Winner week!!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit our booth at the Great Outdoors Expo in Lac du Bonnet! Not only was this was a great opportunity for us to get our name and products out there, but we got to meet new people and connect with good friends. It was exciting to welcome more like-minded people who share the same passion for local, high-quality food, to the ranch family.
We're pleased to announce our Expo basket WINNER: Elaine Vincent! Elaine is an expert gardener and a volunteer for the Lac du Bonnet Community Garden. For more information about the Community Garden, including how you can get yourself a plot and start gardening, check them out on Facebook.
Many thanks to Jump in the Lake Creations for creating the beautiful basket and help with designing the booth and marketing materials! Jackstones225@gmail.com.
Our ranch family grew even more this week as we welcomed 12 ready-to-lay hens. My best farm girlfriend, Chantal, and I took a road trip to Russell Manitoba (4.5 hour drive from the ranch) to pick these ladies up, which included a lovely lunch at Farmhouse 50 in Minnedosa. For the ride there: beautiful, sunny, blue Manitoba skies. For the ride home: phones buzzing with multiple tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, driving rain and hail storms. Thankfully the birds stayed calm whole way and I had Chantal there to keep me calm (and watch out for tornadoes).
When we turned onto the gravel road, we were greeted with gale force winds and pounding rain and all I could think about were my little seedlings (which were now being protected my jimmy-rigged greenhouse that Rob macgyvered). When we arrived at the ranch, the greenhouse cover had blown off, but the shelves were holding on strong and all the plants look happy. By the time we got the greenhouse cover re-tied, the rain stopped, the skies cleared and we introduced the hens to their new home under a rainbow and a beautiful sunset. Happy chicks, watered plants and a (somewhat) functional greenhouse that withstood a nasty storm….WINNER!!
The new hens needed a home. So, in typical Bernie and Rob fashion, no time was wasted and our egg mobile was completed in 2.5 days. No eggs yet, but the ladies are acclimatizing very well to their new surroundings, so I don’t think it will be long!!
Along with all of our other birds, our turkeys are now livin’ it up outside, on pasture. Since they can fly really well (yes, they escape over the fence and yes, they have flown into my face when I open the brooder in the morning), they have been a little higher maintenance.
But so far, when they do escape, they tend to fly back into the fenced in area and I have taken to wearing a helmet when I open the brooder in the morning (just joking). They also head into their brooder for night time when the sun starts to set and the cats have not had a free range turkey lunch yet. WINNER!!! (Winner…….. chicken dinner?) :-)
