There are lots of new pictures on my flickr website.
If you click on the "Our house" set you'll see before and after photos of the house
Under Winter 06/07, Alberta - you'll find pictures of all our winter Activities.
Enjoy
Monday, April 23, 2007
Life as a procrastinater
Well, about all I've been doing about this blog is as the tite says, procrastination...but its time to break the chain.
Since I last posted...umm..lets see I'll have to go back and read it to see what has happened since then.
My first week of work was quite busy, and fairly difficult mentally as I knew that I should remember where things were and how to do things, etc. But I just couldn't recall it all as fast as I used to. I'm getting back into the groove now, and feel at home in both clinics again, although I am rather embarrased when I see a regular client and can't remember their name. Also they have changed all the pricing since I've been there, so all the often used prices that I used to quote are different, adding to my mental confusion. We've had some interesting cases in though and we are slightly short staffed (as usual) which makes for lots of things to do. One vet who was on maternity leave until just recently has returned to work part time, and I had never worked with her before, she has a very different personality, nor nearly as laid back as the vet I'm most used to working with, so its been an interesting adjustment. I've been enjoying the new mental challenges and the fast paced atmosphere, although the physcial challenge just isn't there most of the time.
Another new things since we came home is that I acquired a yearling Quarter horse filly. She is a bay with no markings, and we call her Riata. She's very quiet, and personable, in fact we dewormed and vaccinated her the other day and she didn't even fight it at all. She stopped nibbling on the fence when I poked the needle in, but she didn't react otherwise. I'll get a picture of her up soon.
Last weekend, we had a visitor - but not a human one. Sis-in-law has been taking care of a puppy for her brother unti he moves out here, but she was busy last weekend and so Dozer Dude and I took care of him. Finny is a 6 week old chocolate lab puppy, and he's incredibly cute!
Spring has finally sprung I think, but you can never be sure, the grass is pretty well green now and guys are out seeding a bit. Its semen testing time, and we've had many bulls through the clinic in the last couple weeks. One decided to destroy part of our handling system behind the clinic and take a romp through town, he was loose for about 45 minutes as the vets and several other people chased him around with up to 5 different pick-up trucks. It was quite the site, they eventually corralled him at the old stockyards in town and hauled him home again! That was our excitement for a friday!!
We took our horses out for their first ride a week ago on Sunday, we had a nice long walk to Grandma's (about 4 miles) where Dozer Dude's dad picked us up with the trailer (it was getting dark and the horses were lazy). I had Guthrie (my 8 yr old gelding who is in our wedding pictures) out on saturday night just to lunge him around and try to get him listening better, but it wasn't very productive. On Sunday afternoon this week, we again went for a ride, but from the time I mounted, I could tell that Guthrie was upset or uncomfortable or something, I tried to get him to do some simple maneuvers on command and was met with head tossing, tail swishing and ear pinning, which made me wonder what the heck I was doing wrong. So we headed out to inspect the fence on the hillside pasture - but Guthrie was still acting silly, so I took advantage of the nice flat cultivated field next door to try and put him through some paces. As I tried to circle him he was just being ornery and wouldn't stay in a lope or move in a nice circle, he'd either run straight ahead with his head turned sideways, or turn 90 degrees. When I did get him going in a circle, he'd drop his head to the ground every time I asked him to speed up. After much frustration I asked Dozer Dude to tell me what it looked like while I was riding....He said everything looked fine, but said he'd switch horses and take a try at it. Sure enough, as soon as he got on and started asking for the things I was asking for, Guthrie decided he'd had enough and tried to buck him off. The footing was deep enough that it took some effort for him to buck, and Trevor just held on and spurred him until he smartened up, then made him do some circles and we went for a nice long, mainly uneventful walk. It'll be interesting to see how Guthrie acts next time I get on him :S
I had to work saturday morning, but in the afternoon I felt quite domesticated and cleaned the entire house and baked 3 dozen oatmeal/banana/chocolate chip cookies, a pan of Toffee squares with kick-butt icing and a pan of brownie pudding. It was a productive afternoon :)
Today I told myself I would be productive...but I have to admit that I wasn't as much as I would have liked. I slept in til 10, then I spent almost an hour on the phone with my dad, and another hour on the phone with one of my "mom's" (its plural because without my real mom, I've sort of adopted a few ladies as mentors) It was a great talk - and I'm so thankful that God has provided me with such great support since mom died. Later I did some errands up town and then came home to attack our yard - I think the back lawn is going to completely disappear under a sea of pine cones if I don't do something soon!! I hacked up a useless little tree that I didn't like in the one corner of the yard, and raked up alot of debris from around it and along the back fence, I also cleaned up the raspberry patch a bit and removed a bunch of junk from the garden in preparation for it to be tilled up and planted back to grass - its just not meant to grow vegetables - not with 4 - 70' tall spruce trees towering over it!! During the course of the afternoon I talked to all three of my closest neighbours at different times, it was nice to catch up with them! Then Dozer Dude came home and I barbequed chicken legs and curly fries and made grilled tomatoes. It was a nice "summery" supper. I'm looking forward to more of those!!
