Sunday morning.  Drizzling rain but not too cold.  Cold enough to light the furnace though.  Dennis left yesterday for Nanika Lake where he will cook for Nanika Lake Outfitters for the week.  It is a great opportunity for him to get off the farm and to see some pristine country that few get in to see.

I will be chief cook and bottle washer here on the farm for the coming week.  6 dogs to feed, 8 ewes, 7 ram lambs and big Ben to feed and water too.  Not a huge task but it does force me to get up early.  The huge thing to get used to is that I have to make my own coffee and light the furnace each morning.  That is usually Dennis' task so I'm feeling rather hard done by today.  :)

Last night I made supper for one.  It was so nice to go out to the greenhouse and pick a cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and basil.

I also had a small chunk of sockeye salmon we caught so steamed that with some olive oil, butter, wine, Epicure's lemon dilly mix and Epicure's herbed garlic sea salt.  It was absolutely delicious!

 

We don't have running water up by the barn and the sheep corrals.  Our house and approximately 4 acres is severed from the rest of the farm by Colleymount Road.  We have some pens down here by the house which are used at various times for sheep, chickens, turkeys and dogs.  Right now one is occupied by Ben, our big ram, because he is just gettng too frisky if he is close to the ewes.  He still is rather love sick, creating a huge path along the fence line and calling constantly.  The other pen, accros from Ben, is occupied by Amigo.  Amigo is a Maremma livestock guardian dog (LGD) who belongs to our friends, Jim and Leah.  After Jim's stroke, Leah is spending most of her time in town, naturally.  Friends were coming by to feed the dog and cats but Amigo wasn't doing well.  He had lost weight and had terrible diarrhea.  I volunteered to pick him up, get him checked out at the vet, and see if we couldn't get him back to good health.  The food he was eating had corn as the first ingredient.  Most dogs are unable to digest corn.  Dogfood companies should not be allowed to even produce and sell this kind of dog food in Canada.  Anyway, poor Amigo was in rough shape so Leah was thankful that I would tend to his care for the time being.  She has enough to deal with right now and it gives her peace of mind knowing there is one less thing to worry about. 

Anyway, going back to the whole water thing.  So, until we can afford to put a water line in up to the barn and corrals, we obtained a tank that we can fill and take up to the barn area.  The idea was to fill it down by the house, then take it up on the tractor forks to the barn area and fill the water troughs from there.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of what happened next.  Dennis had the water tank on the tractor forks and was filling the tank.  While the tank was filling, suspended in the air, he went and had coffee.  The next time I looked, the back wheels of the tractor were in the air with the forks and tank on the ground.  Of course the small tractor could not lift the tank full of water, so he had to drain the water out until the wheels touched back on the ground.  It's a huge tank so even a foot of water depth is a lot of water, but there is no way we can haul that tank full of water up to the barn.  This winter I will investigate the cost of putting in running water up to the barn.

Since it is a slow news day here on Dogstar Farm, I thought I would pass on to those who are interested in this area, that now is the time to buy property on Francois Lake.  Prices are rock bottom.  There are a few places for sale on the north side, which is the preferred side for most, as you have the south exposure plus you don't have to take the ferry.  There is a place down the road from us that is on 78 acres.  The house is built on it's own peninsula in the lake.  It is a post and beam house, beautifully done, with a full unfinished, walk out, daylight basement.  It was meant to be a B&B but due to family difficulties the place is now up for sale.  The asking price is $395,000!!!!  If you are interested, go to MLS N210356 and see what you can get here for $395,000.  She is open to offers.  To me, it is the deal of the century.  Francois Lake seems to be ignored by the people of BC.  I'm not sure why.  I guess the trade off is climate vs crowds and crime.  Some people pay more than that for a summer home.  This place comes complete with 2 bay garage with suite above, huge diesel generator, and the potential for the most beautiful B&B ever.  No, I'm not getting commission.  I just think it is a steal for the right person.

