Horses, Kitchens and Sunflowers

Horses wait to compete at the Digby County Exhibition in Bear River.

This weekend while we tried not to work like horses ourselves, we did watch some horses in Bear River working pretty hard.

On Saturday it poured rain so we went down our road to the Digby County Exhibition, a small, but sweet county fair where farmers can show off the pulling strength of their oxen and horses.

It is also a place where kids in the 4H club (head, heart, hands and health) can show off their farm animals. Here is a sweet rabbit, just for my daughter who has a special affinity for rabbits.

Last year we watched the oxen displays, but this year we watched the horses. They too were powerful and willing to pull enormous weights.

It was good to see such majestic animals up close and personal.

The horses seemed keen to perform.

Watching the horses work so hard was inspiring and we decided to work on our kitchen when we got home. I want to say right here and now that I LOVE our new kitchen. I’m having fun with the open concept because I can be doing kitchen things but still have a wide view of the rest of the room and out of several windows too. BUT….like every kitchen, the storage is already a  challenge. In spite of the fact that we got rid of alot of stuff when we came here 22 months ago, we’ve collected more stuff like yogurt containers, plastic bags, interesting empty containers and other bits of “might need this someday for something” type of stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere. I’ve already rearranged the things in the cupboards a couple of times, which just confuses me as to where on earth the cling-wrap is?

This week our friend Peter made me some shelving for the kitchen to fit all my glass jars of lentils and beans and flour and rice and other dry goods. Today I coated them twice with a concoction that is 1/3 linseed oil, 1/3 varathane, 1/3 urethane with a squirt of earth green oil paint. I was going to carefully wipe the solution on the shelves. I didn’t think I needed any paper to protect the walls or the counter. Fortunately Larry, who is more patient and realistic than me, decided to help me out by taping the entire area with folded newspapers. It was a good thing too, because I still managed to drip some of the stuff on some of the wall that he’d not covered.

While it dried, I went outside to check out the garden and noticed that the sunflowers are growing rather tall.

They’ve survived two weekends of tail ends of tropical storms. The accompanying rain was actually welcome as it’s been very dry. Larry and I checked out the hole we had dug for a future pond and found a little waterfall happening as the rains continue to drain down through our field from higher places.

Our sunflowers aren’t that only tall plants on our land. We’ve neglected a huge section and the weeds have grown up to our shoulders. We wanted to see the shape of the land for planing future pathways, so I tried out our weedwhipper. The sound in this movie is poor, but please note the long linen smock I’m wearing. I bought it at Frenchy’s for $3 to use as a painting smock. The weedwhipper deposited plant bits on it from top to bottom! Who knew that cutting weeds would be as messy as painting!

So that’s my weekend report. Horses, rain, yardwork and a little reward for all the hardwork. Some really tasty vegetables!

Fresh, organic and homegrown.