I had a conversation with my dear friend and Master Spinner Fiber Artist, Kara, the other day. I have been washing and processing some of my fleece. This is the first time giving this a try and although I am pleased with the results, I do not enjoy doing it. It is just like watching paint dry! Some find it meditative and calming. I am not there yet. But I did love the result of my Kool Aid dyed Cotswold curls. I am not sure Kool Aid will maintain the colour after washings, but I will wash it before using it. I would like to try to felt the locks, along with a whole lot more, into a long scarf. Wouldn't that be pretty? 

When I owned the organic lifestyle store, Eclectrix, in White Rock, some years back, I always tried hard to explain that organic wool was unlike conventional wool. Conventional wool uses harsh chemicals to dissolve the hay and other matter in the fleece and of course, those chemicals remain in the wool . Sure, it is wonderful to have pristine, clean, soft yarn, but when heat and moisture from the body touch the wool, some folks find wool intolerable. Is it the wool? Or is it the chemical processing? 

In the old store, Eclectrix, we sold wool felt and wool yarn. The felt was machine made, but organically processed. I find wool scratchy and irritating next to my skin, no matter how soft it is - that is conventional wool, but I can sleep naked (sorry for that image of the old carcass curled up that way) under the organic felt wool blanket and it is so soft and comforting without any irritation. You must try organic wool if you too are sensitive. 

Wool regulates body temperature, wicks moisture away and can feel dry even if it is wet, does not harbour dust mites (for those with allergies), composts completely when its life cycle is complete and is a wonderful gift from the sheep. Years and years back, sheep shed their fleece annually, similar to many animals, but man selected those with lovely thick soft wool and bred them to shed later and later and then not at all. This means that modern sheep must be shorn, but primitive sheep, like Icelandics and Shetlands, will often shed their fleece, but not always. They too have the modern genes now. 

I sleep on a woolen mattress pad under a wool filled duvet. The duvet is thin and still I am always warm enough, except in the dead of winter with the south wind blowing through my little old farm house. I wear felted wool too. Under my coveralls, I wear a felted wool vest or long jacket and in the house as well. There really is no other fibre like it. But the wool I wear comes from sheep in Saskatchewan that are raised eating grass only in unsprayed fields, just like my sheep are. When I learn to process the wool, I want to make these felted garments and even shoes and boots! The key for me,  is that the sheep must be completely naturally raised and the wool naturally processed, NO chemicals! 

Any wool that is too contaminated with hay gets used in the garden and for dog houses here. It makes the best tree wrap ever! My fruit trees are young, only planted since my arrival 6 years ago. I found wrapping them 2-3 feet up in several inches of fleece, keeps them from freezing in winter, but they can still breathe! Then I unwrap them and lay the wool on the ground to mulch it and retain the water. My hanging baskets are lined with wool too! It is the perfect material for that, strong, resilient, and helps keep moisture in. It is very slow to decompose as well, in situations like those. The dogs love sleeping on a bed of wool. They can be damp from the snow and curl up on the wool and feel warm in an instant. 

I cannot say enough about wool. I use the grease, lanolin, in soap and creams I make too! I am grateful for my sheep and love them to bits. But, please, just a BIG word of caution about conventional wool and chemical processing. It is not good for the environment nor for you! And those lovely dyes, even my Kool Aid, I am certain and not good either. There are beautiful natural colours of sheep and white wool can be dyed naturally with a host of plant materials and different mordants. I hope you will consider not wearing plastic fleece, which has been found to drop tiny microfibres in each wash, and replace it with lovely organic wool. Thank EWE!

This should be the last big year for me for lambs and kids. I am hoping to downsize the farm and sell 2/3rds of my sheep and goats. The lambs I keep will be for fleece or meat. I love lamb meat and although meat is a by product of my fleece farm, i am fortunate to have a supply of grass fed lamb. This year they may be some goats in the freezer as well. Goat meat is delicious and again, although I do not raise animals for meat, when the little boy goats do not sell, they are eventually put in the freezer. It does not make good economic sense to raise them over a winter and feed them because the market price in the spring is hardly better if at all. If they do not sell as breeding bucks, then they really need to go. 

