Wyndson Farm

Hot Date

2012-01-29T00:47:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately not the kind of date the title might suggest, even though it didn't happen until after 10 this evening. The kind that involves a lot of hot fruit and sugar and jars and a canning pot.

Every other Sunday I take eggs out to White Rock for some of our market customers. This time I happened to mention to them that if they needed jam, they could let me know, but I had a limited selection. I've avoided making jam since the last market in December, and I was in no rush to get back into it. I did have to break down this week though and make a case (12 pint or 500ml jars) of raspberry jam. I have a customer who buys raspberry jam by the case. He says his 90+ year old dad lives on the stuff. Anyway, he is running out, so I had to make a couple of batches this week to keep the old fellow happy.

I figured I might get one or two requests from my egg customers, but I sadly underestimated that. Everyone wanted blackberry. Weird. I had requests for 10 jars of it. I had one jar in stock. So I convinced myself that since I had all those blackberries in the freezer (remember those 60 buckets we picked?), I might as well just make some. So two batches of blackberry tonight, and another one of raspberry for good measure. I was just cooking, literally. I had my pant legs rolled up and sleeves pushed up. I was hot! Anyway, all done. The jars have all sealed, and I'll have to wait until morning to see if they've set. Fingers crossed.

Please Tell Me It's a Mirage!

2012-01-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

Supposed to turn to rain later, and warm up, and then they are dangling a carrot at the end of the week.

Forecast

Today

4°C
60%

Sun

8°C
4°C

Mon

7°C
6°C

Tue

9°C
5°C

Wed

8°C
5°C

Thu

10°C
4°C
60%

Fri

11°C
4°C

Issued : 8:39 AM PST Saturday 28 January 2012

Leash Arrest

2012-01-28T00:45:00.000-08:00

Jake had another trip to the chiropractor's on Wednesday. At least this one wasn't during a snow storm. His pelvis was 'out' again. After the last visit, we were to keep him quiet for a day or two, which we did, sort of, and the adjustment held for a couple of days. But then after that he was limping again when he got up from a resting position. No doubt running around in the snow, slipping on ice, etc was his undoing.

Dr. Lana said he wasn't quite as bad as the first time she adjusted him, and this time told me to keep him quiet for five days. So I wanted to know how quiet was quiet. She said on leash, no opportunity to do any crazy erratic movements, no scrambling on the wood flooring, no mad charges down the stairs. Thankfully the snow is just about gone, although there is still some in the bush, and it is old, icy stuff.

Really though, Jake is a relatively easy dog to keep on leash, although he can really look 'sad' and make you feel sorry for him. There is a gate at the top of the stairs, and he only goes down on leash. We don't make any fast moves, no mention of taking dogs for a walk or out for a pee. Those words by themselves can create a mad scramble to charge down the stairs, made much worse because each dog figures they should be the fastest and the first. No tossing toys in the house.

So when we go outside in the morning, Jake is on leash, and wondering why he can't race with Luna from the back door to the first gate. After dragging him around with me into the chicken coops and the sheep barn, I was reminded that actually he DOES. NOT. WANT. to go in there. And the sheep were totally freaked out too. So now he gets taken so far, and then I have a big clip thing on the leash handle, and I just clip that to the closest fence. He waits patiently, and will sometimes lie down. I haven't taken him through the bush, because of the icy snow still on the trail, and he just can't figure out why the change in routine. Why is it just me and him walking up the road first thing in the morning, when he'd rather be racing through the bush with Luna.

He's a dog that is quite happy to stay outside after we come back from the morning walk, and lay on the driveway. Can't let him do that, because all of a sudden he might leap up and charge over to the fence to see what the chickens are cackling at. Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day. The sky was clear when I woke up and stayed that way all day. The kind of day that just kept you in a good mood and smiling. So Jake got to share in it too, from his vantage point on the deck.

I am doing my two mile walks still, and it is fast enough that he keeps up a steady little trot. My theory is that some steady trotting like that, with his pelvis in the correct position, is good. It gives the muscles, ligaments etc. a bit of a gentle work out while everything is in the correct position, some practice so to speak, at holding it all in the right place. Dr. Lana said that would be fine, we are just trying to avoid any erratic movements.

Two days down, three to go. Pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.

10k Training

2012-01-26T00:18:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to start our training sessions for the 10K Sun Run last week. Unfortunately the snow ended up causing it to be cancelled, so now we are starting a week late. Meredith and I did go out last Saturday, when the road had finally cleared off enough, and we tried out the first session. And it seemed pretty easy. I do hate to run, but we start out so slow, with our shuffle of a run, that I'm sure that we are moving faster when we are doing the walking part.
This week we do repeats of 'shuffling' one minute, and then walking for two minutes, with a five minute warm up and cool down at each end. This past Monday was the first official training session. Our group of 'learn to runners', which consists of about 25 or so, all went out together. The first session was 34 minutes, and then we did a bunch of stretching at the end. We are out in the dark, so we have to be pretty conscious of the traffic. The group leaders are all wearing bibs with reflective stripes on them, and then the rest of us are wearing whatever reflective stuff that we have. There was some packed snow still in spots on the sidewalks, and the sky had cleared and some of the bare pavement was icy. Everyone made it back safely though, and it seemed relatively easy.
We have a group session every Monday night, and then we have to do two more each week on our own. Tonight Meredith came over and we went out together, again in the dark, and by that point it had started to rain. We just ran on what we thought was going to be a quiet street in front of our place, but there were still more cars than we expected going by. No sidewalks and still snowbanks down each side of the road. I wore a reflective safety vest and Meredith had reflective wrist bands and a head lamp. Guess it doesn't help when you chose to run at the same time that people are getting home from work. Most of the time we were able to step over the snow piles and get well off the road. Thank goodness the rain was only light. Not like yesterday when it was one dark miserable wet day, and we walked the dogs on the dyke in the pelting rain. Hopefully we can do our next session on Saturday in the daylight.

Vitamin D

2012-01-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

It's been more than a week since we've seen the sun. There's been a whole lot of grey and white and wet. The snow is taking it's sweet time to leave. The hayfield, which is a south facing slope, is showing quite a bit of green. That was no doubt helped along by Pride, who had access to that field last week and kept himself busy pawing through the snow to find the grass. I hope he clobbered a few moles on the head while he was at it. Mole hills are rife in that field. The field to the north of us is almost all green, no doubt because it is very open and exposed and when the snow was blowing, most of it blew away. The neighbour's field to the south is still all white, as is our back hayfield. The top of the driveway is still a skating rink.

It was pretty exciting to see the sun yesterday afternoon though, and I headed out to the hayfield for a wander. A couple of weeks ago Luna lost a Flying Squirrel toy out there. I did mention to the collies that perhaps they could find the toy.

Then I saw Jake tugging on something, trying to pull it free from a frozen clump of snow, and I thought 'Wow, he's found it already, good boy Jake!'

And then I saw what it really was.

He did get a little stick fetching in

And then there was a little mole/vole hunting

If you tell Luna to find a toy when you are outside, that only means one thing.

Her 'soccer' ball. She ran off and brought it back from somewhere down the driveway.

And the chickens are happy that the snowy is slowly going. This green is under the fir trees, so the snow was only thin there.

It's the temperature that affects the chickens more than the ground conditions. Here they march up the snow to see if I've brought them any treats. We cleaned some stuff out of my mum's fridge, freezer and cupboards. The chickens are getting some of it. They think it's pretty great.

And this morning, it's all grey and raining once again.

Mr. September

2012-01-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

Remember Chance?

He was the Lab puppy that my sister in Ontario was 'puppy walking'. That means that she raised a young pup, socialized it, trained it, got it used to all sorts of different situations, before it went into formal training to be a guide dog.

Here's Chance the day he arrived last March, just 10 weeks old

And Chance doing some of his training at the mall.

And this is Chance just recently.

Cathy did such a good job with Chance, that he has already moved on to formal training. She spent hours working with him, and just after he was a year old, about two weeks ago, she was told that the time that all puppy walkers dread....had come.

There was a very emotional handover to her puppy supervisor, and Chance was gone, and he had left a huge hole in Cathy's life.

Not that I thought it would make her feel any better, but I thought I would send her this. A book bag/shopping bag/whatever bag. One of those pillow panels sewn on the front. A late Christmas present/early birthday present/thanks for doing such a good job with Chance present.

And here's the back.

And Chance, well he's Mr. September. That's him in the CGDB calendar.

And Cathy, she said after a break that she would do it again with another pup.

Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind

And The Freeway Roared

2012-01-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

Hwy 1, formally known as the Trans Canada, and which we just call 'the freeway', is about 3 miles due south of us. Normally we can't hear it, but when we have a weather system coming in, or specifically a mild, damp weather system, the freeway lets us know. We can hear a dull roar of traffic, even though there are hills and ravines and stretches of trees and buildings in the way. This morning the freeway was roaring. We had been warned for the last couple of days that this cold, snowy spell was coming to a dramatic end. A winter storm warning, with it's red banner, had been splashed across the weather page. A warm front was moving in, which, before it beat the cold monster to it's knees, would bring us some more snow, then freezing rain, and then just straight rain, and a lot of it.

We just got a skiff of snow overnight, and it was about -6 this morning. After we did the morning chores, I went out and removed the snow accumulation from the costco shelter that we have over our old travel trailer. That's the third time I've done it this week. Then I started looking at other roofs that might not hold up under 8 inches of waterlogged snow. I pulled snow off the north chicken coop, and then worked on the sheep barn. A little bit of freezing rain came down while I was out there, but not much. Sometime in the early afternoon it started again. By this time the temperature was close to the freezing mark. The rain was making a bit of a crust on top of the snow, and on a few other things, but it was nothing to worry about. The road is brown slush. Water is dripping off the roof. The roar has died, and now I can clearly hear the train a few miles to the north.

Luna says she will be quite happy to have a less icy place to pee. And I think I'm going to knock the snow off that hedge before it gets all heavy and wet and pulls it out of shape.

Are We Just Wimps?

2012-01-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

This morning we woke up to blowing snow, temperatures of -12 C and a wind chill of -24 C. Probably seems like nothing to some of you, but I suppose it is all what you are used to. This is unusual cold for us. Not a record by any means, but probably the coldest we've had it for a few winters now.

I already know that very cold or very hot temperatures affect Calli's back feet, with their nerve damage, so I had booties on her back feet before we even went out the door. We own two dog coats. I don't know if they actually needed them, but I put them on anyway. One that fits Jake (barely) and another one that would fit Luna or Calli. I figured Calli had that good Lab undercoat, and a bit more of a fat cover than skinny minny, no undercoat Luna, so Luna got the coat. Calli got a reflective vest and a bear bell, so we could find her out in the bush. She has been wandering off the trail, scrounging up things, and taking her own sweet time to respond to our calls.

We didn't get very far, and both Calli and Jake were sitting down and holding up one front paw and then the other. Back to the house I went, and put booties on all four feet of both of them. The booties are just cheap little things from the dollar store, and they worked well, but every once in a while, one would come off in the snow, and the dog would stop and hold up it's foot. We did get going, finally, and Luna started playing with Jake. That was good, as it took his mind off the weird feeling of wearing a coat AND booties. Next thing there is a yipe, Luna stops dead in her tracks, and won't put her back left leg down. I said 'Forget this', and I just scooped her up and started slogging back to the house. I eventually had to put her down, and she used her leg, so thank goodness it was nothing major. Next thing Jake stops, one naked foot in the air, and I scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way. Looks like it's going to be a mostly inside day for the dogs.

So although this story (thanks Suzanne) makes sense, does it depend somewhat on what a dog is used to?

Luna's Snowballs

2012-01-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

She makes them and then she eats them.

There is no way she would have let me pull on those snowballs like she was. She would have been leaping like a fish on the end of a line if I had been pulling on the hair like that. I just left her to it, and a bit later she was all cleaned up.

More snow today, about 6 inches on top of what we had left from Saturday morning. It was a different kind of snow, and it balled up on Luna's hair something fierce. Jake not so much, but his hair is much softer than Luna's, and of course Calli only got a few around her feet.

It was Jake's turn for the chiropractor today, in another freaking snowstorm like the trip with Luna in November. We have been noticing that Jake was limping for two or three steps on his right hind when he got up from his chair or the floor. If you didn't see him get up, you'd never know anything was wrong. Before making an expensive trip to the vet, I wanted the chiropractor to check him out first. Dr. Lana said his pelvis was quite twisted, and Jake was not happy when she was adjusting it back into position. We are hoping that it does the trick. It wasn't an instant fix, she said it might take a day or two, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Since the University had closed for the day due to the weather, David was able to drive me, since he is the only one with snow tires. We went from everything all white and snowing at our place, down the steep hill to the valley along the river. Just past the dyke where we walk the dogs, the snow had stopped, the road was black and wet. It was like coming into a different world. Of course on the way back, we drove back into the winter whiteness. A farmer at the bottom of the steep hill back up to our neck of the woods flagged us down and told us not to attempt it, he said most had failed. I'm sure David on his own would have tried it anyway, but his dear mother suggested we had better take the safe option.

More snow is predicted for tonight.

And Luna, well she hasn't been this clean for a long time.

Turkey in the Straw

2012-01-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, a piece of raw turkey carcass in the snow, where you can lick your plate and then eat it too!

It's a Snow Day!

