End of August

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over! It's the end of August already! I look forward to fall as it means lots of online sales (for Christmas) and garden harvest time, but it also makes me a trifle sad, as I love summer!

Yesterday, while at the corner store, the Crossroads Country Market, I purchased a 5 pound box of local wild blueberries for $15. I already have a pile of blueberries in the freezer that I picked myself, but I figured an extra five pounds for jam would be fantastic! I heard of the news that it was a very bad blueberry year here in Nova Scotia, due to the lack of rain. I noticed the blueberries here on my property were much smaller and less juicy than last year. I hope the farmers don't lose out on huge money. Farming can be a rough job. I've also been purchasing local corn at the Crossroads Country market, but it's crazy expensive; $0.50 a cob! I'm a giant chump and my turkey poults LOVE the corn on a cob. One thing I do miss from Ontario is the low veggie prices during the summer. Veggies are much more expensive here. 

My three little chicks are growing fast and are no longer chicks or little! They are about two months old now and doing very well. I'm pretty sure that the frizzle (the one with the funny feathers) is a boy; his name is Fonzi, while the other two are girls. I really need another rooster so will be keeping Fonzi. 

Wishing you all a wonderful day! Hugs and love!

Mr. Pickles

My old cat Mr Pickles passed away last night. I adopted Mr Pickles and his 2 friends a few months ago. Sadly their human, an elderly lady, had passed on and left the three cats orphaned. The lady's family were going to simply have the cats put down, so I volunteered to take them. All three cats were quite old, but Mr Pickles was by far the oldest; he was about 18 years old. About two and a half weeks ago, one of Mr Pickles' friends, Jenga, had a seizure and passed on, and now sweet old Mr Pickles is gone. Now there is only Muggs left. So sad.

In the last two and half weeks, I have lost four cats and one duck. :( It doesn't even seem possible. I am crushed.

The funeral cairns. :( There is only three, one for Jenga, one for Dot (duck) and one for Mr. Pickles. There isn't one for Mabel and Jasmine as they are MIA. Until I find a body, I don't give up hope. Maybe they are just lost or out on an adventure and will return home eventually! I look for them every day and will continue to look for them. We leave no one behind and we never give up hope!

The wheel turns. Goddess Bless

Hugs and love

Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries and Choke Cherries

One of the best things about my property is all the wildcrafting I can do. For the last month, we have been harvesting raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and Choke cherries almost every day. We finished harvesting the raspberries and blueberries a couple of weeks ago (they are in the freezer waiting to be used!), finished harvesting choke cherries today and still have a week or so of blackberries to harvest. Once the blackberries are all done, we'll have a jam making day; we plan on making blueberry jam, raspberry jam, blackberry jam and Choke cherry jam. It should be enough jam to last us the year so we won't have to purchase any! Plus I plan on making a few extra jars to send to friends in Ontario as gifts :)

This morning we went to a small garage sale here in Thorburn. Sadly there wasn't a huge amount of stuff we needed (We need tons of kitchen/household stuff as the majority of ours got left behind in Ontario). We did pick up a lovely teapot (cost $1), a nice sized plastic container ($2), 6 crystal bowls ( $3 for 6- they are going to be cat food dishes) and two fantastic books on birds in Atlantic Canada ($1 each). I love saving money and prefer to buy second hand. :)

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!! Hugs and love!

Photos from the Day

Some photos from the day

This delicious salad is full of lettuce, basil, dill, parsley, clover, grated apple, zucchini, grated carrot, hard boiled egg, cauliflower and fresh picked blackberries. Sound good? It's for the turkeys! :) They LOVE their greens!

This grumpy face belongs to Mr. Pickles. Mr. Pickles came to me a few months ago when his elderly owner passed away He's OLD, about 16-18 years old. He's blind in one eye and missing half his tail, and is suffering from kidney disease. He spends his days sitting in my kitchen and ever leaves it (he goes between a kitchen chair to the table to the dog food bin). We call him Mr. Pickles Peedhispants, cause ya, you guessed it, he has some bladder issues. About once a day, the poor old guy pees on the chair :( We put a litterbox under the table for him, which has helped a bit, but sadly he's just really old and in fairly bad shape). I'm not sure how long Mr. Pickles will be with us as I think he'll be leaving this life soon, but until he does we'll give him all the love and compassion we can. We've been using some herbal remedies (Parsley, coconut oil, hawthorn berries and colloidal silver) to help his kidney problems. We've seen an improvement in his bladder control and his eyes are less cloudy.

