We thought we had the walking thing sorted in September, but no Miss Jane decided that walking was still much too slow for her, until yesterday when finally, and out of the blue she took off across the living room and turned down the hall to the toy room. Not satisfied with her achievement she then demonstrated that she could get up to standing without holding onto anything. I was flabberghasted… where had all this activity come from??? So now, not content with just walking around, she wants to stand up beside me at the bench in the kitchen, which I thought was a good thing, till I realised that she could see all the tuff on the benches – no more hiding places. The little rascal can even move the stool around the kitchen to get to where she wants to be. I actually think that someone has swapped my Jane in the night for a totally new and (I think?) improved model. WOW is all I can say.
It has been a very slow harvest here in Ontario, due mainly to a cold spring and followed by a wet autumn. We were about 3 weeks later tahn ususal harvesting our corn (maize) silage, and this week we took off some corn for the combine to put into storgae for high moisture feed. we only took enough to keep us going for another couple of weeks as the crop is still too wet. The high moisture corn is used as an energy feed here, and being able to store large quantities, like we do in a sealed concrete tower means taht we really only buy in a protin supplement, as all the rest of the ration fed through the TMR is home grown. There are very few farms that feed over and above TMR, as in parlour or even out of parlour feeding is very uncommon. Most farms run with two or three groups where possible to ensure taht cows are recieveing as balanced a ration as possible.
Halloween is big business over here in Canada, back home in Northern Ireland we used to get a few kids trick or treating, but here it’s costumes and parties and endless sweets. Jane had a Halloween party at playgroup on Tuesday, and Scott had extra special things at school on Friday, they all had to wear black and orange, so I splashed out and bought them some Halloween t-shirts!!
Then on Saturday evening Cricket said that Scott could go trick or treating with his daughter Sarah, so I had to get busy and make him his costume – he wanted to be a robot, and had been saving a special box since Jane’s birthday back in February, and so Scott-Bot was born. He came home with quite the stash – enough sweets, pop and crisps to feed 10 kids til’ Christmas!!
You might have noticed about 2 months ago, that I got all excited because Jane had taken her first steps, I think that may have been a bit premature!!! Jane the independant little rascal that she is has decided that walking by herself is a much too slow form of transport and has taken again to the push along cart, with about 4 steps in a row the most we can get her to do alone!!! Oh well, at least she can’t sneak up on us!!!
Scott has lost his first two baby teeth – just in time for picture day at school – typical!!! He was soo proud when the first one got wobbly, and was a bit sceptical about the tooth fairy until the $2 appeared under his pillow the next morning – how does she do it????
I can hardly beleive that this year Scott started Grade 1, it seems like just a few months since he started at Hickson school in Junior Kindergarten. Now 2 years later he is going to grade 1 and goes all day every day now. He looked so small standing out for the bus, as I don’t have to take him out anymore, now that he has started “big school”, and Scott just thinks it’s great that he can go out by himself (bet he’ll miss Mummy’s coat to cuddle in during the winter!!!). He has the same teacher as last year – Mr Birtch – and seems to be getting on really well. Today is picture day, so he went to school this moring with his hair all spiked – cool guy at age 5!!!
It’s that time of year again, when farmers get checking the weather at least once an hour….its harvesting time!!! We have been fortunate enough to get our corn silage (maize silage) harvested this year, as the cool start to the summer and some pretty wet weather for Ontario in the fall has hampered harvesting efforts so far on many farms. We took a chance on the weather on 5th October, and at around 5am (yes I said 5AM) the harvester started rolling. Allbeit with a mucky start the crop of the bunker silo was all in and covered by 8pm that night. We had planted 15″ rows this year and so we had to get a different contractor to harvest our corn from our haylage. It was quite a speedy operation, and William chickened out of buckraking with the telehandler, and instead let Everet bring his 8220 John Deere with front loader, she only weighs 20T!!!!!
The cows ahve settled well onto their noew years of corn silage, and we were really pleased with the yield from the 15″ rows, we were able to keep the header really high and still fill the bunk to overflowing with about 60 acres, will let you know the quality as soon as we get the stabilised results.
I think it must be about 6 weeks since I blogged last, but as usual life at Bally Bright is never dull, and we have had quite a few visitors since then and much work has been done!!! The pralour building is almost complete and the new drive shed is also almost done. Everyone has been working hard, although the weather has not been with us this year we have achieved quite a lot.
We thought it was never going to happen, and even now it’s a slow start, but yes Jane Morrison has taken her first faltering steps alone. At 18 months we thought this would have come a long time ago, but as with most things Jane does, it happens on her terms and hers alone. She was 18 months old on Friday and took her first few steps Saturday night – yipee.
We have such a lot of projects on the go this summer taht it is hard to keep up with all that the guys are up to. This week they seem to have been concentrating on the steel framed shed and have made a lot of progress. Earlier in the year, William got a manframe made for the front of the telehandler, and it has been invaluable for working at this shed. The kit is a bit like putting together life size mechano, but will be great once it is finished. It has also been great to have another Gopher, in the form of Granda Brown, who is out for a wee visit.
We finally got a break in the weather last Wednesday to get the wheat harvested in the back field. The contrator at the end of the road does all the work for our cropping escapades. They tend to rotate the harvest in the same rotation as they planted in the fall of 2008.
The big John Deere with it’s 30″ header arrived around 3pm and was finished harvesting around 6pm. The crop came off at about 85% dry matter and was trucked straight to Hamilton to be loaded onto a grain boat headed for Europe. The crop yeilded about 2t/acre which is about average for Ontario, and teh big grain buggy trucked the grain from the field to the waiting trucks.
Scott was very lucky and got to go in the truck to Hamilton, with Cricket (our workman), who also trucks part-time for Rathview Farms. Here the two guys are getting ready for their big trip!!!