2012-01-14T23:44:00.000-08:00

Saturday we woke up to 7 or 8 inches of snow. Then it rained, and then it was windy, and then the sun came out. In the evening we got a bit more snow.

To Stink Or Not To Stink.

2012-01-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

No question is Luna's mind. She'll take being a stinker (literally), any day. Eau du poisson is her smell of choice.

The salmon have been spawning somewhere up Nathan Creek, which is where we go for a walk along the dyke. Just about every time we've been down there lately, Luna has managed to find a dead and smelly salmon to anoint herself with.

Here's the setting. Golden Ears glowing white with snow, and the bare blueberry bushes adding a cheery touch to the flatlands. And that schoolbus....well it takes a scenic side trip through the bushes. Actually, it's been sat there for a long time, not sure why. They use old school buses to transport the pickers. Maybe they are just storing it there, or maybe it's there as a lunch room of sorts during picking season.

And here we are. We had a photographer along this time. All pictures are courtesy of Meredith. Not quite sure what I was yapping on about here. Practicing my flying technique may? And the dogs, well they are there somewhere. Jake and Luna are probably already at the swimming hole, which we tell them is closed for the season. That's where those pilings are out to the left of my left ~~wing~~ arm. The water level is quite low, and the swimming hole has changed a bit. Now there's more sand, which Calli thinks is a great thing.

Jake is ever hopeful.

Got a stick, or a ball, or damn it, got anything?

This is the only fish we saw. Calli just gave it a quick sniff, and here is looking for the rock that she had been carrying. We don't think that Luna even noticed it, although really we weren't keeping a very good watch for Luna and her fish shoulder roll at all.

We did get in a bit of water play near another set of pilings. If we haven't taken anything with us, sometimes it's hard to find a stick that will even float. Most of the wood is waterlogged stuff that has been washed downstream.

Jake was the only one that got any swimming in, and not much of that. There was a bit of ice along the edge in spots, so the water would have been very cold. When it comes to fetching, Jake doesn't have any common sense, so we have to use ours.

Jake on stilts, or maybe pilings.

See these teeth woman.....you'd better throw that stick

It was a gorgeous afternoon, the third of four dry and relatively sunny days we had in a row.

And there were three tired and happy dogs

When we got home, I was taking my jacket off in the utility room, and all of a sudden I'm wondering why I'm smelling fish.......

Luna was about eight feet away. I went over to smell her. Sure enough.....

Meredith gave her a whiff, and she thought it was just the remnants of the previous trips. I didn't think so, as I hadn't noticed the smell before. There was no evidence of anything gross stuck to her back, but I got out a soapy rag and rubbed it over her shoulders anyway. Cleaned her off, repeated a couple of more times, and now there's just a hint.

No doubt she'll be looking to top it up on the next visit.

And those four nice days we had, well they are now just a memory, because look what we have this morning!

About 7 or 8 inches of heavy wet snow:(

Bad photo, but that's Nelson checking it out.

Sunshine!

2012-01-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

Just to prove that we do actually get sunshine, occasionally!

What a nice change from the grey.

And that manure pile, well it makes a great perching point.

Sunny during the day, and just below freezing at night, just how we like it:)

The manure pile's a bit smaller now. I moved about 18 wheelbarrows worth to mulch the rhubarb and the blueberry bushes, and I'm not done yet.

We've been promised another sunny day tomorrow!

Wallpaper Paste

2012-01-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

Food of ~~wallpaper hangers~~ champions! Oat bran porridge and raisins and dried cranberries. I was adding brown sugar to the top, but now have found that granola works too.

A while ago I was feeling all smug after leaving the doctors office. My blood pressure was in the awesome range! After being poked and prodded in places I'd rather not mention, I was sent off with a requisition for lab work. While my cholesterol usually was in the slightly high range, the ratio of good to bad cholesterol was always a very acceptable level. I thought it would be even better now, considering the exercise I had been getting. So imagine my shock when I got the results back, and my level was up...... a lot. If I was looking for a bright side, the ratio was still sort of okay, but it was a bit of a scary feeling to have my cholesterol that high. So one of the changes I've made is to switch my breakfast to oat bran, which is supposed to help reduce cholesterol. We'll see.

Of course I've done a ton of reading about high cholesterol and menopausal women, and the more I read, the more confusing it gets. It's never simple. Meanwhile, I'm developing a liking for the glue. A little milk added to it helps it go down a bit easier.

I've cut out a lot of the bread, with butter, that I was eating. Saturated fat and all that. Then I read a few sites that classify butter as a good fat. And today I learned that coconut meat/milk/water/oil etc. is a 'miracle' food. One minute you think you are doing the right thing, and then you read something else that makes you rethink it all over again.

Are You Coming Out to Play?

2012-01-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia....

A utility room is a room within a house where equipment that are not used in day to day activities are kept. Utility refers to an item which is designed for usefulness or practical use, so in turn most of the items kept in this room have functional attributes. A utility room is generally the area where laundry is done, and is the descendant of the scullery.^[1]^[2]^[3] Utility room is more commonly used in British English, while North American and Australian English generally refer to this room as a laundry room.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Uses

The utility room has several uses but typically functions as an area to do laundry. This room contains laundry equipment such as a washing machine, tumble dryer, ironing boardsand clothes iron.^[4] The room is also used for closet organization and storage. The room would normally contain a second coat closet which is used to store seasonal clothing such as winter coats or clothing which are no longer used daily.^[5]^[6] Storage spaces would contain other appliances which would generally be in the kitchen if it was in usage daily. Furnaces and the water heater are sometime incorporated to the room as well. Shelving and trash may sometimes be seen at this area as not to congest the other parts of the house. ^[7]

I've been working at ~~shovelling out~~ cleaning up the utility room. I guess it could also be called the laundry room/mud room/furnace room/dog room. The washer and dryer are in there. There is a sink and counter space and old kitchen type cabinets, and when we moved in, there was a fridge and stove down there as well. It is the first room you enter, when you come in to the basement of the house through the garage. It's where the woodstove is, and where we confine the dogs if they are wet and or dirty, or if we want to keep them out of the way for a while. I have a small fridge in there to store some of the dog food that I'll be using in the next few days. There are some dog beds. It's where we leave our dirty boots and coats and where we store all sorts of junk that we will probably never use again. It was the place where every horizontal surface was piled with 'stuff'. I've just about worked my way around the room, cleaning up everything visible, and now am starting on things that are in bins or in the closet or the cabinets.

It was nice this afternoon and the dogs went outside. But then it was about the time that we do something with them, so Jake and Luna were watching intently to see if there were any signs of someone coming out to entertain them. So yeah, I broke down and took a ball and some flying squirrels out into the hayfield and gave them some exercise. And then to finish it off we took them for a walk around the block.

And yesterday, that window was all clean and shiny, and had no dog nose smears on it. It's a tough life, being a Wyndson dog:)

Biting the Bullet

2012-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Every year, when I start seeing the Sun Run info in the newspaper, I toss around the idea that maybe I should sign up for one of the training clinics and actually attempt this 10K run. I jokingly mentioned it to Meredith a week or two ago. She didn't laugh at me, and didn't say 'you've got to be kidding', so I wondered if she was slightly interested. I didn't mention it again for a while, but in the back of my mind was the thought that maybe THIS was the year. A few days ago I brought it up again, and then she admitted that one of her secret resolutions was to get more exercise, and doing the Sun Run was actually on her Bucket List.

So long story short, we've both signed up for the training clinics. Nothing like putting a bunch of money down to make you go out and exercise. For thirteen Monday nights, we meet with our group, and walk and run. There is a 'Walk' group, and a 'Learn to Run' group. I probably forgot to mention that I hate running, so we've signed up for the 'Learn to Run' group. Might as well go all out, and pay for something I hate doing. Might as well push myself. There are two other training sessions each week that we have to do ourselves. At least we can nag each other to get out there and get moving. It will be fun, yeah right. It will be fun though to be part of that 50,000 body mob on Sunday April 15th. I only hope it doesn't rain that day, and also on our Monday night training sessions. The other sessions, well we can try to work around the rain, maybe...

Training Schedule

Where DID 2011 Go?

2012-01-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that another year has gone. It seems that the older a person gets, the faster the time goes. 2011 was the year that I was really faced with a sense of my own mortality. When my mother had a stroke back in May, at first it seemed like it was just a rather large bump in the road for her, and before long she would be back to her 81 year old 'normal'. The doctors all thought that she would regain the use of her arm and leg, but that wasn't meant to be. At the start of this new year, she resides in a nursing home. I thought my life would settle down again after her move from the hospital, but so far it hasn't. As one issue with my mother is resolved, another pops up to take it's place.
Larry's mother, at nearing 102, passed away at the beginning of December. While it was not unexpected, it still leaves a great sense of loss. One of her two remaining sister-in-laws, (Larry's aunt) passed away suddenly shortly after that, and then one of his cousins at the end of the month. The year for Larry did not end well.
People I know, have and are still dealing with terrible diseases, and some have succumbed. Death does not seem such a distant thing any more.

It was a long cold Spring, and Summer took it's time, but eventually came through for us in the end. The Farmer's Markets went well, but are all consuming in the summer months. I've decided this year to take one Saturday off a month. Three of those Saturdays will be taken up by dog agility events, two of which will involve going away for a change of scenery and a bit of a holiday, and will also mean we will be away for the whole weekend, so no Sunday market either.

The animals are mostly doing well. We lost our old sheep April, but so far our other seniors seem to be getting along alright. The highlight of my doggy year was Jake's win in his division at the BC/Yukon agility regionals, as well as Luna's success at the event.

October brought our wonderful little holiday in our trailer, and this year we are going to try hard to get away in the Spring before the markets are in full swing.

Then there was the long downward slide into wet and darkness and Christmas, and now we are once again, climbing towards the light. We have gained seven minutes of daylight since the Solstice! The interesting thing is that the time of sunrise hasn't got any earlier, in fact is two minutes later than on the 21st.

So here we are, at the start of a new year. Time is passing so fast it is already the third, before I've made my New Years post. A few resolutions have been made, with most of them to be expected to be forgotten after a few weeks. I don't have an issue with that. A few weeks of healthier eating/exercising/being more organized etc, is better than nothing at all. The power walking that I started sometime last year, has had it's ebbs and flows, but I'm still doing it, which is the important thing. My plan this year is to enjoy life more, as we can never be sure of what the future holds, and things can change in the blink of an eye.
Here's to a great 2012!

The Price of Humiliation

2011-12-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

Here's proof that if the price is right, I'll buy just about anything.

While grocery shopping this morning, I wandered through the Christmas department. Most things were 75% off. So for $11 total, for all three, including taxes, we have Santa and his Elves.

I can only imagine what the sheep must be thinking

Give Them an Inch

2011-12-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

And oh those blackberries will take a mile. I often joke that if we did nothing about them, in five or ten years (depending on how frustrated I'm feeling about them at the time), our place would be just one giant blackberry patch. I do pick a lot of blackberries, and it's really handy just having them on our own property, but it's a constant battle to keep them under control.

Last Spring David had cut off at the ground, a giant patch and it's off-shoots that were growing along the fence between the hay field and a driveway that went between that fence and the riding ring fence. We had kept cutting them back for a while last year, and then had eased off, and now they were well on their way to taking over again. It was a nice mild morning, no rain, so I figured I would give the loppers that I got for a Christmas present a workout. I have no issue with getting a practical gift for Christmas.

They had nice long red handles.

All tools should have brightly coloured handles. That way when you put them down and then forget about them, it's much easier to find them. David gave me the loppers. Maybe it was his way of telling me to get cutting the blackberries back myself. They cut like a hot knife through butter. By the time we were done though, and had several times attempted to cut through the fence wire as well as a blackberry cane, the blade edges didn't look quite as smooth as they did at the start.

Every year, the plants send out new shoots, that will bear the next year's berries. Some of those shoots are as thick as a man's thumb, are covered in thorns, and can easily go 15 ft or more. They arch up and over the previous year's growth, and then when they touch they ground, they start forming roots, and that's the basis of whole new clump

Because these particular blackberry clumps had never been that great to pick, they had never been cut back much. Usually as you are picking the berries one year, you have to cut the new canes back, because they are in your way. In that way, the clump is kept under control to some degree.

We kept switching off. One cutting and the other pulling the canes back far enough to be sure that they were all cut off at the ground.

Jake and Luna figured they had us sort of trapped, so they kept bringing us their toys. Eventually we got smart and started throwing them over the fence. Then they had to run to the other end of the field, through the gate and back up the other side of the fence. We gained a few seconds between throws (or kicks) that way.

Just after we were finished, the rain started (again).

Christmas Family Foto

2011-12-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

So here you go, a 'family' portrait. I had wanted to get a sheep and the cats in as well, but besides dealing with the wind and the rain showers, adding the cats was just more than we could handle this morning. I had one sheep all dressed and ready to go, I figured she was tame enough to eat out of a bucket and participate. I had her tied to the fence, but not well enough. The other two sheep got agitated. Luna kept interferring, and then we had two sheep running from the other sheep who was wearing a halter and a red scarf and dragging a lead rope. So there is me with a chicken in one arm, trying to drag a reluctant sheep with the other, back into the picture zone. Wasn't going to happen. Larry looks like he had a rough night, David is dealing with a painful swollen jaw after a wisdom tooth extraction, I was flustered by this point, Luna didn't know which animal to focus on....the chicken I was holding, Pride on the other side of the fence, or the sheep that were really wanting to get as far away as possible. You can just see my token sheep in the bottom right of the picture. So what you see here is the picture with the least amount of participants looking 'weird':) Oh yeah, and forgot to focus the camera before starting the timer.

