Blossoms

Most people who know me, know I love to garden. I have always had flower beds that I have taken pride in and vegetable gardens that I expand on every year. This new property has many flowering/fruiting shrubs and trees. This is an area I have not really delved into before and I am loving watching them develop.

Pear

Apple

Quince?

Magnolia I think, but I thought
it should bloom before the leaves?

Huge Rhododendron, cannot
wait to see it in full bloom

Crabapple

Cherry

19 Degrees

Spring in Barton, Nova Scotia has yet to appear. We have had the occasional nice day that we try to take full advantage of, but for the most part the temperature hovers between 10-14 and rains. Yesterday, however, we had one of those occasional days. The temperature got up to 19 degrees at one point. It was sunny with no wind. Absolutely beautiful!!

The day started with a trip to the lumber mill where we picked up a load of boards. These were not from the wood we delivered last week, those will be ready mid week this week. This was just lumber that we purchased. We then stacked the two loads that we have brought in so far. Just to think, we have another three truck loads to pick up still! Thank goodness the barn is large enough to stack and store it all in!
The garden got its final rototilling with compost worked into it. My reward for doing this was  a little sunburn and lots of blackfly bites.

Finally, we got the chicken coop almost prepared for our first farm animals arrival at the end of this month. We will have some very stylish chickens who get to strut down their live edge pine ramp! It was such a beautiful piece of wood that we found at the lumber mill. We saved it from it fate as kindling and are giving it a long happy life covered in chicken poop!!

Zoe Leaves For a Week

Last night we drove Zoe to the airport again for a week long visit to see her friends and family in Ontario. Thanks to Gemma, Zoe's very heavy suitcase got out of the truck and checked onto the airplane.

It is always hard to see her go but I hope she has a wonderful time and delivers all the hugs and kisses I have sent with her.

This week without her will be a week of work, work, and work!

I am enjoying working at my new job and therefore not finding it difficult to spend my time there.
I am anxious for some nicer weather (which is finally in our forecast) to work outside on the barn and in the garden.
And finally the third work is with our dog Dixie. We had intended to sign her up for obedience/socialization classes, but were unable to attend due to my new job. This week will be spent in intensive home training. I really have no doubt that Dixie will learn fast, she is so smart. We also have a lovely neighbour (yes another one!!) who has offered her 11 month old lonely dog for playdates in hopes we can tire them both out!

I am making this a busy week trying not missing my little girl (she will be so mad at me for writing that!)

Hauling Lumber

I had a fantastic first experience this week.

I was given the opportunity to go onto a neighbours property, haul out some fallen trees and take them to the lumber mill.

As a southern Ontario baby, Home Depot has always been my source for lumber. It was such an amazing experience to go with a truck, a bobcat, and our muscle, taking multiple trips loading over twenty logs and delivering them to a sawmill where we were able to make requests on the size of lumber we want.

I absolutely loved, not just going to a store to buy lumber, but being a part of the process from beginning to end (almost the beginning, the trees were already cut down).

I am looking forward to picking up the cut lumber next week. I imagine I will feel some extra pride as I use that wood!

Working Woman

Ok. So I know I posted about this fantastic new job in home care that I got and how excited I was about it. As it turns out, that was all trying to convince myself I would love a job where I met no new people, worked twelve hour days, and had the sole responsibility for someone's welfare.

So now I am allowed to say...I have a different, fantastic job that I love!! I was fortunate enough to get a call back from the YMCA where I have now worked three shifts training at the front desk. My experience so far has been that the people are fantastic, both my coworkers and the members, the hours are great and the work is what I love to do.

I had really enjoyed my temporary retirement, but the past two evenings coming home from work, I have felt so good. It is a terrific feeling to be doing something I enjoy, contributing financially again, and being "out there" meeting people.

Happy Mother's Day

We want to wish all those wonderful moms out there a fantastic Mother's Day!

I was certainly missing my mom, and my son (who did call me. Thank you - I love you!), but Zoe and Dixie succeeded in making it a wonderful day for me!

It started with Dixie encouraging me to make a bacon and egg breakfast for her mom to let her know how grateful she was to be  Zoe's fur baby.

From there we moved on to my favourite shopping experience...the greenhouse! Zoe helped me pick out some beautiful specimens for two planters we will be displaying this year.

