Yarn Along and the heartbreak of farm life

I have lots of pic to share with you, pics of our new babies, my baby and of course my knitting-I haven't accomplished a lot this week in the knitting department. I have been too busy caring for all the little babies in my life as well as volunteering at VBS this week in the nursery. I am loving this longies pattern, and how quick it works up, and now that I am working on my second go round it just keeps getting easier! I am past the three short rows, so it is smooth sailing till splitting for the legs!|

 Now to the heart break...remember the cute bunnies I showed you in the last post? Well its a long story but their pen was broken into by the dog (we didn't know this at the time) . So the next day we went to a ladies house in a nearby town and picked up three other little bunnies. The next day we were out in the garden in the evening and there we found one of the bunnies munchin on some tall grass! We were able to catch it and put it back where it belonged, so now we had four bunnies.

Well last night Les moved the bigger chicks into the new coop-that still isn't quite done yet-as well as the bunnies, and moved the little 6 day old chicks into the other makeshift coop. The new coop has a dirt floor. This morning when Les checked on them-they had dug out and were all gone. This evening as we were sitting on the deck eating our supper as its above 30 here, the dog goes trotting by with Benjamin`s bunny hanging from its mouth... of course all three kids saw and burst into hysterical tears and sobs, even my little man who knew it was his bunny and who had wanted them the most, was bawling his little three year old heart out. Both mommy and grandma were in tears because they were so upset.

 My oldest has such a heart for God, and she just kept saying, why did God make Star (the dog) if she was going to eat their bunnies. It is so hard to explain that Star was being the way God created her, and that small animals are low on the food chain, but she was just so upset. So if you would, please pray for my littles as their hearts are breaking.

                                                   Their first home-the wood box

                                                  Their second home-the swimming pool!

                                                       They grow sooo fast!

                                                 Ahemm don`t mind the cle*vage

                                                       My little bright eyes

                                                      The longies

Don`t forget to go to Ginny`s site and Nicole`s and visit all the other wonderful ladies and see their beautiful wip`s!
Blessings
Erin

yarn along and a surprise!

I missed the last two yarn alongs because we have had our hands full lately! We've been working on finishing up our chicken coop, we had a baby girl with the measles-or so they think, and we have had to stay in my parents basement for the last week because of an extreme mosquito problem in our house *sigh* So needless to say we have been busy, however I did manage to cast on a new project-I am doing another pair of longies for Olivia-in the next size up, and in the sweetest butter yellow yarn!!!

As for reading-I have been reading up on poultry-researching organic feed sources and mixes for mixing our own, unfortunately it is really hard to find a local source for organic feed-the closest being two and a half hours away...
In other news
I am so exicted to show you my pics this week, because a couple weeks ago we went to a heritage breed show and sale, and came home with 6 exhibition quality buff orpington chicks, they are about 10 weeks old now we think and I just LOVE them!!! And we also came home with two  bunnies because we brought our little guy with us and he was so upset when we put the chickens in the carrier and not any bunnies-so we brought home two! 
And I got the call this morning that our 50 hatchery chicks (also buff orps) are in at the feed store and we get to pick them up this morning!! So more pics to follow soon!!

So without further ado I am linking up with Ginny  for her weekly yarn along!

                                                                 Flopsy and Mopsy

                                                               Poor little measles girl

                                                           And the sweet longies!

Around the homestead

Les and I have been wanting chickens for some time now, we had a flock of layers when we lived in China Valley BC, but we have been waiting to live on our own place again since we moved back, now that we are settled here, we got started this spring on our coop. It is not quite finished as Les needs to run the electrical out to it and therefore he can't do some of the finishing yet.
I have on order 50 buff orpington-my favorite! As they are coming from a hatchery and are a heritage breed they are coming unsexed, so we are hoping about half will be female and we will keep for layers and the other half males to be butchered. Buff orps are a dual purpose breed, and they are just beautiful! We also have on order 75 barred plymouth rocks, we are raising 25 for my parents for butchering as well as 25 for some dear friends for butchering, the other 25 I would like to keep a few as layers to compare their quality and frequency of laying, and some to butcher to compare the taste of the meat. We are very excited-however there is fairly long wait list from the hatchery so we will see if they get here before August of not! At least it will be in the cool of fall when we butcher! So here are a few pics of our coop-12x 16 and he still has to make the four runs.

