Summer holiday family photo

This was taken at Rich & Jen's the night before Mum, Dad and Auntie Brenda left us to go to Quebec then home. 

Summer 2012 is flying by

We forgot about our raspberries as they are in the part of the field we haven't been using this year, when Isaac went to check on them this evening he found a bumper crop. This is one of my huge mixing bowls which we filled in about 15minutes before the mosquitoes started having us for supper! I think tomorrow may be spent picking pounds and pounds of them and working out the many different ways of preserving and eating them.

The chicks we got in April have been promoted to the chicken shed. They are a different breed and are much bigger than our layers, at first they all huddled together in a corner and seemed quite scared and now they strut around and rule the roost especially Harriet's rooster Velvet!

 This is two of my veggies plots which I'm trying to keep up with weeding, I didn't take photos of the other 3 as the weeds are winning! We've eaten all our spinach and radishes and most of the lettuce so far. The rest of the vegetables are doing really well except for the carrots and parsnips. I'm trying to empty the freezer of all last year's produce as we'll soon be filling it again.

At the moment we are trying to get all the rabbits in outside cages, we have 2 cages finished and we move then round the grass twice a day. They are better than our lawnmower!!!! (Which isn't saying much as we spend more time fixing it than using it!)

We made the ducks and geese a large outdoor enclosure which has a couple of little ponds in (formerly kids sandpits found for free on kijiji!). Their enclosure has an electric fence round it, one day last week we came home to find all of them sunning themselves next to my veggie plot. The pigs had dug up so much soil and had put it on the fence wire that it had shorted out meaning the other animals could just walk through it. When we got them back in there were 3 missing, we hunted high and low for them and gave them up for dead thinking some predator had taken them. Harriet went out for one last look round and found all 3 down a 3' hole we'd dug for the fence which we hadn't yet put a post in! They were fine once we lifted them out.

The pigs are becoming nice and portly, we are expecting the first litter at the beginning of September if all goes to plan.

As you know we have lots of interesting wildlife here in New Brunswick, some of them you wouldn't want to meet close up! This summer must have been a great year for all the animals as we've seen numerous snakes, eagles, deer, raccoon, foxes, moose, groundhogs and 3 bears in the past 4 weeks!

I've been following all the facebook posts from the UK and there seems to have been a common theme recently, rain and more rain! So I've decided to get a New Brunswick weather rant in here too. It's beautiful and sunny and very, very hot!!!!!!! To be honest sometimes too hot when it's over 30 degrees we just have to give up and sit in a nearby lake to cool off and have the fans going all night to have a chance of sleeping. This week it's cooled down to mid to high 20's which is perfect. To top it off it gets so hot it causes wonderful thunderstorms where it rains really heavy for a short time and we have spectacular thunder and lightening rumbling round the hills.

Isaac and Josh are enjoying working, especially the pay cheques! They had a day off today so after I finished work we went shopping, this may not seem very exciting but it sure is when you live half an hour from the city and don't get in very often with money burning a hole in your pocket! Harriet has done the most this holiday what with spending time with Grandma & Grandad Woollin and Auntie Brenda and this week going camping with a friend's family. All the children are going on various camps the week after next so David and I are taking a day off for our 19th wedding anniversary and will go out for the day somewhere. We are looking forward to David's parent's coming to visit for a couple of weeks next month. We still have some weeks spare this summer if you want to pop across and enjoy our sunshine.

Summer is here

Mum, Dad and Auntie Brenda introduced themselves to the mayor of McAdam!

The Lavers on holiday

David & Suz chilling in a little chair

Dad preparing for Canada Day

Canada Day parade in Tracy

Isaac found a friend

Fireworks in Tracy

Summer has arrived. The kids officially broke up from school on 21st June for 10 1/2 long weeks. The boys are working on a local fruit farm for the summer when the weather is good. 

Mum, Dad and Auntie Brenda arrived in New Brunswick last Tuesday and stayed with us till Monday. They are now at Rich & Jens and are heading off to Halifax and PEI for the weekend and taking Harriet with them. We had a couple of  days off last week to make an extra long weekend. We all went to Woodstock, Nacawic, McAdam and St Andrews, then Mum wanted to do the yard sales before we went to Tracy for the Canada Day celebrations which included a parade, village games and entertainment, a BBQ at Kevin and Dianne's and fireworks. After lots of rain mid week the sun came out and it was very hot. 

David found out he's got a new job starting in a couple of weeks time. His title will be 'Supervisor, Customer Support, Integration Group' he'll still be working at the same place but with more responsibility.