was thrilled to be outside and able to graze on grass at her own leisure, rather than being reliant on the girls and I bringing fistfuls of it through the fence. Her excitement and playfulness however, manifested in a weird new demonstration of energy. The dogs often go in the barn and Brinkley decided to check out her new outdoor space, at which point, I kid you not, Buttercup tried to mount Brinkley. Brinkley didn’t seem to understand what was happening and honestly Brent and I were surprised too. So surprised that I made Brent double check that Buttercup was in fact a girl. After firmly establishing that yes, she was a heifer and not a bull, something that we realised should have been obvious without checking simply from the fact that we have seen her pee, we were at a loss for what she was doing. A quick Google search revealed that, just like puppies, calves are extremely playful. Not having other calves around to play with, she sees Brinkley as her friend and playmate and was essentially trying to roughhouse with him. As cute as this is, I quickly realised I will need to learn how to train her because as she grows, she will quickly be able to squash Brinkley if she continues this kind of playing.

    5. Calves are more work than you expect, but definitely worth it.

    To say I was naïve before raising a calf, would be an understatement. I truly thought that cows were calm slow moving, gentle giants. I thought feeding a baby cow would be simple and possibly even therapeutic. I did not expect to have to learn so many things on the fly. The sheer amount of milk replacer she needs every day was an eye-opener. Having the properly wash the bottles to remove all the residue otherwise it quickly stinks up the kitchen, was an important lesson early on. The work of having to clean out the stall, carry fresh water to the barn in a large enough bucket that she can’t tip it over, has been exhausting some days, particularly when the girls haven’t slept well the night before. I have learned how strong even a once month-old calf can be and have been licked and chewed more than I ever thought possible from an animal. Still, I would get a calf again in a heartbeat, especially now that Buttercup is drinking from a bowl. The work is hard and time consuming sometimes, but soon she will be out in the field grazing through acres of grass, free as can be, and these first few weeks will have been worth it. If nothing else, seeing Cece and Penny have this bond with their first cow, makes it all worth it, although it might make eventually eating her a bit more difficult.

  • The benefits of melting down

    Last week when Brent brought home Buttercup, I was ecstatic. We had been talking about getting a cow for a while and really starting this hobby farm, homesteading adventure. Despite the somewhat abrupt nature of Buttercup’s arrival, it wasn’t like getting a cow was this big surprise or out of the plan, it was definitely something we had discussed at length and agreed it would happen this year. All that being said, when it actually became a reality, the excitement quickly wore off and panic, stress and an overwhelming sense of being in over my head replaced it. Suddenly it wasn’t some far off plan, or fun musing that Brent and I could talk about while looking at pictures of adorable cows without the actual work being put into raising it; it was real. All these real feelings resulted in me having a meltdown Thursday evening and most of Friday. Now perhaps to some this would be a sign that they made a mistake and that it isn’t the right path for them, but for me, once it was over, I realised it was exactly what I needed to fully embrace this new adventure. I personally believe that meltdowns are extremely beneficial, often happen when starting a new adventure and can really help clear the mind of all the doubt.

    I think everyone can agree that sometimes you just need to cry. Whatever the reason, every now and then, it is good to clear out the old tear ducts and really have a good cry. Whether it’s from watching a good movie, or maybe just a sappy one, finally letting yourself feel the pain of something you have been trying to overcome, or just out of sheer frustration, it can help you ultimately feel better. So, Thursday night, I did just that. I sat on our bed and just let the tears flow. I was crying out of fear about how having this cow was going to change our daily routines. I cried because I thought maybe I won’t actually be able to do this mentally or physically, after all, even a baby cow is still a large animal. Then I started crying thinking about people who maybe doubted that this was the right path for me and that I would discover I didn’t want this life and that made me cry even more. Eventually, I had to just turn on some Modern Family to lift up my spirits and I went to bed with many questions and doubts still circling around in my brain.

    Massive bag of milk replacer

    I woke up the next morning, hoping that I had gotten it all out of my system and that I would be able to face the day with nothing but optimism and sunshine. That quickly faded when I realised that I would need to get the girls dressed to come out and feed Buttercup in the morning. If I thought getting them out of the house normally was a challenge, trying to convince them when they first wake up to put a coat and boots on over their pjs to go to the barn was even harder. Then ensued the fighting over who would get to stir the milk replacer, who would get to hold the bottle, who would get to feed her, and all my zen positive vibes went right out the window. Spoiler, I ended up being the one feeding her as both girls got tired of holding the bottle after about 0.2 seconds. Each time my routines and everything I am used to have to change, that little doubt in the back of my mind comes racing forward ready to present all the reasons why what I had chose to do was a bad idea. This latest purchase of Buttercup was no exception. Suddenly, I was going to have to use bottles and milk replacer, which is essentially like cow formula, twice a day and keep this little baby cow alive and thriving for the next 5-7 weeks before it could fend for itself and live off of grazing our pastures. I needed to check on it a few times a day, clean her stall, make sure she was healthy, figure out how to get her back into her stall without being bucked. It all seemed like too much. I spent most of Friday frustrated and upset that I had chosen once again to shake things up just when we were finally getting into a rhythm. Why had I insisted that this be the year we get animals? Why didn’t I wait until both girls were in school full time before taking on this responsibility? All the negative thoughts running through my head, actually helped me acknowledge and deal with the doubt and stress of this new adventure. I had thrown myself into the idea of homesteading with such gusto that I had never given myself the chance to feel the nerves. The meltdown helped me to reset and remember what my ultimate goal was with this adventure. Once I was able to do that, things seemed more doable.