Hope you all had a good Christmas, your roast 'beast' was moist and tasty, and you enjoyed your time with family.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas To All!

2011-12-25T00:06:00.000-08:00

From our house to yours, all the very best of the season.

May love surround you, and peace enter your heart.

Merry Christmas to all!

Climbing Towards the Light

2011-12-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

My mental image of this time of year is of slipping down a long slope into darkness, with Christmas being in the bottom. After Christmas, I am then on the up slope, climbing up towards the light. I think this year I've felt the shortness of the days more than ever. Not so much the darkness at the end of the afternoon, but more so the mornings. On a cloudy, dreary December morning, and we get a lot those, it isn't really fully light until about 8:30, and I feel no urge to leap out of bed much before then. Sure, there are lots of mornings when I can't sleep, so get up before it's light, but only because I'm so sick of tossing back and forth, that's it's actually more comfortable being out of bed. I was always a morning person, and I want to stay that way, but right now I'm finding it really hard.

Anyway, not that I wanted to rush the days along, but it is nice that we've finally passed the shortest day of the year. The winter solstice happened at 9:30 pm on Wednesday evening in our time zone.

We have been lucky, and the two shortest days of the year have been clear and sunny. Makes for some frozen, frosty nights, but at least we can take full advantage of the daylight hours. 8 hours and 13 minutes between sunrise and sunset today.

Sun and frost this morning

On the Christmas front.....

Well the tree is finally decorated. The actual tree has been up at least a week, but we couldn't seem to coordinate all the family to get together to decorate it. It's been done in bits and pieces. As a person passed by, they might just stop and load a box of ornaments onto the tree. It has so many lights on it that it needs lots of ornaments to cover up some of the brightness. For years we used to get a real tree, take the trip out to a tree farm. We dug quite a few up, and planted them on our farm after Christmas was over. One year we broke a shovel digging up our tree. We cut a few down. Then one year, there was a deal on an artificial tree after Christmas that we couldn't pass up.....so now we've gone to the dark side. Well actually it's more like the really bright side. A fake tree with the lights already on it, a really really lot of lights.

We've even done some Christmas baking. Usually I don't do much, because then I eat it, and eat it, and eat it. No will power. If I don't make it, I can't eat it. This year I broke down. Rum balls:)

Easy Peasy recipe.

From Canadian Living magazine.

3 oz or 3 squares unsweetened chocolate, finely grated (Try not to get any fingernail pieces in the mix)

1 cup ground almonds (I ground up blanched sliced almonds in the coffee grinder. So what if a few stray coffee grounds got in the mix)

1 cup of icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup of rum.

Mix it all together. Put in the fridge to firm up, maybe half an hour or so.

Roll into little balls

Roll the balls in some more rum to moisten, and then roll in the covering of your choice (sprinkles, chopped nuts, coconut) This is the step that takes the longest.

I doubled this batch, and ended up with about 60 rum balls. Probably would have been a few more if I hadn't been eating the batter as I was doing it.

Part of the floor clean-up crew was ready to leap into action if required

Other family members took it easy. Not sure where Luna was, but probably breathing down Smudge's neck somewhere. She did keep popping in just to make sure she wasn't missing anything.

Meredith was in on the act too. She got the cakes made for the Christmas Day trifle, and then made the rounds for the Vinatarta. That's a layered cake made with a prune filling that was made by the Icelandic people in Manitoba. We decided to give it a try, in honour of Larry's mum, who used to make one every year. Larry's dad's family came from Iceland. Not sure which recipe Larry's mum used, so I used this one. A lot of the recipes didn't seem to bother with cooking the prunes with rum, they just used water. I think we probably wasted the two cups of rum, as I couldn't taste it in the prunes after. It's all been layered together now, and we'll leave it sitting for a while for the flavours to meld and the biscuity cake layers to absorb some of the moisture.

I'd better crank up the exercise routine.

The Big Red Present

2011-12-17T19:59:00.000-08:00

I came home with this big red present today.

Let's open it up and see what it is.

Mmmm, dog food

About 150 lbs of dog food. 60 lbs of prepared frozen blocks that the butcher makes. The rest was beef liver, kidney and heart. Pork bones and feet. Pork offal.

I scored with the pork offal! $10 for 20+ lbs. Liver, tongue, and a few unidentified bags. It was frozen, and a bit hard to tell what some of it was.

Jake offered to help me unload.

I spent nearly an hour at a local small butcher shop today. The kind were the floor is concrete, and you can see into the back where they are cutting up a side of beef. They pull open the big freezer door and wheel out wire baskets full of brown paper wrapped meat. It's the time of year that people that have raised their own beef, for themselves and others, are having it killed and cut and wrapped. It was very busy at the shop, and it took a while for them to gather everything for me. It's a good time to stock up on the organ meats, as there are usually plenty, with all the custom cutting and wrapping they are doing. I guess some people don't take the organs. Bonus for me, or maybe I should say Calli, Jake and Luna. Smudge eats little bits of it too, and we've finally convinced Nelson to have a taste as well.

The freezer is full.

The dogs had pig's trotters for supper.

Rescue Photos

2011-12-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

When I was checking the PNW Border Collie rescue site today (which I have to admit I do on a very regular basis, not that I'm looking for another dog......really, I'm not, um...yet), I thought it would be fun to submit a photo of Luna for their Happy Holidays Gallery.

http://www.pnwbcrescue.org/show_bio.php?ImageSize=2&DogId=3663&c=0

Happy Birthday to the Luna (tic)

2011-12-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

Luna is four years old today. No birthday cakes or party hats I'm afraid. Who needs a cake when you get kidney and dogfood from the butcher for breakfast. Then it's eggs, sardines for and more kidney for dinner (yes, I forgot to take something else out of the freezer). Dessert would be a side of horse manure and then a quick trip over to the neighbours this morning on the bush walk, to get a sample from their cow manure pile.

I'll confess that I've cheated and basically copied last years post.

Here's her bio when she was first listed on the web.....

Hi! My name is Luna. I'm almost 1 year old (12/14) and a bundle of goofy teenage Border Collie.

I didn't know much when I came to my foster home but I like these rule things. They make life so much

easier!

I know how to sit and lie down and I'm learning how to wait for stuff and play fetch... My Favorite is the big red "egg" ball

that I can herd around the yard. I LOVE going for a run now that I know what I'm supposed to do while

I'm on the leash.

Loud noises still startle me but that's getting better now that I don't have to be in charge of the pack anymore...

And I would love to find my own home and family for the new year!

Luna is not yet spayed (but will be before she's adopted).

Luna will need a Border Collie savvy home with a strong leader. She is a sweet, sweet girl who will need continued guidance and

training to be the best she can be. (and she has the potential to be anything -- learns and retains things SUPER fast)

Luna would do best in a home with a patient older dog (she can be a bit pushy) but she's great with kids and

seems to do just fine with my dog savvy cat.

She still needs more work on her leash walking skills, but no longer barks at everything and only pulls a little.

AND she's crate trained (handy thing), is house trained and, so far only chews on her chew toys (some times her towel).

She's learning that meeting new people is a really great thing.

Don't miss out on this fabulous girl!

Luna was tested on sheep on 12/13 and showed fabulous natural talent. She tried her best to do every thing that was asked of her

and then some. email for more on her test...:)

Luna is an SPDR affiliated girl with a $150 adoption fee. She will be spayed, microchipped, and brought up to date on vaccinations before she is placed. Please fill out an application before contacting .........

..............................................................

I always get a bit of a laugh looking back through this. Well especially at the first line where the word 'goofy' is used. If you only knew how many times we used the word goofy or goofball when talking to or about Luna.

There's quite a bit in that description that I'd have to change now if it was describing her currently. Do I feel that we've failed her in some respects. Well yeah, I think so. Good with kids, um, no. Maybe because it was something that we didn't work on after we got her. There seemed so many other issues to work on that we never even thought about working on kid socialization, after all she was supposed to be good with kids. But even a month or two after we got her, she was showing fear when little kids were coming towards us, or she could hear one crying. She came from a family with two young kids and a tiny baby. You can read whatever you want or don't want, into that.

There are still issues, but I won't bore you with all the details. Strange men, people leaning over and staring her in the eyes, dogs staring at her, and Smudge could add a complaint or three as well. Do I regret these last three years with Luna, well not a chance! It's been one heck of a journey, and it still is, but.....she is such a goofball, and makes us laugh, and is so much fun, and is sometimes so frustrating......, I just couldn't imagine life without her.

So a week after her birthday, three years ago, we made a scary, snowy, three hour trip down to Seattle with Jake, and two weeks after she was posted and four days before Christmas, we brought her home.

Here's some pictures of the lanky, big eared, big white nosed and footed, teenage Luna in the first week at our place.

Happy Birthday Looney Tunes!

Sunny Sunday

2011-12-11T17:52:00.000-08:00

This post was going to be titled Dreary December, because it was just that until early afternoon. But then the sun finally burnt off the damp fog, and it was sunny. Probably not really as bright as these photos make it look, but I'll take sunshine in any form at this time of year.

When Larry picked up his runners so he could head out to the store, the dogs all went nuts because they thought THEY. WERE. GOING. FOR. A. WALK.

Yep, picking up your runners in the afternoon can surely only mean one thing, it's walkies time.

Since they'd had a good run through the bush this morning, and then I'd taken Jake and Luna with me on my two miler cardio walk/run (okay, mostly walk) just before lunch, I didn't really feel like taking them on another one. So it was time for a game of dumbball . Out to the hay field we went. Each dog had it's own ball, and I had the chuck-it. It all went well at the start, but then I didn't like the fast stops, try to grab the ball as you skid by, somersaults, that Jake and Luna were doing, so I started lobbing the ball high. The idea being that the dogs could get a good idea where the ball was going to land, and probably be relatively in position before it got there. Sounds good in theory, but most of the time they didn't look high enough, and if they were looking the wrong way, they didn't see the ball at all. The grass was too long so the ball didn't make much noise landing, and it didn't bounce. So we seemed to spend a lot of time looking for missing balls. When I started walking out to get the dog looking in the right spot, the other border collie would come with me, but would leave their own ball behind. So now there were two balls to find. Let's just say that the adjectives coming out of my mouth will not be repeated here. Thankfully it wasn't too long before I figured they'd had enough.

Classic Jake pose

I found it!

Luna searching

I've got mine too!

A couple of tired dogs

Out in the back field, Pride was laid out in the sun having a nap. Every angle that I tried to take a picture from, had a fence post or fence rail in the way. I ended up too close and he decided it was time to get up. But first he had to roll. He rolled over two times.

Before he got up to shake.

The hens enjoyed the sunshine too.

Seems we might get some snow on Tuesday.

Trying For Some Feline Christmas Spirit

2011-12-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

Smudge and Nelson weren't particularly thrilled by my visit to the dollar store this afternoon. They didn't really want to look like festive court jesters. I was trying to get them not looking right at the flash, but no luck with that.

I've had this niggling thought lately that maybe things aren't quite right with Smudge, so I'm going to take her for a check up next week. We know she's getting old, she's about 16 or 17. The thought that is now eating away at me is the congestive heart failure that took one of our previous cats. She showed up one day with massive amounts of fluid in her abdomen. She was a barn cat, so we didn't always see her on a regular basis. Smudge isn't presenting like that cat did, but I've got the thought stuck in my head. Hopefully I'm wrong. There's just something about the way she sprawls out on the floor in front of the gas fireplace that's got me wondering.

Frosty Friday

2011-12-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

Hey there humans...any chance of a hungry horse getting some breakfast?

A Hundred and One Years Lived Well

2011-12-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

Early yesterday morning Larry's mum slipped peacefully away, after a very long life.

She was the best mother-in-law a girl could have.

Elizabeth Priscilla Brandson

March 15, 1910 to December 6, 2011

We will miss you

Pretty in Pink

2011-12-05T23:27:00.000-08:00

Luna is quite happy to lend her support to breast cancer research and to those dealing with breast cancer.

I was quite happy to give a donation going through the checkout at Safeway a few weeks ago. The young cashier seemed thrilled when I said yes. She must have been getting tired of asking everyone that went through, and not getting many positive responses. I don't mind being asked to donate at the checkout for a worthy cause. To me it's an easy way to do it.

And I'm quite proud to flaunt this gaudy pink badge on the shoulder strap of my purse.

Thinking of you, Sandy!