Ok, time to tend to the animals.  Bye for now.
Here is a picture of the sunrise the other day:

 

Fences

Lately Dennis has been doing a lot of fencing.  Usually one fences in the spring as the ground is soft and wet and the posts drive in much easier.  However, it seems we are always racing against the winter clock with more fence projects than can ever be done in the spring.  The post pounder hydraulic pump gave it's last gasp this spring.  A good thing too as it was leaking hydraulic fluid with every pound.  After consulting with neighbour and equipment savvy Grant, we bought a hydraulic pump at Princess Auto in Prince George.  I forget what it pumps per whatever, but let's just say it's pretty darn big.  After a lot of welding and even bungie ties, the pump is on the tractor and the pounder is working better than it ever did.  So here is our happy fencer at work behind our new barn:

Ok, I should show you the barn too.  He has done an excellent job on this structure.  Complete with 2 8 ft wide sliding doors.  Pretty nifty!  Here is the back of the barn:

And here is the front.  Not finished yet, but looking mighty fine!

I wanted to take some pictures of the cute ram lambs.  They appear to be camera shy and would not let me photograph their faces!  So here you go:

 

Here are a few more pictures of Dennis and his post pounder.  He is putting in posts for  a small paddock for our neighbour down the road.

That's it for today.  I have a friend bringing us some parts from the feed store so we'll have some wine and cheese and get caught up.  She's staying for supper.  I made some chicken soup so that with some bagels and pie should do it.  Tomorrow I will tell you all about our new "guest."  He's a sweetheart!

 

Fertilizing forest plantations

The past week our peace has been assaulted by the drone of a helicopter going back and forth somehwere around the head of the lake.  We have also noticed a huge increase in truck traffic, particularly B-train hopper trucks.  We were concerned these were trucks hauling chemicals to the mine.  As we live in an ecologically sensitive area, ie. Francois Lake shoreline, we, the Colleymount Recreation Society, have contacted Huckleberry mine regarding the dangerous goods they were carrying along this road.  A few winters ago there was an accident where a truck tipped over and spilled it's chemicals into a waterway along the Morice-Owen road.  These chemicals, when combined with water, were deadly.  The resulting gas would instantly kill any living creature within a large area.  Concerned that these trucks were travelling the 56 km of very narrow, rough, winding road along Francois Lake, we contacted Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Transportation and Huckleberry Mine.  The end result was that the contractor responsible for hauling the chemicals to Huckleberry Mine would use the highway to Houston, then take the Morice Owen road up to the mine.  The Morice Owen is better than most highways, well maintained, wide  and radio controlled.  It was a satisfactory conclusion.

Back to our hopper trucks and helicopter.  Yesterday I found out that the helicopter is dropping fertilizer in forest plantations somewhere at the head of the lake, or there abouts.  We now assume the hopper trucks are carrying chemical fertilizer to a staging area where the helicopter is loading the bucket.  This causes me concern on many levels.  Firstly, why on earth do we need to drop fertilizer in an area that was harvested of it's trees?  Does not the natural decomposing of debris renew the soil?  Secondly, what is the long term effect of dropping chemicals into a cutblock that was pristine until the logging took place?  Further to this thought, what is the effect when the runoff carries the chemicals into the pristine water of Francois Lake?  What happens to the fish, the natural aquatic vegetation?  Thirdly, these newly fertilized areas are now no longer natural or "organic."  We, the local people, harvest wild berries and plants that grow in these areas.  These plants are no longer natural, but contaminated by chemical fertilizers.  For some people, this is no big deal.  They eat factory farmed food every day.  For us, it is a big deal.  We do not eat factory farmed food.  We work hard to eat naturally grown food and wild food.  We believe this is best for the planet and for our health. This is not meant to be an arguement in favour or against mass produced food vs small plot farming.  I only want to stress that we, as people who choose to forego the benefits of urban living, would like to ensure our area of the planet is left as natural as possible.  At any rate, what the heck?  Why do they need to drop tonnes of fertilizer on plantations?

Yesterday we went across the lake to see the sunset.  It was too smokey for any kind of sunset, plus the clouds were rolling in. 

The above picture is the view looking west.  Usually lighter than looking east but a system is moving in bringing much needed rain. 

This is the sky looking east.  We had a fire, took some burgers along and just stopped thinking about working and farm problems. 

That is a nifty grill we got from Country Wide Sports.  It drives into the ground and swivels to where you want it.  It is a perfect size for the two of us and comes in a nice carrying case so stays in the boat.  The camp chairs were also purchased from Country Wide Sports.  They are ideal for our boat trips as they come complete with table and beer/wine glass holder. 

We enjoyed our stay on a different beach, looking at the same scenery from a different perspective.  We stayed until dark, then doused the fire and headed for home.  We have solar lights on the beach right where we land the boat.  As there are no neighbours around we need some kind of light to let us know where we are on the lake. 

