Picking pears

We are very lucky to have neighbours down the road from us with a great pear tree. Tonight friends of ours came with us to pick pears. The kids were very excited about it, since everyday we drive past the tree they've noticed how loaded the tree is this year. Well they picked some, played some and were not ready to leave once we were done! By the end we had 6 full boxes and the tree was still covered. And what did we do with all those pears?? Well I kept 3 boxes which I canned and gave the others boxes to friends who also canned them. A lot of work, but so much better then the store bought kind that doesn't come from anywhere near Canada!



Shayna, Kaitlin and Sydney

Kortney

Dawson and Sara!

Travis picking and Kim catching!

Kaitlin....is she picking oh no, she's posing for the camera!

Tony helped us get some from higher up.

Dawson taking pictures of me.

Queen Annabelle

Here are two short videos of Annabelle our pigmy goat. She has discovered the flowers and bushes and has decided that afew of them are quite tasty! She is sneaky too. She knows she's not supposed to be there but will try get her way. With the other animals on the farm she tries to hold her top rank among them and doesn't want to follow any rules of the farm. Like staying in her pen and out of the flowerbeds! She has quite the personality and honestly I like her. She has spunk and she's always making me laugh or yell.

Here's some of our ongoing fight! (and some of cute Dawson too!)

Blyth Threshers 09

Like many other years in the past, today we went to the annual Blyth Threshers. It's a wonderful weekend of seeing antique tractors, different steam engines, a tractor pull, horse drawn plow demonstrations, threshing demonstrations, antiques, a petting zoo, craft show, tractor parade and much, much more. This weekend draws hundreds of people with camping trailers to the small village of Blyth which is buzzing all weekend long with garage sales and visitors.

Every year the kids make a rope using an old fashioned metal rope making machine. It's always a must stop while walking around.

Here the kids are using an old fashioned machine to take dry corn of the cob and then grind it up.

It was a perfect day, not too hot, not too cold and the rain clouds kept moving without stopping on us!

Another tradition of the day is stopping to watch how people used to make iceream, then getting to buy some for a treat!

Kaitlin was the only one who wanted to try this rope bridge!

I love this picture.....this man was on the wagon forking the grain onto the threshing machine when the wind blew off his hat. Kortney was quick to grab it and give it back!

Travis and Dan watching the threshing demo. The grain that was coming off was actually being loaded into one of our wagons and coming back to our house!

The other part of the night.

If you ask the kids what their favourite jam is they will all tell you elderberry. These are tiny purple berries that grow wild on our farm. Each Sept we cut off the bunches of berries then take them home to gently take off each little berry while our fingers turn purple! It's really a pain, but since you turn the berries into a stained jelly it's fine if you miss some of the stems. The rest of the year it's worth the bit of work having homemade jelly that the kids just love that came from our farm!!

Learing to drive!

Tonight we were heading back to the pond to pick elderberries. Kaitlin and I decided to walk and Dan decided Travis could drive! The take off was a bit quick, but the drive was slow after that!

There he goes.
He was very proud and happy of taking over the wheel!

Dixie was ahead of us in the field. Travis took caution of the dog, trail and fences!

Dawson and Dan.

The girls and the sunset from the backseat.

My girls!

Travis did a great job, and hopefully realized how lucky he is to live on a farm that he can drive around....can't do that in the city!!

Back to school!

The summer flew by and before we knew it the first day of school came. None of us were really ready for our summer to be over, but Sept 1 came anyway.
This year Travis is going into grade 6, Kaitlin into grade 4, Dawson into grade 1 and Kortney into Junior Kindergarten. We got our shopping done, bags packed with their new school things and they were off for another school year. Travis was not very happy about being back and into the routine of homework and having a bedtime. Kaitlin is enjoying being on the senior side of the school and is now old enough to be a peer monitor at recess and enjoys having time with her friends. Dawson is thrilled with grade 1. He is loving being out of the kindergarten room and learning to do what the big kids are doing. His class is a 1/2 split and of course the boys he is playing with are the older ones! He is however still very close to Chloe and Sara and spends a lot of his time with them. Kortney was happy to start school and is learning to do things on her own. At home she is still wanting to be picked up and have me come with her to the bathroom, but slowly I'm hoping she will gain some more Independence.

The older three started school together on the 1st. Kortney started on the 11th.

Off they go! I'm enjoying having some time to myself to get things done around the house without being interrupted every five minutes. The school day ends early and the kids are home by 3:30, so we still have lots of time to be together and share part of the day.

A bit of Shebe

Another year has come and gone for our holiday at the cottage- aka Shebe. We had a wonderful week this year full of good weather, warm water and great memories of fun. The kids love the freedom they have there being able to wander around the "resort" and Dan and I loved our freedom of not having little ones who need us at every second. Even Kortney was able to wander a bit this year with Alex from theirs, ours and Grandma/Grandpa's cottage.
Here are just afew of the pics from our week.

Dan and Travis fishing on the dock.
Kortney, Alex, and Julie on the boat the Pryce's boat.

A view of our beach. The 14 cottages are behind it.

Dan and Travis canoeing.

Cheri and MacKenzie.

A bunch of the kids jumping from the dock.

Hard to see....but this is Dan and Dawson on Dawson's first tube ride!

Kaitlin and Travis

Kaitlin paddling back to the beach.

Alex, Kortney and one of their water lilies.

The girls in the canoe.

Dawson and Travis making "water ways" in the sand.

The kid's water and sand project that kept changing as the week went on.

Dawson and Kaitlin on Grandpa's boat while fishing.

Grandpa and his catch!