Thus far, the first lamb is born, a lovely black purebred Icelandic ram lamb. He mother is very small for an Icelandic. She and her twin sister and the ewe lamb I bought locally are all very small. They are maybe even smaller than the Shetland sheep on the farm. Icelandic sheep should be larger. I suspect somewhere there was inbreeding in their lines and the result was very tiny lambs. The little ram lamb born today is about 5 pounds which is ideal for a first time mother and typical of a smaller Icelandic lamb. 

The goats are almost done with their kids. Some were bred to the Nubian billy and the others to the Nigerian Dwarf. There are also some Nigora, or NIgerian Dwarf and Angora goats. Those goats do have spinnable fibre, so are valuable for their fibre. Nigerian Dwarf goats are kept for milk and pets. They have been a great seller on the farm until this year. Wouldn't you know it! This is the year I need to sell them to downsize the herd too. Today, Thirteen had twin doelings. They will be NIgora, but there is a slight overlap between bucks and they could be Nubian. Time will tell. Right now they are hard to distinguish, except they are healthy little girls and Thirteen is a very good mother, which is rare for Angora goats, who have been bred too much for fibre that their maternal instincts have suffered as a result.  Bonnie, the Spanish Cashmere and her two Cashgora girls are left to kid. I would say they will kid tomorrow or very soon. Bonnie may have a new home with her kids too. Then the goats are done. 

The problem is that the weather is not cooperating. I deliberately leave the breeding until late, starting in May (very late April) so the weather will be warm and temperatures will not dive down too low and frozen lambs result. But we are plagued with late snows and very cold winds. In 2 days the temperatures are supposed to rise finally and spring will be on its way. The thing is, tomorrow is the initial due date and I think there will be quite a few ewes giving birth. I will be out early to check on them, though most should proceed on their own and not require any help from me at all. Primitive breeds are like that. They have retained excellent maternal instincts and abilities and also their ability to lamb on their own is so much better. I far prefer two lambs to four or five, as some of the modern commercial sheep are now starting to have. I would rather be hands off than hands on! Tatiana, a Romanov ewe, will likely have four lambs this year though. They are known for that, for multiple births. That is where their value lies for commercial operations. They increase the lamb numbers in the second generation cross ewes. 

Anyhow, we are off to a great start. There won't be much sleep over the next few weeks. My fingers and toes are crossed for a healthy lamb crop. Many will be for sale with their dams and sires if you are interested in starting out with sheep or adding to your own flocks. Wish me luck!

One day I went to a burn pit and there were some discarded hay nets that wrap the large bales tossed there. I suppose they were to be burned but they were not close enough to the pit. There was a bird trapped in the netting, frantic to get out and terrified. I carefully untangled the poor little creature and set it free. That was my first introduction to hay nets. 

Then that fall, I purchased hay that was wrapped with the netting. It was green in colour, lightweight and seemed a great solution to wrap the bales. But winter came and the net froze to the hay. Removal of the net was difficult at best and hay that was frozen to it was caught in it and discarded on the pile to be picked up in spring. The net tore and strings of it were in the hay, which was also discarded. 

 The problem is that the animals do not discern the net from the hay and ingest it. Ingesting a large quantity of the netting will mean certain death, for it blocks the digestive tract, obviously does not digest itself or breakdown and also can cause starvation because it occupies space in the gut and food cannot be utilized properly. 

Small animals also ingest the netting string. On my farm the other day, some netting was caught in the mud and the green strings were half frozen and half in the puddle. A duck came along and ate a good portion of the net, but the rest was hanging out of her mouth. Try as she might, she could not dislodge it from the frozen ground, nor could she cough or bring up the net that was already down. I cut the net and attempted to pull out what she ate, with little success. I am hoping it was not enough to cause her to starve or to create problems with her digestion and blockages in the future. 

Aside from actually getting caught in the discarded netting, like the poor little bird at the burn pit, eating that netting is the next biggest problem. So much plastic is already wreaking havoc with wildlife who eat it deliberately, attracted to bright colours and shapes that are reminiscent of food, or inadvertently eat it along with hay or other tasty bits of mud , like the duck. 

A farmer was telling me he lost his best bull, who dropped dead in the field and he didn't know why, so he did his own autopsy. The gut had pounds of hay netting in it. I am sure it does not help that some of the netting is green, too, much like fresh young grass. I do attempt to pick up the netting, but when it is frozen to the ground it shreds and the pieces remain there until later, sometimes, as with the duck , too late. 

Please urge farmers to discontinue the use of net wrap on their bales. Plastic twine is only slightly better, but it is easier to clean up and small animals are less likely to eat it, at least. We must be stewards for our critters. They depend on us to keep them safe. Please try to do so. 