Leaving comments should be easy now.

Leaving comments here should be easier now.  I have managed, I hope, to turn off the spam blocking device.  Provided I don't get a lot of spam on here, I will leave it as is.  Let me know if things are easier or not.  Thanks!

It's been some more crazy kind of days around here.  Still very warm and very smokey.  Here is the sunrise this morning.  Sorry about the spots on the picture.  It appears the lens on my camera has been scratched.  I would like a new one because I have to change the computer settings every time I want to downloaad pictures.

You can see how smokey it is.  It is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, but that has been forecasted before with no results.  We'll see.

Grant finally got his water working.  He ended up buying a new jet pump, bleaching all the lines and buying a new filter system.  Unfortunately he ended up falling out of his small boat while trying to straighten his line with the pike pole.  He dropped the pole, the pole started to sink so as he lunged for the pole the boat tipped him into the lake.  He did get the pole but the boat kept running.  It circled around him then headed for the shore.  Mary had to swim out into the lake to get the boat.  I wish I had been there with the camera!

Yesterday Dennis, Grant and another neighbour Steve worked on setting our pump upright in the lake.  The pump sits on a tripod, with the intake sitting on the high point of the tripod.  The tripod is to keep the intake out of the mud.  Wave action and spring ice movement can move the pipe line and topple the pump.  We need to fix it permanently with some weights on the bottom of the tripod, but at this point I am happy to just have the thing upright in the lake.  It took several tries as the weight of the pump continually turned the whole thing over when they dropped it into the water.  Steve figured out some kind of knot that he could un-do by yanking on it, so they tied the rope on, and with Dennis on the pike pole and Steve on the rope and Grant operating our boat, they managed to get the pump on the bottom of the lake in the upright position.  Yay!  No more clogged filters!  They have to remove the rope since the ice in the spring will grab it and take the pump who knows where. 

The pump now sits right on the edge of the drop off in about 15 feet of water.  That is excellent as the lake is at it's lowest right now. 

We had to move Ben down to the house area because he was just getting too friendly with the ewes.  He is such a good sheep, although you don't want to ever turn your back on him, that we can just let him wander the yard.  The dogs must be either in the house or in the kennel because the border collies will just want to work him and Ben will be curious about the old dogs and could hurt them.  Rhaq is not pleased that Ben has come too close.  You can see that Ben isn't concerned in the least:

Ben really likes Dennis.  If Dennis calls him he actually calls back to Dennis.  Pretty funny.  I think Ben will be a permanent resident with us.

My project for today is to finish the foundation for the generator.  This has been a whole summer project but now I finally have the dirt to fill in the dip.  That dip fills with ice and snow then in the spring the water seeps down the foundation wall into the basement.  I figure if I fill in the dip with dirt, then place a solid foundation on top, then the generator, and then cover the generator with a roof, it should solve the drainage problem.  I am determined to get the foundation finished today!

Last night after the pump was sorted, Grant and Mary came and picked us up in their boat.  We went down the lake about 20 km to Noralee Resort for supper.  It was a great boat ride.  The air was so warm that we were in t-shirts!  A nice way to end the day in good company and good scenery.  Ok, I'm off to work!

For the past 2 days Dennis has been helping neighbour Grant with his water line.  Grant has a jet pump in the house with an intake line out into the lake.  The water over the intake line was too shallow.  Even though Francois Lake is huge, the shallow water is not healthy.  You can get pretty sick with Giardia if you are not careful.  Lots of fish and ducks and other aquatic wildlife in the shallows along the lake.  So, Grant came and got some water line pipe from us, which had been laying around behind the woodshed for many years.  Yesterday they hooked up the extra length of pipe to extend the intake into the deep water.  They turned on the pump - no water.  They fiddled with it for many hours until it got too dark.  Dennis came home.  This late afternoon they tackled it again.  Grant had to work on the ferry today (the free ferry that crosses Francois Lake over to the south side) so they didn't get started until late.  They finally unhooked the pipe from the pump to see what was wrong.  Squished and squashed against the pump intake were a whole lot of mice, deader than dead.  They had been living in the pipe that we had laying out the back.  When it was hooked up and the pump started the poor buggers were sucked up against the pump, which couldn't pump mice through the system so the pump quit.  Now Grant has to take the pump apart, clean out all the mice and mice parts, and try to put it together again.  Mary, Grant's wife, says she's never drinking the water that gets pumped through that pump.  She was pretty disgusted and came over here for a shower.  The pump still isn't working so they are now on day 2 with no water.  Lesson learned: always flush out any pipe that is laying around outside.