As for Luna, well last Monday she was outside tussling with Jake. Next thing I see is her stood by the dog pool with blood dripping from her foot. After I got the bleeding stopped and struggled with her to get a look, all I could see on a foot that was never held still enough was a raw spot where skin had been ripped off between her two middle toes. A long way from her heart I thought. But then Luna started licking it, and licking it, and seemed obsessed with it. I put a fleece bootie on her foot, and she licked the bootie. On Wednesday I had to take her back to Lana the chiropractor for a re-check. Her back was in pretty good shape, other than a couple of minor adjustments. I asked Lana to check her foot for misaligned toes. Luna protested wildly, it was very painful, but Lana managed to straighten them out. One was badly out of alignment, and the other wasn't quite as severe. I though that was great, would probably be the end of the toe licking, but it wasn't. She wore the bootie most of the time, and then when she went outside, I sewed a piece of waterproofed nylon into a tube and fastened it on her leg with electrical tape. By Friday she was still licking it. It was a real struggle to get any sort of decent look at it. I debated about taking her to the vet, but I figured that since it was already Friday, the chances of getting her in to see him before this week were slim. I thought I'd wait it out over the weekend. Her foot was smelling really funky and disgusting but I couldn't see any sign of infection. Anyway, it does finally seem to be drying up and healing between the toes. She is still licking it at times, but not as much. The gross smell has gone. Maybe the pink bootie is almost ready to be retired.

Market Moments

2011-12-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

Today was a farmers market at Abbotsford. After the regular season ended the week after Thanksgiving in the middle of October, there were five markets on various Saturdays before Christmas. I chose to go to two of them, maybe three. (There is one more yet the week before Christmas). For the most part, the market is now held indoors. There are always a few vendors that are outside, some because they operate out of a large trailer, others because they prefer it that way. If there's a chance that the day is going to be decent, I'd much prefer to be outdoors. I lucked out at the market at the beginning of November, and it was a lovely sunny day. It is so much easier for me to set up outside. The jam that is not part of the immediate display can remain in the utility trailer that we park at the back of our booth. It saves a lot of lifting in and out of the trailer, loading onto a dolly and transporting inside. As well as that, there is much more room. When I'm setting up inside, there never seems to be enough room. Mostly room for the ten to fifteen boxes of jam that are there to refill the display once a jar is sold. (On any given day I have around thirty different varieties)
So today was supposed to be sunny, with overnight temperatures around the freezing mark, and sun and about 5 degrees Celsius. A bit chilly to start, but by mid morning it would be quite pleasant. Or so I thought.
This morning when I got up, it was cloudy. That's okay, it kept the overnight temperatures up a bit higher. The sun would burn the clouds away, and I'd be glad I'd chosen to be outside. When I got to the market, there were only three of us hardy souls outdoors, with another twenty vendors or so, in the nice, waaarrrrrm basement of the church. One of the outside vendors was set up in a trailer, and had a heater at his feet. I had taken all the right clothing I thought. I waited patiently, and then impatiently, for some signs of the sun breaking through. It never happened. In fact we got some drizzle. What the....?
The sun never did come out. The drizzle was enough to wet the pavement. It didn't get any warmer, and neither did I. Two hot cups of tea and some delicious soup kept me at just feeling cold instead of freezing. Lots of my regular customers wanted to know why I was outside in the cold. I kept telling them it was supposed to be sunny. Good thing I can laugh at myself. What I think helped to keep me from freezing was that sales were brisk, and it was a very profitable market:) I think if I go to the market in two weeks, I'll pick the inside option though.

Fearless Friday

2011-12-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

Not exactly fearless yet, but Nelson has certainly come out of his shell, and the bedroom, and instead....

Has gone into a box!

If Luna doesn't move fast, he is 'okay' with her. In fact I've seen them almost nose to nose a couple of times.

Jake is a different story. Nelson hisses at him sometimes. If Nelson gets too close, Jake gets all stiff and tall. Maybe he's remembering the time at my mum's when he stuck his head in the little doghouse where Nelson used to hang out, and got soundly whacked across the nose for his rudeness.

Golden Friday

2011-11-26T00:22:00.000-08:00

None of that Black Friday stuff here. Although I did hear there were retailers offering their own versions of the retail deals and madness taking place in the States, to keep the Canadian money from crossing the border. Not interested.

We celebrated that golden orb in the sky, not a black cloud to be seen.

A rare sight this time of the year.

A day where some border collies looked for a soccer playing partner, and others were sampling various piles of horse manure.

A day where dogs once gold are now fading to white

And manure piles threaten to disappear under the encroaching blackberries.

That only took a year. I always say to people that if you didn't touch those blackberry vines, in ten years our area would be just one massive blackberry patch.

A day you thought would be good to dig some more dahlia tubers out.

I didn't realize just HOW wet it was where that row of dahlias was planted, until I put the fork in and wrenched them free of the sucking mud.

A day where black cats with golden eyes, take their first solo outdoor walkabout, and return!

Nelson was gone for a couple of hours. I went out once to try and find him, with no luck. An hour after that I stood and called from the deck, and lo and behold he sauntered from the barn and came to the back door.

A taste of real freedom now means that he stands meowing at the back door to go out.

Nelson has really come out of his shell, which has it's good and bad points.

We've caught him on the counter a couple of times, and that really grosses me out.

A day where Mt. Baker catches the last blue skies and the sun's rays.

A day to go somewhere a bit different for a dog walk.

When you stop to sit on a new bench at the viewpoint, certain horse manure eating dogs find a stick and beg you to throw it.

And then you throw it to the other dog

How dare you?

Okay, this time make sure you throw it to ME!

We were 'good' park users and kept our dogs on leash. Well mostly because we've heard that the dog police there are always on your case. There is an offleash area there, but the place was packed with too many people and dogs just hanging around, so we avoided it. We met a few horses and riders on the trail, and of course other people with dogs, none of which were leashed. They held on to their dogs as they passed, except for the last group. Two white shepherd types. I ended up unclipping Luna's leash, as her hackles were up and she was ready to explode. Fortunately both dogs ignored her, and she was quite happy to dash ahead and catch up to Larry and Calli.

A nice sunny break before the next weather system rolls in.

A Birthday and a Blogging Dry Spell

2011-11-24T08:03:00.000-08:00

It was a fun dinner out at The Olive Garden last night, to celebrate Meredith's birthday. At least it gave me something to post about, as I've been suffering from Blogger's Block the last few days.

The birthday girl didn't get free cake, but Thomas the waiter told us he would decorate what she chose. So a lot of whipping cream, two candles and a red cherry that had already fallen off into the whipped cream, later, she was presented with Rudolph:)

Here's the birthday girl and friend Jennifer.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!

A Mystery

2011-11-19T11:34:00.000-08:00

Last evening sometime before I went to bed, I heard a soft mooing. Now it seemed like it came from the back of the house, and the only cattle around here are across the road or two properties to the south. I thought it was just my ears playing tricks on me, making me think the sound was coming from somewhere it wasn't. You know how it is, it's dark, it's cold, and you really don't want to be wandering around outside with a flashlight right then, trying to track down the source of one little moo. I even wondered if it was the sheep, but it sounded too 'sheep unlike' and so I just rationalized the sound as best I could.

This morning we bundled up, did the bush walk, came back, gave Pride some hay, got The Old Ewe out, and I heard it again. I t sounded like it was coming from next door's, and I start to wonder if they have suddenly got some cattle. Then I heard it again, and it sounded really close, like in our hayfield close. So I look in the direction of where the moo came from , and this is what I see.

Laying peacefully under the hazelnut tree that is in the hay field, but actually on the other side of the fence in the south chicken field, is this heifer or steer, or maybe it is the heifer bull cow called Bert from Craigslist. No, probably not, as it certainly wasn't friendly. As soon as I got within 50 ft, it was up and gone down to the other end of the field. We wandered around trying to figure out how it got in the fenced field, but it was a mystery. We headed down to the other end of the field and it panicked and went over the 4' fence with no hesitation. Got one back leg caught up momentarily, and then it was gone. It had landed on the driveway, fortunately for us on the part of the driveway between the gate and the road. At least we didn't have a panicked steer charging around the back yard. We went out to look for it, but it had totally disappeared. We walked up the road to see if it had gone into the field to the north of us, but no luck. I went back to see if it had gone in the field to the south, as Jake was barking out in our hayfield, but there was nothing. Larry talked to a neighbour walking down the road. She hadn't seen it, but she had seen the whole herd belonging to the neighbour two doors down out on the road last night, so I think the mystery was solved. It looked like that steer had got into our field the same spot it got out, as there were frozen tracks next to the driveway. Hopefully it finds it's way home, or maybe it could find a better home actually.

We Are NOT Amused!

2011-11-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

...said the hens as there was a ~~traffic~~ chicken pile up on the entrance to the ~~freeway~~ chicken field this morning.

They are a ratty looking bunch at the moment, a lot of them seem to be molting to some degree.

We refuse to go any further!

So I led them down the ~~backroad~~ the chicken trail to the clear spot under the trees.

And on our bush walk this morning, parts of the trail were almost obliterated.

So I was smart and let others lead the way.

It was pretty out there, but I'm hoping some sunshine clears most of it away.

Someone Lost Their Snow

2011-11-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

We found it though, and would be glad to send it back to you.

Driving into the whirling snow tunnel

The poor apple tree hasn't even shed it's leaves yet.

Luna had a chiropractor's appointment tonight. At the beginning of last week, I'd noticed a hitch in her step. Just the occasional holding up of her back right leg for a stride or two. I always imagine the worst, thinking torn ACL or something as ugly. Common sense took over, and I considered the idea that there might be something 'out' in her back, maybe a pinched nerve. It certainly wasn't bothering Luna enough to slow her down, and in a couple of days it seemed to have disappeared. I did call to make her a chiro appointment though, and had to wait until tonight to get her there. I actually wanted to take all three dogs at the same time, as that way you get a 'bulk' price, but there wasn't an opening for three dogs until the end of the month.

Late this afternoon, the rain mixed with wet snow turned totally to the white stuff, and by 7pm we had a couple of inches and it was still coming down like mad. I called to make sure the chiropractors office hadn't closed down and gone home while the driving was still good. David had just finished changing to his snow tires, so I offered him a good reason to try them out. Since there had been some cancellations at the chiropractors because of the weather, there was now time for all three dogs.

Once we got down into the valley next to the river, the snow wasn't much of an issue.

Luna really had some sore spots. I think she would have turned around and nipped Lana if I wasn't holding her nose. Lana said it was a sciatica type issue, so I wasn't too far off with the nerve guess. She wants to see her again in a couple of weeks. Jake and Calli had some smaller issues, but issues all the same. Jake and Calli really love Lana, Jake went over to give her some licks while she was working on Calli. Luna is warming up to her as well. Of course the treats Lana hands out at the end of the session help with that:)

Our dogs are much harder on their bodies than we are on ours, they deserve some help to keep things working smoothly.

A Rare Beast

2011-11-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

An ad on our local Craigslist.....
must sell moving 1year old black heifer bull cow friendly pet berts his name ,, come take away make offer im moving hes fat cute wags his tail and is friendly and likes to hug and be patted

Is it a heifer or a cow, or a cow or a bull, or maybe even a dog? Well it does seem certain that it's a male, so it's not a heifer or a cow, but not sure about the dog part.

Craigslist...massacring the English language, one heifer bull cow at a time.

Nelson Tours the Jungle

2011-11-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

The beast has been unleashed. Nelson has been taken out on a couple of supervised day passes. Now he is hanging around the door in the evening, wanting to go out, and complaining loudly. He has got braver and yesterday evening wandered through the living room when all four of us where there, as well as Jake, Luna and Smudge. Of course no one dared move, although Luna would have loved to, but she does know what stay means, most of the time. We could almost imagine Smudge going lalalalala with her paws in her ears, and her eyes closed, refusing to admit that Nelson exists. She wouldn't look at him, not sure whether it was by design or just dumb luck, but she never seemed to be looking in the direction he was. Surely she could hear him or smell him.

Click on the arrow here, while you watch the kind of boring video below. Makes it a little more bearable:)

On to Greener Pastures

2011-11-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

April passed on to greener pastures sometime last night. I thank her for that, as it was really obvious that her end was close. She saved me from that awful decision that most animal owners have to make at some point or other.

She wasn't a pet sheep, but I guess was the next thing to it. And then with all the personal attention she had been getting the last few months, it was harder to think of her as 'just a sheep'. She was one of a set of twins, the first bottle babies we ever had, and she was a character.

April and twins 2005

April on her 14th birthday

April 1 1996 - November 14 2011

Happy grazing, April!

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

2011-11-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

Luna : What the.....?

April : What are you looking at,dog?

April : I think I look simply dashing in my 'new', albeit a bit small, blue and black raincoat

Luna : THIS is what the raincoat is supposed to look like!

The other day I was putting April out in the hay field. And the heavens burst and it pelted rain. So to help keep her a bit dry, I borrowed Luna's coat. The belly strap which is a bit too big on Luna was just barely hanging on by the last bit of velcro on each side on April. And then it slipped forward in front of her bony hips. She didn't care, but The Old Ewe who was out with her was giving her a wide berth, ready to make a run for it if that weird creature got too close. And of course the rain stopped shortly after.

11/11/11/11 Remembrance Day

2011-11-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and this year, the eleventh year, the planes flew over the cemetery in Fort Langley

It had been a miserable, miserable morning. Heavy rain. I was in my fisherman rain gear when I took the dogs through the bush this morning. Fortunately as we left for Ft. Langley, the rain stopped, and didn't start up again until we got back home. I was prepared though. Big warm coat, water resistant pants, boot, mitts and an umbrella.

Even though it's not pleasant to stand around in, rain on Remembrance Day seems appropriate..

It's so great to see the large turnout for the ceremony. Lots of dogs there too. After all, there are dogs that have done and are still doing their bit in the conflicts around the world.

