Following Your Dream

David is passionate about Land Rovers.  A few years ago he bought one, proceeded to take it to pieces and rebuilt it, but it wasn't quite what he wanted, so he eventually sold it.  His passion waned for a while, but then the flame was fanned, and it is burning strong again.  Luckily for him, our neighbour is also a Land Rover lover.  And luckily for David, he offered a Landrover to him to use on some outings that the Land Rover club held.  He'd been out twice, the first time with Larry as co-pilot, and the second time with his girlfriend. 

There are pictures of those outings here.  Notice the cool sleeping arrangement:)

http://roverlanders.bc.ca/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album386

http://roverlanders.bc.ca/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album383

For a long while now he has been looking for his own Land Rover.  The selection here is somewhat limited, and the prices are high.

But.....go to the home of the Land Rover, and the selection and prices are much better.  After doing a lot of research, he figured that in England, he had more chance of finding a Land Rover that fit his dream, and at a price he could afford.  Add on all the shipping and governments holding their hands out for their share of the pie, and it still wasn't going to cost any more than what he would pay here, IF he could even find one that he liked.

He found a decent price on a flight to England for an eight day stay, asked Meredith if she was interested in coming along, and off they went.  They landed at Gatwick, picked up their rental car, and headed north.  Since it was cheaper to rent a car under Meredith's name since she was the eldest, she drove first.  I give her a lot of credit.  A strange car, steering wheel on the right, driving on the left side of the road, in a torrential downpour, and the car being a stick shift to boot, I'm impressed.  She said she stalled it once and got honked at three times for not getting going fast enough, and proceeded to drive 200 miles north to York, and then she never drove it again:)

Since the first Land Rover David had arranged to see was in North Yorkshire, not far from Harrogate where I was born, I asked them to have a look around at my old stomping grounds.

Here's where I lived until we headed to Canada when I was six. It looks pretty cute.  It's what is called a semi-detached, and what would probably be called a duplex here. Kitchen, bathroom, front entrance and bedroom across the front. Another bedroom and living room across the back, and small entry porch on the side.  Detached garage at the end of the driveway. 

When we lived there, there was a farm behind, but now it's more houses.  Sometimes the creek used to flood, and water would rush down our driveway and come in through that side porch.  My mum had one of those incidences to deal with on her own after my dad had left for Canada before we did.

My dad grew up in the next town over, called Knaresborough,  about three miles away.  They tried to see his old house, but the GPS led them astray, so they didn't actually find it.  That's okay, I found it on Google street view.

Knaresborough is a really quaint, picturesque place, with loads of history, not that there's probably a place in England that doesn't have a long history.  Here's a shot taken of the railway bridge, that was finished in 1851.  It had collapsed before they had quite finished building it three years earlier, so they just set to and built it again.

In Blackpool, they found this little reminder of home

And stopped to watch a horse show held in a not very flat field.

What gorgeous ponies they have.

In Blackpool there was a large area along the beach that was covered in funny quotes

In Nottingham they posed with Robin Hood

Neither were as good looking as the Hollywood versions

They had a wonderful visit with my cousin Julia and her husband Peter.

Those are their dogs, Prince and Charlie.

Aren't they Bonny?

Since David and Meredith's non-English half is of Icelandic heritage, they got a kick out of this store, which sold groceries.

And here it is.....

THE Land Rover.

 It seems small, and kind of cute I guess:)

David actually 'won' this in an eBay auction a few days after they arrived.  He slipped that last bid in just 12 seconds before the auction closed.   When he went to see it, there were no unpleasant surprises, and the owner had all the service records.

Fortunately it was only about 40 miles from the port at Southampton, and the tow truck driver knew exactly where to take it when he got there.  So there it sat ( I think it needs a name, any suggestions?) parked with a lot of other VERY expensive vehicles, all waiting to be shipped to Tacoma, Washington. Just a measly $290,000 for that Rolls Royce. The Land Rover left today, and will arrive in just under four weeks.

To add to the stress of trying to get everything arranged in the last day, the cellphone company was having trouble with their service, so his cell phone wasn't working, and he was having trouble with his laptop and the wireless as well.  Nevertheless, he managed to get it all sorted out.

