Canadian Acres
Farming in the North
Springtime on the farm
We’ve been busy around here at Canadian Acres. Spring seems to finally have sprung, and with it brings terrible farm road conditions. Will I ever be able to wear shoes other than muck boots again? Oh well, no time to worry about that now, there is so much to do!
This weekend we burned the land around both our house and the guest cabin. Now that’s what I call a hot date on a Friday night. Burning rejuvenates the land, clearing old growth to generate new growth. It also adds nitrogen to the soil and it’s good practice to keep wildfires at bay. The weather has warmed and I finally enjoyed my cold beer without freezing my hand. It’s the little things in life, y’know. This is the beginning of our lofty landscaping goals and we had a wonderful evening enjoying our backyard.
The farm has plenty of wildlife visitors as the fields clear of snow and uncover wheatie goodness from last falls harvest. What joy to wake up to such guests daily. The whitetail deer have become regulars (I just love those tails), and flocks of Canadian geese bed down at night and leave for the river early, making sure to wake us with their calling. Geese! It must be spring! Our dog Wyatt is unimpressed by all these new “intruders” and finds pleasure in his guard duties. Oh how thankful I am that he is slow. One of our trail cams captured our first predator, a wily coyote that has been eluding Wyatt for sometime now. My hunter husband is itching to spot him with his gun handy. I am adamant that we keep our upper field as a sort of refuge which means no killing things on purpose, so we’ll see how that goes.
The wolf pack came through again at the end of March and judging by the size of their tracks… my, what big wolves we have. I caught a photo comparison of our dog Maynard’s paw print next to a wolf track and it’s crazy! Maynard is not a small dog, a greyhound pit bull mix weighing in at 75-80 lbs, so that’s a big freaking wolf. Both dogs were on high alert for a few days and peed on, well, everything. We’re hoping to catch the pack on one of our trail cams, so fingers crossed. Clay got his spring bear tag and the season opened on April 1st, so we are hoping to find signs of waking bears soon.
Today was the last feeding of the wild bunch for a bit since the road is thawing and does not make for easy transport of large amounts of hay. Good news is that we have another baby! An adorable pinto baby that I love and want to keep forever. It’s a good thing I always listen to my husband and don’t get too attached. Our corral plans are coming along nicely and I just found out I get to learn a new skill – peeling logs for our corral rails… sounds fun, right? Well, except that there are 500 to do. At least once it’s done, it’s done. Next, we’ll be clearing the 40 acres we’ve designated for the horses of trees and finishing the fencing. Which will coincide with the building of the chicken coop and putting up the garden fence and planting said garden and teaching the dogs to love chickens and wearing our muck boots and occasionally sleeping and… Like I said, we have much to do.
Speaking of chicken coops, I finally ordered my chickens! Come end of May, we’re adding 25 little chicks to the family. I can’t wait to figure out how to keep Maynard from eating them. Ah, adventures in farming… where the mud runneth over and the work never ends. Happy Spring!
~Katy
Canadian Acres 
Every pic is beautiful, we really enjoy your blog!
So good Kate!