The day just kept getting better as we got an invitation to go to Jennifer's house and play with her horse! Zoe did some grooming and practising for 4H showmanship. I know Zoe is loving them, but I am also finally feeling more comfortable around horses. I have previously found them very large and rather intimidating, unsurprisingly, they are large and intimidating!! But Jennifer has been fantastic in showing us how to handle them making me much more comfortable.

Not done yet...I am allowed my favourite pastime, and get to spend two hours outside playing in the yard. I am really good at jumping from job to job and therefore nothing gets completed. Well today I was able to complete some jobs and feel great about those two hours. I followed this up by a bubble bath and glass of wine!!! How luxurious!!

We finished off the day with a delicious 4 course Mother's Day meal prepared for me with love by Zoe! Absolutely delicious!!

I feel so incredibly lucky to have the amazing family that I do. Without your love, support and belief in me, I would not have been able to make this journey that I am on. So, on Mother's Day, special love and thanks to Zoe, Brandon, Mom, Dad, Bill, Jen, and my aunt Judy whose weekly phone calls I have come to depend on.


I sincerely hope all you mothers were fortunate enough to have as terrific of a day as I was! And thanks to all you amazing children who make us mom's!

Shannon Versus Garden

Day one of the epic battle.

Shannon is in her corner with Troy-Bilt rototiller.

In the other corner is 400 square feet of grass, weeds and rocks.

At the last minute, enter the underdog - the blackfly!!

Yes, I actually enjoyed getting outside on this fantastic spring day and tackling a job that I have been dying to get out and do. It will take numerous passes and I am no where near done (had to stop as I ran out of gas) but I loved every moment of it. I am hoping all the blackfly bites will be gone by morning!

I Got A Job!!

I am now a working woman - again. I truly enjoyed my temporary retirement but it was time to get back to the real world and start working again. I will be working for a home care organization who keep people in their homes for as long as possible. I have an orientation day tomorrow so I will know more after that, but I am really excited about this. I have thought of doing something similar for a long time. Not concentrating on the medical aspect, but rather the life side of care. Grocery shopping, cleaning, baking, being company and support. Basically doing and being whatever each individual needs or wants. Thank you Sandi for your reference, letting them know I can bake cookies and chocolates and that I am a ray of sunshine (paraphrased!!)

On Saturday Zoe and I helped out in our community. The church which is just next door to our house, St. Mary's Bay Baptist Church, (where we had the bake sale breakfast for Zoe's 4-H club), was hosting a turkey dinner for the community. This dinner is a sit down event and Zoe and I, along with our friend Jennifer and five other people were the servers. It was crazy busy but a lot of fun. I realized how much I have missed waitressing! This is now my third community event and I love that I am starting to recognize people. I also had the small town joy of meeting someone who knew which house we had moved into and that we were going to be starting a farm!

Today, finally, the weather took a turn for the better and I was able to get outside and have a fire. I had so many clippings piled up around the fire pit that I could barely see the fire pit to start a burn! I was also able to clean out the garage, and trim three of the six evergreen trees that line the road in front of the property. A very satisfying day!

Waiting....

I am sorry I do not have too much to report tonight. There has not been much work happening at the two girls farm.

I have had two more job interviews this week and am very excited about both of them. I have been told I will hear back tomorrow either way so keep your fingers crossed for me. I did have an interview last month and was asked to return for a second interview. But I opted out of that feeling it was not the right job for my family. It was too far away, six days a week right during the season we want to make progress on the farm and it was a seasonal job so I would be looking again in September. Both of these newer jobs are year round, less than 30 minute drive from our home, and really interest me. I have always believed that if you need to work, you better enjoy what you do. I feel I would really enjoy both these jobs and the people I would work with.

It has been lousy weather so I have only managed to do some flower garden weeding inbetween raindrops this week. I did, however, purchase a used rototiller, so when the ground dries up I am ready to prepare the vegetable garden.

I have also made some more progress on the chicken coop. It is cleaned, the anti-mink wire has been purchased, I have received some siding to use on the inside walls (I have been told this will seal the walls to keep predators out and help with ease of cleaning the coop), I also have some lumber to replace the rotting floor and make everything secure for our birds arrival at the end of May!

Another piece of great news....Zoe submitted a job application for a local amusement park and she received a phone call yesterday with a follow up email today offering her a position! So we will now be two working farm girls!