And Home Sweet Home, or almost.

Coming in over Vancouver, almost at the airport.

Doggie Day

It was doggie day at the farmers market yesterday.  There was some amazing road art.

This was drawn in chalk, yes, even that cone on the right 

And the real Rosco poses next to his portrait.  

This is Major.  He belongs to one of the vendors, and comes to the market most days.

The weather yesterday, in the morning, was Not nice.  I guess we've had our week of summer.  

As one vendor said, 'it's the middle of July, and I'm wearing a toque!'

And despite the fact there was a little dog show happening, which usually brings everyone and their dog to the market, it was a slow day.

Major's mom Judy, sent us home with this. See that empty tart thingy on the left.  That was to give me the energy to pack up our booth.

 Is there any wonder that I'm not losing any weight?

The best part of the day for Luna was when the chalk art had to be washed off the pavement.  She got to chase the hose, and star in a few stranger's  phone videos.

Mad Dogs

Mad dogs and English men women were out in the noon day sun. 

We were out at the garden in the north field, picking raspberries this morning, and came back to the house just before lunch.

The mad dogs didn't care that it was hot.

The sensible dogs (and cats) found shady, cool spots to lay

And the mad dogs just got madder.

Farm Vehicle

There's something very interesting in here

 Oh wow, you've brought home some more coyote bait

And there's some in the trunk too! 

When a certain family member, who is not known as Larry, decides to give a too close introduction of the truck door to a concrete pillar while visiting her mother, and the truck is now in the body shop being fixed, sometimes you have to 'make do' with your farm vehicle. 

So how many chickens can you fit in a Toyota Echo?  And those dog crates make excellent chicken crates.  All the crap is contained, and they wash out easily with a hose.

This could have been another repurposing post, for both the car and the crates.

We were only picking up 20 new pullets, although had been on the list to get 54.  We were supposed to get those 54 in April, but just got the phone call last week.  Since we are now in the middle of market season, and our coops only hold a finite number of birds, I had to say no to the 54, and am just going to try make it work with 20.  To take the 54, I would have had to get rid of the birds we already had, which would have meant that we'd have no eggs from that coop for a few weeks until the new birds started laying, and some unhappy market customers.  

Generally I ask for the first lot of hens in March, and sell the old hens from one coop, and put the new ones in there.  In April I do the same with the other coop.  Then our first farmers market starts in May, we have enough eggs to sell at that one, and by the time our second market starts at the end of the month, the second batch of hens are laying as well.

But this year I didn't phone in March like I usually do and ask when the pullets were going to be ready.  So I didn't get called until the end of April I think it was.  And then the call for the second lot didn't come until last week.  So... lesson learned...the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  Remember to phone the hatchery at the beginning of March next year.  I had my name put on the list when I was there today.

Because these 20 hens are going into the coop with last years hens, we wanted to be able to mark them so we can tell them apart in the Fall. The usual way is with leg bands. We have bought the spiral ones before from our local Co-op. 

 They can be a bit a awkward to get on, but do expand a bit if the hen's leg gets bigger than the opening in the band.  A few times I've had the point at the end of the band get caught on the leg and the leg starting to grow around it.  It was an ugly mess

The cheaper, easier way is to just use zip ties.  Since these birds are close to fully grown, we just put the tie on loose, and cut off the extra length.

We finally figured out a routine.  Larry was the chicken wrangler, and I was the bander.  We ended up doing most of the hens in this position.  Some of them just wouldn't settle when held by the legs and hung upside down, (which is the standard method of carrying chickens).  You should see the guys at the hatchery come walking out holding 5 chickens in each hand.

And it's probably the first time this hen had been out in sunlight, as they are raised in barns.

Larry learned quickly, after a few close calls, that's best to have the back end facing away from you. 

It's called projectile crapping.

When we grabbed the first hen, she screamed blue murder, and a bunch of the old hens came running, wings  spread and feathers fluffed out, all ready to attack Luna, who didn't even notice.  She was focused on the screaming hen.

They never want to come out of the crates.  If we don't have to band them, usually we just carry the crate to the coop and then tip it up to dump the hens out.  And the hens all flap their wings to stay at the other end of the crate, and generally you have to reach in and pull some of them out. 