Anyways, I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures onto my flickr account. So I'll post some links in another entry.
Since I last posted...umm..lets see I'll have to go back and read it to see what has happened since then.
My first week of work was quite busy, and fairly difficult mentally as I knew that I should remember where things were and how to do things, etc. But I just couldn't recall it all as fast as I used to. I'm getting back into the groove now, and feel at home in both clinics again, although I am rather embarrased when I see a regular client and can't remember their name. Also they have changed all the pricing since I've been there, so all the often used prices that I used to quote are different, adding to my mental confusion. We've had some interesting cases in though and we are slightly short staffed (as usual) which makes for lots of things to do. One vet who was on maternity leave until just recently has returned to work part time, and I had never worked with her before, she has a very different personality, nor nearly as laid back as the vet I'm most used to working with, so its been an interesting adjustment. I've been enjoying the new mental challenges and the fast paced atmosphere, although the physcial challenge just isn't there most of the time.
Another new things since we came home is that I acquired a yearling Quarter horse filly. She is a bay with no markings, and we call her Riata. She's very quiet, and personable, in fact we dewormed and vaccinated her the other day and she didn't even fight it at all. She stopped nibbling on the fence when I poked the needle in, but she didn't react otherwise. I'll get a picture of her up soon.
Last weekend, we had a visitor - but not a human one. Sis-in-law has been taking care of a puppy for her brother unti he moves out here, but she was busy last weekend and so Dozer Dude and I took care of him. Finny is a 6 week old chocolate lab puppy, and he's incredibly cute!
Spring has finally sprung I think, but you can never be sure, the grass is pretty well green now and guys are out seeding a bit. Its semen testing time, and we've had many bulls through the clinic in the last couple weeks. One decided to destroy part of our handling system behind the clinic and take a romp through town, he was loose for about 45 minutes as the vets and several other people chased him around with up to 5 different pick-up trucks. It was quite the site, they eventually corralled him at the old stockyards in town and hauled him home again! That was our excitement for a friday!!
We took our horses out for their first ride a week ago on Sunday, we had a nice long walk to Grandma's (about 4 miles) where Dozer Dude's dad picked us up with the trailer (it was getting dark and the horses were lazy). I had Guthrie (my 8 yr old gelding who is in our wedding pictures) out on saturday night just to lunge him around and try to get him listening better, but it wasn't very productive. On Sunday afternoon this week, we again went for a ride, but from the time I mounted, I could tell that Guthrie was upset or uncomfortable or something, I tried to get him to do some simple maneuvers on command and was met with head tossing, tail swishing and ear pinning, which made me wonder what the heck I was doing wrong. So we headed out to inspect the fence on the hillside pasture - but Guthrie was still acting silly, so I took advantage of the nice flat cultivated field next door to try and put him through some paces. As I tried to circle him he was just being ornery and wouldn't stay in a lope or move in a nice circle, he'd either run straight ahead with his head turned sideways, or turn 90 degrees. When I did get him going in a circle, he'd drop his head to the ground every time I asked him to speed up. After much frustration I asked Dozer Dude to tell me what it looked like while I was riding....He said everything looked fine, but said he'd switch horses and take a try at it. Sure enough, as soon as he got on and started asking for the things I was asking for, Guthrie decided he'd had enough and tried to buck him off. The footing was deep enough that it took some effort for him to buck, and Trevor just held on and spurred him until he smartened up, then made him do some circles and we went for a nice long, mainly uneventful walk. It'll be interesting to see how Guthrie acts next time I get on him :S
I had to work saturday morning, but in the afternoon I felt quite domesticated and cleaned the entire house and baked 3 dozen oatmeal/banana/chocolate chip cookies, a pan of Toffee squares with kick-butt icing and a pan of brownie pudding. It was a productive afternoon :)
Today I told myself I would be productive...but I have to admit that I wasn't as much as I would have liked. I slept in til 10, then I spent almost an hour on the phone with my dad, and another hour on the phone with one of my "mom's" (its plural because without my real mom, I've sort of adopted a few ladies as mentors) It was a great talk - and I'm so thankful that God has provided me with such great support since mom died. Later I did some errands up town and then came home to attack our yard - I think the back lawn is going to completely disappear under a sea of pine cones if I don't do something soon!! I hacked up a useless little tree that I didn't like in the one corner of the yard, and raked up alot of debris from around it and along the back fence, I also cleaned up the raspberry patch a bit and removed a bunch of junk from the garden in preparation for it to be tilled up and planted back to grass - its just not meant to grow vegetables - not with 4 - 70' tall spruce trees towering over it!! During the course of the afternoon I talked to all three of my closest neighbours at different times, it was nice to catch up with them! Then Dozer Dude came home and I barbequed chicken legs and curly fries and made grilled tomatoes. It was a nice "summery" supper. I'm looking forward to more of those!!