    It has been a week now since we got Buttercup, and I have fallen into a new routine. There are sacrifices of course, for example, she needs to be fed right before we have dinner. This has caused us to eat later than normal, which is not a big deal, but will also affect family gatherings while she is being bottle-fed as we will have to be at the house to feed her close to dinnertime meaning we will only get to our family dinners right in time to eat, whereas in the past we could come on our own schedule and visit before dinner. Another slight annoyance, Penny often doesn’t wake up until 8 in the mornings, but Buttercup needs to be fed around 7:00-7:30, meaning I have to wake Penny up to bring her with me when I go feed Buttercup. I have contemplated just letting her sleep while Cece and I feed Buttercup, but the barn is a good distance from the house and I don’t want Penny to wake up and be alone in the house and get scared. So, in the mornings I bring a rather cranky Penny with us to the barn, where she gets annoyed that I can’t hold her while I feed Buttercup. The evening feeds are much smoother. All in all, I am glad we got our cow despite the sacrifices that we currently have to make, and I am looking forward to the summer months here on the farm, particularly because Buttercup will then be out in the pasture and will be much lower maintenance!

  • Seeing a man about a cow…

    I originally had a whole plan for this week’s blog. After feeling defeated last week at the lack of affordable cattle, I spent most of the week reading up on what we would need for our future sheep, planning Cece’s 5th birthday party, and contemplating whether or not we should get pigs instead. I was going to write about the pros and cons that I had considered about getting pigs and talk about which breeds I liked best. However, 8hrs ago I saw Brent leaving the driveway with his trailer hitched to the back and I sent him a text asking where he was going, to which he responded, “to see a man about a cow”. Two and a half hours later, he was pulling into the driveway with Buttercup, our new 4-day old calf.

    Now in Brent’s defense, we had been talking about getting cows for months as I had previously detailed, and he did in fact mention this morning that he might have a lead on a calf for pick up on Saturday. However, that was the last thing he mentioned before I saw him a few hours later pulling out of the drive. To some this might seem frightening, ill-planned, scary, nerve-wracking or stressful, but for us I have to admit it is kind of par for the course. When we decided to buy our first house, we had a conversation on the Friday of hey we should maybe think about buying a house and we closed on our house on the Tuesday, a mere 4 days later. A few years later, Brent and I had had some brief conversations about how it might be nice to have a pool. We even bought a small above ground pool, then returned it because we decided that it was too small and not worth it. Then I went on a trip back home to BC and I was checking the Visa statement and noticed a large charge from Canadian Tire. I texted Brent to ask about the charge, and his response was simply “POOOOOOL!”. We still have that pool to this day and it remains one of the funniest messages I have ever gotten from him. A year and a half ago, I had been bugging Brent about us needing another golden retriever because I kept seeing cute ones online. Two weeks before Penny’s first birthday, after supper he just said, we have to be at this address at 7pm to pick up our new puppy. Some people thought it was crazy, to add a new puppy when we already had a 3-year-old and a soon to be 1 year old, but we wouldn’t change Brinkley for the world.

    • First Christmas at our impulse purchase house
    • Brent enjoying our pool
    • Penny when we brought Brinkley home
    • Cece when we brought Brinkley home

    Of course, all that said, there was still a little bit of panic in me when Brent informed me that he was on his way to pick up a calf. For starters, we had nothing set up for the calf. We had bought our electric fence material, but we still haven’t taken down our neighbour’s fences that they used when they were renting our land for their horses to graze. Thankfully, Buttercup won’t be out in the fields grazing for another 6 weeks minimum. We also didn’t have any milk replacement, bottles or a pen set up in the barn. I mentioned all this to Brent when he called me on his drive home and he was quite calm about it all. He said he was going to rig up a pen in the barn for her. The good thing about being married to a carpenter is there is always a lot of scrap wood and pallets around which really come in handy. As for the milk replacement, he had already made a call to the livestock supply store down the street from our house and he ended up going to our friends’ house that is right across from the supply store, and they had bottles that they were not going to use. Brent mentioned he had a moment of panic when he was first leaving to pick her up, but that it had changed to excitement to be bringing home the first farm animal to our property.

    I did my best to not mention anything to the girls as I wanted it to be a surprise for them when he got back. They knew we were looking for a cow and liked to talk about what it would be like when they got one, but I really wanted to see their reaction when it was finally here. I also didn’t really feel like having them ask me for two hours when Daddy was going to be back with the cow, so I kept it a secret. If you ever ask anyone that knows me whether I can keep a secret, most of them would laugh in your face. I am known for blabbing everything, I simply can’t keep information to myself, but I was determined to make it through the two hours. The problem with keeping it a secret was trying to convince them of the need to hurry and get their boots and coats on once Brent had told me he was just down the road. Trying to get a toddler and a 5-year-old to get out of the house quickly is a feat in itself, but it was worth it to see their reaction to the surprise Daddy had for them.

