No, this isn’t a handy household cleaning tips blog about supplies you can use to keep your house sparkly clean. As the saying goes, “The best way to keep your house clean is to live outdoors.” After all, we did not buy 167 acres of land to stay inside of a a house scrubbing counters and painting walls, right? As you have seen from photos in former blogs, when we first stepped foot on the property, it was blanketed in snow. This only enhanced the wide breadth of fields, the “mountain” and towering deciduous and coniferous trees.
Big skies, big fields, lots of trees and more
As much as we love Red Lake, the landscape of the Red Lake district is not conducive to satisfying my farmer, prairie girl blood. All of the trees have always gotten in the way of the big skies and open fields that I am so drawn to. Brad grew up in Quibell, bussing to Dryden to attend high school, so the lucky fella got to drive by big fields every day, seeing smatterings of cows and buffalo in the fields as he went by. (Who am I kidding….Brad probably slept on those bus rides. haha)
We started by dealing with what was immediately in front of us, clearing the land in the vicinity of our buildings. As mentioned previously, it wasn’t really a pretty sight when the snow melted, but it was all there, ready to be slightly “tamed” without taking away from the natural beauty that Mother Earth provided. I have to wholeheartedly admit that one of the main reasons was because of these things….
Yucky, yucky, yucky, YUCK!
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There isn’t a darn thing funny about wood ticks, and walking in long grass and in the trees in the spring and summer is just asking for it. Our buddy Rocky, the neighbour’s dog, was a regular at the house by now, coming to visit every time we came down to the farm. He was always loaded with ticks because he was a true hunter, and spent most of his time roaming around in the wild. I have had close friends suffer from Lyme’s disease, and we all know what happened to Avril Lavigne. It’s serious and we need to protect ourselves. Besides wearing long sleeves and pants and repellent, (yes, you can even buy bug repellent clothing) it doesn’t hurt to cut down the grass in high traffic areas and trim a hanging bough or two off the trees.
Can you hear me muttering expletives about ticks under my breath?
But again, being out at the farm also wasn’t just about mowing grass and cutting branches here and there. We were still wrapping our head around the concept of acreage. We couldn’t believe what we had in front of us to explore. The diversity of the terrain was jaw dropping, and even though we had a TON of work to do, we decided that it be best if we put on some good boots and tromp around in the wilderness.
We discovered through many “bush crashing experiences” a la Brad Beckman, that not only would we be lost in a second if we didn’t follow his lead, but that behind every wall of scraggly bushes )that we had the interesting experience of trying to walk through), was a a beautiful little waterfall or a field of lush green moss, or crushy lichen resting on boulders and more. Beyond our wild flower filled fields is our version of nirvana.
We simply cannot wait to share it all with you.
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