My neighbours and I put in our Rancho Vignola order today.  It seems my order was equal to the combined order of the other 5 people!  Good grief.

Oh yes, about Telus.  We got our phone working again on Wednesday.  We even got a phonecall and an email from Cleve in Montreal who wants to discuss compensation.  He called again and Dennis talked to him.  Dennis said we should be compensated for the days the phone didn't work.  Cleve said no, he would give us the whole month free!.  Ok, not bad.  While I understand equipment fails every now and then, going the extra mile to compensate customers does a lot for the PR of the company.  I know it isn't going to break Telus to give us a free month of basic phone service, but it is a good gesture all the same. 

Tomorrow I will show you my generator project.  I've only just begun but will post some pictures.
bye for now.

Recently, technology has driven me crazy.  Rather than making life easier it has created it's own set of problems requiring a lot of attention and energy.  Our phone still doesn't work.  Not having a phone is an inconvenience, but dealing with the large corporation is far more aggravation than having no phone.  I have to repeat myself in my emails to "Cleve, in Montreal" continually.  He doesn't appear to be reading them.  I think he scans it quickly, skips down to the bottom and presses a button that gives a canned reply.  My difficulties with ABC Communications, my internet provider, are different, but similar.  While the people I email (because I can't phone) are less patronizing than Cleve in Montreal, still I find they do not actually read the whole email, as they suggest trying things that I have already tried, and said so in the email.   To add to this our expensive Bose soundock just quit working.  Just like that.  Dennis emailed the "help" people at Bose.  He told them what we had done to troubleshoot the problem.  Yup.  They wrote back and suggested we do exactly what I had done!! 

So with all this I finally said to Dennis that maybe we should just move into the bush with no power, no phone.  Dennis wasn't all that keen but read the signals that it was time to change the pace around here.  He went over to the beach in the forest service campground, built a fire, brought beer, wine, cheese, crackers, hotdogs and camp chairs.  While I was up bringing the ewes down to their over night paddock and making sure Ben was still on the right side of the fence, Dennis made all things ready on the beach.  We sat and drank wine, roasted hot dogs and watched the sun go down. 

We discussed the merits of living in the bush without conveniences (and there are many, believe me!), and the merits of status quo.  We even discussed moving to another place altogether.  We pondered what life would be like in a small town in Spain, Italy or Portugal.  Somewhere not too hot but not cold either.  However, we are here and that will not change any time soon.  We finally concluded that the best way to deal with these annoyances was to just not let it get to us (me).  So the phone is out.  Does it really matter?  Well, yes, in that I am paying for a service I am not receiving.  The internet is intermittent so I will just work around it.  After a bottle of wine and watching fish surface in the lake in front of me, I realized how unimportant Telus and internet were.   I refuse to let Telus or any other large, greedy corporation control how I feel.  In the meantime I am exploring other communication systems. 

Here are a few more shots of our pleasant time on the beach last night.  The roadway is the path that connects our house with the campground.  As you can see I am walking from East to West.  We see beautiful sunrises from our house but have to go to the campground on the other side of our little peninsula to see the sunsets.  A one minute walk:

 

 

The sunset was coloured by smoke blown in from the fire out at Morice Lake.  

Today I am going to work on the foundation for our generator.  Right now it just sits on the grass but it needs something more solid.  We want to build a permanent cover for it to keep it out of the weather.  We need a generator as we get a lot of power outages here, summer and winter.  In the summer it is usually caused by beavers cutting trees down which then fall on the hydro lines.  In the winter it is usually from the snow, or people slipping off the road and hitting power poles.  Bye for now.

It's been a very busy few days.  Over the past days I managed to pick another batch of beans, ending up with 18 lbs more to add to the 13 lbs in the freezer.  I would say we have enough beans to last us the winter - and then some! 

The mice have been busy in the garden also.  My carrots are having their tops chewed off and any potato that dares sit too close to the grounds surface gets chewed also.  The cabbages and broccoli are also being attacked so today I will try to retrieve the cabbages and kale.  I picked the broccoli on Sunday.