    Penny getting to know Buttercup.

    When Brent first got her out of his trailer, I was shocked at how small she was. He carried her out because she only weighs around 85lbs and is about as tall as Kili. At first, she was a bit hesitant to see the barn and have Kili and Brinkley chasing her around as if she were another puppy to play with, but she eventually got used to her surroundings and soon she was running and kicking up her legs in excitement. That excitement was what lead to my first time being kicked by a cow, thankfully she is still small so it didn’t hurt, but I will be more mindful of it in the future. Cece and Penny were over the moon about their new cow. They helped me put her hay down while Brent made a pen for her by attaching some pallets together and one for a door at the end, securing it to the barn. Then they had plenty of hugs and kisses for her while she snuggled into her hay. They refused to leave her side until Brent got back with the milk replacement and the bottles and then they wanted to help feed her. With both my girls, I was lucky enough to be able to breastfeed them exclusively, which means that I have absolutely zero experience with formula, which is pretty much what this milk replacement is for the calf, although it comes in a much bigger bag. It was a very new experience having to measure out 2.6 L of water then weigh the required powder. At first Brent tried mixing it in the bottle, which proved to be rather impossible, and powder was spilling out. Then we moved onto a large metal bowl and then using a funnel to put it back into the bottle. When we brought it out to Buttercup, she drank it with gusto. The girls each had a turn holding the bottle and I got my chance as well.

    • Dogs with Buttercup
    • Penny keeping a watchful eye
    • Cece and her new bestfriend
    • Brent feeding Buttercup
    • Massive bag of replacement

    The girls were sad to have to leave her, as we went inside to have dinner. They came out with me after to bring a large container of water for her. Again, as this was a spur of the moment purchase, we didn’t have a water trough for her. After some quick googling I discovered that calves have a tendency to knock over their water if it is just in a bowl for them, so I had to ditch my plan of a large salad bowl. I quickly scoured the house looking for something that would be “trough-like” something that I never thought I would be doing. The best thing I could come up with was using one of our old Superstore grocery bins, and I have to say it was very effective. Online it said it had to be something that would be heavy enough not to be easily tipped over, and I can say that once it was filled up with water, it was certainly not easy to carry and therefore I felt confident she wouldn’t be able to tip it over. Of course, I still had to bring it from our house, all the way out to the barn. Going from the house to the barn is not normally a difficult trek, but carrying several litres of water in a bin, while holding Penny’s hand and avoiding giant puddles from the melting ice, made it considerably harder. We will definitely need to find a better permanent solution for Buttercups water needs. Once the water had been carefully placed in her paddock, the girls took the opportunity once more to give her a few more goodnight kisses and hugs, and then they reluctantly came into the house to have a bath as they had been rolling around in the hay with Buttercup.

    Girls saying goodnight to Buttercup

    Going forward, our routine will have to change to incorporate Buttercup’s feeding schedule. Based on her weight, she needs to have 2.6L of milk replacement twice a day and she will start to get food starter within the next couple days for the next 6 weeks until she can hopefully start to be weaned. By the summer, she will be out in the field and grazing on pasture which will come with all kinds of new projects like getting the fencing up, making sure she has easy access to water and building a cow shed for shelter once the winter months hit. There is bound to be so much to learn with her, and I know it will be a lot of work, but she is pretty darn cute.

  • The things you learn when trying to add livestock to your homestead…

    Because we live in Manitoba, spring takes a while to reach us. During the cold winter months, we turned our attention to acquiring animals for the spring. There are certain things I expected to learn when we started the endeavour into homesteading/hobby farming. For instance, I assumed I would learn a lot about the importance of proper fencing with animals, how to properly care for various farm animals, how to slaughter those animals humanely and where to go to process the meat. However, there were certain things that I did not expect to learn during this process, some which made me laugh and others that simply frustrated me to no end. Full disclosure, some of these discoveries will come as no surprise to anyone who has experience in hobby farming, but as a first-time homesteader, I was naively unaware about pretty much everything involved in the process.

    To start, I had the very foolish idea that it would be easy to find animals to add to our farm. I honestly assumed that I would simply type into Google “calf for sale near me” and that I would be able to find one relatively quickly for a reasonable price. Part of the reason I believed this was because last year when we were just starting to talk about getting animals in the near future, we had asked Brent’s cousin who has cattle, and he had told us that we should be able to find a calf pretty easily and that we shouldn’t pay more than $500 per calf. This seemed like a pretty decent deal for the amount of meat we would be able to get once it was fully grown. Unfortunately for us, we could not have predicted that cattle prices would skyrocket by the next year when we started looking for ours. When we started looking, we noticed that people now are asking $1000-$1500 per calf! Not only that, but there are way fewer people offering up bottle calves and people are clearly jumping at the chance to get them, thus justifying the price. As we continue looking, we are faced with the not so fun prospect of having to spend double what we had intended and then add on the fact that some of these cows are 2.5-3 hrs away from us. Brent remains confident he can find a cow for cheaper, despite the fact that when he posted an add on one of the cattle selling pages saying “$500 cash for a calf, will pick up today” most of the responses included people telling him he was dreaming or that he needed a time machine.