                                             He built his own trusses

                                         

I will add a few more as the work progresses, we are running into bad weather lately and he has been so busy at work, but its getting there! Good thing our babies aren't going to be here for a month or two!

Yarn Along

Ok I know I said I would post something other than knitting, but alas I have been too busy! So here it is again, my works in progress! I had to tear out my longies three times, change my yarn and watch a tutorial on youtube to figure out what I was doing wrong! I am pleased to report that I figured it out and have already done the kitchener stitch in the gusset-which isn't perfect because I was trying to do it with a fussy baby distracting me! But I did it and it turned out good enough! I also learned how to do proper short rows-gotta love youtube! However after doing them I realized that there is a trick when doing them in the round-so I will learn that next time I knit this pattern!
I don't have a picture, but I made my mom some lovely pot holders out of the Luna yarn for mothers day as well as a bath puff for my cousin-I love the colors still and I just love working with cotton!
As far as reading goes, I picked up a copy of Maryjane's Farm magazine last week and read that and I also just started reading a book off my shelf about Florence Nightingale. It is pouring rain here this week, so I actually might get some knitting, reading, housework, sewing etc done this week!
I had to take a picture of my recent garage sale find-a beautiful oak highchair-I'm so in love!!!

Be sure to visit Ginny's Yarn Along to see what all the other ladies are working on and reading!

Yarn Along (transitioning from my old blog to this one!)

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr 

Hi all, I know that all I have been blogging lately is about knitting...but you see I can't help it-after I spend all day tending my wee babes, and doing all the outside chores, and working alongside my sweet hubby on our house and our secret new project...well all I have time for is housework and maybe a wee bit of knitting! That doesn't mean however that I only think about knitting(or crocheting) a wee bit-in fact after a recent visit to the LYS last week, I have been dreaming in color....to clarify I have been dreaming about a certain color scheme of yarn that I couldn't wait to get my hands on. Literally. Dreaming. LOL!
So without further ado-I will show you the pics of the lovely new yarn purchased today!!!!!!
I also had time to finish up a project that I started last summer-a pair of shorties (wool soakers) that when I downloaded the pattern I didn't realize were a size large-so I knit them up anyway in an off white color(before we knew what gender we were having) So I finished them off with some pink detailing-ruffled legs, and of course a ruffled bum! Next we have my current work in progress-a pair of longies in a super soft merino pink- I think I am going to add a skirt to them when I am done, in the mean time I am learning some new techniques-short rows (done properly) doing a gusset and kitchener stitch-thank goodness for you tube and all the wonderful tutorials!!
So sorry for the poor picture quality as I only seem to find time in the evenings to work on these!


                                                      Luna by Cascade yarns-a cotton

                                                              the shorties

                                                      And the soon to be longies

If you like go on over to Ginny blog for her weekly Yarn Along and see all the other creative ladies out there! And I promise to do a post soon on something other than knitting!
Blessings
Erin

Welcome to our home! I started this blog to share the daily rhythm of our family. We live on 1280 acres together with my parents in west central Alberta Canada. We raise commercial black Angus beef-about 80 head, there are approximately 16 horses kicking about, an Ayershire milk cow and we are in the middle of building a chicken coop to house our heritage breed chickens. We have plans to raise Suffolk punch horses, and Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs. We chose to name our ranch- Heritage Harbour Homestead because we hope to be a harbour (safe haven) for heritage breed animals as well as children. We have been in the adoption process for almost 6 years now, and are waiting to see where God leads us. We are also hoping to foster some children in the near future.And we chose homestead instead of farm or ranch because we are living here together with our family trying to make a home and a living from our land. I also have a personal blog that I will slowly be transitioning over to here. Thank you for visiting and have a blessed day!