And then summer was over and it was summer again (summer 2011 till now)

So after the last time I posted things took off for the summer and then winter came and we had a bunch of reno's in the house planned and the last 8 months just flew by like blinking.  Blinking with a side car of exhaustion.  I am going to post photo's and just comment on them for the things that happened over the last eight months.

So over the summer we took the kids to the Toronto Zoo and had a blast, but there is a lot of walking, you don't see to many fat people

Plus we had the chance to go visit friends at their boat.

 I had a few friends that I grew up with up to this summer (2011) for a camp fire-bbq.  good times Lee still working on being  FATMAN! with his double patty burger w sausage and bacon.

Centre Island were we where shrunk

Here are our first Buff Orpington pure breed birds

Some Where in here our Hand Crank Cream separator broke.  Now that would be ok if we didn't need it for our milk and if we had bought it at some store down the street where we could just exchange it, not the Ukraine.  So at first I sent it back and up-graded to an electric model.  Now I know that all of Europe including the Ukraine not only have different plugs, but they also run off 220v not 120v like use here, but I didn't know that until I had the separator in my hands. I had to purchase a step-up, which changes 120 to 220, but again didn't know that till it was in my kitchen full of milk.  And if that didn't complicate things the first motor that was sent had something wrong with it,  So 3-4 months after sending it back we now have a working Cream Separator, but now the goats are dry (no milk).

THE CHICKEN PLUCKER:  Well this didn't go so well.  It started off being made from an old washing machine, but after tearing everything apart and rebuilding it the motor was not strong enough to spin the drum to plucker feathers.  So after a lot of work it was scraped and I built one from a 45 gal drum and a motor for a furnace.  it is still yet to be tested but there will be pictures or a video of that.

At some point here we butchered all the meat birds and because the chicken plucker did not work we skinning a lot of birds and plucked a few by hand,  THANKS RYAN!!!

BABY TYLER: Born Nov 11, 2011 6.1 lbs Name figured out 10 mins. before birth

THE BUS:  I took on driving a school bus, because of the appeal of giving up retirement to work, LOL. No really, we were expecting our third child and in order to be prepared I started driving to make some extra money and to cover off the loss of Cheryl's income when she was off on mat leave.  Now It sounds like good job for a farmer, a little bit of time in the morning and then a little bit of time in the after noon.  Guess what by the time everything was factored in I was driving close to 5hrs a day and could never give a project the time it needed because I would only have a few hours in a row to do something.  I signed that I would drive for a year so this Friday is my last day.

RENOVATIONS:  As the months started to get colder Reno's started on the house.  This was not just a lip stick and mascara job, I am still working on them everyday and it has been five and a half months.
the list
-New floors in the kitchen, main floor bath, and front hall
-Paint the living rm, kitchen, mf bath, upper hall and front hall
-Build a mud rm, complete with built-in shelving
-Replace all interior doors and closets w matching doors
-Replace all light fixtures
-Hang an above the stove microwave
Wait for it...
-Install a new kitchen

And then there were Cows!!!  So after our first summer with goats and Cheryl not drinking milk we decided that we needed to get a Cow also.  It would provide milk and beef.  After a lot of research I decided on Red Poll Cattle.  It is an old breed from england that used to be dual purpose.  It often wins awards (currently) for the the meat and flavour.   It's milk is high in butter fat content but has small fat globulars, so people that think they are lactose intolerant can actually drink this milk with no side effects just like goats milk.  They calf easy and are not prone to genetic disease like lots of other cattle, so they cost less to raise and you don't need to give antibiotics to keep them alive, not that I would anyways.

I was able to buy two cows both pregnant and have them delivered over March break.  The problem is that we have had plus 20's weather for the week prior and all the snow melted and the ground was soft.  The cows arrived and the truck could not get back to the paddock so they were just let off the truck and then I spent the next two hours chasing cows up our road and back down and on our neighbours property and then finally into the paddock.  They seem to be adjusting well but they still don't like me to much.