Here is my quack pack enjoying their new pool. They barely go to the pond now that they have the little pool. I guess they are too lazy to walk to the pond now when they can splash near the house. It at least keeps them safer. I always worry about them walking down the driveway alone!

And my turkey poults, Mork and Mindy, getting bigger! They are now about 6-7 weeks old. They are starting to go out alone during the afternoon now. 

To help protect my featherbabies up near the house, I strung string from the house to surrounding trees and then hung CDs. They should *hopefully* help to stop the hawks and eagles. 

And lastly my two Muscovy gals, Mama Muscovy and Figgy, still sitting on their eggs. I *Think* we are getting close to hatching time! Hopefully this time we will actually get little ones! We are yet to hatch anything this summer, so fingers crossed!

Wishing you all a wonderful day! hugs and love!

New Glasgow and Missing Cats

Greetings friends! I hope you are all doing fantastic!

My string of bad luck continues. My sweet cat Mabel that went missing last week is yet to return and now my beautiful long haired munchkin kitty Jasmine has disappeared. She went out Monday afternoon and never returned. I am just heartbroken. I really loved those cats. I fear my property is in someone's hunting range and something is killing my beloved kitties. It's just crushing me. I've lost three cats in two weeks. (One died after having a seizure and the other two are MIA). The whole thing is very strange as none of my ducks or chickens have gone missing. You'd think a predator would go after them, not the cats. I'm gonna try setting up some camera on the property, maybe I can catch a glimpse of the culprit. I have two more outdoor cats, I'm so scared to let them out. I'm terrified if they go out they won't come back. Unfortunately telling an outdoor cat they can't go out doesn't go over well. :(

Something is going wrong with my water this week. Monday, I woke up to no water. Called the landlord and he sent a plumber. Plumber said there was a problem with the electrical panel in the basement where the pump is plugged in and fixed it. Now today, Thursday, we got no water again. Looks like the exact same problem! Obviously the guy did not fix it correctly ... grumble, grumble. So now today, i gotta waste my time sitting around waiting on the guy to come back. Not impressed!

Yesterday, Travis and I rode our bicycles into New Glasgow. I love our location so much! We have a trail about 3 minutes from the house that runs all the way to New Glasgow. It's really nice to not have o ride on a busy street and fret over the cars, and the trail is gorgeous. It goes by lots of lovely ponds and forest. Yesterday on our ride,w e saw deer, a mama bear and cub, and a muskrat.

Here's a google map. The bike trail is in red. There is even a tunnel that goes under the highway so you don't have to worry about crossing it :). It took us just over an hour to bicycle there and that's with us walking about half the time. Unfortunately, I can't ride up hills as my lung capacity sucks, so we walk up hills and ride when it's flat or downhill.

Wishing you all a great week!! I hope mine improves! Hopefully the missing cats willl return home!

Watering Hole and Gardens

All my crazy critters LOVE their new watering hole. We dug a hole for the kiddie pool so it wouldn't be so high for everyone. Now, the ducks can just walk into it and the chickens can get a drink from shore easily. As you can see from the photos, the water is already filthy dirty ... that's from a couple of ducks having a bath in it. We didn't put rocks at the one end so we'd be able to tip it over the drain it fairly easily. We also didn't put it 100% in the ground, so we'd be able to drain it easier. 

The only problem (other than the water getting dirty really quick, but that's what happens with ducks), is now the ducks aren't bothering to go to the real pond now! 

My garden is doing ok; not great, but not horrible. I've got some cucumbers an zucchini growing. 

Turkeys, Ducks and Hens, oh My!

Hi Friends! Hope you are all doing well. I've been struggling these last few weeks, feeling really blah, not much for enthusiasm lately. However, I got a house full of critters that even when I'm feeling down, always make me smile. They are all so ridiculous and silly!

As Heckle's eggs (chicken) never hatched, she returned to the flock, and I turned the nursery/medical room into a turkey room. The turkeys are much happier having more room and I'm much happier cause they are quieter! I think they'll just spend the winter inside and come spring we'll build them their own turkey house outside.