    Despite Brent’s confidence to be able to find a calf for a good price, we started discussing the idea of getting a yearling. For those unfamiliar with cow terminology a yearling is a cow between one and two years old that hasn’t had her first calf. This was disappointing to me because I had hoped to have the experience of a cute little cow that the girls and I would be able to feed with a bottle and bond with before the inevitable slaughtering time. Now, my mother questioned whether that would perhaps make it harder to kill and eat and that the girls might not be happy when their cow was gone. I would like to be clear that we have had full discussions with Cece about the process and explained that we want to make sure that the meat we are eating was treated well before it was killed and didn’t come from a feedlot. Penny is still too young to really understand so I am sure we will have some tears there for sure. This led to some new discoveries when we were looking at older cows, either male or female because at this point, we aren’t as picky. The funniest discovery I made was how the male cows that were up for auction were detailed in their write up. They always mention the birth weight, what breeds their parents were and then, if they are being sold as potential breeders, they list their scrotal circumference…The first time I saw this I couldn’t help but laugh. I was just not at all prepared for the idea that it would be something to even consider. This also led me to questioning who has the unfortunate job of having to measure something like that? Also are buyers actually going to get out a measuring tape to confirm that it is accurate? I am assuming that seeing as it is listed on many of the breeder bull write ups that it is something that is often considered when purchasing a bull, but I think I can confidently say that it will never be on our checklist when purchasing any future cattle.

    With cattle seeming more and more expensive and in short supply, I decided to turn my attention to my animal of choice, as well as Penny’s, sheep. In my mind, they are so cute and fluffy. I have seen several Instagram reels about curious and rambunctious sheep, most notably the little black-face sheep. Obviously, I was curious about whether or not we could get some black face sheep and quickly discovered that they were called Valais Blacknose sheep. In my mind, this name is deceiving because it isn’t just their noses that are black, but alas, that is their name. I had seen some ads for other breeds of sheep, and they all seemed to be asking between $80-$150 per lamb. This seemed extremely reasonable, especially after seeing the prices for cows. I figured, if regular sheep were $150, then a special cute breed like the Valais, would probably be maybe $300. Oh man was I wrong! On the Valais Blacknose site that sells out of Manitoba, they were asking $35,000 for one of their rams! And yes, I checked the numbers several times to make sure I read it right, and no I did not mess up on my decimal point typing this out. I could not wrap my head around how someone, would willingly pay that much money for a sheep. Now I am sure, if I looked around and did more searching, I could find some for slightly less, but still the idea of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a sheep just blew my mind. Thankfully, one of our neighbours down the road has some pregnant ewes and we are on standby for some lambs.

    Finally, I discovered that there is a wide range of animals that fall under the “livestock Manitoba” search on Kijiji. I found many people selling rabbits, which I know the girls would love to have, but Brent and I have agreed it will never happen. We told the girls that they technically have a pet bunny that we see in our front yard all the time. To make it feel more like their own pet, we told them to name the bunny, so we now say hi to Dandelion most mornings as she or he, really who knows, eats their breakfast in the morning. I made the mistake of letting the girls look with me through the ads once and they saw that someone was selling ostrich eggs for hatching and included pictures of the fully grown ostriches. This created terror in Cece and Penny got upset when I said we absolutely could not buy an ostrich. The variety of birds available is astonishing, and also unsettling for me as someone who really dislikes birds. The girls wanted all of them. That was until they saw the goats, dwarf goats, mini horses, mini donkeys and at one point a mini highland cow. That last one was the hardest for me to say no to, because I would love to have a highland cow, mini or full-sized. We even looked up some mini highlands at one point, and they were hardly better than the Valais sheep. They wanted $25,000 for one mini cow…I did eventually find a more reasonably priced site that was asking only $3500 per calf, but still a lot to pay for a pet.

    Despite all these high-priced animals and scarcity of calves, this has not deterred us one bit from wanting to start our farm. Brent has purchased the fencing; we’ve been mapping out our acreage and I have spent many nights reading about what is required to raise bottle-fed lambs. I am still excited to get to raise some animals and get to teach my girls how to take care of them as well. I am confident that at some point in the future, when I am much more knowledgeable about farming, I will look back at these days when I was naïve and laugh about my shock and surprise with the details of purchasing animals. But for now, I will always laugh at the idea of some poor worker whose job it is to measure the scrotal circumference of the bulls going up for auction.

  • My reluctant journey into gardening

    As I have mentioned before, gardening is not something that came to me naturally. I am the youngest of four daughters. All three of my older sisters each worked a summer at a plant nursery. They each spent a summer, in the heat, working long hours with plants, doing manual labour. I would see them come home dirty, tired and often sunburned. Despite all the work, dirt and sunburns, they all told me it was worth it as they made great money for a summer job. I opted instead to make slightly over minimum wage at Starbucks. I am embarrassed to say that back then the idea of my hands having to get super dirty, or the possibility of bugs being around, freaked me out way too much even if it meant making a lot of money. I preferred to consume way too many frappuccinos and burn my hands with ridiculously hot milk when certain customers would insist on specific temperatures for their milk as if somehow drinking scalding milk made you more sophisticated than drinking regular lattes. This was of course back when you could still request exact temperatures at Starbucks, and we had to write down every preference on the cup with a sharpie instead of the computer just printing off the order to stick on the cup. Yes, I am still to this day a bit jealous that we had to do so much more than the baristas must today.

