A time of refreshing...

We just returned from three weeks away from the farm. One week was spent coming and going through Saskatoon and two weeks in Panama. We returned relaxed and ready to continue with the packing, auction sale and relocating process. We had a wonderful time with our friends, made some new ones and came to an bigger appreciation of cool temperatures :-) Oh my!! it was hot!! It is already February and we are experiencing such a mild winter that some days it feels like Spring is crowding in on us. I'll enclose our "touristy" picture. Stan bought a beautiful carving from the Embera Indians of a harpy eagle, the Panama national bird and I bought a very beautiful crafted bowl that will look so great in our new sun room. The other local craft is the mola which is an amazing stitching almost the reverse of applique where they first layer several colors and then cut down the the color they want and then stitch around the area. Being a quilter, I appreciated ALL those little stitches!!

Noah's first trip to the farm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa and the kids were just here for a few days. It sure livens the place up! It was fun to get to know the newest Grandson better and see him turning on the smiles. In about another week we will have everyone here for our last Christmas on the farm. We will enjoy the memories made here with all five little ones, but we'll just be moving home and family fun 3 hours north! for next Christmas. Hopefully we'll combine some fun with cousins next door as we visit with Gerry and Lorna's family, too.

"Counting our many blessings and naming them one by one..."

 

 

 

 

 

We begin our 38th year of marriage!

 

Just think. It was 37 years ago that two "kids" got married and went farming. Life has been good. :-) In our 38th year of marriage we move to 38 Wood Meadows! Hmmm. I think that's pretty interesting :-)

Stan and Maxine family updates

The summer flew by as we knew it would. We had a wonderful harvest and now comes the "cleanup and put it all away" time. This time is a little different as things get cleaned up even a little better than usual with the auction sale in mind. We have moved a few things up to Saskatoon acreage already while we still own the truck and will hold off now until the final move sometime in May. Roy and Monica have things set to go on building their new home so we will see how soon they are ready to do the furniture shuffle. We were in Saskatoon this past week or so as we celebrated the birth of Noah James Orr to Robert and Melissa on September 30 (our youngest grandchild) and Linaya's 5th birthday on October 5th (our first grandchild and daughter to Roy and Monica). We had relocated our trampoline in time for her birthday party, so the kids all enjoyed that!

We are becoming more excited about the move and we anticipate what things we will be doing there to make it "home" and our own. We have seen it now in all seasons. There are trees and perennials that will require a little attention. I'll be wishing I had my Mom's "green thumb" for gardening. I am looking forward to Stan and I working together on the yard. He has always been interested but lacked the time. We know many in the church there already, so we look forward to becoming part of their activities as well.

It has been fun to see how the grandchildren are growing and I look forward to being a more consistent part of their life. I love the school concerts, soccer games and everthing else that will be withing easy driving. I'll add a couple of newer pics of family. I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving too.

Our final summer on the farm... mixed emotions.

We have had a busy summer. Have you seen the circus act where they spin plates?? We're spinning plates. What an unusual time in our life. Since the decision was made to retire, we have been completeing the plans for transfer of the farm into the capable hands of our nephew and his wife and "looking over the fence" and making little visits to the acreage in Saskatoon to get a feeling for spending more time with our family there. We continue to be so pleased with the acreage we purchased. The location is wonderful and we look forward to the work we will do there to make it our own.

The first step toward the auction sale was to have the machinery washed up and posed for the advertising pictures for the Ritchie Bros. Auction. The date is set for April 10/12 but they are professionals at getting us organized. With that behind us we are moving into harvest preparation. Soon the swather will begin to cut canola. We have a beautiful crop coming with only one tangle with hail this week. We have yet to assess the damage on some of the chickpeas. I have become nostalgic as I consider how many things are being done by us for the last time on this property. We look at the changes we have made since we have lived here and raised our family here. This has been a wonderful home and has blessed our family. We will still own most of our land so that still anchors us here and we will remain connected and enjoy coming back to see everyone here and still be interested in the farming being done here.

This is what a "someday we'll buy an acreage" looks like!

Well, here we are at the beginning of something new. This is a picture of our new house on the south side of Saskatoon. We are happy that Roy and Monica and their girls have decided to make it their home for the next year and give us time for one more growing season and an auction sale next spring. We had decided that we would look around at the properties close to the city and closer to our family in Saskatoon and we found this wonderful house, shop and 14 acres of trees and grass. We are pleased with the location that still has a very quiet rural feel to it. The address is actually Corman Park even if it is only minutes from Saskatoon. This farm has been Stan's home for his whole life and mine for the past 37 so it will definitely be a major change in our life. Stan and I have been blessed by farming, this wonderful place to raise our children and wonderful neighbors and friends. Planning when to retire has not been an easy decison. The next year always looks promising to the Saskatchewan farmer and we always are wondering what the next year holds. We look forward to this being a good year of farming. You just know we have enought moisture!! :-) I think we'll be taking more pictures this year and approaching each step with mixed emotions.

