At least we think it has.

Our puppy turned 1 year old the end of January.   She has her good days and days where she is definitely still a puppy in so many ways.  One bad habit she has and we're not sure how to break her of it, is that whenever anyone comes to the house be it the UPS driver, mail carrier, neighbor etc. we cannot control her at all.  She gets so excited and jumps and tries to get into their vehicles to the point of it being just ridiculous.  Her ears are totally turned off to any command that we give her, and she knows commands very well believe me.  So, this sweet innocent looking face is not so innocent...LOL

Mari over at My Little Corner of the World, does a Cooking Thursday post where she shares a recipe.  I absolutely love it when she does these posts.  This recipe doesn't look exactly like her recipe, but I'll tell you it was very delicious.  I didn't use canned tomatoes; I used the tomato sauce I made last fall from the tomatoes I canned from our garden, and it made the texture a bit different but still very tasty.

With sugaring starting up milking will be a bit more challenging.  We live in dairy country, so we are very blessed to be able to find calves fairly often and last Friday we were able to acquire a heifer calf, she is the cutest little thing.  I took one photo of her, but I'll have to get another when she's outside and you can see her better.  

We tapped about 100 taps and this year after much thought and discussion, we decided to do bags instead of the galvanized buckets.  For one thing it was much faster hanging the bags over hanging the buckets, and we won't have to clean the bags at the end of the season.  I'm not sure how economical the bags will be, but it will be much easier at clean up time, the tubing we won't do that is for sure, and with the buckets we would lose some sap because the buckets are old and the sap would be rusty from the buckets so those buckets we would have to take off the tree and put them aside so we wouldn't hang them next season. 

So, we'll see how the syrup season goes.  For one thing with not having the buckets hanging, I'll miss the pinging of the sap dripping into the buckets, it's such a wonderful sound, and for us it's the arrival of spring.

So much has been happening here on the homestead.  We are putting up fence and we got a new puppy, an Australian shepherd who we named Suuvi which means, child of the summer.  So far, she's been a good puppy, but as you well know if you have ever owned a puppy, they are a lot of work.  But she's been a joy to have, the cats can't seem to figure her out yet and have been chased up the fence posts a time or two.

It has been very windy here on the ridge lately, and it has not been very warm either.  Seeds are started and I don't usually grow sweet potatoes, but I had bought some from an Amish stand last fall, I was about to throw the last few out and found that they were sprouting leaves.  So, I started some sweet potato slips.  We'll see how they do for me and how they grow, we have never grown sweet potato before, this is our first time trying.

Syrup season started off very slow, and boiling the sap was so different from years past.  We did end up with enough syrup which I use in cooking and baking in place of sugar.

That pretty much says all what we have been up to in 2022, it doesn't sound like much but with that and other things we have definitely been keeping busy.  Winter for me just has been very long, especially when the temps are just staying cooler than I would like and it's almost May and what's the old saying...April showers bring May flowers.  Let's hope that holds true :)

This is not what I wanted to blog about when I did a blog post again.  Our hearts are breaking and I know with time they will heal.  The hardest part is our daily routine for both of us is forever changed.  From the time we woke up, to the time we went to bed, life revolved around her.  Wherever we went she went here around the farm.  On our trips to Texas she was boarded in a kennel or stayed with family.  I know she missed us when she wasn't with us as we did miss her.  Life got harder for Sadie as she was getting older, especially the last few months.  I miss my Sadie girl when I venture to the mailbox now, and I miss coming into the house and she's not there to greet us.  I guess with time, whenever I am reminded of her around here the pain won't be so bad and I will be able to smile and say without crying "Oh Sadie Girl how I miss you".  I had blogged over the years where many times she was in those posts, you can see those posts HERE.

12/25/07-10/30/19

Rest in Peace Sadie girl, you will be forever in our hearts.

Mr and I went north last month where Mr helped our son build his sauna.  I kept the guys fed and Sadie and I would walk which was exercise for both of us.

