Vareharri Farm - The simple life?

Some of Our Favourite Places to Shop ...

2012-01-28T16:06:00.000-05:00

Lee Valley Tools
This handy little go to store is Canadian and while there is a retail location on my way to work they are also apparently very shipping friendly too! Christmas shopping is a pleasure; people send me lists of what they want from Lee Valley. I walk in with a list and a clerk organizes my shopping, bing, bang, boom! For gardeners and woodworkers there are all kinds of treasures to find. Service is terrific and the staff know their products.

Richters Herbs every winter we trek up to Uxbridge and wander the greenhouse. I buy some seeds and we are inspired. They have a terrific selection of books about herbs and all kinds of neat seeds to try. The website has a great question and answer section (under growzone).They have an excellent reputation for their mail order business as well. We've found their seeds germinate above expected rates and love the variety of things we can get.

Veseys the first place I ordered from back in the winter of 2007 getting seeds for our garden. All the way out on PEI I have never had any problems with them. I wouldn't order potatoes from them again (heavy to ship) but Dad and Jean order my fall birthday bulbs from them every year, our mantis tiller came from there and I suspect this year's blueberries will come from there too! Their greenhouse looks pretty tempting as well!

The County Store a local business in Picton we find ourselves getting all kinds of things here. Jeans, gloves, seed potatoes, seeds, our gate, our weather vane, local food, our chicks, tools, you name it - odds are good you can get it here.

TSC really if we had gotten nothing but the mower here it would make the list! Having a way to mow trails with the ATV is just amazing. We spent years driving by a TSC on the highway and I thought it was an outlet for The Shopping Channel. Then one day we went in the one in Belleville. The hook was instant. Cool buckets, feed, tools, and more - it's the kind of place you learn from as you wander the aisles listening to people.

Canadian Tire Our fail safe store since we started camping way back before we'd even noticed the school house. It's the one flyer we both check every week. We've bought cutlery, kitchen stuff, sports stuff, plants, pet stuff (Kizmet's heated bed!), paint, tools, car stuff, solar chargers, solar lights, and more.

Neither Big T nor I are big shoppers but these are some of our favourite spots to spend our hard earned money!

Toronto council

2012-01-26T21:56:00.000-05:00

rejected a motion to get a staff report studying the feasibility of back yard hens.

From an animal control perspective I'm not sure it is a great thing to have hens (facilities/enforcement) but I'm not sure that the jerks don't have them (or rabbits or doves or whatever) anyhow

the folks that are waiting for it to be legal would probably have hens or the same reasons we do

and the more people eating humane happy eggs the better - at least to my view!

knitting and chicks ...

2012-01-21T19:31:00.000-05:00

Getting ready to order chicks
Silkies most likely ...in the hope that the girls come back to us for normal sized eggs ...

I'd love Ameraucanas, Runner ducks, Sebastopol geese and more too!
Nearly finished my fourth knitting project
first was a big work scarf for Big T
then two chunky wool scarves for the cousins Maddy and Jackie
finally a lovely tweed purple scarf for Mum

then one more city scarf for Big T and I'll be on to something else ... not sure what to knit next tho!

Today is the day ...

2012-01-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

the added acres close...

256 acres of fun in Prince Edward County ....

Lucky lucky us

Missing Summer ...

2012-01-14T22:17:00.000-05:00

It's a planning, reflecting, dreaming time
I miss the walking and doing ....

catching up with a dear friend...

2012-01-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

and walking at the farm

and talking

and walking

and checking out future trails

lovely lovely way to end a lovely lovely Christmas break

warning: extreme cute factor ....

2012-01-05T21:17:00.002-05:00

a lovely foggy walk and wooding ...

2011-12-31T20:54:00.000-05:00

A lovely time at the farm this afternoon - finding trees to bring down then hiking out to the ridge to check out the fog (and the teeny tiny cabin!)

Dogs ran and ran then ran a little more.

Thea's little feet got cold so she spent a little time sitting up on the ATV seat warming up.

The fog was so neat!

Can you see Sampson?

Here he is!

The ridge. The lake was completely covered in fog.

at the pond, Nana visits ... and a little farm 'gility!

2011-12-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

2011-12-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

We seem to have baby Christmas bunnies nearly every year - this set is potentially the cutest ever!

6 babies. black with a little white, 2 white, grey and white, brown and white and black and white...

as cute as cute can possibly be!

And as silly as any baby ever is ... :)

Christmas Day Walk

2011-12-25T13:34:00.000-05:00

Not looking too much like Christmas but it was lovely during the farm walk today.

We didn't stay out long but we all had fun.

Even though Thea had to wear her newly knit (by her Newfoundland Grandmother) sweater and Thea and Sally both wore their undershirts!

Gifts have just begun but already farm stuff - a great picnic knapsack, awesome magazines ... lucky us!

Hoping you all have a wonderful Christmas Holiday!

ahhhhhhhhh

2011-12-23T22:52:00.001-05:00

two weeks of holidays - at the school house

Sam can't wait

planning lots of walks, reading by the fire and just chillaxing as the students say expecting wooding, and working and entertaining too!

dinner tonight - homemade dough and pizza

so looking forward to the battery recharge

Another lovely weekend ...

2011-12-05T19:52:00.000-05:00

Walking the dogs

Watching them play, run and roll.

Sourcing trees for winter wooding projects.

Admiring a beautiful old dead tree on the soon to be new land.

One of the lovely views across the big field into Judy's field.

One of the many piles of brush we've been working hard to pile as Big T clears the fence lines.

Put away the trailer for the winter - moved out 3 little mice, hoards of ladybugs and a buzzing collection of wasps too!

Random Pictures from Sunday

2011-11-28T11:49:00.010-05:00

The squash garden tidied up, awaits winter.