I have come to know some hunters in the area I now call home, the northeastern area of Alberta, Canada. Some are older, like I am, and still believe that wild meat is far superior to any farm raised or store bought product. Well, that might be true only in a few cases these days. Why? 

Where I live farmers grow a lot of Canola. It is heavily subsidized by some entity out there, so they may actually make money on it in good years. Wheat is another crop that is popular here and does very well. We also have an abundance of deer who love to graze in the wheat fields, especially after harvest, when the grain is spilled on the ground and free feeding is easy. But, therein lies the problem. 

Wheat, here, can be sprayed up to 7 times in its growing season. First the ground is sprayed with Glyphosate or Roundup, to kill the weeds . Then the grain, which is treated with fungicides to prevent fusarium and such, and possibly other chemicals, is seeded. After a while, another chemical may be sprayed to control thistles or noxious weeds that might interfere with the wheat production. In a wet year, more fungicide or another herbicide or a pesticide could be used. The pesticides control the bugs that also enjoy eating the wheat. But the worst spray of all is the desiccation spray just prior to harvest. This does not only occur in wheat production, but in many grains, peas, lentils and such. Desiccation means to kill off the living plant leaving the standing dead stalk, which is then easy to harvest. The problem is, that the crop is heavily contaminated with the chemical. 

So, what is left in the field is free feed for the wild game. In a wheat field near Bonnyville, just to the northeast of me, there were about 25-30 deer munching a recently harvest field last fall. It was dusk and the deer were crossing the highway, so traffic was crawling along. No one wants to hit a deer. That makes a mess, causes damage and is emotionally distressing to some. The deer had round bellies full of the grain, too. 

We now know that glyphosate remains in the grain and legumes. There are really very few areas in North America untouched by the noxious chemical. Even organically grown crops will have traces of glyphosate. New born babies just entering the world for the first time have been found to have markedly high levels of glyphosate as well, especially in some areas. The chemical is linked to a host of modern diseases like autism, panic disorder, thyroid disorder, multiple sclerosis and more. Alberta has one of the highest incidences of multiple sclerosis in the world. But let's get back to the wild game meat. 

Depending on where the game was harvested, the animals could have more pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and organophosphates than commercially raised animals. They graze freely on fields just sprayed and harvested. The only game meat that is less affected, possibly truly clean, is in the far north where crops are not grown at all. That sort of land is becoming more and more phased out as man encroaches on every square kilometer in the wild. Fish are also affected. The chemical runoff in the waters contaminates fresh water fish very heavily in what was once clean pristine fishing grounds. 

I know that those who need to hear this are not the ones who are going to read it. I did not include any research links, because for every link, there is an opposing link. Scientific America, which is pro GMO posts studies supporting chemical farming and people who want to believe that it is safe, will cite these and many more links. Really, we need to decide what is safe for ourselves. I am offered game from time to time and it may sound ungrateful, but I ask where it was shot and then decide if I want to eat it. I try to buy my hay from areas with little seeded crop and do not feed any grain to the ruminants on my farm. Still there will be marginal traces of chemicals in the meat and in my body. I wish it could be otherwise. 

Hopefully hunters will not hunt in their backyards if the animals have free access to open fields of grain conventionally grown. But, those hunters do not get the connection. Sigh. 

Stealing!

Stealing is a violation of personal belongings and property. It makes the one stolen from angry and wanting revenge andto have what was stolen to be brought back. It makes the one who is missing the goods looking for justice and want to punish the wrongdoer. 

Most people do steal. They do not recognize that they are doing so, though. Teachers take home paper, writing tools, books, and other items, even though they do not belong to them. Employees take home toilet paper and paper towels all the time. People take salt and pepper shakers, cutlery, napkins and menus from restaurants. One I knew even took two chairs, right out the front door in front of everyone in broad daylight. People who work in different industries take home items all the time. Often, this is not thought of as stealing since it is from a large corporation or business, but it is. 

From time to time in life, I have had things stolen. One time, my house was broken into and jewellry that was well hidden was taken. I am positive to this day that the person who took it had been there to visit and was aware of what there was to steal. An expensive camera was untouched but hidden jewellry was all removed. 