At the end of the ceremony, after all the wreaths were laid, we were invited to leave our poppies at the cenotaph.

A wonderful, touching idea.

That's me in the blue.

Lest We Forget

Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Do you hate going to or have a fear of the dentist?

Do you hate the sound and feel of the drill?

Maybe you'd better not read any farther.

Or maybe it might make you realize that your dental experience, compared to Pride's,

wasn't really that bad after all.

The horse vet that specializes in dentistry came out to visit Pride today.

What, you say, a dentist that does house calls?

The first thing the vet does is sedate you.

Wow, all fear of the dentist is now gone.

You are so out of it that your head is hanging between your knees, inches from the floor. You can't expect the dentist to get down on his knees to look in your mouth, so your head needs some help to get it to the right height. A rope tossed over the rafters, and that fancy padded halter thingy hoists your jaw up to viewing level. Note the floppy bottom lip.

Then the vet puts that horrible speculum thing in your mouth, so you can't bite his arm off, and starts poking around in there with his hand. He pulls out clumps of chewed up grass, and smells it. That smells helps him figure out what is happening in there. He shines his head lamp in there and then brings out the biggest drill you've ever seen. Look at the length of that sucker!

It has a little round grinder head on the end, with a casing around it so that if the grinder slips off the tooth, it won't cut into the cheek.

Pride didn't like the vet putting his hand in his mouth, but once the drill got going he relaxed more. The vet said that happens every time. You'd think the horses would object even more to that, but it seems to relax them. Tooth dust was floating out.

As you can imagine, with the length of a horses jaw, there is a whole long line of molars back there. If the upper and lower molars aren't exactly aligned, one edge of a tooth can develop sharp points that don't get ground off, and those sharp points can poke into places they shouldn't. Pride had some sore spots on the inside of his cheeks where the points were hitting. Since he is nearly 30, his teeth are just about worn out. There's not much left of them.

All the protruding points got ground off.

Then the vet brought out his little pick thing, just the same size as a human dentist uses, and picked away at the plaque on Pride's incisors.

Then when it was all done, Pride's head was back down almost at the ground. The front legs were forward and the back legs, well they were back, and he was well braced while the anesthetic wore off. An hour later he was out grazing in the field.

The vet was great. Gave us a running commentary of everything he was doing. I liked the way he handled Pride.

We had a discussion about Pride's weight. This was the first summer that Pride didn't put on weight. He's going into Winter carrying less poundage than we'd like. Maybe those pointy teeth poking into his cheeks were making for some painful chewing, and he wasn't able to eat as much. Maybe it is just old age catching up with him. The vet suggested we measure around him in the girth area, and then repeat that every few weeks. He said we'd pick up a weight loss with the tape measure faster than just eyeballing him. Then we could adjust his feed accordingly. At the beginning of November we let him into the back hayfield, where we could have taken a late, light second cut of hay, but didn't. So there's lots of grass out there. That combined with some grain and horse pellets will be his diet for the winter. The amount of horse pellets will increase as the grass decreases. Even if he was totally toothless, we could soak pellets in warm water to make a mash, and he could just swallow that.

There's lots of life in the old boy yet.

And somehow I'm getting the feeling we're running a seniors home for animals.

Better Late than Never!

2011-11-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

A belated thank you to everyone that sent me birthday wishes on Sunday!

Thank goodness that it was the end of daylight savings time, as that extra hour was sure appreciated, since we had to get up early to head off to a farmers market. This one was indoors, which is nice, because it's warm, but not so nice because all those heavy boxes have to be transported inside.

Well worth it though, it was an awesome day. The sun shone, and some of the farm vendors were set up outside. We had taken what beets and bunches of greens I was able to scrounge up, and sold them all.

Loads of jam and eggs were sold as well.

These three pictures were taken driving down 264th, heading south, through the spotty windshield, at 90 kph, on the way to the market.

That's Mt. Baker in Washington State that the sun is rising behind, and frosty fields in the foreground.

No, I wasn't driving:)

All the family gathered at the end of the day and had a meal out together. That included my mother, well since she had given birth to me on that day many years before, it seemed only right.

I had wanted to do another sort of entertaining post like I did for my birthday last year, but it just didn't happen. If you want a chuckle, you can read last year's here. It's all the really important things you want to know about me.

If anyone asks, I'm just going to say that I'm 65, and then hopefully they might say that I look really good for that age.

Nelson Finds His Way

2011-11-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

Nelson had some fresh air today. Not that it was his choice, it was mine. I can hear my mother now....'It's nice out there, get yourselves outside'. He wasn't panicked or anything, and the dogs couldn't get up there. I was mean though and called Smudge up. She got to the top of the steps, saw Nelson, hissed, hissed some more, and then ran back down and sat on the bench under the arbour, totally disgusted with me I'm sure. After about 15 minutes I let him back in, and he slunk back to 'his' bedroom. He's actually coming out from under the bed even less now. I can hear readers saying that I should just leave him alone and let him come out on his own terms. I need to comb him though. I had a big session a couple of days ago, and combed out another cat's worth of undercoat. It's incredible the amount of hair he carries, oh, and leaves chunks of all over the bedroom. I did the same thing today, and got another big pile. He is looking a bit smaller now. I found a big flat mat on his lower abdomen. A large area matted right to the skin. It took a lot of careful scissor snipping to get that off. He does love to be groomed, and you can get him on his back and stretch his legs out to get some of the tricky spots, and he seems quite relaxed when you do that. He's very nervous though, and if he is out from under the bed, and you go into the bedroom, he scoots back under it in a hurry.

Yesterday I put a leash and harness on him and took him outside on the grass. He wasn't impressed, and I won't do it again for a while. It was nice to see that he knew exactly where the back door and safety was though.

Backyard Farm

2011-11-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is the backyard chicken crew. Never mind that they have half an acre to wander around in if they stay where they are supposed to. You know that old saying....The ~~grass is~~ bugs are always ~~greener~~ better on the other side of the fence.

This is the ring leader, a scrappy little bantam cross. Wild little thing. We've had him a few years now, and half the time he'd still rather roost in the trees at night. Larry has a 15' piece of ABS pipe that he whacks the evergreens near the coop to scare him out. It's for his own safety, and us and our neighbours early morning peace

He likes to let the world know that he has arrived.

Ra ra ra ra raaawwrrrr!

When he crows, it doesn't sound much like cock-a-doodle-do. But then I've never heard a rooster that really does.

By the time the crew was done, I don't think there was a bug left alive under the pear tree. Usually we have some pretty decent pears. I give the chickens credit for some of that decency.

This year though, the pear crop was pretty well non existent.

April and The Old Ewe visit the back yard occasionally. April is older than The Old Ewe, which really doesn't make much sense, but it is what it is.

April had another bloat session about a week ago. Another dose of the baking soda cocktail did the trick. Then last Saturday as I was just about to leave for a farmers market, Larry comes running in to say that April is flat on her side in the barn, not moving. She's still alive but.....

Larry's not a sheep guy. I said that maybe she just couldn't get up. In the meantime I change back into the 'farm' clothes I'd just changed out of, and head to the sheep barn. Larry has got her up. She's fine, a bit wobbly and disoriented, but eventually puts her head down to the grass to eat. She'd just got herself in a position where the floor was uneven and she couldn't get herself up. She'd been stuck that way for a while, judging on the way she was acting. So one of the first things I do in the morning now is to check that April hasn't got herself stuck somewhere.

And the bloat thing... Well we've figured out that if we let her out where there is lots of grass, she just never stops eating, never lays down out there to chew her cud. She just overfills herself. So now we let her out for a few hours and then put her back in the home field. The Old Ewe goes with her. T O E does have the sense to head back on her own. April has always been a bit of a individual. So today they got out for a few hours in the morning, and then in the afternoon I opened the gate to the back lawn, and they were quite happy to stop there and eat. Fine with me. It was a lot easier than having to fetch April from the far side of the hay field. She doesn't pay much attention to Luna, probably can hardly see her anyway. She can't see much. The best way to bring her back is lead her with her bucket of grain. She seems to be able to find that easily enough.

And you know how they always say that the camera adds 10 lbs. Well that's true in April's case. She's still not much more than skin and bones, and I'm not expecting that to change at this point. She can still manage to walk a 1/4 mile or so each day as she wanders back and forth, so I guess she's not quite done yet.

Frosty Friday

2011-11-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Thursday night/Friday morning was the first day we dipped below freezing overnight. We've had a few nights with touches of frost, but last night was the real deal.

There was an interesting three dimensional layer on the dog pool.

Blueberry bush.

Dahlias.

Once they had thawed out, the foliage was all black, and the plants are well and truly done.

I dug a few up this afternoon. This year I'm not making such a production out of it, and am taking the advice of the experts who say that you don't have to wash all the dirt off. So out the tubers come, shake and poke out what dirt I can, and shove them into paper chicken feed bags.

Pride was enjoying the frosty grass.

Ice cream for horses?

One of the neighbour's horses

And then the sun came up.

Chia Pet

2011-11-02T19:57:00.001-07:00

Jail and Other Stuff

2011-11-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Nelson got his first taste of the great outdoors yesterday. The bedroom he spends most of his time in has a dresser right under the window. He sits on the top of it and stares out into the backyard. The window is open a crack so he can hear and smell what's going on out there. Yesterday I set the x-pen around the back door to the deck, and blocked the stairs so that Jake and Luna couldn't get up there. He spent a lot of time out there. He would go back in, and then come back out. Once he even went back into his hidey hole under the bed, and then later I saw him outside again. At suppertime, while we were all at the table, and Jake and Luna were laying close by, he actually wandered over to check to see if the door was still open. That's the bravest we've seen him be, when people and dogs are around. Unfortunately later that evening, he went downstairs, met Luna, turned and ran, and the chase was on. Probably totally freaked him out, as there was a dog dish on the stairs that Luna sent flying with a lot of crashing and banging. She was stopped as soon as we realized what was happening, but poor Nelson didn't reappear for the rest of the evening. He made up for it by having three 'wowwwwwwwing' sessions during the night:(

I had planned on getting some garden cleanup done in the afternoon, but spent quite a bit of time helping 'Brent'. A guy takes on a whole new persona when he buys coveralls from the thrift store. We had picked out some dead trees to add to our wood pile. Unfortunately when ~~Larry~~ Brent cut down the biggest one, it got hung up on a branch of another tree. So that involved a long rope, with a stick tied to the end, that got thrown up and over a branch on the cut tree. That allowed us to tie the rope around the tree about 15' from the ground. We both went out to the end of the rope and pulled, and down she came.

Lots of the wood is what someone else called 'peckerwood' (see the holes?), but it is all dead and dry and can be burned this winter.

It turned into a good evening for those trick or treaters

And for fireworks. We drove a couple of miles to watch the fireworks set off by the local firefighters and community group. We could have gone right there and stood in the cold and battle the crowd when it came time to leave.

We just drove until we had a decent viewing area and sat in the warm car. This was my first attempt at firework photos. A tripod would have been a good idea. Since the shutter speed was 2 seconds, by the time I'd taken one photo, and the camera was ready to go again, I'd already missed part of the next firework.

Hope you had a happy and safe Halloween.
Now to see about getting some of those half price mini chocolate bars!

Soccer Players

2011-10-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Most of you know how Luna loves to play soccer.

I think I've found her a worthy opponent. It would involve a trip to Africa, but then I've always wanted to go there.

http://www.wimp.com/lionsoccer/

The only thing is, her opponent might decide to play dirty, and eat her for lunch.

I bet he'd be red carded though.

He's certainly better at getting the ball out of the river than she is.

Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson

2011-10-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

aka Nelson aka bedroom cat.

Nelson was my mum's cat. She adopted him from the Langley animal shelter six years ago this month, a couple of weeks after her keeshond Keesha was put down.

Now that was a Thanksgiving dinner to remember. Mum and Keesha were here for dinner. Keesha had some sort of major seizure/event. David, Larry and my mum all went to the vet, just around the corner from us, who thankfully had had his turkey dinner the night before. While I continued cooking ours, unfortunately the vet suggested that considering Keesha's advanced age, added to what the xrays were showing him, that it was best to let her go.

Before we sat down for dinner, Larry and David had buried her under our oak tree.

Let's just say that that Thanksgiving dinner was not a joyful event.

Anyway, my mum felt the immediate need to fill the hole the Keesha left (although there was many a time that she found Keesha annoying, and would have been glad to have her gone). I suggested that she adopt a middle aged to older cat, but no, she wanted a younger cat.

Nelson (who was listed as Nero), had come in as a stray, extremely matted, and now sported an unbecoming lion cut. His back, sides and all but the end of his tail had been shaved. Mum figured that she would be able to sort that out, and to give her her due, she was excellent at keeping her animals well groomed. We never saw a better groomed keeshond than Keesha, and Nelson also was kept looking good, once his hair grew back in. Oh, and once we figured out that a comb was better for his coat than a brush.

