A domestic moment

 Summer Gold!

 These last two days have been filled with domestic chores...
So move over Ramsey, Pioneer Women and whoever else is famous for their cooking skills!
Jess, Michelle and I canned about 120lbs of peaches into:
Plain peach slices,
a wonderful tangy peach jam
and a "to-die-for" peach Salsa.

If only you could have smelt my kitchen...

The fruits of our work:

In between canning peaches, we also canned 20lbs of tomatoes,
rode our horses,
checked the cows,
moved the sheep,
fed  the other critters,
separated 4 in season bitches,
made dinner, did the washing, vacuumed the house
 and also
baked beer bread...

Really, nothing beats homemade fresh bread out of the oven with real butter and freshly made tangy peach jam for lunch!

So, now we have managed to save some summer gold for the long and dark winter months up ahead!



And, today it was back to cutting hay...

An update of our guardian dog pups.

I have recently blogged about other peoples pups,
and blogged about other peoples guardian dogs,
so it is time to give an update of our own pups.

Fena had some pups last winter, and these pups are looking grown up but are acting like
naughty kids at times..
Here are the twins, Molly and Buddy.

They are pretty hard to tell apart..
the left one is Buddy and the right one is Molly.

 

Their training is coming along.
Both these pups are for sale to suitable flocks and owners!

Their litter sister is Lucy, the only grey pup out of the whole litter.
Lucy was never a very social pup and even now she still remains a bit distant.
She has the build of her mother, where Buddy and Molly look more and more like Beli their father.
Due to her grey color she is a bit more photogenic than her white litter mates:

She shares a pasture with her Dad and the rams.

My two other "pups", Vuk and Katcha are now almost 18 months old.
Katcha is full on guard duty. She goes out everyday with the  ewes to the bush.
She is very diligent in her work and she will always be somewhere close to the ewes.


She has matured into a really nice dog,
She shares her duties with Snowy.
Katcha does not really like working with the other females (she is very dominant),
Snowy is laid back and submissive, so these two get along well.

Here is another picture of Katcha:

Vuk, aah Vuk.
He is,
as he has always been,
high energy.
I have honestly, never seen any mountain breed with as much energy as he has.
Most are big, rather lumbering, slower types of dogs.
Vuk, can run, jump, leap and move like  a collie.

See these pictures of mostly grass.
Vuk is in their somewhere...


 and he stops for a moment,
and my camer has time to autofocus..

All the older dogs, are doing good and will be the topic of a future blog post.

I am going back to school.

Today, exactly three years ago we moved to Canada.

A lot has happened in these years and we have become quite Canadianized.
 As of now, I can start studying on how to become a “real” Canadian.

I think I understand the basics though:

* All winter long we talk about the weather, particularly about the cold, amount of snow, wind etc. : “Its cold, eh?”



*As Amsterdam has its “coffee shops” (they DON’T sell coffee at these coffee shops), Canadians also have to have their regular fix at the Canadian Coffee Shop Tim Hortons.

* I think I fall into the category of Redneck …

*It is all about the rocks and pucks.

*Unless you have a cabin (minimum of 1500 sq feet..) at the lake or in the mountains, you just don’t count.

* On the phone everyone first asks “how you are doing, eh” even before they tell you who they are. Do Canadians really think I want to tell a total stranger, how I am doing when I know they are not interested?

* Canadians are polite and like to beat around the bush when it comes to  any (awkward) questions…for example
I ask: “Rod, what do you think, should I use an angus bull on my cows or a charollais?”
Rod says: “Well, an Angus is nice, a Charollais is also good…”

* Sheep ranching doesn’t count in cattle country,
even though sheep make more money than cows..”

*Prairie oysters are not as good as everyone likes to pretend they are.

* If you like dogs and have one that is reasonably under control, you quickly get labeled the “Dog man/women/people”

*Rack size is important.

*Telemarketers are a plague.

*You have lots of lawenforcement:
RCMP, Peace Officers, Sheriffs
 as well as the Fish and Wildlife cops.

So, as you can see I am well on my way to becoming a Canadian citizen,
all I still need to do is brush up on is some history and politics!