Anyways, I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures onto my flickr account. So I'll post some links in another entry.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Home sweet Home? where's that?
Alright its been a long time since I blogged, but I've been busy! I'm begining to think I must have some of my sister Amy's self-proclaimed Gypsy blood in me. Its been so long since I lived in the same place for more then 8 months, I can't even remember! The events of the last couple weeks have included packing and moving back to this wonderfully COLD land of Manitoba.
One of the feed truck drivers from the feedlot made us a big dinner with turkey and homemade buns and all kinds of salads, etc. It was a nice farewell.
As we were leaving, all the co-workers kept saying, "see ya in the fall" and "don't forget to come back" and the day before they were even scheming to kidnap my dog or my saddle so we couldn't leave. I was pleased when the Foreman came and shook my hand and said "It was a real pleasure working with you, if you ever want to come back, you're more then welcome"
Looking back, it was a good experience, but as always it was a case of, "If I'd known then what I know now...." but how else does one learn?
I'm afraid I was somewhat negative for the last week or so that I was at that job, but knowing that you won't be there much longer doesn't help you to make changes to the things that bother you, and I guess that was my biggest problem!
So - we finished work on Wednesday the 28th - I had a record number of hours - 231.25 for the month of March! I figured out I worked almost 1100 hours in 5 months, and spent about 200 of those hours in the saddle, and the other 900 in the processing barn! Wow....that sounds like a long time doesn't it!?
Thursday we spent gathering our belongings from all over the feedlot and packing up our belongings. I was somewhat pessemistic about the prospect of everything fitting into our truck and car, but it did, with some fairly creative and I might say, almost expert packing. I guess a person gets better at moving by the 19th time - wow, thats 19 times in 18 years, thats not a very good record is it?
We stopped at the feedlot on Friday morning to pick up Sneef (my dog) and have morning coffee (which is from 6:30-7am) with the crew and we were off by 8. One of Trevor's co-workers gave us a set of 2 way radios to keep in contact during the trip.
The trip home was mostly uneventful, until we reached the Manitoba border. At this point, freezing rain/snow/sleet ensued and coupled with fog, it was not a pretty sight! We trudged onwards, hoping to get home, but after fishtailing a few times, and narrowly escaping the ditch, the hotel room my mother-in-law had promised for a birthday present was a welcomed thought. When we hit Souris and stopped for fuel, I was somewhat ready to stop and sleep, but Trevor wanted to keep going, partly to get his expensive tool box under cover and out of the WET. About 2 hours from home we hit a sign saying our highway was closed, so we decided (over our lovely radios) to head for Brandon. We had forgotten however that it was the weekend of the Winter Fair - and when we got there, there wasn't a single hotel room to be found. Being about 11pm, we were tired, and the roads were in no shape to go anywhere, so we shuffled the stuff out of the cab of the truck into the car, pulled out or sleeping bag and pillows and tried to get some sleep. I didn't sleep much, thanks to an oncoming cold and probably being TOO tired to sleep.
Around 6:30am we headed to Tims for some refreshment and headed for home, by this time the weather had cleared - as far as percipitation goes, but dense fog followed us down the slushy roads for the 2 hours to home.
What a nice feeling, HOME! I had almost forgotten what Home was?!