Theft violates one's personal space. Someone has been in your home, uninvited and gone through your things. Even a little theft, such as the solar spotlight illuminating my road sign at the end of my driveway, makes me feel cross. I want the thieves to be punished. I wish the solar spotlight was wired to send a huge shock to the thief so the spotlight was dropped immediately and the thief cried out in agony. It didn't though. If I put another light out, it will be gone in a heartbeat since that one was so easy to steal. I wish one of the dogs had run down the driveway and removed a bit of the pant leg of the thief, and perhaps some of his jacket too, then peed on the tires of his vehicle. Actually, maybe I wish all the dogs had run down the driveway and proceeded to do what they were bred to do. Um, no I do not really. But I want to hurt the thief somehow. It was MY light. It cost almost fifty dollars. They had no right to take it. 

I do believe in Karma. What goes round comes round. I will not do anything. The person who stole from me will suffer greatly in life because of wrongdoing, not at my hand, but at his or her own. I hope he or she can make the connection between taking something that was not theirs to take and the suffering they going to endure. I doubt very much if my solar spot light is the only item they ever stole too. Too bad. So sad. 

I still want to electrify another spotlight. Nyuk nyuk. I won't be doing that though. 

I am pretty sure it is not because most people are uncaring and not concerned about animals in general, but because they just do not think beyond what they want to do right then and there. 

Latex balloons are fun. Who does not like to blow up a balloon and watch it be tossed from person to person, especially if those persons are little ones? There is such a joy about the lightness of the balloon as it jostles from one pair of hands to the other and the smiles on little children as they play in their delight will win the cold hearts of anyone paying attention. But what happens to the balloons when they pop? 

Most people will pick up the remains and put them in the garbage. Balloons are sometimes used in outdoor celebrations too, and helium filled ones are released in quantities to float and eventually fall. Fall where? People have them filled for the new way of celebrating weddings, with straw bales and barnwood in the middle of a hayfield. And then what happens to them? 

I found a collection of spent balloons and nylon ribbons in my hay bale. Sheep and goats have been known to eat many strange things and bits of latex balloons would be no surprise. Ducks, geese and even chickens are attracted to the bright coloured ribbons and will try to eat them too. The ingestion of latex in that quantity would severely hamper the digestive tract and sometimes cause death. Recently I read of a ewe who died from eating a latex glove left in the barn. They knew because they did their own autopsy to help understand the cause of a perfectly healthy ewe's death. 

I love balloons as much as anyone. And I love watching children play with them too, but I do not want to see animals and birds harmed by them. So please, when you are through with your balloons, dispose of them carefully where wildlife and birds will not be attracted to the bright coloured bits and ribbons. And please, if you are celebrating in a hay field, clean up the balloons along with the rest of the litter. Don't leave them on the ground to be picked up by the baler and fed to animals. 
Thank you for that consideration!Thank ewe. 

Have you ever thought about how we jump from one holiday to another? It has gotten so bad in the past few years that Christmas is promoted before Halloween is even over. And Halloween - well, it never used to be such a big thing, but now, people decorate for the holiday with almost as much gusto as Christmas. I don't get that, given that most of those folks are believing Christians too. 

I was shopping at Wal Mart yesterday, hoping to find some seat covers and a divider to keep Robbie in the back of the vehicle, but had no luck. Easter decorations and candy was on sale for 50% off, but right next to all that was Mother's Day! The big stores, and the small, push us to buy, buy  and buy more. Have you noticed how decorating colours for Christmas are red and green one year and blue and purple the next? Toss out the red and green old fashioned, out of date decorations and get some new ones. Toss out the made in China cheap plastics and new ones are readily available and affordable. 

But none of it means anything anymore. 

I am old enough to remember making decorations for the Christmas tree. When my children were small, so was our income. The tree was festooned with little salt dough, hand painted characters, strung popcorn and candies on threads. There were lots of paper chains and kid made decorations everywhere and few if any made in China. Every item on the tree had a memory associated with it and was kept for the next year, until one year the moisture disintegrated the salt dough ornaments and they melted into the paper ones and all had to be tossed. We were saddened because there was some meaning to the decorations. 

Each holiday gives us a chance to celebrate something important to our families. For those who believe in religious holidays, there should be some significance in the festivities. For the rest, it is a chance for families to get together and share valued time. But the meaning of a holiday is not in the giving of gifts, eating of chocolates and candies made from GMO sugar beets, and laced with fructose and other horrible things, or the cheap, insignificant decorations. There should be more to it. 