The weather was nice and cool, perfect late spring/early summer days.  A couple days we would spy a pair of loons swimming in the lake.  The blueberries were just starting to get berries on them. Michigan blueberries...yum!  The shoreline was just so beautiful and peaceful, I totally see why people go there. 

I went to town to do a few errands and took a different route.  There are about three ways to go to town when I head out my driveway and I went along the ridge towards what we call tickle belly hill.  If you were to start at the top of the hill at a very fast rate of speed you will feel like you're on a roller coaster.  I stopped to take this photo as you can see not a car in sight in front of me or behind me.

I've also been meaning to take a photo of the barn quilts that are always leaning up against this barn.  I believe they are for sale, and I think the owner needs to put one up on this barn as well.

One item on the list of errands was to get a new dog bed for Sadie, and after a few sniffs of the new bed she settled herself down.  I think it's a hit.  Sadie is getting old, some days she can't keep up with us on walks and other times she's way ahead of us where we have to catch up to her.  She definitely has a good life.

The garden has been producing quite well, we have had food from our garden everyday.  Walking out to the garden to gather a few things for lunch or supper is nothing short of awesome!

Life sure is grand :)

I've been enjoying the cooler days we've been having.  I've been trying to get out and walk every morning down the driveway and back to get my muscles moving so my back doesn't spasm up on me.  The drive to Madison the other day to bring my camera in wasn't bad, it got me out and about moving.  I took it easy and stopped a few times.

Last night I took my beautifully clean camera and went out to see the fresh cut hay, Sadie of course had to follow me.  Not sure what she's looking at but when I tried getting her to look at the camera she wouldn't.

The colors are starting to change here, which I'm happy for fall to be arriving, but sad knowing that winter will be following right behind.

Breakfast this morning was out on our deck, I call it our outside bistro area.

With the cooler mornings the shade can be pretty chilly, so Mr moved our table in the sun.  Our breakfast view.

Another view through the spindles of the railing (which btw are getting stained), a round bale of hay.  The owners are renting their land to the neighbor for another year or so, then they plan on raising beef cattle.  I can't wait.

Hope you all are having a good start to your day.

Sadie just plumb wore them out :)

We laughed so hard when we saw this.  I didn't take this photo, I had my daughter grab my camera to take this shot. 

Sadie girl has been on a diet since we came down here.  We took her to the vet before we left as she needed to have her shots up to date and I just wanted to make sure she was alright before we made the trip down here.  WELL...even tho I knew this, I just felt so bad hearing it..."Sadie is overweight".  I have to bring her back to the vets in April and they'll be so surprised how lean and trim she has gotten.

I'm off to take a long walk on the beach, maybe I'll be lean and trim by April myself :)

I finally took some shots of these flowers growing down by the beach.  I thought I'd bring some color to those who are not seeing any right now.

It's been very windy and rainy here lately, and this is what Sadie likes to do when she can't go out and about.

We won't let her in the beach house as she just shed a winters worth of dog hair in about a week.  I wasn't about to spend my whole time down here sweeping up after her.  Don't feel sorry for her, she may LOOK uncomfortable, but she's quite content where she lays.

Hope you all enjoy your day.

As I said in a previous post here about some construction happening last weekend here at Gentle Hearth.  We had gone to a park to check out the stairs there last month.  I woke up one morning last week and found a hole cut out of our deck railing.  We've been wanting to put in a stair off the deck and hubby decided last weekend was the day it was going to get done.

Wow, it was a long way down and I definitely didn't want to go over the edge.

I wonder if hubby liked having a camera in his face while trying to nail and not fall off the ladder.

Don't they look great?  Though my husband no longer makes a living building things with his hands, he still does a beautiful job.  Next year we plan to replace the existing railings and that is when we'll stain the stairs to match the railings.

And then there is Sadie girl, here she sits wondering if she can come up.

Oh never mind...Mr is leaving, she'll just go with him instead.

Have a wonderful Friday.