"Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year." - Ogden Nash

Here They Come

It was good that the guys had everything ready for lambs because they came sooner than expected.

"Good morning, Jeannie. How's everything?"

"Did you know we had lambs in the middle of the night?"

"No. What happened?"

"We didn't know until Martin got up. Because he wasn't expecting any activity in the barn, he had shut off his phone, so didn't get the notices from Tony (our Hong Kong shepherd). And there they were – two healthy little lambs."

Three days later, the lambs started coming! At this time, over one-third of our 24 ewes have lambed.

Sunny and Shadow, Marseilles' ducks who were kept in the lambing barn were stressed out having to share their home with these newcomers. And the newcomers' moms weren't happy with ducks being around, either. So, Marseilles' pets had to be moved to the laying hens' berm barn.

When asked how they were doing there, Marseilles described how they were tormenting the roosters by picking at their tail feathers. Finally, the two pests (pets with an extra s) had to be confined to a pen of their own in the berm barn.

There are pests AND then there are pests!

Last summer, Martin and Jeannie had a skunk that liked to make his presence known in the middle of the night right under their bedroom window. Ugh!
Martin designed a motion sensor light that looked like eyes that would come on when their unwelcome visitor skulked around the house. It worked and the skunk moved on. But, now he's back.

Where's Harriett when you need her? Out in the back forty chasing coyotes?
Or maybe it's like Tony's experience from last summer.

"I recall last year when I was at HH, I approached Harriett and found her napping. She woke up and was not 'happy' to see me. I mentioned this encounter with Martin when we were talking about something else. Martin said, 'It is because you caught her napping as she knows she should be on duty!'"

K's Chocolate Chip Cookies have become a popular item.

Konstantijn has been serving us and some fortunate customers her delicious fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. Now, you can enjoy these delightful treats fresh from your own oven.

They are made with Harvest Haven wheat flour, organic raw and brown sugars, organic coconut oil, Harvest Haven eggs, organic baking soda, and Real salt.

You'll find packages of ready-to-bake K's Chocolate Chip Cookies in the freezer. Just heat your oven, place frozen cookies on a pan, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. And enjoy!

Jeannie's been busy making more great personal care products using cocoa butter, shea butter, and Harvest Haven tallow from our pasture-raised beef.

Back to Basics Tallow Face Cream is safe and effective, and nourishes your skin. It's made from organic ingredients, without hormone-disrupting chemicals, or petroleum products.

Tallow, the main ingredient, is uniquely compatible with the biology of our cells. It consists of 50 to 55 percent saturated fat, just like our cell membranes. The result is healthy toned skin that looks, feels, and is, good.

Tallow contains skin-nourishing ingredients that plant-based oils do not, like the abundance of fat soluble vitamins (A, D, K, and E) that naturally occur in pastured tallow, along with the potent anti-inflammatory conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and anti-microbial palmitoleic acid.

Frankincense, camomile, geranium, and carrot seed infuse this beautiful cream with a mild floral scent, as well as provide numerous benefits to your skin.

The Back to Basics Whipped Body Butter is a super soft moisturizing cream made with cocoa butter, shea butter, sweet almond oil, and castor oil. The vanilla and tangerine essential oils give it a soft subtle fragrance that is fresh and dreamy.

Feel good about your skin. Let your skin feel good about you!

We've been learning how important warmth is for healing and all-around good health. One of the easiest ways to add extra heat to the body is the HTE FIR pad. It is soft, flexible, and conforms to any part of the body. And easy to use!
The FIR (far-infrared) pad generates high temperatures rapidly through heating with high-tech high-density galvanothermy carbon wire. The key ingredient to the FIR pad is its utilization of Far Infrared technology which has been scientifically proven to expand capillaries, assisting in increased blood flow and circulation. This heat promotes increased circulation, activates cells, and relaxes sore muscles.

I had a painful back spasm that I knew would keep me awake all night. I wrapped the FIR pad over the area, turned the heat to maximum, and within minutes the muscles relaxed and I fell asleep.

Our friend, Ronnie shares his experience with the FIR pad.

The FIR pad is an easily overlooked effective health device. Frankly, I'd been aware of them for quite a while before ever using one.

Winter rolled around and though I never much liked dry, warm air from the furnace, I also didn't like being too cold either. I began to use the FIR pad underneath my top sheet to provide some warmth before falling asleep. There's a built-in thermostat and timer so it turns off when you want it to. I found that providing some heat to my upper body allowed me to keep the air temperature in the room lower but gave me the warmth that helped me fall asleep faster and more comfortably.

Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and stay up longer than I'd like before going back to sleep. I turn the timer on the FIR pad for 10-15 minutes and most often I'll be back to sleep before it ever turns off.

Aside from general comfort and warmth, it's also very effective for soreness the night after a workout or any strenuous work. Warmth provides dilation of capillaries close to the skin (and deeper), which increases circulation and provides faster healing and recovery.

You can even wrap it around a location like your leg or abdomen and sit down with it plugged in while in an office chair. I never realized how beneficial warmth is, especially when under the weather or chilled.