Yesterday we butchered (cut and wrapped) our poor lamb that died.  I am unsure whether or not the meat will be edible.  I talked to Lois, our vet, who said the meat won't harm us, but it may have a very strong or unpleasant taste.  It also may be tough.  If the lamb is distressed the meat quality can be affected.  We cut and wrapped it anyway as we wanted to practice cutting it up properly, following a book we bought.  I photocopied the pages we needed, slipped them into plastic sleeves, then we proceeded to saw away with the reciprocating saw.  It all looked rather good by the time it was all done.  I meant to take some pictures for you, but it was so unseasonably hot that we didn't stop until it was all cut and inside sealed tubs.  The flies and wasps were fierce so moving fast was imperative.  At any rate, we will try a roast later on.  If it doesn't taste or smell good, it will all become dogfood.

Our phones still are not working.  I have spent 2 days back and forth on chat lines and email with Telus.  Last night I sent in a complaint to the CRTC.  Telus tells me they will try to "squeeze" me in on Wednesday.  What they didn't tell me was that all the residents to the east of me (I went as far as 10 km from me) have the same problem!  The manager told me they would try, but not promise, to work on my line on Wednesday.  He never indicated there was a large outage.  I visited 4 separate homes to the east of us yesterday.  Each person had a dfferent story that Telus had told them.  Each had a different date for repair.  I don't understand why Telus doesn't see a large equipment failure, such as we are experiencing, as an emergency.  No, they just schedule it into their regular service date. It - my keyboard just broke.  The caps lock key was stuck, then when I tried to un-stick it, it went flying across the room.  I lost my train of thought along with my caps lock key!

I had better get on with the day.  We have huge fires to the north of us and to the south of us.  The smoke here is thick and disgusting.  As both fires are in parks, the government people are letting them burn, as they are natural events, they say.  Fine, except for the fact that I was up all night coughing with asthma.  It is hot, dry and incredibly smoky now.  If you dropped a burning cigarette in the grass we would have a forest fire in a flash.  We desperately need rain but none in the forecast.  Our sheep should be able to graze for at least another month, but the grass is hardly worth eating now because it is so dried out. 

Today we will bring the ram lambs down from the large paddock.  A cougar has been heard in the area by several people.  Ben, our ram, is desperate to get to the ewes.  He popped all the staples off  one post so the fencing was wowed out in a big bow.  It would just be a matter of time before he had it flattened and we had lambs born in February!  I noticed the ewes were behaving as if they were in heat so we make sure they have 2 fences between them now.  And, the more I think of it, I think it was Ben who harmed Red, our lamb that died.  I think he was doing what rams do, and that is fight for the ewes.  Ben has to be separated from all the sheep now, ram lambs as well as ewes.

I promise to post more pictures tomorrow.  bye for now.

I just realized I should explain what happened to our poor lamb.  While we're not sure exactly, the whole dog incident might have played a role in Red's demise.  The vet didn't think it was bloat, but he was full of feed and some gas did come out through tubing and the puncture.  When Dennis dressed him out he noticed one side was rather bruised.  Was that caused by the needle used to release gas?  Was it caused by the dogs chasing him into a fence post or tree?  Or, and this is my theory, was it caused by Ben butting him in his side?  Prior to the fall fair, we brought Ben and the 2 ram lambs down to one of the pens by the house.  I saw Ben butting one lamb in his side.  This did cause me concern but after intervening and distracting Ben it seemed to stop.  But I'm wondering if this continued.  Was there internal damage?  Dennis had taken the guts away before I got home so I couldn't examine them closely.  It would have been nice to do a forensic on them, but it was hot so the guts had to go.  Dennis was exhausted after the whole ordeal so I understand he wasn't up to examining guts too closely.  That is usually my job as I am not squeamish. 

Sue had said that these things just happen some times.  They had a 2 year old ewe that just started to behave like Red was, listless and limp.  The ewe just seemed to give up and die for no apparent reason.  So, there you go. 

I'm trying to clear my lungs out after bleaching the floor in the basement.  One thing that this has done is make me determined to have a proper floor put down in the basement.  I don't care what the cost is, it's going to happen.  I am tired of trying to scrub rough concrete with bleach water and then trying to mop it up.  When you have dogs you need a proper floor.  Plain and simple.  Ok, that's it now for sure. 

Good morning, all!  I don't even know where to begin today.  Yesterday is not a day I would care to repeat.