    It wasn’t like we had tons of plants growing in our small cement pad of a backyard growing up. There was a little flower bed in front of the house, that included some giant bush that was apparently always taking over everything. I remember we had some chives as my dad liked to have fresh chives. Mom always had some plants and flowers growing in the backyard flower bed, but I couldn’t tell you what they were as I always just remember the ivy that seemed to take over the whole back fence. There were a few house plants growing up, but I don’t think I ever watered them or even took an interest in knowing how often they should be watered. I will always remember when we tried to have an apple tree, and we got a little one in the back yard. Our dog promptly chewed it down to nothing, and that was the end of that. We also didn’t need to ever mow our lawn or use a weedwhacker because we lived in a townhouse, and they had someone who was responsible for yard maintenance. When I was living with my sister and her husband, when I first moved to Winnipeg, I remember being so fascinated by his electric mower that I pleaded with him to let me mow the lawn because it was such a novelty. That novelty quickly wore off and I never did it again.

    Even when Brent and I moved into our first house together, I rarely mowed the lawn. He used to work on the railways and would sometimes be gone for two or three weeks at a time, and I would leave the grass to grow until he got back. I never raked the leaves or did any weeding, I took the approach that dandelions gave a little colour to our boring grass out front, much to the horror of my mother-in-law. She only lived a few blocks away and I would often look out my front window and see her there pulling weeds from my front lawn. She is an avid gardener, and her backyard always looks like something out of a gardening magazine. The first time I met her was when Brent brought me home for a backyard barbecue dinner, and I was so amazed at all the flowers she had and how perfect they all seemed. Not only did she grow beautiful flowers, but she had raspberries and tons of vegetables that she used for canning. It was amazing, but it seemed like so much work that I continued to happily tend to my one lilac tree that had come with our house that only required the occasional trimming, which I would generally pass off to Brent. She tried, in vain, to plant flowers in our yard, and I promptly managed to kill them all. Not exactly a recipe for a great future homesteader.

    We did have some small success with a few vegetables in our small yard. We planted cucumbers which actually vined up the lilac tree which was pretty impressive and made picking them very easy. We got a few cherry tomatoes, though we lost a lot to bugs. Our peppers never lasted and always got bugs or diseased before they were ripe enough to pick. Our biggest successes were our potatoes and raspberries that we planted in front of our house. Our raspberry bush went crazy and was producing awesome berries. The potatoes I found to be the most satisfying to cultivate. Every time you dig into the dirt, it feels like you are searching for buried treasure. The potatoes and raspberries were the first big crops, or at least I thought they were big at the time, and they really sparked my curiosity in my gardening potential.

    When we moved to our new house in the country, it was the first day of September, so we were not going to be harvesting any crops that year. We did, however, inherit two crab apple trees, a mini apple tree, a chokecherry bush and grape vines from the previous owners. We collected box, after box, after box, of apples during that first month in the house. There were apples everywhere. I had no idea what we would do with this many apples and it felt extra daunting as I was 8.5 months pregnant at the time. Ultimately, we chose the easiest option which was to make them into applesauce. We filled almost our entire small chest freezer with applesauce. My mom came by to help with the chokecherries which she graciously offered to turn into chokecherry jam for us as long as she got to keep some. Free jam and free harvesting, um yes please! She also decided to pick all the grapes and turn them into jam as well. Seeing all of our preserves from doing absolutely nothing, I was certain that I would be able to handle this gardening thing and that I would be able to make all kinds of foods with our fresh produce.

    In the spring, we started planning out what we would be putting into our garden. As Penny is born at the beginning of October, I became obsessed with the idea of having a pumpkin themed birthday for her and insisted that we make a pumpkin patch, something that we had never had the space, nor the interest in my case, in doing before. Brent got some help from our neighbour and tilled a patch behind the barn that turned out to be bigger than our entire lot of our old house. He threw in the seeds we had saved from the 9 pumpkins we had bought in October when we had first moved in, and we figured we would see what happened. What happened was we ended up with close to 400 pumpkins. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised. We also had another huge crop of apples, zucchini, tomatoes, peas, beans, potatoes and cucumbers. All from just testing out throwing some seeds in the ground and seeing what came up. We thought we had hit the motherload for planting. Clearly it was going to be easy to grow our own vegetables out here. We had barely done any research or planning and had huge success with our vegetables.

    Last year, we thought we would take some more time to plan things out as to maximise the growing potential. We started seeds indoors in early/mid spring. We had about 70 tomato plant seedlings ready to go, although some certainly got damaged with having a 1.5 year old and 4 year old wanting to touch them all the time. Regardless, we were optimistic that our gardens would be bountiful again and we even decided to try corn. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. No sooner had we transplanted our 70 tomato plants that we were hit with weeks of intense rain that flooded our entire garden. Sadly, there were no survivors out of the tomatoes. Our pumpkin patch, which had been so promising the year before, had the opposite problem and promptly dried up leaving our vines scorching. The weeds got away from us and we were dealing with thistles the size of our daughters. Despite efforts from both my mother-in-law and my mother to come help with the weeding, we gave up halfway through as I had little time to deal with it when Penny was still very dependent on me. I managed to get my hands dirty a little, especially with the teeny beets that we ultimately ended up composting as they were so small they weren’t worth much. We got a few cucumbers, four pumpkins, and a couple potatoes, although the potato bugs ravaged our crops last year.

