She Left the Farm - February 2, 2025 @goldenoakfarm

The Barred owl at the barn

On Sunday morning I didn’t get anything done besides my post and a shower because I was still down the rabbit hole of filing back posts. I’d made it to April 2024 when I quit.

Once I had the shower, I started on the Roasted Corn Chowder about 1:30PM. I made a base and kept the add-ins separate in case someone doesn’t like seafood.

These are the add-ins: bacon bits I made, raw heavy cream, cooked batata, and scallops. I had an extra quart of stock in case we had to stretch it.

I had set up to make the cornbread, but left the cornmeal in the fridge until Tom got here. And forgot it. It was one of those 3AM waking when I realized the reason it hadn’t risen as high was I forgot the cornmeal. Sigh…

So Tom and I were sitting at the dining room table waiting for the cornbread to bake and I saw something white zoom into the south side trees. A few minutes later Tim looked out and spotted the Barred owl on the fence post. I got my camera and through the double pane window, 300’ to the barn, I got these photos (top).

I can’t believe all 4 came out, I was so shaky.

Yes, I still have lots of VHS and this is one, but not THE one.

So we headed out just after 4PM. They had pushed the showing up due to an Alberta Clipper snow storm coming through at 7PM. I got the chowder on the stove in 2 pots and heating and added the scallops to my pot. We sat down to eat just after 5PM and the chowder was a big hit.

Because of the storm there were only 8 of us, including Tom’s family. He has a huge screen he picked up for $20 and a new projector. He has a streaming service, so that’s how we watched it.

He brought me back around 7:45PM and the storm was just starting. My driveway is glare ice right now, so it’s a bit perilous to drive and walk on. But we got unloaded, he checked a program I wanted to watch after exercise class on Monday was working, and headed home.

On Monday, I have a kitchen to clean up, laundry, exercise class, the program to watch and take notes on, and I hope to finally finish the posts filing job. I will also have to sweep the walks and fill the birdfeeders.