Greetings Earthlings:
Yikes! It's been a while since I have put pen to paper, er rather, fingers to keyboard.
I reread my last post and discovered that nothing really has changed much, insofar as the Pandemic goes, this past year. A few more variants. Opinions and reports still swinging like a pendulum. It is wild considering that we have been at this for almost 2 years now. We're still all very much living in limbo. But now, people seem to be more polarized than they were, even a year ago. It's truly sad.
It has been in my personal experience of almost 60 years on this planet, that there are three distinct, basic personalities: Those who Make the Rules; Those who Follow the Rules; and Those who think the Rules don't apply to them. The first and last groups tend to be the most vocal in sharing their opinions on any matter, regardless of whether or not they are correct in their assumptions and points of view.
I just wish folks would be kinder and more tolerant of each other. It's no one side's "fault" any more than it is the other's. Everyone has to navigate this storm to the best of their own abilities, without judging someone else's decision on how they navigate their own boat. In the end, we can only do what we think is best for ourselves and our own situations. We, as a whole, need to stop judging other people's choices. We don't know their thought processes or what drives them to make the choices they make. The only thing we can do is be kind and show some compassion for our fellow human beings.
The whole pandemic situation reminds me of a scene in the Wizard of Oz movie -- All of the action going on behind the curtain and the audience is focused on what is happening at the front of it. As I mentioned in my previous post, follow the money. A lot of people became very wealthy during all of this, while many more are barely hanging on. There has definitely been a shift in each of our own personal realities. It has been a very interesting social experiment for sure!
But, as always, I digress. There is nothing I can do change the situation at hand, so we just keep on, keeping on. This past year has been very busy and interesting for us here at No Regrets Ranch in spite of the current world events.
Besides the regular day to day process of just living and chores, it really has been a great year. We ate out on the deck pretty much every supper from May, until Wasp season came in hard and fast, in August.
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| Typical Summer Supper on the Front Deck. This one is a fresh picked garden salad, oven roasted and breaded Zuccini with Yogurt dressing and a cheese bun. Wine is one of Papa's creations. |
The pond was especially beautiful this year with all the water lilies in bloom and the gold fish making regular appearances.
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| The water lilies were stunning this past summer! |
The hummingbirds were late in coming back, but pretty much drained the feeder every two to three days when they did finally return. Lots of birds nesting in our yard, but we didn't have the Gold Finches we usually have. Some thought it was the extreme drought. Others thought that the song bird numbers were down overall, with the fires and air quality.
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| Our frequent Dinner Companion |
We had a challenge with hatching our chicks out last year. Probably the worst hatch out we've ever had - in fact, we set two batches and still didn't end up with a lot of little hens. We don't know if our rooster is shooting blanks or if it was just the year? But either way we're going to order new laying hen chicks from the hatchery this spring, in the hopes of avoiding the same situation repeating itself for this year.
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| One of the two hatch outs of this year's new laying stock. |
Our steers, Kevin, Stuart and Bob were especially social this year. Within a day or two of them coming home, Papa was able to touch them, as he gave them their twice daily rations. He honestly thought one of them was going to flop over to get a belly rub at times. It's so nice when we get nice, quiet livestock. They had a fantastic summer. Lots to eat and room to buck and play.
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| Kevin, Stuart and Bob watching me take pictures. |
The garden seeds and canning supplies were in short supply again this spring. We order really early, so we got everything we needed and insofar as the canning supplies go, I keep a generous supply on hand, just for this sort of emergency. I am also in the process of replacing all of my single use lids with 2 part, reusable seals and lids - one more source of security for the long term.
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| One of the many canning sessions. The white lids are the 2 part reusable Harvest Guard brand lids. |
Spring, summer and fall of 2021 were all very dry last year. There was a serious drought in much of the prairie provinces and into BC. Although we had minimal rain ourselves, we still managed a decent vegetable harvest. I would put this to Papa's water collection systems situated throughout the property. One inch of precipitation fills 3 x 1250 gallon tanks, which we then use to water the greenhouse and gardens. We also have several 45 gallon water barrels set up to catch any rain that might fall and this keeps the flowers happy. The flower pots were amazing last year - probably the nicest we've had in years. I was so terribly disappointed and disheartened in 2020, when so many of the flowers either didn't get going due to the miserably cold weather or those that finally did, hardly bloomed at all. 2021's pots were absolutely spectacular!