I got up at 7 a.m. and was out the door by 9 a.m. to drive to Houston to pick up Matthew.  He had his orthodontist appointment in Prince George.  His car is in for repair so I picked him up.  We had a pleasant drive.  We stopped at Vanderhoof at the museum restaurant for lunch.   It is all homemade - even the bread for sandwhiches.  It was a delicious lunch.

Prior to that, while I was in Houston picking up Matthew, Dennis called to say that Red, one of our prize ram lambs, was not well.  He was taking him in to the vet.  I met him in Burns Lake at the vets.  We tried to put a tube down into his stomach as he appeard to be somewhat bloated.  I couldn't stay too long, but Dennis said they worked on him for about an hour, even puncturing his side with a needle to let air escape.  That didn't seem to be the problem but the ram was giving up.  One of our friends, Sue Freeze, was there and also helped out.  In the end the poor ram died when Dennis got home.  He is now hanging in the woodshed.  Unfortunately it is unseasonably warm so we will have to cut him up pronto.  I have the book out on how to cut up livestock and game.  Yet another thing to learn!  He may be too tough because when they are stressed the meat is tough.  But I need to get something out of this poor beast.  If he was sold as a breeding ram, as a purebred and as one this large, he would bring in between $400 and $500.  At any rate, if he is tough he will be lamb stew.

This morning we had more disgusting events - either Crystal or Bridget had a blow-out of black tarry feces in the basement.  Does it ever end?  Dennis said they had been licking up the blood from where he bled the lamb.  So no one is dying.  This is just the result of digested iron which was clearly too much for them.  Not easy to face first thing in the morning though.  So bleach bucket, rubber gloves and a scrub brush in hand, off I go.

Now the phones have quit working.  They worked until 4:00 yesterday.  I was still able to call out last night but calls did not ring in the house.  Now I can't call out at all.  We went outside to the box and tested that.  Still didn't work.  I hd to go on-line to chat with Telus repair.  Apparently the phone repair chat people were having trouble with their system so I was told to phone the repair line.  Um, my phone doesn't work, guys!  So the guy I got on the chat line, who was a tv and internet guy, ran and got a phone repair guy to chat with me.  He finally said we need a repair person to come out to the house.  Soonest date for repair is October 31.  Um, is that the best you can do, Telus?  6 weeks with no phone!  They asked if I had a cell phone.  I told them we have been asking Telus for cell service out here for years, but it's a not go, so no, no cell phone.  So now the manager is going to email me with a sooner date if they can work it in.  It's times like this when I tire of the inconvenience of living here.  Maybe I should just build a cabin without power or phone and go live there.  That way I wouldn't be counting on a service that only works some of the time while expecting it to work all of the time.

Today I will blanch and freeze my second picking of beans.  I am still unwell after yesterday's bout with a mighty mean stomach.  Poor Matthew had to deal with my miserableness during the drive home.  I am watching what I eat today so with any luck it will pass (no pun intended!).

I had to post this on the screen in the spare room upstairs.  Dennis really hates the idea of bats landing on him, so this will remind him, when he's wandering outside with a beer and his book, to look up before opening the screen!

And here is a picture of my kale patch.  Time to bring that into the freezer too!

Ok, time to get to work!  Let's hope today is better than yesterday!

 

 

 

Good evening.  What an insane day!  I did manage to get my currant jelly made but for whatever reason it is not setting.  I followed the instructions exactly (for a change) but there it is, all runny.  It will have to be re-boiled. 

When the jelly was done I went outside on the upper deck to hang some washing on the racks I have attached to the deck railing.  As I pushed open the sliding door I felt something touch my head and shoulder.  I stopped and brushed my head and shoulder but felt nothing.  After hanging the wash I turned to come back in and saw what had hit me, clinging to the small rug inside the room:

Yes!  A bat!  He was hanging out under the bamboo blind that is on the outside of the sliding door.  When I moved the door and screen I must have knocked him from his perch.  I did let out a gutteral shriek when I first saw him which I'm sure was heard across the lake!  Upon closer examination, I noticed the poor guy was kind of blinking his eyes and probably wondering what the heck just happened.  I just picked up the rug and slid him outside, and left him on the chaise. 