They really do not want to leave, they want to stay with what they now consider familiar territory.

It'll be a couple of weeks or so before they start laying, which gives them lots of time to get used to being free ranging birds.  As always, some of the birds look closer to that part of their life than others.

And here's a plug for the Toyota Echo.

We bought it with 115, 000 Km on it.  It now has 256, 000 km. Other than new tires and some brake work, the only engine maintenance we have done were oil changes.  Just a few weeks ago it developed a stutter.  David changed the oil, put in a new air filter, and new spark plugs, and we are good to go.

Larry made some little bench things to fill in the foot wells in the back seat, to make one big platform back there.  The three dogs fit easily, and there is loads of trunk space.  Meredith has the hatchback version, which is cuter, but there's much more space in ours.

It's now ten years old, and we'll drive it until it dies. It gets 50 mpg on the highway.

And it makes a great substitute farm vehicle when you need it.  

We could fit a sheep in it if we needed to.

Hopefully we won't.

Repurposing

If you are like us, and you live on acreage, there's not much that you ever get rid of .  Just because, it's guaranteed that somewhere down the road you'll find a use for it.  Way back when we first had sheep, we had one length of the electronet type fencing.  When we moved here, we didn't need it, as we had the fields set up differently.  That's 26 years ago.   We had gained a few more rolls when the place my dad worked got out of the sheep business.  We've never used it for it's original purpose since we've been here.  I do find it quite useful for putting around the garden though.  So we put a length around some of the dahlias that are in the backyard.  It's not electrified, it's just a barrier of sorts.

A barrier to keep those crazy soccer playing border collies from breaking off all the stems.  

These dahlias are doing amazingly well, thank you very much, despite the mass of slugs on other parts of the property.

Until Luna came along that is.

Yes, a few of the plants have taken a beating, but the since the fence is up now, they should be okay.

And the peas, which were growing up a piece of that same sturdy wire that we put up to keep the coyotes out, are now all wrapped in electronet.   The pea shoots were reaching well above the 4 ft wire, we ran the electronet down one side of the shoots, and then the other side, above the existing wire, and then around both sides at the bottom.  The pea plants have never been so much under control.  No more stems flopping over this year!

And in another week or so we will be eating peas, and we have broccoli too:) 

 I was feeling pretty discouraged about the vegetable garden, but I feel that things are finally looking up.

Or maybe not.  I dug up potatoes tonight and came across a whole bunch that have been gnawed on by voles

Evening Concert

Be sure to have your volume turned up, and let your dogs sing along. (Those coyotes sounded much louder in real life)  One sounded like it was in our back bush, and the other was in the field next door.

We Found Summer!

We have had the most depressing 'non Spring'. Cold, and wet, and very little sunshine.  The ground is still saturated with water.  The Fraser River was the highest it's been in years.  Fortunately we didn't get any really hot weather while the heavy snowpack was still waiting to melt, so the river didn't get as high as predicted.

I'd read other people's blogs and they talked about Summer, and all I could think of was 'Summer, what's that?'

But, we are finally getting a taste of it!

Forecast

Today

• 24°C
•  
•  

Fri

• 27°C
• 10°C
•  

Sat

• 28°C
• 11°C
•  

Sun

• 30°C
• 14°C
•  

Mon

• 28°C
• 14°C
•  

Tue

• 27°C
• 13°C
•  

Wed

• 28°C
• 13°C
•  

Despite the weather, the strawberries and now the raspberries seem to be ripening on time.  I picked the first bucket of raspberries this morning.  The timing couldn't have been better, as last week I made the last bag of last year's raspberries into jam, and I only have a few jars left.

I did have to wear rubber boots though while I picked, as the ground there is flat and still very soggy.

Just having the warm morning sun on my back, and ripe berries in my hand, my mouth, and the bucket made the muck a little easier to take.

And why the white background...?  Well it's something to do with me copying and pasting the weather forecast to this page, and then trying to delete some of it, and then typing in the space (I guess) that the forecast was still claiming?  How's that for computer 'speak':)

Spent too much time fiddling with it already, it's going to stay.