Warm Eggs

Hello again!

Today is Saturday and I have a bit of a day to myself. Terry is at market and Monique and the kids went into Moncton for a bit to pick up some things and they said that I was welcome to take a day off (mostly) just to relax for a bit. It is very nice so far. I got up really early still to help Terry with chores before he left and then I have basically done very little. I made some breakfast and some tea and I read a little bit and put pictures on my computer from my camera.

Slowely but surely I have begun to feel much more at home here. Right now I am living in the house with the family (and sleeping in their computer room) which is nice because it has allowed me to get to know them better. But I am in the process of getting my own space. Recently we (well, Terry and the tractor) dragged a small one room cabin from the wooded edge of the property across the fields and onto the yard. This is going to be my own little house for the summer. Then just this past week we cleaned and painted it and now all that is left to do is put down some linoleum and carpet and set up some furniture and then I can move in! I'm excited to be able to unpack more fully and have a space to myself.

On a completely other note, a highlight that has definitely made my early mornings brighter occurs when I go to bring water to the hens and collect eggs. It has happened a few times now that I have bent over to pick up an egg and as I hold it in my hand I can feel that it is still warm from being in the chicken! It makes me happy.

Well, I have taken a few pictures already and thought it is time to show you what this all looks like so here are a few of them:

This is their house as seen from one of the fields where I was probably feeding chickens.

This is their lovely cedar lane that gives the farm its name and lying in the middle of it there is their border collie Tjerk.


This is the yard with two of the barns and another one (a sheep barn) in the process of being built. We got that finished on Thursday and then moved the sheep out of the barn where they had been for winter and put them out on pasture. They look very happy now out on the grass.

And now to meet some of the animals:

These are a few of the pigs. Two of them had already gone to the butcher when I took this picture and there are another three still in the barn that are about the same size.

These are the piglets that we got almost two weeks ago. They are a tad bigger now but not much. You can see the runt of the litter in the food bowl on the far left. We also just got two sows on Thursday that Terry and Monique are going to use as breeding stock eventually so that they don't have to buy piglets anymore.

These are some of their calves. I think that most of these will end up as meat for their own consumption (they don't sell beef) but the one on the far right is named Wilhelmina and she is going to be another milking cow when she is old enough.

These are the smallest chicks that we have right now although more are coming this week. They have already grown since I took this picture and are starting to get uglier (they start to lose their feathers and turn into awkward looking teenage birds). Here they are in their brooding house still with a heat lamp to keep them from getting too cold and dying. Sometimes I would be mobbed when I went in to give them food and I was very afraid of stepping on one. Once they are old enough they go out in moveable pens on the fields and are moved daily until they are butchered.

Here are some of the hens, being as curious as they can be. They like to huddle around any pails I bring with me and peck at them and try to see what is inside them.

And here is the henhouse that they live in.

And now for a few uncategorized pictures:

This is a patch of garden that I turned over by hand (and pitchfork) all by myself. Wonderful backbreaking labour that is. Thankfully I didn't have to do that all day.

Here is Terry on the tractor moving my little house.

This was Thursday morning when I got up and as I did chores the mist burned off and the sun came out. It was beautiful.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!