My friend Lois arrived later, coming to see the progress on the new barn.  Dennis was unloading a bundle of fence posts up on the site so Lois and I walked up to check the barn and take a beer to Dennis.  We each had a beer and discussed how the doors should be hung.  As Lois and I were leaving I checked the water bucket in the ram pen.  Just Ben and the 2 ram lambs we took to the fair were in there.  The others were in the large paddock behind.  I did not notice but Finn and Niko must have sneaked in behind me.  As I left the pen I closed the gate.  Rhaq and Bridget were with us so I guess I saw black and white around me and thought all was well.  Lois and I are just opening the gate to cross the road to the house when we heard a yell from Dennis.  He was really yelling so we thought he must have hurt himself with the trailer, or the bundle of posts falling on him or something.  I threw my beer down, as did Lois, and we started running  back up the road.  My shoes came off so I'm running in my socks.  I lift up my head to see a lamb running like the devil towards me.  All I can think of is to get the heck out of the way and get the gate shut.  Lois must have had the same mind because the next thing you know we are both running back to the gate with the lamb in hot pursuit.  Behind the lamb are Finn, Niko and Dennis waving and yelling things I won't repeat.  We dive for the gate but not before the lamb shoots past us with Finn and Niko on his tail.  Finn gets him over the road and into the safety of our yard.  Now that I know Dennis isn't hurt I stop to find my beer in the ditch, (it landed right way up so still beer to drink!) and try to find Finn and the lamb.  I sent Niko into the house, found Finn who then went straight to the lamb and held him there.  I grabbed the lamb and put him in one of the pens.  Dennis was so mad at Niko.  He said Niko and Finn were in the pen with the lambs and Ben, but Finn came immediately when called.  Niko did not come and chased Ben into the fence.  Ben tried to jump the fence but instead hit it with such force it stretched the page wire into the shape of his body.  He then tried to jump it, but the top of the fence has 3 strands of barbed wire,  His head caught the wire and he flipped right upside down and over the fence.  Poor Ben!  But he got up and trotted off, so he was ok.  The lamb that ended up down the driveway hit the gate so hard it popped it out of it's latch.  He then ran into Dennis, knocking him over.  By the time Dennis got up, still yelling and swearing, the lamb was past Lois and me and heading for the house.  Once we checked to see Ben and all the lambs were ok, we were in dire need of another beer on the porch. 

After that we went to check out a fence that a neighbour needs done.  After visiting and discussing the merits of posts 10 feet apart or 12 feet apart, we came home.  Dennis was watering the sheep while I took Finn up to gather the ewes and bring them down to the paddock closer to the road for the night.  I wandered up the trail where the sheep usually come then heard Dennis calling that the sheep were in the paddock.  I turned around to see Finn going through the gate and the sheep running in front of him.  I quickly called Finn to stop and come back, but he ran the sheep into the range gate, knocking it right off the post.  They were now somewhere in the new barn area.  Brother!  Dennis had to fix the gate while I took Finn and re-gathered the sheep.  After some mis-fires we finally got them back where they belonged, gate fixed and closed, and Dennis poured himself a Scotch.  I really have to get a stop or at least a slow down on Finn.  We clearly need better gate latches, dogs with more control and a whole lot more beer!

So, just to calm things down a bit, here are some pictures of the house and gardens:

Yes, the roses are still blooming.  These pictures were taken today, prior to all the chaos.  Ok, time for bed.   I have to drive grandson Matthew to Prince George tomorrow to see his orthodontist.  I leave early and will be home late so things should be quiet tomorrow.

Good morning, everyone!  It looks like I will be up at 7:00 a.m. from now on.  Rhaq has decided that he needs to get up at about 5 to 7 each morning.  He comes and stands by my bed, wagging his tail so it knocks against the curtains.  If that doesn't move me he starts to whine.  If that doesn't work he then puts his front paws on the bed.  I really want to avoid that so you can be sure I am up and out of bed, grumbling at him, but out of bed all the same.

An overcast day, but no rain.  Today I must make my currant jelly and freeze the green and yellow beans.  After that I have to fix the bird feeder that the dogs wrecked.  I guess they were after a mouse living under the spool that held up the bird feeder.  At any rate, the thing is now in pieces. 