Let me urge you to stop being caught in the trap of holidays. I know women who feel they have to make huge meals, bake for days and spend hours upon hours cleaning and decorating for each holiday. They are exhausted and when the day is done, wonder why they continue to do it. Society is pressuring women in particular. Men tend to relax and let the women shop for gifts, cook and bake and clean and stress themselves out. How about a quiet celebration for Mother's Day? One that involves a gift from the heart, maybe a hand written letter of love, or a photo that declares that love? Or maybe a home cooked dinner that she does not have to prepare and shop for? 

Honestly, I do not care if my family sends me flowers for Mother's Day. Although we are apart, all I want is their love and esteem. I no longer decorate in a frenzy, bake for days ahead or try to be superwoman for each holiday and I no longer fall into the trap of consumerism forcing us to buy the latest decor. Contentment came at a price, and it truly is wonderful to no longer need to keep up. I wish for you, that this will come as well. It is freeing and much less expensive and all in all, when a gift is received, one knows it was from the heart and not purchased as a dutiful offering. 

We are done with Easter and Mother's Day is being pushed already. Don't let it push you. Do nothing and celebrate that. Something to celebrate is nothing!

Sometimes I am impatient and grumpy, but not usually ill tempered or angry. Stupidity gets me down more than it should, but it is those who are not kind or compassionate that really bother me the most. 

Kindness begins in the heart. One should not be so selective in kindness. If a cat is your animal of choice and beloved pet, and you hate dogs, at least be compassionate and treat the animals with respect. I am not fond of cats in general, though there have been one or two that have stolen a piece of my heart, not quite enough to find a place in my home, but enough that might pick a cat up on purpose to pet it. But I feel that way about all animals. 

I used to have a bird phobia. Truth be told, I do still and always will, but have trained myself to walk with confidence among the chickens, ducks, geese and even the turkeys on the Fat Ewe Farm, to gather their eggs and to tend their ills. It took three years to condition myself to be able to be comfortable around birds, but small flighty birds will always send me hysterically hiding where they cannot get me. I do not wish them dead though. 

After Ofcharka got loose from the snare trap, a local man told me I should keep my dogs tied up and that would not happen. I know neither one of my neighbours north or south has dogs and the they definitely do not set snares. But someone set a snare or more on the property with or without the owner's knowledge. To me that is ignorance at its best. The unwillingness to learn how the livestock guardian dogs benefit the neighbour's cows during calving time, and also benefit the predators, baffles me. I do not wish the predators any harm. They were here long before I was. If anything I am the intruder. I want them to survive and thrive and live naturally, just not dine on my farm. So, the dogs keep the farm safe by keeping the predators at bay. They do not kill unless they have to. In the 6 years we have been here, I have not seen a dead fox, coyote or much at all, other than a muskrat and weasel that came too close. 

The animal I find it hardest to be kind and compassionate to is exactly the one that might benefit the most...that sort of person who has wanton disregard for nature and its creatures and treats animals with anything but love and understanding. Sorry, no I am not really, but yes I am because I am sorry the people like that, human animals, the game hunters, the trophy hunters, the trappers and sport shooters, are so stupid. If they grabbed a brain and treated all life with respect, love and kindness, the world would be a much better place. 

We all need to try to be kind to one another. Goodness knows I try to tolerate everyone, but mostly I stay hidden on my farm where I can commune with my animals, love nature and be peaceful. I am trying to think about being kind to the unkind. I am. Trying. Sort of. A bit. Well. a little. 

My son, who is a smoker, bought a peach air freshener for my truck. The truck was purchased used and is older. Obviously for some years, some one smoked in the truck and it smells of stale smoke. The air freshener is not really an air freshener,  but an air mask. In other words, it does nothing to change the quality of the air, only emits a stronger scent than the lingering stale smoke. That strong scent is a mix of chemicals called fragrance, which mask the odors that preexist in the vehicle. I cannot stand the peach air freshener and tore it off the mirror and threw it out the window (in my own farmyard). 

Recently I found some lovely baked goods at a market and brought them home. They were in a plastic grocery bag, but still , somehow, I kept smelling something like the peach air freshener. I thought I had lost my mind for a bit there, but when I opened the bag to unload the goodies, the smell of the air freshener was very strong. Ah ha! Scentsy in the kitchen was the culprit. And cigarette smoke on top of that, just like the truck. Gross. 