    This year, instead of scaling back we decided to go all out on our seeds. We tested a few seeds from each of our vegetables by placing them in between damp paper towel and sealing them in a Ziploc bag to see if they would sprout.

    We ordered new seeds online, and I decided to no longer fear my flower killing abilities and I ordered a dozen new flowers to try to make my own cut flower garden. Now, is this ambitious, absolutely. We are planting potatoes, corn, peas, beans, pumpkins, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, romaine lettuce, beets, carrots, garlic, onions, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Would it perhaps have been more prudent to scale back and try to hone our gardening skills to make sure we don’t have another bad crop year like last year, probably. But Brent and I have always been the type to just leap in and figure it out later. We bought our first house 4 days after we decided we should start looking for a house. Brent quit his job when he decided to start his own company 5 months before Cece was born. We have always just believed that things will work out and if not, we will figure it out. This is our approach to this homesteading adventure, and our grand gardening plans, what’s the worst that could happen?

  • My decision to become a stay-at-home mom…

    From the moment we decided that I would stay home with the girls instead of returning to work as a high school teacher, I knew there would be some people who were going to question my decision. I also expected some people to assume that it was Brent’s idea, as it was his idea originally for us to move out to the country. The truth is, I wanted to stay home long before we moved out here. When Cece was born, I had tried to think of ways that I could work it out so that I wouldn’t have to go back to work. Unfortunately, at the time, Brent was just starting his own carpentry company, and it simply wasn’t feasible. So, once we had Penny and we had bought our forever home, I knew it was my moment to convince Brent I should stay home with the girls. I spent many evenings trying to figure out the best way to present my arguments and convince him.

    It started with me dropping hints about how long the drive to and from my mom’s house would be and how much gas that would be using. He suggested that I look at daycares around the town or near the girls’ future school…swing and a miss. It did help my case however, that the daycare attached to their future school had a 5-year waiting period. To which my response was, well after 5 years they will be in school so doesn’t that make the waiting list rather useless? Then I started bringing up more often how it would be really tough to juggle the workload while still being present with the girls, which he agreed with and said the girls were the top priority and he would start running some numbers to see if we could make it work. This was my golden opportunity, my chance to seal the deal and make sure that he would agree that the best option was for me to stay home. I made up a budget for what we would need each month to make it possible, but I wasn’t going to leave it all up to the numbers. Oh no, I had a bigger bargaining chip up my sleeve, one that I knew couldn’t fail me…food.

    As I was home with the girls, and Brent was working, I naturally made dinners during the week. Seeing as I was home all day, there was nothing preventing me from really having fun with it as I LOVE cooking and baking. Being home meant that some weeknights we had a full roast chicken dinner just because I felt like it. He would often come home to fresh baked goods because it was my way to destress while the girls napped. As they say, the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Although, in this case it would be more the best way to convince your man to take on all the financial obligations and let you stay home and be with your kids is through his stomach, but it really doesn’t have the same ring to it.

    Now I am not sure if it was in fact my amazing feats of baking and cooking that sealed the deal, but right before Penny’s 1st birthday, we made the official decision that I would stay home and I sent in my resignation letter feeling completely sure of myself. Completely sure of myself until the next day when I started panicking that I had given up a good paying job that I liked to stay at home and eventually get into hobby farming, something that I had no experience with. It all seemed extremely daunting to me, and I questioned whether or not I would be any good at it, something I sometimes still wonder, but it was hands down the best decision I have ever made.

    When I first started thinking about staying home with the girls, I thought about all the positives. I wouldn’t have a set time that we had to wake up at, I could plan out the days the way I wanted, I wouldn’t need to wear work clothes, I would have concentrated uninterrupted time with my daughters, and I would be able to become a master at hobby farming. First off, it is true I don’t have a set wake up time. Cece enjoys keeping me on my toes about when she will wake up, although it is generally around 1:30 am where she comes into my bed because she cannot stand to sleep in her bed any longer. The way she describes it, you would think her bed was this horrifically uncomfortable bed in a scary dark room, instead of the reality which is a twin bed with tons of stuffed toys, comfy pillows and a sound machine that doubles as a night light that plays soft music. So, my mornings start with Cece in my bed, and then waiting for the sound of Penny coming out of her room usually around 7:30 am. She meanders into my room, generally holding about 3-4 stuffed toys, looking completely unimpressed that she is awake.

    As for planning out my days, Cece is never one to let me forget that wonderful task and asks me first thing in the morning: “What day is it?” Once I answer her, she responds with “What do we do on this day?” Without fail, every single day. The appeal of planning out my days in whatever way I wanted, quickly faded when I realised how tiring it is to give a plan of each day to a 4-year-old every morning. Particularly when that 4-year-old wants each day to be a “special” day and has zero qualms about telling you that your plan sounds boring. Now, in her defense, some days are boring. The days when I need to wash all the bedding, or do some deep cleaning around the house, I agree, boring. The plus side is that she also happens to find things that some would find mundane as very exciting. Both girls get excited whenever we must go to the Post Office. Simple tasks like going to get groceries is fun for them because they like to help me out and put things in the cart. Although now that Cece is older there are a lot more scheduled things that I have to plan around, rather than just choosing what I feel like doing that day. She is in preschool and gymnastics which takes up time and next year when she starts kindergarten, a schedule will be even more set in stone.

