Church Hill Farm
Blog
Puppy Has Puppies!!!
9 Healthy Baby puppies arrived in the middle of the night on Feb 19, 2008! Puppy (see how Puppy didn’t get her name below) is a pure bred yellow lab and her mate is a pure bred australian cattle dog and we think they made beautiful puppies together. Puppy and babies are doing well and the pups are growing like mad. We have 5 male and 4 female Aussielabs - all the black ones are boys and all but one yellow one are girls. They are all now living in the mudroom, which is soon to be renamed the maternity ward!!! We will post weekly pictures so you can enjoy watching them grow with us.
Week two their eyes are opening and they are trying to walk. It is not a long fall when their legs give out as their bellies are so big.
Week three they are trying to eat moist puppy chow and they are testing their barks. The black ones are starting to colour - beige and white being added to their black coats. They are so very cute. They are playing well and getting more active all the time. Right now 4 am seems to be a popular play time.
Sucking a thumb at one week
Chillin’ out at two weeks
Three weeks old, bright eyed and busy.
Four weeks old and loving play time.
Lambing Season 2008 - Meet Lily & Buddy at One day Young
Lambing season 2008 started with a real bang - 60 lambs in two weeks!! We still have a few young ewes let to deliver but the rush is over. We are happy to report that we only have two orphaned lambs currently being bottle fed. You guessed it, they are Lily and Buddy. Our orphan’s Mom rejected them during their first day on earth, so we moved them into the mudroom of our house where they were lovingly cared for by our dog, our daughter and our son. After a couple of weeks they have been moved to the barn where they are thriving and thankfully no longer being fed every two hours.
Apple Picking @ Henry & Barbara’s Farm
We spent a beautiful autumn afternoon at our friends apple orchard picking organic apples and having a picnic under the trees. We felt like we were in France. Their windmill quietly spun in the background and their solar panels were enjoying the sunny day too. These wonderful octagenarians live completely off grid.
Going to the Fair
It is fall fair time and the excitement is mounting. Our daughter loves to enter the Sheep show at our local fall fair. Last year she entered her bottle fed lamb, Georgina in the little sheep show and some of the commercial classes. She proudly came home with a number of ribbons and many compliments for Georgina. This year she will be showing Little Buddy. We will keep you posted on how well Little Buddy does.
Discussing Show Strategy with Dad
Showing Georgina 2006
Getting comments and compliments from the judge
Whoa Nellie
May 14, 2007 Nellie arrived at Church Hill Farm. Our dog, Puppy gives us fair warning whenever something exciting is going on out in the farm yard. In the wee hours of May 14th Puppy started to make a huge fuss. We did our normal check and found all fences secure, all animals resting peacefully, and no coydogs on the property. Knowing that sometimes Puppy gets excited over the odd skunk wandering by in the dark we returned to our warm bed. When daylight dawned we were met with the pleasant arrival of Nellie a beautiful, B class miniature filly already prancing around the pasture.
Bridgette and Nellie – Nellie 4 months old.
Nellie loves to run around and kick up her heals every evening around 7pm. She is growing rapidly and is now willing to be further away from her Mother, Bridgette. Our daughter is hoping to have her on a lunge line by this fall and work on training her to pull a cart with her Mother. There will be many interesting stages before this happens so we will keep you posted as we progress.
How Puppy Didn’t get her Name
Our home and farm is guarded (loosely) by Puppy, the best dog we have ever had. Puppy was the runt of the litter and nobody seemed to want her but we fell in love with her the moment we saw her. She has a very quiet gentle temperament, common to labs. It was a big decision; we had to find the right name. Dog names in our house are very carefully deliberated. As Max is the number one dog name in North America, our human Max makes it his mission to be just a little bit more creative. We tend to name in series or groupings. For example we had the Cheers series, Carla, Norman, and Sam. Our last dog before Puppy, arrived with the name Cinnamon so we decided maybe we should have the spice girls. So which spice name to choose? We tried out quite a few but in the meantime the wee girl was repeatedly called Puppy. So we officially decided on Basil but it was Puppy that stuck. So maybe not more creative than Max, but Puppy seems happy enough with it anyway. Puppy is best friends with the cats Sylvester and Rascal and is eagerly awaiting her chance to be a Mom. She is pictured here relaxing during one of our many construction jobs on the farm.
Log Cabin in the works
Our son is a great outdoor enthusiast. He loves kayaking, rock climbing, archery and hiking. For a unique birthday activity last year we enlisted the help of our log home builder, friend, Earl Laverty of Laverty Log Homes, to help us with some out of the ordinary birthday fun. Instructions to our son’s friends were bring safety goggles, work gloves, a sense of adventure and a parent. Thus work began on a small (8×16’) cabin in our 30 acres of bush. The kids had a blast working with Earl and their parents. Day one saw 4 very carefully notched rounds go up. We add more rounds with every school tour, especially for grade threes who are studying pioneers. So the progress is a little slow but the enthusiasm is still running high. Here is a picture of the first day in progress.
