Farming the fields

It's been a cold week here going into Thanksgiving, so looking at these pictures is reminding us of the gorgeous summer we had.  Summer 2017 really was a beautiful time.  No major calamities for this family and day after day of sun and warmth. Week after week of getting up and not even thinking about the weather.  This also was one of the driest years on record with this area receiving 12 mm of rain since June.  The pivot in the potato fields ran for six weeks straight.  What a glorious summer. It's quite a concept to be able to have that much dry weather and still see the bounty come off the land at harvest time.  All thru irrigation. Which Andy loves so much, as the gravel yard on the farm can stay firm and rut free, weeds slow down in growth and yet the lawn remains emerald green due to lawn sprinklers.  I'm pretty sure our kids think this is all normal. Which it is not. :)

Lawn irrigation - a regular sight around here. Fun for the kids to play in!

The side yard.

Andy spent hours taking care of the pivots this summer. 

He had some pretty faithful helpers - one of the many reasons we love farming!

The beautiful field of corduroy. Aka potatoes.

At the end of harvest they brought me some. Notice the heart Seth and Tristan found for me 💓

Our forecast, over and over again. 

The "other" field was a mixture of peas and triticale - sold to the neighbor for forage.

 A friend let us borrow his baler to make some small bales off the dry corner piece to feed to our sheep. 
It was a fun experience and Tristan was in his element. (above)


 Every 8 weeks a new shipment of chicks arrives as well.  After shipping and cleaning, getting ready for the new babies is always a lot of work and once the chicks are safely in the barn and drinking and eating, we feel like we can relax and life can resume.   😄  (below)

There are 86,000 chicks in that truck!

The boys love helping during this time!

 Occasionally we hold back a few chickens that are ready to ship so we can butcher them our self. They become pets for the boys and grow to be enormous.  Seriously, that is a lot of meat.  This particular rooster was lovingly named "Fatso" and happened to collapse and die before we had a chance to butcher him.  It was a sad day.  

 We have a friendly neighbor who has befriended our children.  He takes care of the grazing land next door to our place. The University of Lethbridge uses that land as a place to research native bugs and beetles. This fall the man has picked up the boys on Thursday mornings and eagerly takes them to the fields where they get to learn how and what the university students are doing.  The students are thrilled that the boys are homeschooled and they have been bringing along extra things to show them.  Life experience = the best experience.