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| One of the Geranium Pots on the deck. They were all so very beautiful this year! |
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| The Flower garden made for many beautiful floral arrangements this summer! |
We thoroughly enjoyed the garden and ate as much fresh as possible last year. I didn't need to do as much canning this past season, as I did a tremendous amount in 2020 - the flowers didn't do much that year, but the garden sure did. I only put up what we will consume within two years, so some years I do a lot of canning. Other year's, not so much, It's good to stay on top of your inventory so you can rotate through it in a reasonable amount of time. No jams or syrups or apple juice was needed in 2021, which left me with time for soup stocks and tomato based products. I also didn't do as much dehydrating either, so that inventory is getting used up this year. We try to keep a year's worth of canning and dehydrated goods on hand and like to get them used up at their peak of freshness.
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| Salsa ready to simmer and be canned up. |
2021 was the second year of the high tunnel/hoop house. He ended up making both sides of the hoop house able to open, to let the air pass through, as well as putting a vent in the top of it. It truly amazes us to how hot it gets in there in the day time, even during extremely cold temperatures! The sun truly does amazing things! He planted spinach and lettuce out in it in late February. By mid March, we were enjoying salad greens again. This is an unheated shelter that relies entirely on the sun to heat the soil. Since both lettuce and spinach are cold weather crops, all he needed to do was put a Rubbermaid tub over the seedlings at night to give them another layer of protection. During the day, the soil collected the heat and the extra cover at night, protected them from the -10 degree C cold. I wouldn't have ever believed it either, if I hadn't seen it for myself!
One of the daily garden hauls from March
until November.
Because we grow so much and are able to store our root veggies - carrots, potatoes, squashes, cabbage, onions, etc. - we don't buy a lot of fresh produce in the winter. I don't like the idea that my lettuce is better travelled than I am! And reading all the recalls really freaks me out! So, I blanch and freeze cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, snow peas and so on, to use in stir fry's in the winter. We will sometimes purchase fresh tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers from the Pik 'n Pak, a local greenhouse growers co-operative in our community, but even locally grown, it doesn't taste like much. I really questioned why the lettuce was so bitter one time. Papa deduced that it must be the fertilizer added to the water, since it is all grown hydroponically. The rest was okay, but no where nearly as good as what comes from our gardens and greenhouse. So we have just decided to do without for the few months our greenhouse is closed up. If we're not really going to enjoy eating it, there is just no point to buying it. I don't like tomatoes that taste like disappointment to me. I would rather just do without. This really makes you appreciate, even more, what is grown on our property. Winter is a time for soups and stews and stir fry's. In the spring, summer and fall, we enjoy as much fresh as we can possibly consume and the rest gets processed and either frozen, dehydrated or canned. We're pretty boring, for the most part!
Brussels Sprouts blanched,
individually frozen on the pan, ready
to be packed up for winter's use.
We tried growing turkeys for the first time last year. We had a riot with them! They have the most amazing personalities, which really caught us both by surprise! Chickens can be real jerks, but the turkeys were extremely social, inquisitive and very entertaining. Papa would chat away with them and they would answer back. They are extremely curious and not as flighty as the chickens are. I actually felt quite sad when it came time for harvesting them. There is absolutely no love loss at all when we do the chickens, but I really struggled with doing the turkeys! We know when we bring livestock onto the property for meat purposes, they won't be leaving again and their time with us is really quite short. It's definitely tough sometimes, but it is the life we have chosen and we like the fact that we know that they will be given the best life possible, while they are here. Lots of fresh air, good food, clean water and space to play in. And when the time comes, they will be dispatched quickly, humanely and with much respect. Not a lifestyle for everyone for sure, but we do like to own the fact that we are very invested in the meat we choose to eat. You gain a definite respect for the entire growing and harvesting process when you have a hand in its care and daily attention. You could say that we definitely "have skin in the game". As far as the turkeys go, he definitely wants to grow them again this year. And I'm not going to lie, it is probably the best turkey we have ever enjoyed.
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| Papa built this Turkey Tractor so his buddies could have access to fresh grass every day! |
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| The Turkeys getting their daily rations. Mr. Wilbur assisting. ;) |
In early spring, we purchased a couple of bee hives and some bee keeping equipment, in the hopes of having and caring for our own bees last year. Unfortunately, the place we ordered our Bee Nucs from, were unable to fill our order, due to supply issues on their end. So, sadly, we were not able to add the little pollinators to our property last year. Our regular Bee Guy, Alex, had his own life circumstances to contend with. With a new baby and travel time from his home to ours for regular hive maintenance, was simply more than could be managed. And to further complicate things, his bees didn't survive the winter, so he was going to have to repopulate his own hives as well. It all worked out for the best under the circumstances as we would have been flying solo with no one to guide or give us hands on assistance. Sometimes you just have to go with it.
