Back to the farm, the animals and ordinary old gardening and housework.
Why is it that a drill always appears on the table when I am gone. Boo will not let me out of his sight now that I am home. He has picked up a few bad habits while you and I were not watching and spent most of yesterday on a leash re-training. We will train three times a day for a while yet.
I cannot find two of the cats. Both Thing Two and Author seem to have gone walkabout, in fact were not seen the whole time I was away. Farm cats who hunt in the long grass have a perilous existence though they often turn up after a few days. Both Lulu and a limping Scrapper are sitting on the verandah waiting for breakfast. Pania and Tui the Peahens were present for roll call. No hatched eggs. I guess they will try again next year.
TonTon showing how he is the bestest of the farm dogs. 
All the piglets are hale and healthy and playing hide and seek in their vege garden.
Though Charlotte unapologetically broke The Hug a Pig Door right in half the day after I left and in my absence no-one was able to get in there to fix it. Rainy day huts pig style. We will sort that today.
Daisy and Queenie will be having their blood tests soon to see if they are pregnant. They have been very quiet while you and I were away just munching down the back of Daisy’s paddock. Daisy the milk cow has dried up without any dramas which is nice. Though the thought of another eight months without milk is a bit sad.
Some things never change.
The garden path has grown out of control in the seven days I was gone! There is a lot of gardening to do.
The sweetcorn is tasseling which is pretty exciting. Yesterday I cut plenty of side shoots and fed them to the animals. No-one turns down the fresh corn leaves.
I also gathered a bucket of fallen apples, they are not quite ripe but the sheep and pigs and chickens love them. The GM free corn (the leaves and stalks) and the apples will become a daily part of everyones diet from now on.
Today I will put up an electric fence in the Dairy Mistress paddock and start the cows in there this evening when it is dry. It is full of lovely forage.
So here we are back home on the farmy. Back where you and I belong after our great adventure up in the mountains. Yesterday I wore my Made in Calgary cowboy hat all day long even when weeding the garden. It is just perfect for a days work in the sun. Our John is pleased to have me home, he is just “All wore out!” And Molly and Margy did a wonderful job covering for me in the mornings.
Good morning. Last night we began the first of many lazy simple summer dinners entirely from the farm. I dug a few potatoes which is naughty but I could not wait any longer. We even found a red tomato. This is why we farm, to eat. Eating clean fresh food is so good. The tastes are so different straight from the garden. I love to be away and I love to come home. And I LOVE growing food. It is a minefield eating out there in the world.
OK. Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Off to work we go!
Your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
73 responses to “Home again, Home again, Jiggedy Jig”
Welcome home sorry you came home having to do so much to catch up.
You will be crazy busy fix and repairing and weeding and trimming rest when you need too.
It seems like everyone and everything has grown in such a short time. There’s no place like home, your own bed & pillow, and food. We live in the middle of a city with supposedly great food all around us, but we cook and eat more and more at home.
My cats almost always disappeared if I was away, returning upon my return or shortly thereafter.
Ton may not be as happy as you with new hat – it’s not as likely to blow away 😊
What a lot happens when you are away, even for a short time. But it must be so satisfying to see everything growing so well – including those piglets. They have grown so fast. Welcome home.
Welcome home Celi! I always find it’s nice to go away, but even nicer to get back home, being the home-bird that I am – I miss my pets too much!
Looks like you have a lot of work ahead of you, good luck with the weeding.
The silhouette pic of the rooster is awesome.
Welcome Home! (obviously you were missed)
That table looks so much like summer on the farm. I could just smell the fresh produce and hear my aunt saying someone go keep the bugs away. ( the littlest always were charged with that)
The corn tassels are gorgeous! The fresh corn here is not fairing so well. Nothing like a tomato you pick yourself out of your own garden.
It looked like a lovely trip – maybe the mountain magic will hold you until cooler fall breezes
Welcome home, Celi! You guys are feeding Boo entirely too much! He’s growing too fast, looking less a puppy and more a dog. Those pea hens will never quit sitting on those eggs, if Lucy’s behaviour is any indication. I don’t give her a nesting box so she lays them in one area on the bottom of her cage, on the metal grate. I’ve removed eggs that were nothing but shell. She’d apparently cracked them on the grates. It didn’t matter to Lucy. She kept the shells warm. 🙂
Glad the farmy survived your absence and all is well. Have a great night!
Yes I am taking away Tuis eggs, but I don’t know what to do about Pania, I need to follow her back to her nest… c
Welcome home! I can’t get over how fast the piglets are growing!
Welcome home:( I wish I’d known you were here.. I would have loved to take you Stampeding instead of riding on a hard saddle, c! For some reason I thought you weren’t due until the end of July?? I must have a fuzzy brain.. and had I looked here for a moment I would have known.. I’m so sorry! I’m glad you got to see Canmore, after all the flooding I wasn’t sure what it was like there this past week. Did you see any of the damaged areas?? I wondered if your picnic was the Grassi Lake Trail, it’s one of our favorites:) Much love and glad you’ve flown safely! xx Barb/Smidge
It was at grassi lake, we walked up there from the motel- it was a steep hike!! I did not want to presume to ask to meet you, you have so much on your plate already, but I will be back and maybe then we can meet!?.. Canmore was lovely. We walked all over it.. c
May I add my ‘welcome home’ and admit it is awfully nice to catch up with the farmy happenings! And ’tis back to the endless chores, but with California not so far away [how wonderful to see your grandchild again!] daresay everything will be done happily an in double tempo 🙂 ! Do hope these cats do somehow turn up: Author says ‘hello’ to me every morning I open my computer: would hate to think something had happened!!!
sadly the life of a farm cat is not cloistered.. lat night scrapper slept outside on the step of our bedroom door with the dogs.. very weird.. c
Happy to see you made it home safely. I think the animals were stating their disdain that you were gone, in their own way. Ton is the bestest, that’s one amazing move!
Coming home is surely one of the best parts of a trip! Beautiful photos.
It’s fun to have a few days off. Then a lot of work and joy to be back. Fresh picked garden fare feeds us in so many ways. Enjoying my usual catch up at the end of the month/or beginning:)