So Nelson thrived. He quickly went from an inside cat to an inside/outside one. He had a cat door, so he could come and go as he pleased. He was company. My mum's mental state had it's ups and downs. She suffered from depression. Having a pet is supposed to help with depression, but when she was at her worst, she found Nelson extremely annoying. He is a very very vocal cat. I think somewhere under all that hair there is a Siamese cat lurking. She took his meowing as demanding food, of the canned smelly kind. I tried to convince her that if she ignored him, instead of eventually giving in and putting meat in his dish, the meowing might decrease. She could never hold out. It wasn't so much that she was giving in to Nelson, it was that she couldn't stand the meowing. It was a love/hate relationship, sometimes heavier on the hate than love. She wanted us to take Nelson, I refused. Reason being that we had an old cat Smudge that had been on her own for a long while. Add Luna to the mix, who fixates on Smudge, and then take Nelson who is terrified of the dogs. Add to that the fact that we didn't want another cat, as well as my Mum trying to use us as an easy 'out'. Then she would get to feeling better and Nelson would be sort of back in her good books again.

At one point I had found someone looking for a cat, we had a few telephone conversations, and it was all set for me to meet him at my mum's to pick up Nelson.

My mum phoned me at the last minute to cancel out, she couldn't do it, she couldn't let Nelson go. The guy was already on his way out from Vancouver, and I had to phone and tell him no.

Several times after that, she regretted that decision.

So time moves on and my mum had a stroke last May. She has not been at home since then. Nelson came and went, he had a feeder, and every few days I was there, and gave him a brush and some attention, and gave him some smelly canned food. He was always in the house when I arrived.

Then he wasn't there. He was still eating the canned food but we rarely saw him. Turns out one of the neighbours that used to stop by to give him some attention, was now feeding him at her place, and letting him inside.

Unfortunately she did not want to keep him. I tried to convince her that Nelson would be better with her than at our place, but it was in vain.

So last Sunday we brought him home. His safe place is in an under bed storage box in the spare bedroom/storage room/repository of all things that we don't know where else to put. He has a litter box and food and water in there. He ventures out a bit when he feels it is safe. Tonight at supper time, the dogs were in the basement, and it was just Larry and I, and he wandered over and sat by the dining table, looking relatively relaxed.

Smudge seems to be pretending he isn't there. Luna is managing to contain herself and stay when she is told. Don't expect any pictures of Nelson and Luna together any time soon. He is doing lots of 'wowwwwwwing'. The spare bedroom is next to ours. He 'wowwws' something awful a few times during the night. Last night Luna was shut in our room and we gave Nelson the run of the house. He still 'wowwwed' enough to wake us up. He is quite a spooky, nervous cat, and I don't think he's really used to men. It's going to take a lot of time for him to transition from a house with one old lady, to here with another cat, three dogs and four people, two of them being male.

If we move towards him, he usually just scoots back into his hidey hole under the bed. It took a lot of coaxing to get him up on the top of the bed last night. Funny though, the camera flashing a few times in front of him didn't seem to bother him.

One day (and night) at a time.

Raking up Fall

2011-10-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day.

Perfect.

The leaves were dry, so with the ~~help~~ hindrance of my lovely sidekick Luna, we got all the leaves on the driveway raked up and spread down the raspberry rows. I had to tell myself to not worry about trying to get every last leaf, because there are many many more to come.

Thank goodness for yesterday. Today was just the opposite. 5 degrees Celcius when we walked through the bush this morning, with rain to boot. Yuk.

I had to break down and get out a pair of jeans today. The first jeans I've worn in months, since sometime in the Spring. It's that British blood, weren't we all raised wearing shorts and knee socks?

I will admit to wearing the occasional full length pants since then, but to me jeans mean cold weather, and I'm reluctant to give up on mild sunny days just yet.

Remember the Alien?

2011-10-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Actually it was an alien spaceship

because when I cut it open, these two green men were inside

And then I killed them, and hacked them into little pieces.

Is it cannibalism if you eat aliens?

Like predicted, they were woody, and tasted like turnips.

I found a little ~~spaceship~~ kohlrabi yesterday, and when I cut it open, there were no aliens inside.

It was nice and crunchy and not woody and tasted like broccoli stems.

Okanagan Falls

2011-10-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

So yeah, we figured Okanagan Falls was a good place to be. We spent three nights there.

We did lots of walking and bike riding. The first full day we walked up the side of Skaha lake on the TC trail for quite a ways. And then of course found a place with good access to the lake, and the dogs got a good swim. Skaha Lake is much warmer than the Similkameen River.

Afterwards Larry and I headed off south down the side of the Okanagan River. It runs in a channel with dykes on each side, and there are a few weirs along the way, with dramatic warning signs about the certainty of drowing if you decided you wanted to swim in the turbulence below the weir.

At the end we were looking at Vaseaux Lake, which is between OK Falls and Oliver. A great place for a blanket, a bottle of wine, and whatever you like best with that.

We had to make do with water and a couple of granola bars.

The next day we took the dogs down that same walk. Not a relaxing walk. Jake and Luna kept heading to the water, and I kept having a fit every time they got too close to the weirs and their turbulence. All the extra walks the dogs were getting had caught up with Calli, and her back end was collapsing. I had taken a harness along for just that situation, but it was a lot of hard work holding her up. We were glad to get back to the truck and go exploring up Green Valley Road. We did figure out where we went wrong on our trip into the OK Falls/Oliver area.

Lots of salmon swimming up the river, and we could see a few trying to jump up the weirs. I tried to get pictures of the jumping, but despite hanging over the rail of the bridge, and trying to be patient, it never worked in my favour.

The next afternoon Larry and I got on our bikes and rode over that trestle bridge and along the trail to see how close we could get to Penticton before we ran out of daylight.

We only got 2/3 of the way, because I got distracted by some big patches of Oregon Grapes, and had to stop and pick a couple of bags.

We did hit a stretch that passed through a residential area, at Kaleden. This is the Kaleden Hotel, or was. Looked like a good place to me for a haunted house at Halloween.

And then there was the dog beach at the park on the east side of the campsite. Great sand, shallow water. The lake always started off calm, but the wind would pick up and blow straight off the lake. Not particularly pleasant if you weren't in a bit of a sheltered spot. This last morning it was just a breeze, you can see the ripples in the next photo. Much nicer:)

You had to throw the balls out a long way before the dogs had to swim.

We fit in one last bike ride before we headed home. The weather this day was perfect, with very little wind. I certainly could have stayed longer.

This is looking west across the Okanagan River where we walked and rode, with Green Valley Road in the background. It winds it's way up to that low spot between the hills. That large green spot on that hill to the left is a vineyard.

Grapes behind deer fencing and under bird netting were everywhere.

We headed home about mid afternoon, with a dog stop at Princeton and the cold Similkameen River again.

It was a bit of a white knuckle ride from Princeton to Hope, it was dark through the last half of that stretch. I sure didn't remember doing all that uphill on the way out. It was much steeper going back down:(, and the brake on my side of the truck just didn't seem to work at all. A relief to get back down to the relatively flat land.

And then we got home and found out that the tail lights of the trailer weren't working. Lovely. At least this time we had remembered to put insurance on the trailer, which we hadn't remembered to do when we took the one day trip to Ft. Langley.

It's always good to get home, I guess, although I wasn't so sure about it this time.

It was a great trip, mostly relaxing, I got two books read.

The Old Ewe and April had both survived our neglect.

My mother.....well we are still working on that.

Oliver, or Maybe Not

2011-10-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Early afternoon we headed north out of Keremeos, took the turn off to Twin Lakes, and tried to end up at Oliver via the back roads. A lot of twists and turns and downhills, and when we stopped to read the sign at the White Lake Radio observatory, we could smell burning brakes. One of the wheels on the trailer was hot. We took it easy after than, but didn't come out on the main highway quite where we thought we would. Larry remembers on a previous trip coming out right at Oliver. This time we were much farther north, past Okanagan Falls. Definitely took a wrong turn somewhere. So we headed back south to Oliver and started checking out the campsites we had read about. We had planned on spending a few days there. We were interested in cycling the trail that runs along the Okanagan River. What had sounded just lovely in the accommodation guide and on the internet, wasn't quite that in person. All the government campsites were closed for the season, which is really frustrating, and more than one person we talked to felt the same way. There is a lovely campsite right in Oliver, next to the river and the Trans Canada Trail, run by the town. Nice grassy sites, next to a park. Closed at Thanksgiving. We wasted a lot of time and gas, driving back and forth. A few of the RV parks were right in the town, with nowhere to walk the dogs close by. It wouldn't be so bad with just Jake and Luna, but Calli makes it a bit harder. Because she has limited bladder control, she doesn't always pee in the appropriate location. When she's gotta go, she just goes. So you kind of want some sort of grassy area really close by. Anyway, Larry remembered passing a more 'rural' looking campsite on the drive between OK Falls and Oliver. So back north we went. Well that campsite had closed early because they were doing renovations. They were quite helpful, and phoned a few other places for us. Back to OK Falls we went. There is a lovely government campsite there, but of course it had just closed. We drove around town, and then ended up at Sun and Sand. The kind of place we would normally avoid. There were only three other RV's in there on a nightly basis, so it wasn't full, and all the rest were there year round, although not occupied. It was even partially shut down for the winter. The water hookups were turned off, and the washrooms, including the showers, were closed. On the plus side though, there was a park right across the street, and at the other end of that park, was the Trans Canada Trail.

Here's the dogs and I the next morning, in the park, looking back at our truck and trailer. The dogs seem to know that Larry is moving around in the trailer, and are waiting for him (in vain). Before we walked up to this bench, there was a whole flock of quail, sunning themselves on the concrete pad. One of those photos that the camera batteries said I wasn't going to get.

Looking the other way there is the Trans Canada trail, running over that trestle bridge and then all the way along the lake to Penticton. On the other side of the campsite was a park and beach, and part of that beach was assigned to the dogs.

We figured we were in a pretty good spot.

Goodbye Oliver, hello Okanagan Falls!

Keremeos

2011-10-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

Our next stop was Keremeos. That was where we had originally planned on staying the first night, so the second day it was only an hour or so drive.

That mountain was across the other side of the highway, to the north. Standing in the campsite, it looked twice as high as it does here. We really felt like it was looming over us, and were hoping the big earthquake didn't hit while we were there. Keremeos is in a narrow east/west valley. The mountains to the south are just as high, and at the campsite the sun had dropped behind them by 4 pm. That's their shadow on the scree slope.

Campsites in Keremeos seem to be limited, I think this might have been the only one in town. We tend to shy away from the private campsites, but at times you have no choice. This one was fine for the one night we stayed there. Great for the dogs, as where I was standing to take this shot was part of the old Kettle Valley railway I believe, and a good place to walk the dogs off leash. This was the only place we used the poochmobile, and Calli WAS. NOT. HAPPY.:( She whined and complained loudly the whole ride. A place new to her, so she wanted to be out and sniffing around.

So we stopped here on the way back and did the fetch/swim thing. We were slaves to the dogs.

Still the Similkameen River, and it was still cold. Don't Jake and Luna look cold?

Calli had got a rock and she was happy.

We let her walk the rest of the way back.

Later on we left the dogs in the trailer and headed out by ourselves with the bikes. Great to ride past all the orchards, check out the fruit stands.

See some really unusual fruit trees.

See that fence on the left side of the road. Many of the orchards are behind 8' fences to keep out the deer. Makes them look more like a prison than an orchard.

Windfall fruit all over the ground. It was making my frugal fingers twitch. We did 'steal' a peach, it was not bad.

We rode through the 'downtown' area. Checked out real estate, bought some snacks, bought some fruit. That evening we went to the end of the campsite where there was a big grassy area. Had a resounding game of fetch and soccer. Far enough away from the river to be safe:), but close enough that a couple of hot collies could head over the dyke and into the river to cool off.

So yeah, really, as a campsite to be in with the dogs, it was pretty darn good. We didn't even put the leashes on them. Straight from the trailer up on to the dyke/rail bed and away we went.

The campsite had pay showers. In the end we decided to wait until our next stop, hoping for free showers. That was a mistake.

The nights were cold, and since we didn't have the furnace going while we slept (too noisy for me, who cares about Larry!), the batteries in the camera weren't very happy. Maybe they were just getting old anyway, but in the mornings it took them a while to agree to actually work, and I missed some nice shots. I took the batteries out one night and put them under my pillow, but that didn't help either.

And speaking of the furnace, it was so nice to have it. Not that Jake was very thrilled about it. He was never quite sure were to lay to get away from it, what with the actual furnace in the middle of the trailer and a hot air vent at each end.

Last year at this time when we were camping, we found that the furnace wasn't working, despite having been serviced that Spring, and it made for some long cold evenings.

The advantage of staying in a private campsite.

Electricity!

Is that toast for me?

Because our trailer is so small, three dogs laying on the floor means you are constantly stepping over them every time you need to get up to get something. So we'd get Luna and Jake on one seat, and we'd sit on the other, and Calli was either under the table or out in the middle of the floor, which left a bit more of the floor space bare.

On to Oliver!

Heading out.

2011-10-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

The days of two farmers markets every weekend came to an end, so we were desperate to get away for a bit of a break. The weather forecast wasn't so great, so we waited a few days, and then finally we and the weather were ready. We had actually hoped to leave Calli at home ( I know, I know!), just to make it a bit easier on us. That wasn't meant to be though, with David away working in California, and Meredith working and house, horse and dog sitting for our neighbours. She'd only be at home here enough to feed April and Pride, let out and shut in the chickens, and collect the eggs. So Calli and the poochmobile came along.