This year, I have contacted a local apiary and have ordered 2 more Nucs to populate our hives this coming spring. Because they are very much locally grown and split from existing local hives, we should hopefully have considerably more success in acquiring our own bees this year. We also have our young friend, Bethany, who is taking bee keeping courses and wanting some practical experience. This is going to work out well. She will have hives to do her practical on, so we will all learn together. For now, we will forge forward and hope for much better results this year!
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| Although we didn't have our own honey bees last summer, we still had a lot of bees visiting and doing their jobs on our property. This one is still sleeping after a very cool evening. |
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| Lots of Sunflowers all over on our property. These beauties attract all sorts of pollinators and several small birds. I love them! We let them seed and come up as they may. |
2021 also brought big changes to my little studio. With the whole world shutting down, all of my teaching classes cancelled and most shops going strictly online or pick up only, I started to get a lot of requests for more and more products. People were suddenly home and had time to pursue their quilting projects. Requests for batting, threads, fabrics and sewing machine needles became very frequent, in fact, almost daily. Papa suggested that since people weren't wanting to travel to the cities, that maybe I should expand my shop and give them a closer to home option? He also noted that he felt I really missed having my quilt shop and maybe it was time to reopen it.
And Sew, in March of 2021, I started to rebuild my inventory and opened up regularly scheduled hours again. I am only wanting to be open part time as I do still have a lot to keep up with on the ranch and I don't want to over extend myself or have to manage staffing.
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| The front door of Prairie Points Quilt Shop. This occupies the first bay in our 3 car, attached garage. It has it's own entrance and is separate from our living area. |
Since reopening, the part time hours are working very well - it's kind of like having to plan to go to the Farmer's Markets. You know they are only open a specific amount of hours every week and you work around that.
My customers have been so loving and welcoming. I wasn't sure that it was the right thing to do, but having done so now, I didn't realize just how much I missed having my little shop, until I reopened it. It really has filled my heart with joy and got my creative juices flowing again.
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| My new bags, complete with my new logo. |
Another big change around here was Papa retiring at the end of July. He had been working part time for the previous year, after having had his back surgery in January of 2020. At 61, he felt he was ready for a change.
We know so very many folks who wait to retire until 65 or older, only to get sick and not be able to enjoy their next chapter. After the life changing back surgery, he was already very much aware at how quickly your life can change. In literally a heart beat.
Since being home, he thoroughly enjoyed his time in his beautiful gardens and was able to putter at them, instead of trying to work keeping up with them around a working schedule.
We have enjoyed having morning tea together, before we both head out to our respective places of activities, then meet up again, later in the day. He has taken up building hardwood items that we sell in my shop, as well as some home improvement projects for those who might require his assistance.
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| A sampling of Papa's Beautiful, handcrafted hardwood cutting boards. |
So many folks don't know what they are going to do after they retire. This was never a concern for either of us, as we both have a lot of interests to fill our day. His is very much his garden and woodworking. Mine is very much my quilting, cooking and preserving. We both tend to run out of day, before we run out of things to do!
Fall of 2021 was absolutely glorious! We didn't have cold weather or snow until about a week before Christmas. It was incredible to go out in shoes and a sweater, well into December!
When the cold weather did come though, it really came, hard. We started at about -20 Celsius around the 20th of December and dropped into the -30's C at Christmas, which lasted until well into mid-January. With the wind chill, some days dropped to -50 C. After -30 C, there really isn't much difference in what the thermometer says. It's just all cold. Dangerously Cold.
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| Christmas day saw -32 degrees C. The windchill brought it down to -40 C. Yuck. |
We got a short respite on January 2nd for about 6 hours,when the temperature rose to +4 degrees C and no wind. We quickly utilized this time to take down our Christmas lights and outside decorations, before heading back into another 2 weeks of the brutally cold weather.
Currently, as I type, it has been above 0 degrees C for several days. The down side to that is the trees will sometimes break dormancy and the snow falls as rain, then freezes. We watched out our west window one evening during a freezing rain storm, the traffic on Hiway 2 grind to a crawl as the road was closed and the emergency vehicles were out tending to the accidents. Many vehicles were reported to have hit the ditches. Freezing rain is not good for travel!
The year definitely flew by. But it guess, to be fair, when you are busy, time does tend to slip away.
I mentioned to Papa that it was the 2nd anniversary of his back surgery. I asked him if it seemed like two years ago? He replied, that No, it didn't. It seemed like it has been a lot longer than two years. I had to agree with him. Two years is a very long time when you are looking ahead, but it tends to be a much shorter time when you look back. But with all that has transpired on our little piece of paradise, two years seems like a life time.
And I guess, that's a good thing.
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| We'll just keep doing what we do! |
Enjoy your day! Until next time,
Gremlynn