Happy birthday, Abby.

Abby turns 2 on January 20th. Happy birthday, Sweet Abigail!

Christmas 2010

Here it is, Christmas morning and all is too calm. I'll really feel like it's Christmas in a couple of days when the family is home. We just got home from seeing Stephen and attending his grad in Oklahoma. We had a great visit! This will be the first year without him at Christmas but I know he is in good company in Oklahoma and he had been home with Cara for 10 days in October. We'll still miss him with us.

It as been a very long time since I wrote on blog and I am still surprised at how many people still say they check on us to see how things are going. It has been four summers since we connected with blogging as we shared Stan's progress during his fight with "the disease". Just recently Stan has begun the process of having a tissue expander inserted and we have begun a weekly procedure of adding saline to expand a bag under his skin that resembles a large sub sandwich. This was to happen for about three months and then surgery to repair the scared area under his arm for more mobility. After this was started, the plasic surgeon told us that there had been a meeting of medical powers that have just reduced his operating room time to half and have given it to Orthopedic Surgery. I guess that's good news for people waitiing for hips and knees, but not such good news for us. It may be August or after harvest before they can get him in and he will have the inconvienience of having a growth on his chest and in his way as we work. It seems to me that they didn't fix the problem of waiting lists, they just shuffled the pile of papers! We will pray for things to work out with earlier surgery in mind.

I guess the next update is that we have booked an auction sale of April 10,2012. We have purchased an acreage on the south side of Saskatoon. It is a beautiful home and on fourteen acres in a very quiet area. We get possession April 1st and Monica and Roy will be living there for a least a year until we make the move. We have our inputs purchased and will farm for another year. This will be a big change in our life but have decided that we wouldn't be farming forever so this is the time. We have left loopholes so we could get out of our sale if "grain goes up to $15.00 a bushel and we just can't quit" (Stan's quote)

Happy New Year to you in 2011. We pray for Peace in your life and God's presence as we all face the things unknown ahead of us.

Sweet Moment!

 

This is the greatest joy, to have your family all together at once. We all had big smiles because we were done harvest, too! We would have rather been done about a month earlier, but we were blessed to have our crop planted and to have taken off an abundant harvest.

Happy birthday, Gianna!

 

Gianna is two years old today. We got to share her purple carebear cake with her ahead of time on the farm when the family was all together, including Uncle Stephen!and Cara. What a great time we had.

Summer 2010

Well. I just checked our weather station and we have had 11.51 inches of rain so far this year. Wow. I think about 6 inches is normal for us. I haven't been watering my garden and flowers very much. Our crops are growing well, but every storm makes you hold your breath hoping there is no hail damage. I don't think I can hold my breath until after harvest!

We have had family around to visit after their 10k runs in the Moose Jawg on July 1st. I'm so proud of Roy, Monica, Melissa and Robert! I had the fun of entertaining the grandkids and a few other little friends and relatives while that happened. It may turn into a yearly event. We got away to Cypress Hills for a couple of days with Robert, Melissa, Josiah and Abby. Is it fun to go to a favorite spot with Grandkids that used to be the camping spot with our little kids. How sweet it is! We have never seen the hills so green. It is just south of Maple Creek that had the major flooding. We went on into Medicine Hat to visit my brother, Allan and have lunch with his family. We took a little time to try out his little tractor creations. We had a lot of fun checking out a few of his fleet of tractors.

For now we are busy getting fungicide sprayed on our crops so all this rain and humidity doesn't take them down. As usual, I look forward to harvest. If it ever stops raining, we will be harvesting, durum wheat, canola and chickpeas. I have sadness for those people affected by all the rain. We are blessed by the beauty around us and continue to pray for good health and the energy to appreciate the abundance of another growing season.

The empty nest!

 

 

 

Well, the time has come. I was away for two days and thought I would have missed flight school for the baby robins. I looked out this morning to see the last little robin gripping the railing of our deck, Mom come to feed him there and then he flew back to the tree. Good job! The nest is empty and it's time for a new hobby. I hope you enjoyed this little session of bird watching with me.

Most recent, Sunday afternoon

 

 

We need a bigger nest!!!!

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the nest is getting pretty crowded. Mom still manages to sit balanced on the top when it's raining or as protection but she's running out of room, too. I finally caught a picture of Momma and Pappa as they both bring food and scold me from a nearby tree when I'm on the deck doing a photo shoot. I have enjoyed my little birds very much. I expect to see them on their way very soon.

One week!

 

I took this picture in the morning sunlight. It has been fun tracking these little robins over the past week. What a change. Both parents bring food now to keep up with the hungry little ones. Their feathers are less fuzz.

Newest pics cont'd

 

 

My babies are growing...

 

 

 

 

These new pics were taken over the last few days. I had a couple of bird watchers stop by to share the view. The last pictures show a larger, hungrier baby and wing feathers have shown up! I'm thinking I'll be going through the "empty nest" syndrom very soon!