    I will admit, not having to wear work clothes is one thing that actually did stay true, and although I know there are some moms out there who still get dressed up and do their hair and make up every day when they are staying home with their kids, and honestly kudos to those moms for managing that, I am so happy to get to wear comfy clothing all day. Now this is not to say that I wear my pajamas all day, far from it, but I enjoy not needing to worry about whether my clothes are professional enough. I rock a crewneck sweater and leggings or jeans most days. Now that the girls are older, it is certainly easier to find the time to shower, do my hair, even diffuse it (anyone with long curly hair will know what an incredible feat that is). I don’t find that I really wear much makeup anymore because I just don’t feel the need. The other day I put on mascara and Cece asked me why I was making myself “all fancy”. Then, of course, Penny wanted lip-gloss to be fancy as well.

    As for the uninterrupted time with the girls, now that I am home all the time, I feel like there are always a million things to get done. We are home much more often now, which means that toys get taken out all day, meaning cleaning up the chaos piles is a daily task. I am not about to tell my kids that they can’t play or make messes with their toys, but having huge messes around the house also stresses me out. Believe me, I wish I could simply live in the chaos and not care, but I can’t, so I tend to be like a little cleaning bot that follows them. P loves helping me clean, she thinks unloading and loading the dishwasher is one of the best activities around, but my wonderful Cece prefers to jump from one game to the next with little thought of the mess. Having this time with the girls, however, has allowed me to be here with them for every new development. I never missed a single milestone with Penny, and it felt so wonderful. I get to be a part of all their games and see the girls playing together which melts my heart until one of them decides the other one isn’t playing properly and they both start yelling or crying.

    Finally, as for mastering my hobbies and becoming a knowledgeable hobby farmer, that has yet to be determined. I have certainly had much more time for baking, which I absolutely love. I have had the time to make soft pretzels, bagels, breads, cakes, cookies, muffins and it fills me with joy seeing the girls and Brent enjoy them. Becoming a homesteader though, is a bit trickier. I have taken out books from the library about gardening, pig, cow, sheep and goat farming. But I feel like reading about them still will not prepare me for when we get our first cow or sheep. The process of even just looking for cow and sheep to buy is daunting: how much should we be paying for a bottle-fed calf? Should we get one that is already weaned, but would that be more expensive? How much should we pay for a lamb, and should we get a male and a female so we can grow our flock or just buy new lambs each year? I foresee this being a trial-and-error process, and I suspect it might come along with many tears. But just as I was sure of being a stay-at-home mom, I am sure I want to try homesteading, and I hope it will also become one of the best decisions I have ever made.

  • How in the world did I get the idea to try homesteading…?

    How in the world did I get the idea to try homesteading…?

    I can distinctly remember planning out what my life would look like in my thirties for a school assignment in high school. I still have the ‘day in a life’ write up that I made that described my life with two kids, living in Toronto, working as a high paid editor for a major publishing company. I was going to be going to lunch with famous writers and driving home in my Mini Cooper convertible. My description of my children makes me laugh, as I described them as reserved and well-behaved children who listened to everything I said without question. Never would I have guessed that I would be living in Manitoba, let alone that I would be a stay-at-home Mom, living in the country about to try homesteading for the first time.

     I grew up in Mission, BC. I always considered it to be a small town, especially when compared to Vancouver. Both my parents worked, my dad as a teacher and my mom as a bookkeeper. We lived in a townhouse, and our backyard was a tiny cement pad. We had a large communal grass area in the middle of the complex and a small garden bed in front of our townhouse. Never once did I aspire or even show interest in gardening. Plants bored me, bugs both grossed me out and terrified me, and working with my hands in the dirt, no thank you. As for the time I spent outside, it was either on a sports field or going for walks in a park. My family did not go camping, and I never spent time in the country. Farming was something that I saw in movies and shows or when driving around with my mom.  The very idea of having to do outdoor physical labour was laughable to me. I helped my mom with small renovations around the house, but I was certain that when I grew up, I would avoid physical labour at all costs.

     I would love to say that my decision to move to Manitoba was based on extensive research of the schools here and careful consideration of what I wanted to do as a future career. Embarrassingly, none of those factors applied. I based my decision solely on the fact that my oldest sister was a teacher in Winnipeg and some of her male students, upon learning that she had a sister their age, added me on Facebook and I thought they were cute. At 18 years old, this seemed like a flawless plan. Now, as a mother of two young girls, it seems laughable and embarrassing that I made such a big decision based on cute guys, but what can you do.