Just before we were ready to leave, I happened to look at the sheep, and realized that The Old Ewe was not to be seen. Then I remembered that when I had shut the chickens in after dark the night before, I hadn't seen her with the other sheep then either. Immediately I realized something was wrong. When you only have a few animals, you get to know them well, and any slightly off behaviour sticks out like a sore thumb. Three sheep grazing, and one laying down in another spot by itself, well it's enough to warrant a second look. So into the field I went, and there was TOE in the barn by herself. Head down, flanks sunken, looking, well, like one sad sick sheep. I pushed her out of the barn and out onto some fresh grass. Wasn't interested. Her legs seemed weak, and she was holding one front one weirdly. If I put her off balance or tried to move her too fast, she went down. She seemed to be trembling a bit. I was trying to figure it out.

I went in and dug out my sheep literature. The B.C. government info lists a whole pile of main symptoms and secondary symptoms, and gives suggestions as to what might be the cause. Nothing matched up. Dug out my old 'Raising Sheep the Modern Way'. Looked up salt poisoning. Trembling and leg weakness were listed. A few days before, I had put in a new salt block. Nothing much other than a few tiny bits were left of the previous one. The new one was getting lots of action, so salt overload was a possibility. The cure was to give plenty of fresh water. I added some molasses to some warm water, and offered it to the ewe. She drank 1 1/2 to 2 litres. I gently pushed her back into the field, and she eventually lowered her self down under a tree. Meanwhile we just waited. Well not exactly waited. The zucchini got picked, the few pears that were left and half a bucket of the Fall raspberries got picked as well. Didn't want to leave Meredith with a dying sheep. A conundrum. Here's our chance to get away, we were all packed and ready to go, but it didn't seem right to just go and leave a sick sheep behind. We kept looking at her to see if there was any improvement. Larry came in once and said he thought she was chewing her cud. I went out to look. No she wasn't. But then lo and behold, a bit later I looked, and yes she was chewing her cud. A positive sign! She chewed for a long time, looking totally normal while doing so, so I said let's go!

And we were off.

And do I know if it was a salt overload? Nope, but seemed like a good possibility. Needless to say, the salt block was removed while we were away.

Manning Park.

That's fresh snow on that there hill. Some lovely fall colours on the few deciduous trees, which I totally sucked at getting a decent photo of.

Since we were later leaving home, we didn't get as far as we had planned the first day.

The first night was spent at Bromley Rock campsite. It's a government one, one of the few that was still open. There was only ourselves and one other camper in there. That's the Similkameen River right below us.

The dogs got some beach time that evening, and then the next morning. Some swimming too, but the water was really cold, so it wasn't long before they were shivering.

Calli stuck to digging in the sand.

After the water time, I dug out Luna's basketball. Figured since the campsite was deserted, she could chase the ball around. Larry did comment that we'd better be careful. If the ball went over the edge and made the wrong bounce, it would be in the river. Luna sent it over the edge and then brought it back up. The second time that happened, she came back up without it.

Damn!

I went to look and the ball wasn't just in the river, it was about 20 feet out, and heading downstream. Right there the river was fairly smooth, but it was moving along at a good clip. Just a little further downstream there was a back eddy, so I was hoping the ball would get caught in there and come closer to shore. The wind was against us though. It was blowing the ball farther out into the river, so it didn't get caught in the back eddy, it just kept on going. Luna and I were following it along the shore. She seemed quite concerned. I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to take any drastic measures to try and save a $3 ball. We kept on going. Most of the river bank was big rocks and boulders that we were scrambling over. I kept seeing something ahead that I thought might send the ball into shore. There were some small rapids. One time Luna swam out and got behind the ball and pushed it towards shore. I encouraged her, frantically yelling 'push, push'. One push was all she did.

We kept on going, scrambling over the rocks. I kept looking for something that might direct the ball closer to shore. I found a long stick. Finally I saw a rock that the ball was headed right towards. I was hoping that it would pass on the shoreward side, but it didn't. It did get caught in the water swirl around the rock though, and pulled in behind it, which directed it closer to shore. I could see that the water was getting shallower, so picked up speed to get ahead of the ball, kicked off my shoes and socks and waded in, and voila!

Meanwhile back at the campsite.....

Larry had walked the whole length of the site with the other two dogs, hoping to spot Luna and I down by the water. He didn't see us. He pictured me slipping and hitting my head on a rock.

I tucked the ball under my arm and Luna and I headed up the hill. We were way past the campsite at this point, and came out at the edge of the highway. Since I didn't have a leash, we went back down to the river and walked along until we got back even with the campsite.

All's well that ends well. The ball went straight back into the trailer.

Oh, when we scrambled up the hill to the highway, I found two bright yellow Stanley crowbar thingies.

Score!

On to Keremeos.

The Okanagan

2011-10-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

Been there

Got the ~~t-shirts~~ tennis balls.

There were are 6, but I can't find the other Chuckit ball. Maybe we found the same ball twice, come to think of it. I found that one, maybe for the second time. Jake found four balls, and Luna found one.

I think Jake found one of those green ones, three mornings in a row, right down along the water line in the photo at the top. We were picturing a tennis court at the waters edge, at the other end of the lake (Penticton), and the balls being blown down to the Okanagan Falls end where we were. (The wind was blowing straight down the lake by mid morning).

Got back last night from a 5 1/2 day break from home, in the beautiful Okanagan.

All the boring details yet to come.

Poochmobile-Trial Run

2011-10-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finished off a project that first started three years ago, or maybe it's four. I bought a bike trailer off Craigslist, with the intention of making suitable for Calli, and maybe Jake as well, to ride in. I know it was before we got Luna. I took the two sling seats out, and then tried to figure out how to make a solid base in the bottom, while keeping it lightweight. For some reason I never got it finished.

Because we are going to be doing some biking in the next few days, and will have the dogs with us, I suddenly decided yesterday afternoon to resurrect the project. It was buried out in the barn, under bags of sheep's wool, wooden drawers and other assorted 'junk' that surely one day was going to be just the thing I was looking for. Dumped the mouse poop off the board I had got cut for the bottom and dragged it all into the garage. Figured out how to make the thin board a bit sturdier and better supported, and how to make a new wall. The original trailer was that sort of triangular shape, looking from the side. I wanted to make it bigger. I took the handle that you used if you wanted to push the trailer like a stroller, and fastened it on the front. Then I just happened to have a piece of heavy duty plastic that was the perfect size for what I needed. Love it when things work out like that:) Some velcro attached in the right spots, and the poochmobile was ready to roll. I had never actually attached it to the bike until this morning. Luna was the first victim. She's game for most things, and the trial run went well. So I went back and got Jake and put him in with Luna. He is not so thrilled about that sort of thing, but he didn't make a break for freedom.

Larry had come out to see, so I suggested he give it a try, with Calli as the passenger.

We always ride bikes in rubber boots:) As you can see by the road, it had been raining. It rained all yesterday, and it rained most of today, so it's definitely rubber boot time.

Tonight I spent a couple of hours sewing velcro and webbing along the edges of that plastic. Now the top fits snugly down over my new front and sidewalls, and everything is fastened in place. It all worked like a charm, I'm thrilled:) Can't wait to give it a real workout. I've also decided it's easier to get the dogs in the trailer via the back door instead of the front.

Can I get out now, I'd rather just RUN!!!

Pride

2011-10-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

Pride has decided that he wants to go out into the bush field. This just started a few days ago.

This summer we are really noticing that he is showing his age. (He will be 30 next March). His back has dropped and he looks quite swaybacked. He hasn't put the weight on that he usually does over the summer. Other than that, he still seems healthy, and gets around just fine.

He knows that the apples are long gone, but makes a side trip just to make sure.

No, there's no apples left.

Where is he heading to?

We catch up to him down the trail.

What the heck is he doing?

There must be something in that soil that he likes or needs. He does get loose salt and minerals daily, and has free access to a salt lick. This just started a few days ago. Normally he doesn't go along the trail. Somehow can he sense that there is some tasty soil out in the bush? Does he remember that he has been down there before, in previous years, and licked the soil in those low wet spots.

We have had five horses over the years. At various times, and I wouldn't say it has even been every year, they have ventured into the bush and licked the soil in a few particular spots.

It's weird, and fascinating!

An Alien in the Backyard.

2011-10-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

There's something weird out there!

Luna isn't quite sure about it.

Is that thing edible/playable/herdable?

This is the first year I've tried to grow kohlrabi. I'm not sure if I've actually ever eaten any before. The experiment wasn't a total success. To start with they are planted in the wrong spot. The oak tree to the southeast casts shade on the plants for too many hours. Way too many plants in too small of an area. I hate to thin seedlings. Always think I'm going to do it, and never do. So we have loads of green kohlrabi plants, but not many that have 'fattened' up. Some of the plants went to seed and have long thin seed pods hanging like skinny, miniature pea pods. A couple of the plants got quite tall and didn't bulge, but have lovely, healthy, curly leaves on them. You can see them in the first photo. There are some smaller bulges like the one below. From what I've read, that is the size they should be eaten . The whopper above is apparently going to be 'woody'. I'm getting such a kick out of just looking at it that I'm in no rush to cut it up and find out.

Fall Colours

2011-10-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

We'll take our Fall colours any way we can get them.

Yes, it was all courtesy of the sun, which broke through the clouds just as it was setting last night, and touched the trees with red.

This morning, they are all back to plain, boring green.

It's only if we get a dry Fall with cool nights that we get much colour, and nothing like what they get in the east. It's been a wet Fall:(

But, the sun is coming out this morning, yay!

April Lives Another Day

2011-10-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

April is still hanging in there. Well actually she's doing okay, for an old lady with sheep dementia and failing eye sight. Probably aren't many people that would still have her around at this point....oh well, no way to justify her being here, but she is. Easier than sending her off to the great pasture in the sky at any rate.

So quite often we put April and The Old Ewe out in the hayfield during the day.

This is the view from the kitchen window.

One day when we were blackberry picking, she wandered out with us. That was fine, but getting her back wasn't so easy. With the help of my knee against her neck or shoulder, and Luna's help or hindrance, depending on the moment, it's a slow process moving her anywhere.

Note to self -

Lose 20 lbs.

Only allow yourself to be photographed in more attractive outfits

Buy a new bra or tighten up the straps at least

Lose 25 lbs

A week or two ago it was starting to get a bit dim, after supper. We'd forgotten about April. I heard her baaa, (yes I can tell her voice from the others). We were in the living room at the front of the house. I thought she sounded kind of close. When I looked out of the window, she was on the front lawn. She'd come out of the field, down the driveway and around the house. She had a senior moment, and had got headed in the wrong direction.

She wasn't quite sure which way to go next.

She did head in the right direction around the other end of the house, but the way was eventually blocked. That piece of old railing is there to stop Luna running the fence line around the sheep field. Well she still runs it on the other side, but for a shorter distance. There are specific incidences that cause her to do that, which would take too long to explain here. The herding people would probably be horrified that she gets the opportunity to do that. We do what we can to prevent it, but aren't totally successful.

There is a gate just off to the right past that green bush, but we had to go all the way back around the house to get to it.

Two times in the last couple of weeks, April has bloated. No particular reason, and in her lifetime she's probably bloated half a dozen times before. I've only ever had one other sheep bloat.

Both times, by the time she got back to her field, she was flinging great gobs of frothy saliva around, or letting it accumulate in pools at her feet. Not a pleasant sight.

Two tablespoons of baking soda in a cup of warm water seems to do the trick every time. The struggle is getting it down her throat without lifting her head up and sending it into her lungs instead, but eventually I succeed. The last time I could actually see her right side deflate as the baking soda did it's trick.

Not sure how much longer we'll baby her along, although we did buy a bag of sheep grain today:)

Oh yeah, April is 15 1/2 years old.

All told, 59 buckets of blackberries were picked!

Early Morning Walk

2011-10-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

We had a bit more time this morning, when we headed off to the market. We stopped at the seasonal off leash park at Campbell Valley Park, just before 8 am.. It's used as a hay field during the spring and summer months, but October to April, you are allowed to take your dogs through the fields. It's been a year since we were there. In fact the very same day exactly a year ago, except last year we stopped on the way home from the market. And the weirdest thing was....we saw the same dogs, and they were the only other dogs besides ours, that we saw when we were there last year. How weird is that?

I wanted to check out 'our' crab apple tree. There were some apples on it, but not a lot, and I don't think I'm bothered about going back to get some. Don't feel like putting out the effort.

We use our smallest folding dog crate in the back of the truck, because that is all there is room for by the time we've piled the coolers with the eggs and the vegetables and flowers in there. It's a bit small for Calli, but she doesn't care. She likes to lie in it at the market, and stick her head up through the sun roof!

We have a Ford Ranger, and Jake and Luna ride behind the front seats.

A much nicer day at the market this Sunday, compared to last week, thank Dawg!

Camping!

2011-09-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

We went camping on Wednesday. Yep, we were away from home for a whole 22 hours! We've been wanting to get out in our little fifth wheel trailer, but between work and my mum, there just hasn't been the opportunity. Since there is a nice campsite just 20-25 minutes away, we figured if we got a decent day this week, we'd just head out, even for one night. So I made jam all morning, and helped Larry get the canopy off the truck, the fifth wheel hitch in, and the trailer hooked up. He got some food together for a few meals and we put in a few other odds and ends we needed, including the dogs and all their stuff, and we were off.

