This winter

While Léo sleeps, I take a few moments to let you know about a few of the things we have been up to, in this beautiful snowy winter. 

1. First and foremost: enjoying Léo's presence, his personality, good nature, and his growing appetite!

Léo is 8 months! and he has 4 teeths :)

Visiting the Canadian cousins always makes us have a cold, but we are still in good spirits:)

hmmmm... sacred wild blueberries, yum!

Multi-flora rose taking over a tree

2. Removing the invasive plants on the homestead.  Every chance I get more than an hour outside, I spend it bush whacking through the heavy and often impenetrable thickets of multiflora rose, which over the years has taken over, completely cover and toppled over some areas of the native vegetation. To think that the government used to give this non-native plant for free to land owners to protect wildlife and soil erosion! This removal process has proven very meditative, slow, silent and oh-so-satisfying :)

Invasive multiflora rose thicket taking over

Take that you mean thorny plant!

It can take 3 to 6 mechanical removals per year for 2 to 4 years to eradicate the plant. ouf!

 I have been creating piles with the cuttings, placing them in the middle of the fields and soon we will be returning the 'waste' as valuable organic matter to enrich the soil :) through some awesome permaculture garden techniques that I have been slowly discovering while reading many a garden books in front of the fire (where I spend most ALL of my time), like the Edible Forest Landscape and Permaculture Garden.  Our favorite techniques at the moment include the Chicken Moat, German Mound, Tree garden and Grass into vegetables, and we hope to test them out this season and give you our feedback about which ones worked best here.

Our new farming and gardening library, beautiful wood piece found in the barn just last week!

 3. Building the greenhouse: It will have taken a year, but we are really almost done building our second-hand solarium/greenhouse. All of the glass panes are now in place, only a few triangular holes along the top of the wall remain to be sealed.

Adding the very last pane of glass

Just this morning, after the snow storm

Since there is no better time than today, we have set up a smaller temporary greenhouse in the house to accommodate our already germinating onions and such, until the official greenhouse is ready to receive them.

 4. Cleaning our tools.  A little bit of elbow grease, some steel wool and some linseed oil.  For this season, we plan to use the 'sand box' method which we just learned about in the book 'self-sufficient gardener'= a mix of sand and used oil that you dip your tools in every time you return them to the shed, cleans and sharpens them every time!

Cleaned and oiled

Still dirty

On a side note, Alex has also been doing quite a number on the entire barn, emptying it completely, vacuuming, cleaning, repairing, setting up his workshop, and we hope to be able this year to bring back the original barn door.  Just this paragraph wont give it justice, so we'll have to dedicate a post to it.

 

5. We played in the snow ;) With these constant snow storms we are loving the winter weather and enjoying more cross country outings than during last year's non-winter! 

Creating our own cross-country trails on the homestead

The snow just keeps coming :)

Snow shoeing at KLT's Holman Conservation Area

The snow was so deep at times, we were sinking to our waists

Léo taking a nap after a long walk (and me cutting more roses while he sleeps!)

We hope you are taking the time to enjoy the snow, the pure & fresh air, and letting yourself slow down a little bit in this most peaceful season. We cherish this time to reflect, dream and plan the season to come. Because spring is coming... soon enough.

We always love to share ideas and knowledge with like-minded people.  Please feel free to share comments, links or ideas with us about homesteading, gardening and sustainable lifestyles.

Until next time, be well.