After quickly unburdening both vehicles we went out to the farm to put the prized toolbox under cover and sneek in a quick visit with my brother-in-law Andrew who was on the last day of his week-long trip home to renovate the house he and Jaime will be moving into at the end of this month. Trevor and I snuck out of the renovations and went to the farm to get some much needed sleep, but once again I didn't sleep much.
That night, my mother-in-law ordered my favorite food from my favorite local restaurant - Siggis. We had greek salad, ceasar salad, chicken wings, carnivore pizza and hawaiian chicken pizza - with a Reese's peanut butter blizzard cake for dessert. Can you say Calories?!?! It was delicious, but I probably gained back half of what I lost all winter :P
We helped strip some tape from the painting projects at Andrew's place and then headed home to Crash....and literally - my lack of sleep caught up to me and I wasn't able to get up until 5pm on Sunday night - I was exhausted and had a full blown cold. I'm still kind of clogged up, but I'll get over when I start painting with oil paints I'm sure :)
So, needless to say, my birthday wasn't very happy, being in bed half way between fever and chill, but by Monday I had somewhat recovered and we started to put this little house back in order. It was a challenge to fit things into their places again, since my belongings had somewhat increased in Alberta, thanks to many wedding gifts. We're about 90% unpacked now, but we'll leave the bulk of the bedroom unpacking for later, as I plan to try and prep and paint that room this week/weekend. We spent most of Tuesday out on the farm but with bitter cold weather, we were inside most of the time - in fact I haven't seen the cows or my horse since we arrived here!
Today we did the necessary yearly evil of preparing our Taxes, but its a good year, we will both be getting substantial rebates!! Thanks to school and farming at a loss..... We also did some home renovation shopping - picking up paint to finish up the house and few litte things at Rona thanks to a gift card from the wedding. We even found a nice little light fixture for our bedroom on clearance for $15 dollars!! We priced out a few things that we'd like to do - subflooring and rug for the basement, laminate for the living room/dining room, new doors for the closets, a range hood, faucets for the kitchen, a new sink/toilet/tub surround for the bathroom. Who knows what all we'll end up doing, but the list is pretty long once you start on what COULD be done. I think we've taken care of most of the NEEDs but now its just the things to make it nicer and/or improve the resale value. One step at a time I guess - I've got paint for the upstairs and downstairs bedrooms - a sandy, almost goldish color with a rusty red/brown for trim. I'm also going to paint some of the panelling in the living room to match what I painted green last year. My third painting project is to add some more blue in the kitchen/hallway/stairway - there were some pieces that I didn't get painted last year - so presto, I won't run out of things to do any time soon - I almost wish I had another week off before I start work, but I guess the pocket book wouldn't like that too much!
Wow....a that was a windy post - sorry ya'll - I'll let ya get back to your life now - hopefully you still recognize your relatives when you get back to them...
Oh and one final piece of news (which Jody beat me in announcing) Dad and Diane are engaged...Yeah, don't ask for details on the when/where, etc, because they don' know - but there is a ring and a "plan" as far as dad can plan..... Congrats dad! Love ya both!
One of the feed truck drivers from the feedlot made us a big dinner with turkey and homemade buns and all kinds of salads, etc. It was a nice farewell.
As we were leaving, all the co-workers kept saying, "see ya in the fall" and "don't forget to come back" and the day before they were even scheming to kidnap my dog or my saddle so we couldn't leave. I was pleased when the Foreman came and shook my hand and said "It was a real pleasure working with you, if you ever want to come back, you're more then welcome"
Looking back, it was a good experience, but as always it was a case of, "If I'd known then what I know now...." but how else does one learn?
I'm afraid I was somewhat negative for the last week or so that I was at that job, but knowing that you won't be there much longer doesn't help you to make changes to the things that bother you, and I guess that was my biggest problem!
So - we finished work on Wednesday the 28th - I had a record number of hours - 231.25 for the month of March! I figured out I worked almost 1100 hours in 5 months, and spent about 200 of those hours in the saddle, and the other 900 in the processing barn! Wow....that sounds like a long time doesn't it!?
Thursday we spent gathering our belongings from all over the feedlot and packing up our belongings. I was somewhat pessemistic about the prospect of everything fitting into our truck and car, but it did, with some fairly creative and I might say, almost expert packing. I guess a person gets better at moving by the 19th time - wow, thats 19 times in 18 years, thats not a very good record is it?
We stopped at the feedlot on Friday morning to pick up Sneef (my dog) and have morning coffee (which is from 6:30-7am) with the crew and we were off by 8. One of Trevor's co-workers gave us a set of 2 way radios to keep in contact during the trip.