We went down to Derby Reach Regional Park and the campsite at Edgewater Bar. We figured that since the kids are all back in school, we shouldn't have any trouble getting a spot. I was worried about fishermen though, so Larry took a run down there in the car in the morning to check it out, and there were lots of empty campsites. We got there about 3, and got set up in our site right along the Fraser River

The park has a great off leash area, with access to the river, so we took a walk over there. Our dogs aren't dogpark dogs, as in they have no interest in socializing with the other dogs. They just want to play ball. Which is great really, especially with Luna. Since she is not particularly good at meeting other dogs face to face, if she is focused on a ball, it gives her something else to think about. Other dogs might come up, but since she is basically ignoring them, they don't get right in her face, and all is well. She had a goofy young lab bounding along behind her as she chased the ball, but she didn't care. Only once she told him off when he got in her way.

This photo was taken the next morning, when we had this part of the doggy park to ourselves.

So of course the dogs were hot after all that running around. Down at the far end and round the corner to the right you get to the river. We went that way and our three charged to the water, and Luna laid down in it.

Here's part of the river access. It depends on the water level as to what sort of 'beach' area there is.

We went down to the end to get away from the other dogs.

We're just unsociable snobs:)

Then back to the campsite to round up some supper.

Here's the view downriver, standing on the beach below our site.

The dogs dined on stewing hen, at their waterside table.

It's not the quietest place. There are busy train tracks on the other side of the river.

We had simple camping food. Fried onions and tomatoes, and a can of baked beans.

There were quite a few fisherman along the river, and below our site a spawned out, ugly looking salmon swam back and forth. Not long to live I guess.

The sun sets over the river.

The mist burns off the river the next morning. The only negative thing about these campsites is that at this time of the year, with the sun getting that bit lower each day, they stay mostly in the shade as the trees on the other side of the road are so tall. The dew is so heavy overnight that things never really dry off.

Lots of places to find the sun though.

After a short walk down a trail, where a coyote dashed across in front of us, which turned Luna into a lunging shrieking idiot at the end of the leash, we went back for some breakfast, and then we headed off again. The dogs insisted that we make a stop at the dog park, so more ball action. We skipped on the river this time. Then we headed off on the trail that leads from the dog park. We rode through this area on our bikes earlier in the year. There have been a few changes though. There are cows in one of the fields.

Get along little dogies!

Notice who's doing the grazing here.

We weren't sure how far we should walk, because we have to take into account that Calli can only go so far. She seemed to be doing well, so we kept on going. Down the road between the barns and the farmhouses, and eventually the trail led into another field, where a fellow was plowing by horse power.

(This as well as the cows were cut out of 3/8" steel)

That's Golden Ears in the background. No snow on them yet.

It was a long walk across the field, but we made it to a new picnic area by the river. Not a soul in sight. Dogs are supposed to be on leash of course, but since we had the place to ourselves they got some river time. Eventually a woman with two dogs showed up, and her's got some river time too. She said she comes every day and usually never sees anyone else there.

She said sometimes there is a big sandbar here.

Calli did well, although she had scraped the top of one toe raw on the gravel path. (She drags her back feet a bit). On the way back we forced her to walk on the grass along the edge, and as we walked the last bit to our campsite, her back end started to give out. I grabbed her tail to help hold her up, and we slowly walked the last little bit.

And then we got ourselves packed up and headed back home, where duty called.

Wordless Wednesday on Friday

2011-09-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

Stocking Up

2011-09-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

So this past week Superstore put their canning jars on sale. Half price or less. I use three sizes - 125m., 250 ml and 500 ml. It's not often that I'm able to find a sale on all the sizes. The last couple of years Superstore hasn't had any extras to clear out. This year they put a limit of 8 on each size.

Larry and I have been through with a buggy each, three times. There's at least 150 boxes, as in some sizes there were jars made by two different companies, so you could get 8 of each Now I'm hoping that they get really desperate to get rid of them. Three years I got a whole pickup load for 99 cents a case. I am using the last of those boxes tomorrow. ( I do get a lot of jars brought back, and am able to reuse those with new lids on them). This closet full will last me about a year of jam making.

Bad Hair Day at the Market

2011-09-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

It was one hairy day at the farmers market yesterday. It's located right next to and between two 15? storey condo towers. The towers are located at the top of the hill, about a mile from the water. They create their own weather system. The forecast for yesterday was showers with a wind warning. Gusts up to 80 kph. Add to that the tower's wind tunnel effect, and it was downright scary. We got there and struggled to get our two tents set up. The back tent was cranked down tight to our utility trailer that has all the extra jam in it. There were 4 heavy bags filled with water hanging off the legs of the tents. We were fastened to the tents either side of us. The tent legs weren't going anywhere, but there was such a tremendous force on the top of the tents, that we worried that they were going to be destroyed. There are 4 strong straps with clips that hook around the cross pieces on the inside of the cover. They help to pull the top tight, and we only usually ever use them if it is raining, to stop and pooling of water happening. Yesterday at least two of those clips broke on the back tent over the trailer.

Tents were blowing around, things were crashing over, some vendors packed up. It was really ugly.

Eventually we decided to just take the fabric tops off the tent frames, as that was the fastest thing for us to do. Thankfully it didn't rain, although it threatened to a few times. We got a few drops coming down as we were packing up, and then there was a torrential downpour about an hour later.

We were thankful for small mercies.

We just set out the jam, and the vegetables and flowers. No sewing. Our booth looked a bit bare, but there was no way to keep that sewing from blowing away. Surprisingly, sales were pretty good, so in retrospect it was worth the 5 hours of battling the wind, although at the time we really wondered.

Because of the weather forecast we had left the dogs at home. I'm glad we did, Jake would have been terrified.

Lots of other people took their tents down too, it all depended where you are located. Vendors at the south end of the market are more protected, so they were mostly okay.

Big hair

I think it's time to put up my hood and keep the wind from blowing down my neck

Hood going up. Larry's already wearing a toque from our stock

Hi Meredith!

She was taking the photos from the market's coffee tent on the other side of the roadway

Here's some video Meredith took, which gives you a pretty good feel for the power of the wind.

Those are big, heavy moss hanging baskets that are blowing back and forth.

She pans to the south first, where there are quite a few tents still up.

Then she points to the north up 'hurricane alley', between the towers, although you can't see the high part of them. It was even worse up there, and that white tent on the right did eventually get taken down.

Off With Their Heads

2011-09-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

Now That Fall's Here

2011-09-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

Keeping the Vampires at Bay

2011-09-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, before it rained, I dug up the garlic. Probably should have been done back in August, while it was nice and dry. Like most things around here, it didn't get done at the optimum time. So of course it has rained a few times since then, and the ground is wet, and the garlic bulbs certainly didn't look like those nice white ones that I see vendors from the Okanagan selling.

Oh well.

I also didn't get the tops cut off either. When they are nice and young and green and first forming, you can eat those tops. They are called scapes. The idea of cutting them off is that the plant puts it's energy into forming nice big bulbs underground, and not into forming these bundles of tiny garlic bulblets.

Some tops got cut off eventually, and some didn't get cut off at all. The interesting thing was that there were both large and small bulbs formed, and it didn't seem to make any difference as to whether the stems were cut off or not.

This is what the tops eventually look like, if you don't cut them off.

If you plant these tiny little bulbs, in a couple of years you will get decent sized ones.

So I got out the hose, and gave the bulbs a good spray off. Half of the water seemed to bounce off them and back onto me.

Now this was one job that Luna was right on. Jake put some distance between me and the hose, but Luna was right there, bouncing back and forth on the other side of the fence.

The dirty skin was washed off, and I peeled the dead stuff off the stems.

I put them upside down in a bucket to drip dry, and they look so much better now

There you have it, garlic on a stick.

Vampires, begone!

As for me, I didn't have time to stand in a bucket and drip dry.

It was time for a change of clothes.

Burnt Out

2011-09-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling pretty burnt out right now. Usually do about this time of the year. I'm tired of making jam, dealing with fruit, and all the other things that go hand in hand with making a decent presentation at our market booth each weekend. Add to that the time I've spent this season visiting/dealing with my mother's affairs, and I feel like I'm way behind. Well I am with some things, but that's the way it is, can't do much about it. There were only two adult and a few kids aprons left hanging on the rack at Sunday's market. Never has stock been so low. It's the sewing time that's suffered this season. So be it, it is what it is.

So we are counting down the weekends. Only three more weekends to go of doing markets both days. After that there will be a bit of a break, and then there will be a few indoor winter markets before Christmas. I keep telling people they'll have to come to those if they want any selection in the sewing department.

And speaking of burning, it's firewood time. Our heat consists of a wood stove and a gas fireplace. When we first moved here, the house only had wood heat. It worked well for years, but then we added on, and had to put in some additional heat.

We have some bush on our property, and it has kept us supplied in firewood for 25 years. It is mostly alder. Alder burns well, is easy to split, grows fast, and conveniently dies off after a while. Usually there are a few trees that are dead at the top that Larry takes down. Some volunteer and take themselves down. The dead wood we can burn this winter, as it has been drying up there in mid air all summer. The wood that was still live, will be burned the winter after.

Doing the firewood used to be a family affair. We'd all head out to the bush. Larry operated the chainsaw, I was the splitter, and all of us helped to stack it on the trailer. Meredith used to get fed up first, so we'd send her back to the house to make some lunch.

The last few years, Larry did most of it himself. This year he is having trouble with his shoulders. Splitting wood aggravates it.

I always liked splitting wood, so I've picked up the maul again this year. (Anything to put off making that jam that I should be doing)

It was a lovely Fall afternoon. Just me and the maul and some fresh cut alder.

Oh, and Jake.

Ever hopeful Jake.

Please won't you take a moment and throw this ball?

Luna hates any sort of pounding noise. She was probably at the front of the house, hoping someone would let her in.

All split

And stacked.

Fresh Alder eventually turns orange where it is exposed to the air.

That's some of last years wood at the corner. All dried and ready to go, and holding up a corner of the woodshed.

Yep, add another project to the 'to do' list. There's probably space on page 10.

Peasant Vision

2011-09-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

When we first moved here, there was no cable vision. It did eventually get put in on our road, and there was also the option of one of those gigantic satellite dish things, which have now become the tiny ones that you fasten on the side of your house.

When we moved here there was already an aerial on a tower at the end of the house, and we had a control inside that allowed us to rotate the aerial to get the best signal. We could get about 6 channels on a good day. Larry, remote in hand, flicking through those 6 channels was annoying enough. We lived with that set up for years, well for 25 years in fact, until the end of August when every thing went digital.

Then we had to make a choice.

Go to cable vision or satellite.

Update our aerial and either buy new TVs or buy a digital to analog converter box so we could use our old ones.

Not being ones to enjoy paying a monthly fee (read: cheap), we had sort of decided to update our exterior aerial, buy a new tv to replace the oldest one, and buy a converter for the other. I had a little crt TV in my sewing room, and was interested in getting a new little one that was easy to move around. Then I could have it in the kitchen while I was making jam, and in the garage while I was put together the bouquets. That meant the TV was going to need it's own aerial.

So we bought a 15" tv and what is supposed to be a fairly good indoor digital aerial. Our first step in to the digital tv world. Baby steps you know. We followed the instructions on searching for channels with the aerial, but it wasn't a success. The only things I could get in the kitchen were two channels of KVOS and a few others that were even more useless to me. One KVOS channel was nothing but old shows. This afternoon I watched two hours of old westerns. The name of the first one escaped me. A family on a ranch with Barbara Stanwick and also with Lee Majors and Linda Evans I think, and another one called Rawhide. Yup, anything to relieve the boredom while stirring that jam. The other KVOS channel is music videos. Then there is a shopping channel, actually it is on two channels, and then a channel in Spanish. In the sewing room I couldn't get anything, and I didn't even bother trying the garage.

We even took the tv and aerial up onto the roof of the house to see if the reception was better up there. Nope.

So that indoor aerial is being returned.

Right now we have that 15" tv in the living room hooked up to the coaxial cable running to the old aerial on the roof. We can get Global and CTV. Woot!

We just have to sit really close.

David always said we didn't have cable

vision, we had peasant vision.

Now I think we have midget vision.

A bigger TV is probably the next step.

How Things Can Go Wrong

2011-09-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

Things don't always go as planned at an agility trial.

Listen carefully to the audio.

There was only one snap closing the x-pen, and Luna pushed until she was able to squeeze out at the bottom.

If the panels were overlapped a bit, one snap would have worked just fine. Calli was in the x-pen with her, but she heard Jake bark, and she was determined that he wasn't going to have all the fun.

And here's when things go right.
The last two runs of the day.
They were Jumpers runs, so only jumps and tunnels.
In her first ever Advanced Jumpers run, Luna had a qualifying run.
Larry had just arrived from the White Rock farmers market. I asked him if he wanted to run Luna, but since I was already walking the course, he told me to go ahead.
You see me look back as she is going through the last tunnel. She had rattled the bars on two jumps near the end, and I was checking to see if they were still standing

And here's Jake's Masters Jumpers run. After he barks, you can hear Luna start to shriek in the background.
There was another dog there at the trial that sounds just like Jake when it barks. Jake was in the x-pen with Luna when that dog was running, (and barking), and Luna still got upset. And they say border collies are smart......:)
(Not sure if there was a lot of dust floating in the air, or dust on the camera lens)