December was cold and windy. It was too cold for little Ian to be out at all, and Joseph and James were not allowed to be outside for very long. Usually they got bundled up and then played a little bit on their walk over to Grandma’s house. They had fun but were quite sad […] Read more
Definitely a cold, snowy start to winter
Eppich News: Blowing snow made it a challenge to feed the cows
Tarp serves as temporary workshop
With blocked wind and some heat, a tire repaired on a bitterly cold day
Tires are an expensive necessity on the farm. Just when you think you may be making good progress on a job or a chore, there goes a tire. It was -35 C in December when Gregory was plowing snow to open trails to feed the animals and open our driveway. Thankfully, he had finished with […] Read more
Grain bins make for a good well house for livestock watering
Repurposed materials worked well with solar-powered watering system
Water is an incredibly important part of life. As our drought in west-central Saskatchewan has continued over the last few years, we have had to stretch ourselves a bit and try to find a long-term solution to the water shortage. We’ve dug dugouts in the past, but even with the best dugout, you still rely […] Read more
Time to build the ice fence
Eppich News: Horses find a frozen pathway across the slough
Sunday Nov. 13 turned out to be an interesting day. It had been quite cold and then it snowed. This combination was just perfect for our horses to walk across the frozen slough. At church a neighbour told us that he had seen some horses along the road. After church, Gregory took the truck to […] Read more
A quick trip to the States to visit family
Quite a few chores were accomplished before winter arrived
After finishing harvest Oct. 8, we started making plans to travel to Idaho to see family and friends. A couple of days later we dug our potatoes with the help of the neighbours, Leon and Audrey. October 12 we had one of our Eppich Quarter Horse weanlings go to her new home. As soon as […] Read more
Harvest done in time for Thanksgiving
Dealing with health care was a matter of hurry up and wait
The end of September had a few bumps for us. After the rain on Sept. 19, it was too wet to combine for a few days. Instead, I baled some flax straw while Gregory and the neighbour, Leon, worked on John’s new well. Harvest started again Sept. 24. We worked on John’s oats for a […] Read more
Straight combining — a new learning experience
Harvest underway, and here’s hoping there is enough hay bales for the winter
This year I had the opportunity to learn something new. I had never combined with a straight cut header. We had some organic barley that was very short. Gregory was afraid that we would lose most of it if he swathed it, so he put the straight cut header on my combine as well as […] Read more
Harvest season is well underway
Eppich News: Well water starts flowing to the garden, while it’s a challenge to keep combine air conditioning running
Early August was a busy combination of working summerfallow and beginning to cut hay in the ditches. On August 7 we had a fun family Sunday. In the afternoon we took the boys and John and Barb out to the pasture at Landis and we had a hot dog and marshmallow roast. It was a […] Read more
Great success in drilling water wells
Eppich News: A busy month as old friends come to visit and haying gets underway
There is no rest for the wicked this summer. The old hayfield that we converted into a pasture this spring had been running short of water and so we were trying to figure out how to best manage our pastures and the low water situation. We were desperately wanting to take some bales off of […] Read more
Rain makes an excellent birthday present
A busy spring season looking after crops and livestock
May was a very busy month. Gregory and John did the pre-seeding land work, picked rocks and worked on the air seeder, with seeding officially started May 3. We had more foals and all the mares did well and the foals were healthy. In mid-May our good friend Josh helped us start to build the […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