    Even when I did move to Manitoba, I was living in apartments in central Winnipeg. I dabbled in banking before becoming a high school teacher. I loved my job, and my husband (who incidentally was not one of the “cute guys” I moved out here for) and I bought our first house 10 months before we got married. I loved our house. It was a bi-level and was just under 700 sqft. It was the first time I had a yard that was all my own and even though it was very small, and the backyard was almost entirely cement save a small patch of grass for our dog, it felt like a big step up from apartments. After several years of marriage, we were finally expecting our first child, and then the pandemic hit. Our first daughter was born April 2020, right at the height of the first lockdown in Manitoba. Despite all the uncertainty and anxiety around the pandemic, the silver lining was that my husband and I were able to have several months together with our daughter in our own little bubble. When my maternity leave ended, it was back to work. Although I was excited to see my students again, and to have adult interaction again, it was incredibly difficult to leave our daughter every day. She was being watched by my mom and my mother-in-law, so the best possible option, but I felt guilty and missed her terribly. I was only back at work for one school year and then I was on maternity leave again. We quickly realised that our well-loved, small home would not accommodate our growing family. Anyone who has kids, knows that even though they are tiny, they create a ridiculous amount of STUFF. This all meant we would need to look for a new house.

    So, there I found myself seven months pregnant, my house being completely updated (thankfully my husband Brent is a carpenter), and looking for a new house; good thing we didn’t have a ticking timeline or a bunch of hormones making me emotional. When we first discussed it, I was suggesting staying in the city and just finding a bigger yard. Brent on the other hand had his mind set on living in the country. This worried me as I had no experience living in the country. The very idea of the sheer number of bugs freaked me out. Once when I was sitting in our little office (pre-kids) I saw what I thought was a tick on my hand while I was eating popcorn, and I threw the entire bowl up in the air and all over the floor hysterically trying to get it off. In retrospect, it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t a tick at all as I had never seen one before, but needless to say I was not exactly an “outdoorsy” person.

    Brent and I began negotiating on our list of wants for the new house.  I wanted my dream house that was completely finished exactly how I wanted it, and I didn’t care much about the yard, as long as there was grass for the kids to play on. Brent was the opposite. To him the house didn’t matter as much because he could turn it into our dream home, but you can’t change your land. I told Brent that we could live outside the city, but that we didn’t need more than 5 acres of land. In my mind, 5 acres was way more grass than we needed and really what else were we planning on having. If there was room for a bigger play structure for the girls and somewhere to set up our pool, that was good enough. Yet here we are, living in our country home in need of some major updates (as it was built in the 1970s) on just over 20 acres of land and I am a stay-at-home mom and hopeful homesteader.

    We moved into the house in September and my due date was the first week of October. I can remember sitting in the living room on our couch as Cece played with her cousin in another room and I just bawled. I don’t mean a few minutes of steady tears; I mean full-on ugly crying while my mom and sister tried to console me. I was a real mess. I felt so far from everything, despite only being 30 minutes outside the city. It dawned on me that there would be no quick trips to Starbucks which used to be a 3-minute drive from our house, and we couldn’t even get food delivered. I felt like I was really roughing it.  We had no internet set up, and our cellphones had terrible reception with our cell provider at the time. Everywhere I looked there were crickets in the yard, and spiders in the garage and barn. Suddenly, I was going to have to check for ticks whenever the kids played outside. I just cried, unable to remember why I had moved out here. Because we were moving all day and the doors were wide open, the crickets made their way into the house. I was so scared of them that when Brent went into the basement, he saw an array of cups all over the floor where I had trapped them, too scared to try and squish them. I would get Brent to kill the spiders and freaked out when I saw them. Not exactly the qualities you need to become a great homesteader.

    In those first few weeks at the house, I put on a brave face. Most of my family had been in disbelief that I was going to move out of the city and possibly thought I was going to have a breakdown within the first couple of weeks (although it happened within the first hour of moving in). My mom told me, that out of her 4 daughters, I was the last one she thought would live on a farm. But in those first few weeks, once I settled in, got to know my neighbours, and developed a better cricket trapping technique, I got to witness how much Cece was thriving in the country. She was only two and a half, but much braver and adventurous than I was. In fact, she used to try and catch the crickets in the driveway. She loved them so much that one day she told me to close my eyes because she had a surprise for me, and I was silly enough to comply. This resulted in her placing a dead cricket in my hand…I am still amazed that I didn’t scream or throw it back at her. She was, and still is, fearless. She thought it was the most amazing thing that we had neighbours who had goats, chickens and horses. She loved riding her bike down the gravel road, and I loved not having to worry about cars. The more I saw her enjoying her time out here, the more convinced I was that we did the right thing.              

    Shortly after moving in, our second daughter was born. Over the last two and a half years, I have grown so much more accustomed to the country lifestyle. Seeing my girls having so much room to play, having so many interactions with animals, helping with the garden, it has filled my heart with joy. Now that the girls are older, Brent and I decided that this was the year to make the most of our land. In the past, we did nothing with the back 15 acres. We let our neighbours use it for pasture for their horses in the spring and summer, but most of the time it was just wild fields. This year, however, we are getting ambitious, and we are going to try to start our homestead. I have exactly zero experience with farm animals, and virtually no experience with gardening. I wanted to start blogging about this experience because it will certainly come with many errors and lessons, but I remain hopeful that I will be able to build my dream homestead that I have had in my mind for the last year. If you are looking for solid homesteading advice and practices, this is not the place. If you want to laugh at the trial and errors of a city girl trying to build a vegetable garden, cut flower garden, raise cows, sheep, possibly pigs, and unfortunately, most likely chickens (more on that later), than this is a blog for you. I promise to document all the silly mistakes and hopefully some successes along the way.