The trip home was mostly uneventful, until we reached the Manitoba border. At this point, freezing rain/snow/sleet ensued and coupled with fog, it was not a pretty sight! We trudged onwards, hoping to get home, but after fishtailing a few times, and narrowly escaping the ditch, the hotel room my mother-in-law had promised for a birthday present was a welcomed thought. When we hit Souris and stopped for fuel, I was somewhat ready to stop and sleep, but Trevor wanted to keep going, partly to get his expensive tool box under cover and out of the WET. About 2 hours from home we hit a sign saying our highway was closed, so we decided (over our lovely radios) to head for Brandon. We had forgotten however that it was the weekend of the Winter Fair - and when we got there, there wasn't a single hotel room to be found. Being about 11pm, we were tired, and the roads were in no shape to go anywhere, so we shuffled the stuff out of the cab of the truck into the car, pulled out or sleeping bag and pillows and tried to get some sleep. I didn't sleep much, thanks to an oncoming cold and probably being TOO tired to sleep.
Around 6:30am we headed to Tims for some refreshment and headed for home, by this time the weather had cleared - as far as percipitation goes, but dense fog followed us down the slushy roads for the 2 hours to home.
What a nice feeling, HOME! I had almost forgotten what Home was?!
After quickly unburdening both vehicles we went out to the farm to put the prized toolbox under cover and sneek in a quick visit with my brother-in-law Andrew who was on the last day of his week-long trip home to renovate the house he and Jaime will be moving into at the end of this month. Trevor and I snuck out of the renovations and went to the farm to get some much needed sleep, but once again I didn't sleep much.
That night, my mother-in-law ordered my favorite food from my favorite local restaurant - Siggis. We had greek salad, ceasar salad, chicken wings, carnivore pizza and hawaiian chicken pizza - with a Reese's peanut butter blizzard cake for dessert. Can you say Calories?!?! It was delicious, but I probably gained back half of what I lost all winter :P
We helped strip some tape from the painting projects at Andrew's place and then headed home to Crash....and literally - my lack of sleep caught up to me and I wasn't able to get up until 5pm on Sunday night - I was exhausted and had a full blown cold. I'm still kind of clogged up, but I'll get over when I start painting with oil paints I'm sure :)
So, needless to say, my birthday wasn't very happy, being in bed half way between fever and chill, but by Monday I had somewhat recovered and we started to put this little house back in order. It was a challenge to fit things into their places again, since my belongings had somewhat increased in Alberta, thanks to many wedding gifts. We're about 90% unpacked now, but we'll leave the bulk of the bedroom unpacking for later, as I plan to try and prep and paint that room this week/weekend. We spent most of Tuesday out on the farm but with bitter cold weather, we were inside most of the time - in fact I haven't seen the cows or my horse since we arrived here!
Today we did the necessary yearly evil of preparing our Taxes, but its a good year, we will both be getting substantial rebates!! Thanks to school and farming at a loss..... We also did some home renovation shopping - picking up paint to finish up the house and few litte things at Rona thanks to a gift card from the wedding. We even found a nice little light fixture for our bedroom on clearance for $15 dollars!! We priced out a few things that we'd like to do - subflooring and rug for the basement, laminate for the living room/dining room, new doors for the closets, a range hood, faucets for the kitchen, a new sink/toilet/tub surround for the bathroom. Who knows what all we'll end up doing, but the list is pretty long once you start on what COULD be done. I think we've taken care of most of the NEEDs but now its just the things to make it nicer and/or improve the resale value. One step at a time I guess - I've got paint for the upstairs and downstairs bedrooms - a sandy, almost goldish color with a rusty red/brown for trim. I'm also going to paint some of the panelling in the living room to match what I painted green last year. My third painting project is to add some more blue in the kitchen/hallway/stairway - there were some pieces that I didn't get painted last year - so presto, I won't run out of things to do any time soon - I almost wish I had another week off before I start work, but I guess the pocket book wouldn't like that too much!
Wow....a that was a windy post - sorry ya'll - I'll let ya get back to your life now - hopefully you still recognize your relatives when you get back to them...
Oh and one final piece of news (which Jody beat me in announcing) Dad and Diane are engaged...Yeah, don't ask for details on the when/where, etc, because they don' know - but there is a ring and a "plan" as far as dad can plan..... Congrats dad! Love ya both!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)