The Scentsy  permeated the baked goods, believe it or not. One bite was like eating perfume, plus stale cigarette smoke on top of that. At first I thought this could not be. I have never eaten Scentsy before, but it makes perfect sense. The smell of Scentsy is so strong it permeates everything within its reach, but the people who use it barely can smell it. They are used to it. It gets in the clothes, on the hair, in the furniture and everything it touches and apparently baked goods too. Unbelievable. 

I have had people argue with me that it is harmless and is just all natural and nothing leaves the aroma dish when the wax puck is warmed. I bought a bed frame and mattress from some one who smoked and used Scentsy. The smoke was terrible but even after 7 months in the porch, the Scentsy lingers. It is not as bad, but I think I will have to rehome the mattress in favour of a different one. 

I urge anyone using Scentsy to stop immediately. Do not subject children and babies  to the fragrance chemical born on the wax. It is not harmless. 

And if you bake and sell your wares, please do not use Scentsy or smoke in the home. For those of us who do not smoke or are sensitive to chemical fragrances, the food is not fit to eat. And that is sad when it is lovingly prepared in your own home. 
Isn't it?

I already retired once. Although I have had many really fine careers, from private investigating to interior design, the one that was the fall back was teaching. I started teaching in 1977 and ended in 2010, however; I did not end up with a full pension because every career meant a leave of absence or working very part time, like a day a week or not at all. But when the opportunity arose at age 55, I was ready to embark on yet another trek. That was the farming. 

Originally, I bought a farm in the County of Thorhild, west and a bit north of here. My plan was to build a monolithic dome home and live completely off grid. But Waste Management, that huge garbage company, bought 18 quarters around my farm to put in a class 1 landfill. How could I have an organic permaculture farm next to a dump. So, I flew home to White Rock and hung out thinking about the next move, when the house suddenly sold giving me only 28 days to move. Where? 

I went online and found where I live currently, flew out in February 2011 to see it and moved here in March, a month later. Unfortunately, the people who owned the place were much less than truthful and the arduous task of rebuilding, repairing and replacing everything, and I mean everything, was begun. A year later the bed and breakfast opened and it was such great fun. The work on the houses continued and there was maintenance on top of redoing basics, like wiring and plumbing. Then the pipe burst in the bed and breakfast house in January 2015 and a year later, it was finally renovated and back up and ready to go, reopening January 1, 2017. 

Things went anything but smoothly. There seemed to be one catastrophe or disaster after another. I had no luck raising the sheep for their fleece, either and felt as though my whole venture had failed, except I did accomplish most of my goals. That was 1. to divorce myself from the dictates of society 2. to stop consumerism 3, to learn how to be self sufficient and 4. to want what I have. I allowed myself ten years in which to achieve success. Finally, this year, 2017, I feel I can say I have arrived. 

The fleece from the sheep will never be perfect, but I did find a crowd that accepts that, which makes me very happy. I am downsizing the farm critters.Last year I sold most of the Babydolls and this year it will be the majority of the sheep and goats, just keeping my Cotswold sheep plus a few favourites,  and moving to mini Nubian goats. I have way too many birds, too. Every day, I am now getting 3 or more dozen eggs. I had a sign made saying Eggs $5 per dozen for chicken and $10 dollars a dozen for duck. I guess it is time to put it out. My last order for hatching eggs is for 100 eggs and now I can sell the eggs for eating. But people here do not want to pay $5 per dozen eggs, so I am not sure they will sell at all. They never have thus far. At the end of summer, I plan to only overwinter no more than a dozen ducks, 5 geese and a dozen chickens. 

I also need to find someone to live with. I do not do well living with others. I am too messy and too preoccupied with my hobbies to interact with them. So, I made a plan to install two sinks and a hot plate in my basement and move into the bedroom in the middle of the house with the trap door to the basement. I will try to contain my mess to the lower floor then and not have to interact with the person living in my house. I am hoping to find someone who loves the farm and would do my chores in the winter for a few weeks at a time to allow me to visit my daughter or to take a holiday once a year. Hoping and wishing..

​But, retirement? I really cannot see actual retirement in my cards just yet. Not for the next few years anyhow, because I love what I have created here and enjoy my life way too much. I do love what I have and want what I have already. How many of us out there can say that? Retirement will come soon enough. Just in two years I will be 65. Maybe that is a good place to begin. You think?