I always thought of a heating pad as something that only warms up a localized area of the body, but it finally dawned on me while using it that heating an area of your body (particularly around the core) to say, 122°F (50°C), along with constant blood circulation, will circulate that warmed blood around the body, equalizing chilled areas like the feet or hands.

The body knows how to regulate our temperatures and it appreciates any help you can give it when needed. Winter is a great time to use the FIR pad to avoid overly hot dry air in your house – and save on heating bills.

Unlike a basic heating pad, the FIR pad has a very durable carbon heating layer, a soft washable cover, and a quality soft-touch digital controller. The heat is distributed evenly and comes up to temperature very quickly.

Harvest Haven Pastured Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast – Tender, moist, tasty, and so easy to prepare for that special dinner or a quick meal for the family on the go.

Cha's Organic Pineapple Chunks, 400 mL – A new product to us that is very flavorful. Naturally sweet organic pineapple chunks picked ripe and preserved in freshly squeezed pineapple juice.

Enjoy these pineapple chunks right out of the can, in smoothies or desserts.
Organic Jasmine Rice – This long grain variety of fragrant rice, also known as aromatic rice gives off a delicate floral scent. Compared with other varieties of long-grain rice, jasmine rice tends to cook up relatively soft and sticky with a delicate but firm chew. With a texture of a slightly chewy grain that maintains a fluffy and soft feel, it benefits from being steamed and is most commonly served with curries and wok dishes like krapow, as well as in rice-based dishes like fried rice and biryani chicken rice.

Redmond Real Salt, 737 g – There is a vast difference in the quality of salts on the market today. A quick glance at the ingredients label on most salts might surprise you! Many salts contain anti-caking agents and even dextrose (sugar). Others have been heat-processed and stripped of their natural trace minerals.

Redmond Real Salt is unrefined sea salt mined from an ancient seabed in Utah where it's safe from modern pollutants. It's pure, unprocessed, and full of trace minerals that give it one-of-a-kind nutritional benefits and a subtly sweet flavor that brings out the best in each bite.

Taza Organic Chocolate Vanilla Disks, 77g – Stone ground, organic Mexican-style dark chocolate discs with fragrant vanilla bean. Experience chocolate with true grit!

Organic Orchid Vanilla, 100 mL – This vanilla extract is made from the world's finest ingredients right here in Canada. Orchid Vanilla Extract is produced through a careful extraction and aging process, using only the best fair trade, organic bourbon vanilla beans from Madagascar and India.

Ingredients are filtered water, organic alcohol, and organic vanilla bean extractives.

Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic.

Cindy's Surprise

Remember Cindy from this picture of Martin contemplating how to improve the drainage of the driveway and parking lot?

Martin has a cute story to tell us about her.

Cindy was born in the spring of 2015. She was the 6th lamb born in my first year as a shepherd. Last year (2023) was supposed to be Cindy's eighth and final lambing having mothered 25 lambs in eight years! That's over 3 per year! It was a prolific career.

In the fall, I could see she was worn out. Normally, I cull a ewe that has reached the end of her reproductive career, but last year the abattoir was booked solid, and I just didn't have the heart to send her in. She was too thin anyway.

I told the guys to just let her retire and roam free in the yard while the other ewes were getting bred. So Cindy spent the winter wandering around the corral system visiting all the different hay bales for choice little morsels. She would follow anyone holding a pail hoping for some grain and a little affection. Soon she discovered the location where the cats were given milk and started having flashbacks to being a lamb again. She began drinking warm milk out of the dish with the cats and loved it. She waited patiently every morning for her own ration of milk. We couldn't refuse her.

Here's a quick intermission side story in case you forget that animals are intelligent and perceptive far beyond their basic instincts. I stopped by to visit my sheep the other evening and Cindy came running over to me enthusiastically. I thought she was just glad to see me, so I reached out my hand to pet her. She totally ignored me and went right after the bottle of milk that was barely peeking out of my pocket. She had never been fed milk out of a glass bottle before, but she knew exactly what was in my pocket, from 20 feet away, even though it was barely showing. Figure that one out! And people think sheep are dumb…

Okay, back to the story.

Well, it was a good thing she was getting special treatment, because when she was sheared of her thick winter coat, she had gained all her weight back AND it was clear she was pregnant again. I was surprised and thankful. I had committed myself to let her go, but I was really happy I didn't have to.

I started scratching my head, thinking about when that could have happened. Then I remembered that there was a one-and-a-half-day window last fall when our old Gotland ram, Ivan, was still loose in the yard with Cindy before he went out to pasture to help breed the flock. I figured he was too old and too short, and she was too skinny, too tall, and too old. And what were the odds of Cindy being open on that exact day anyway?

Well, I guess the odds were better than I thought! Cindy is a wise old girl who doesn't miss an opportunity.

She just recently had a big beautiful healthy boy. With her being so thin last fall, she didn't have the energy reserve to get pregnant with multiples. I think she'll enjoy nursing only one lamb for a change. It will be like a vacation compared to last year's quadruplets!

"The farmer who is too attached to his animals will lose his farm. But it's far worse for the farmer who, detached from his animals, loses his soul."

After writing this story, I was feeding milk to some lambs in the barn. Cindy got jealous.