I love the last few apples, hanging on to the trees

Enjoying the last Sunday of November and grateful that it is lovely out.

Love elephant ears any time of year.

Some of the garden, weed whacked, waiting for tilling

no voice ... no problem ...

2011-11-27T10:30:00.002-05:00

Planted another 80 cloves of garlic yesterday bringing this fall's total to 170 ...which I think should be a fine harvest for next year - I was able to only plant the biggest best heads this year so I'm excited for next year already! We have plenty of decent garlic left for winter too. Big T tilled the second bed for me which made planting a snap.

garlic bed one - the rail is down to mark the Korean and Schoolhouse garlic divide

All Schoolhouse garlic in the back bed this year

Dinner last night was delicious ... local chicken breasts baked and then finished with a little tomato sauce and Swiss cheese with our own squash and baked potatoes - YUM!

After I did the planting and before I started dinner I was bored but not breathing super well so I pulled up a YouTube video on casting on (a piece of knitting I couldn't recall ever doing). YouTube is awesome. I did a long tail cast on and started knitting and purling. Too much fun! Too smart given that I'd like to work on sustainable farming in the most humane, least animal destructive way ~which fibre does! We'll see what the final product looks like, then I'll have to try more complex things - but a perfect winter thing to learn!

This is the site I used for the knitting help http://www.knittinghelp.com/. Very helpful!

90 garlic cloves planted

2011-11-22T21:17:00.002-05:00

one bed done - another to go

squash bed ready for winter hibernation

hundreds of crocus, tulips etc planted- just a few hyacinths left (thanks to Dad and Jean for such a smart birthday present!)

winter is certainly lurking around the shadows ....

sharing 256 acres

2011-11-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

to walk

to wood

to graze

to plan

to plant

to hay

to sing and dance together and be joyous

talk about gratitude ...

what a glorious glorious day ...

2011-11-05T22:39:00.001-04:00

potatoes are dug

2011-11-04T21:46:00.000-04:00

my most excellent supervisor

some bulbs are planted (still a few more to go though)

dogs are still curious about where the deer died but recalling off the site nicely

chickens are still happily clucking and laying eggs

My filming set up

got a little yard agility in too

found paths are so much fun

yup - that's a lake view peeking out from behind the tree

views every way you turn

we have been having a lovely fall here (fabulous for us given how insanely busy our work weeks are!)

inside images ...

2011-10-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

This quilt hangs in our main room .. I love the colours and the fact it was made locally

Aren't all windowsills covered in ripening tomatoes once frost seems likely?

This hangs in our kitchen

on the way to Cherry Valley

2011-10-22T10:48:00.001-04:00

If you cut through our property heading west you cross a pretty cool piece of land. It's pretty rough now but there is lots of potential on it. A little quarry, some beautiful trees, some lovely lake views, a pond, neat fence lines, apple trees, cherry trees. It rolls down from a plateau, very little of it is flat but it's just gorgeous.

Point Petre in the Wind ...

2011-10-16T21:54:00.001-04:00

what a neat, wonderful, noisy trip to Point Petre today ...

The noise was incredible ... the waves were awesome

We all, 2 and 4 legged creatures alike

had a great trip to paradise

it's quite incredible to have a place like this to recharge personal batteries - less then 15 minutes from the schoolhouse!

the excitement is never ending

2011-10-15T17:57:00.000-04:00

"Green acres is the place to be.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide.
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside."

looking for excitement - little do they know what's coming

We walked a field over from our farm looking at a fence line today (a wild wet day with driving rain, hail and wicked winds). The fence line is in pretty good shape. That wasn't the excitement.

Suddenly the big dogs lost their collective minds - they were just ahead of us so Big T ran up to see what they had cornered - he thought raccoon, I thought deer -injured or dead. We were both wrong

not our actual coyote - ours had every hair on it's body raised in defense too ...

I did not think of pulling my phone out to take picture in the heat of the moment

A coyote had a foot caught in the same fence we were inspecting. The coyote couldn't concentrate on freeing itself with 2 large dogs yelling hysterically at it. Luckily both Sally and Sampson broke away for a minute giving the coyote time to RUN away. I caught Sally but Sampson took off after the coyote for a good 90 seconds or so. Sally is usually easy to hold even when in HIGH drive mode. Not today. She was frantic to join Big T and Sampson. She pulled me over twice. Thank heavens Thea was at home due to the foul weather as she would certainly have been right in the thick of things. Brody stood with me quietly waiting for the big dogs to come back to reality.

Why did we finally see a coyote?
We have a few best guesses - the coyotes are often closer then we suspect and the lousy weather was loud enough to prevent the coyote realizing how close we were. We were in a spot that probably hasn't seen a human in many many years. The coyote probably would have gotten completely away unnoticed, even with those two factors, except for the caught toe. Those three things factored into making the excitement today.

Everyone is OK. And this is a story for all time (ranking right up there with the time Big T was bicycling along and a coyote jumped into the road to assess if he was prey or predator. Luckily the coyote decided predator that time too and took off. Two close encounters is enough for me!

a lovely fall day ... more like November than October though!

2011-10-01T22:51:00.000-04:00

We worked a little and walked a lot. Found a new lake view from an adjacent property and a lovely tree of life tree.

The sun was quite reticent but eventually popped out to give us some dramatic lighting.

http://www.getmyfix.org/ horse fix for hunter jumper types

2011-09-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.getmyfix.org/

an awesome little site - hosting an awesome giveaway ....
I found this site by fluke when filling my horse void this summer

it's:
creative
funny
educational
interesting
thought provoking

every time I visit it I appreciate it more and more

missing riding muchly - hopefully can squeeze a couple of rides in in October ... more on the quest this weekend I hope ..