I got the ducks a kiddie pool. It's really more for winter when the ponds are frozen, but they are also enjoying it now. Over the weekend we are going to dig down a bit so the pool sit a bit underground (so it's easier for the ducks to get in and out of)

This photo is off Ethel (Saxony duck) and Jasmine (Black munchkin kitty)Jasmine has only been here about two months and she's already use to the featherbabies. She was laying in the sun enjoying the day when the ducks came over to eat grass. She never moved :)

Yacko and Wacko, my Indian Runners and Martha, one of my Saxony ducks. 

This one is Mork, my Tom Turkey. He's really feathering out!He's gonna be beautiful when full grown.

And this one is Mindy :)

And lastly, my two Rouen ducks, Molly and Polly. They are about 3 months old now and fitting in well with the flock. 

Feeling Blue

Well, it's a brand new week. Hopefully a much better week than last week was. I had such a bad week last week that I am still feeling downright blue and defeated. Just can't seem to get a break lately.

Sadly, I still have not found my missing cat Mabel and the chicken eggs the Jeckle the chicken has now been sitting on 30 days still have not hatched (and obviously are not going to). On a good note, the chicken with bumblefoot is at least doing a little better, so at least that's something good. My two Muscovy ducks are still sitting on their eggs (in a shared nest), so I still have hope maybe their eggs will hatch. My turkey poults are doing well, so that's happy news. Although they are driving me crazy with all their noise. I haven't slept through a night in the month they've been here. If there isn't a human in the room with them they make so much noise your head wants to explode. I can't wait till they are bigger and can be moved outside! Just another week or two!

I am in such a funk lately. Nothing seems to be going right. In addition to everything that happened last week, I broke one of my teeth.:( Such is life.

Thankfully last week is over and it's Monday and hopefully this week will bring some good luck!

So, here's some happier things; a couple of pics from my week

This is Charlie the Muskrat. He lives at my front pond. I see him several times a day. He's a cute little bugger, though I'm not a big fan of his rat tail.

This lovely pond is about a ten minute walk from my home. My son and I went here to gather Canadian goose feathers for our etsy store. We came home with piles!

And lastly, a beautiful blue heron that lives at my front pond. Sorry the pic isn't great. I could really use a better camera.

Even in the midst of a crappy week, good things still happen.

Hugs and love!

Sad, Sick and Depressed

I have had a horrible week. Sunday night I started feeling ill, horrible headache and sick stomach, and ended up sick for three days :( and my son ended up sick too. Three days with the flu sucks big time.

One of the old cats, Jenga, I took in a couple of months ago passed away. I have no idea why, she went into a seizure and passed away within minutes. I didn't even have time to try to get her help. So sad.

My cat Mabel has gone missing and is presumed dead. She disappeared on Tuesday and has not returned home. She's an older fixed female cat so not given to wandering. I'm praying she's going to show up, but it doesn't bode well at all.

And to make this horrible week worse, one of my beloved Indian Runner ducks passed away last night. Again, I have no idea why. I found her sitting by herself, and started her on niacin and homemade electrolytes immediately, but sadly it wasn't enough. I woke up this morning to find her dead.

 Oh yeh, as if that's all not bad enough, my one leghorn hen has bumblefoot and the eggs that should of hatched on the weekend still haven't hatched. :(

This week sucks hugely. I'm just downright sad, sick and depressed. Just can't stop crying. It's all too sad and heartbreaking. I really wish this week would give give me a break. :(

August

Happy August friends! The summer sure is going by quickly. Here's some pics from around my home

The turkey poults are growing quickly. They are about 4 weeks old now. They are now going outside a couple of times a day (with supervision) to run around and get some exercise.

This is Charlie the muskrat. He lives in my front pond. He's a cute little bugger (Other than his rat like tail!)

Feeding the flock; everyone is excited for suppertime! I got 400 pounds of oats for $0.08 a pound. The flock loves the oats with a little molasses mixed in.

We got four broody bitches right now. Jeckle is on day 21 of sitting on her eggs (chicks should hatch this weekend, hopefully!); Mama Muscovy and Figgy are sharing a nest (they are on day 10 give or take - Muscovy eggs take 34 days) and Jeckle's sister Heckle is sitting on eggs in the duck coop (she's on day 3). hopefully I'll get some chicks soon!