Cria, Steel Roof, Local Food Potluck

A lot has happened here since my last post. First, and most excitingly, our cria was born. She arrived on  August 31st at about 10am. Beth had checked on Ivanka (mum) at 9:30am and didn't witness anything abnormal. When she checked again at around 10:30am the cria was out, standing, and still wet. When the animals birth like that it's a lot less stressful than being there for the whole thing and trying to "help". The cria, still unnamed, is doing really well. She runs around the pastures every evening and once she reaches a certain speed she prances along with all four legs bounding simultaneously, like a reindeer. It's fun to watch her run circles around everyone else. The lambs are growing out of their playful stage already so the cria plays by herself. It's really cute. I forgot to take pictures of her when newly born, but I did take a short video. Until about a week old she had one ear that was sort of flipped inside-out. I put some tape on it to train it into position and now it's fine.

 And a picture from yesterday. She's growing quickly, which is no surprise as just about every time I see her she's nursing.

Last weekend Laura and Craig came over to help out with the steel roofing over the deck. In about 5 hours we got it all up and the next day I did the flashing and ridge cap. 

Done! I'm so glad to be finished this project. It only took from May till now! We'll be enjoying some shade next summer finally. With the gates up and railings all done too, the whole deck serves as a playpen for Ella. 

 This past Sunday we hosted a local food potluck. Back in May we challenged all our friends to try to grow/raise/hunt/fish something over the summer to bring to our place later in September. People were up for the challenge and 57 people came over. We had a fantastic meal with dishes like: Slate River Valley squash, Dexter beef curry, Grouse pot-pie with king bollette mushrooms, a roast Townline Farm chicken, venison stew, tomato soup, Nym Lake pickerel, cabbage coleslaw, Ham in birch syrup etc etc. It was a great dinner, enjoyed by all I think. Later, we played some games including and egg on the spoon race, potato sack race and a hay bale toss. Beth and I were so busy on the day that we forgot to take pictures but Paul got a couple snaps from the potato sack race. It was a lot of fun and we were happy the weather cleared and became nice on the day.

And finally, a snap of the potato crop. Given that the potatoes sole purpose this year was to help in establishing a new garden plot we were happy with the yield. We got about 40 lbs of spuds in a few varieites: Yukon Gold, Russets and Fingerlings.