Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Beautiful Family Home For Sale in Greenwood / Kingston, NS

This home is now available for even cheaper and immediate occupancy! Close to schools and a wonderful layout for a family. Check out the listing, under $300k!

Our very great friends, the Wolfs Family, have just received a late posting and so they're moving from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan in 10-12 weeks. Consequently their beautiful 4 bedroom home is now on the market. It's priced at $319k although personally I think it's worth quite a bit more. SO if you're looking for a beautiful family home that is walking distance to schools and is in a lovely family neighbourhood, close to CFB Greenwood and all amenities in this lovely part of the Annapolis Valley,  check this out!

 http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=13057264&PidKey=-294211285

Justin, our realtor friend also has several other listings suitable for families moving to Nova Scotia. Good family neighbourhoods, nice comfortable homes, and Justin knows this area really well so he can give good honest and practical advice. He's a man with good morals and integrity, not a 'used car salesman' type realtor, so I highly recommend him. He's internet friendly and that really makes it easier if you need to arrange things long distance. So call Justin today and tell him Elizabeth sent you.

We're so sad that the Wolfs Family are possibly the nicest family you'll ever meet. If you have the great blessing to get to know them then your life will forever be changed for the good. We're going to miss them terribly but know that they'll be happy in Saskatchewan and their extended family will be so happy to have them closer to home. It's hard to live in the Maritimes when your other family live out west. But having said all this...we're still going to miss them. But we know one thing will always be true...

Friends For Life




What Teenagers Do...

William likes to make movies so it's not uncommon to find a crowd of boys including Chris, Will and Jordan all filming in the house on weekends. The latest installment went awry though when Will first got stuck in the window and then leaned on a bucket which broke when he leaned on it, destroying the bucket and cutting his arm. It was nothing serious, some scrapes and a little blood that quickly cleaned up. But for all the hours of filming they did, 2 minutes of blooper was what they posted to youtube, lol. I wonder if all directors have this problem? William's youtube channel is Pizzamanette if you're interested in seeing his work.

Take a look! See how supportive young men are to each other, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z66HuiADnBA

Chicks

It's Spring and time for the chicks to be basking under their heat lamps. We're ordering heritage layers this year from another local farmer. Why heritage? People buy heritage birds for many different reasons including their personalities, sizes, looks and traits such as broodiness. We're getting heritage birds that are hardy to our climate and who actively forage for a large part of their food. The ability to feed themselves is one thing we love about turkeys too, they'll spend a good portion of their day roaming around and eating bugs and grass and what other tasty morsels they come across.

To get ready for our fine feathered friends we have a bale of pine shavings on hand, chick starter crumbles (food), heat lamps with extra bulbs (always have an extra bulb on hand because you don't want to have it pop on a Sunday evening when the stores are closed), and suitable dishes. Having a draft free pen or box for them is important too because you must be able to maintain a temperature of at least 80 degrees, and maybe a few degrees warmer for the first couple of weeks. I've always found that their behaviour is the best indicator of happiness. If they're huddled under the heat lamp, then they're too cold. If they are around the edges, lying out flat or panting then too warm. But if they're happily eating, drinking and sleeping all over the place they are happy. Watching your chicks is the easiest way to tell. Mounting your heat lamp with a chain is an easy way to adjust the temperature also because you can just raise or lower it by a notch or two until the chicks are happy. Providing a stable temperature room for your brooder with good ventilation is also important. Some places like the garage can get much cooler at night than you think.

Chicks are less temperature sensitive than turkeys. It's always been my opinion that turkey poults are just looking for a way to die, especially in the first 2 weeks. Once you can get them past that then they're fantastic to raise, particularly the hardy heritage breeds. I can't wait to get turkeys again.

One tip for all chicks and poults is to use feeders that are on a small stand. Make sure they can still reach the food and water easily, but by placing them up out of the shavings a little you'll keep the water cleaner and avoid having shavings fill up the dishes. Chicks are very messy little things, especially as they grow, so try to raise them in an area that's well ventilated and that you don't mind getting covered in the inevitable chick dust, a fine mix of shaving, poop and feather particles that are not nice to breathe in. That's why raising them outside once the weather is warmed is such a good idea.

I'm off to go check on all the animals. Hope the nice weather forecast for today holds true. We're plowing on Thursday this week and fencing on Friday and Saturday so it's going to be a fun week!

Oh, if you are moving to Greenwood and looking for a lovely family home, I know of 2 exceptional houses that just went on the market. One is here in the subdivision where we currently live and the other is a gorgeous 4 bdrm on Acker Court in Kingston, close to the schools. It's gorgeous and because of a late posting notice (they found out last week) it's just hitting the market now, priced about $25k less than similar homes. It's gorgeous inside, trust me I've been in there a lot :) I'll link to it ASAP.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Springing...Slowly

Just when we thought Winter was gone, we've got plus 7 degree weather and a snow warning with freezing rain forecast for tonight. But then hopefully that's the last of it. Spring is definitely here and the bulbs are up, but Winter just won't quite let go.

Our lambs and sheep are loving the ability to get out of the barn and stretch their legs as are the hens. We also had our 4 piglets arrive last week and we're getting them settled and used to us. They're a little skittish but quickly overcome their fear when fed, lol.

The mobile home should be arriving int he next 10 days to be set up and then the renovations begin and on the 20th we're having a bunch of friends from church come out for a BBQ and to set fence posts so we can give the animals all a safer place to roam about. Oh it's so busy around here!

For the coming year we're looking at selling produce in the farmers market as well as a small stand at roadside. But we need a serious amount of tilling done first and a local farm friend is hopefully doing that as we speak. I've got lots of seeds just waiting for warmer weather and then the fun begins...weeding! We've got plans to put in lavender, flowers, vegetables, some new pasture, a greenhouse, some cover and winter crops to feed the livestock such as mangels and kale, and of course we still need a garden to feed our own family. It's going to be a lot of work but I'd like to see if I can make a little money from my gardening this year to pay off one of the big projects like drilling the well or putting in the septic system.

Greenwood Mall has a small indoor Farmers Market each Thursday afternoon that we're going to try out as soon as we can, which given the weather is going to be at least 4 weeks from now. We'll have salad greens, radishes and possibly some tomato transplants available then.

For now it's just a matter of trying to keep all the projects organized and the animals happy.

Love to you all!

Elizabeth