I was out in the greenhouse this morning.  Things are still looking mighty fine in there.  I do have heat on now so the cost of my peppers and tomatoes is rising!  Oh well, it is more for fun than profit!  This is my first year with a greenhouse.  I am learning as I go.  I am thrilled that I actually got cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and basil.  I LOVE fresh basil!  So here is what it all looked like this morning:

Pretty nice peppers, if I do say so myself!  I'm not sure how yellow the yellow ones have to get, but I think they are ready to pick, so I will pick some today for my salad.  You can see a green pepper hanging to the left of the red ones.  They all start green then with sun and time turn to whatever colour they should be.  Quite interesting, I think.

Here is my basil.  I have had a lot of pickings and it keeps growing.  I have put some in vinegar to preserve it for use over the winter.  Plus, I will use the lovely basil flavoured vinegar in dressings.  I have a book on preserving without freezing or canning so I'm trying a few of these very old ways of preserving.  Most of the methods come from France.  I am also going to take a few cuttings and try to root them for planting in the house.  I am trying to have fresh basil over winter.  I wonder if there won't be enough daylight though, even on the south facing window sill.  We'll see.

I have a lot of green tomatoes, a little pumpkin and some more cucumbers.  There are still a few more cucumbers than the ones you see, but they are rather small.  Honestly, I have never eaten a sweeter tasting cucumber than the ones I have picked from my greenhouse.  Actually, it's Susan's greenhouse.  It was a gift for her when she graduated with her Master's degree from UNBC.  Susan has moved to Kamloops so until she gets a permanent residence, I will baby sit the greenhouse. 

Dennis is off to Houston to get a bundle of fence posts, plywood and other odds and ends for finishing the barn.  I had better get busy on my list of things to do: make currant jelly, freeze beans, fix bird house, take the scale apart and try to fix it, laundry, etc.  My two big projects will be to re-build my herb bed and to build a foundation for the generator.  More on that later.  In the meantime it's off to deal with my task list. 

Have a good day, everyone!

A busy day.  Today I was going to make beet jelly first thing in the morning.  Then, a few emails to a company in Ontario about our sheep scale which is giving issues, a few phonecalls from family and one from the company in Alberta where we get our ear tatoo supplies and the morning was pretty well shot.  So the jelly got underway around 1:00.  5 batches later, with various experiments to improve the flavour and this is what I have:

I made the first batch just with lemon juice and certo lite.  It was a bit bland.  The recipe said it would taste like berry jelly but it just tasted sweet with little flavour.  So the next batch got a package of grape jello added in with the sugar.  Actually, it replaced 1/2 cup of sugar since the first ingredient is sugar.  That was actually pretty nice.  Not to end there, the next batch got strawberry jello added.  Also very nice.  Since those were the only 2 flavours I had I made another grape and another strawberry.  I started to wonder why I was doing this when I could probably go and buy jars of grape and strawberry jelly.  I'm hoping there is some remnant of the beet nutrient in the jelly which will counteract the chemicals from the jello.  Oh well, whatever, right?  Not everything has to be brimming with vitamins and minerals!

After the jelly making we moved Ben, our big ram, and Red and Fred, two of his sons, up to the winter pen where there is more forage.  Then I looked at the progress on the barn.  Dennis has one door sort of on.  I forgot the camera so will take a picture tomorrow.  It's looking good and I'm impressed that he figured out the hardware.  After that Dennis and I picked the green beans and the peas.  Then it was time to get supper going.  A beautiful sockeye fillet tonight, with potatoes and broccoli from the garden.  I will also make a tomato and basil salad, both fresh from the greenhouse. 

Last night's frost did not harm the garden.  Even the volunteer tomatoes are still blooming away showing no signs of damage. 

I'm pretty tired after being on my feet all day so this is it.  Tomorrow I will be freezing more beans and trying to fix the sheep scale.  I will add a picture so you know what I'm talking about.  Mmmmm, I smell the salmon so it's time for supper!  bye for now.

Hi again.  I am supposed to be making beet jelly but have misplaced my recipe.  I came up here to see if it was on my desk (I cleaned it yesterday).  It wasn't, so here I am.  This is a short note for those having trouble leaving comments.  All comments are enabled, even anonymous.  You can leave a comment using just your name, a nickname or us anonymous.  You go to the bottom of the post, look for the comments or no comments words and click on that.  It will ask a name or url or whatever you want to use.  Dennis just clicked on name and put in his first name.  Skip the url, it is optional.  Then leave your comment.  Unfortunately you have to deal with the spam blocking feature, over which I have no control.  You will see a picture.  Type in what it is, ie. eight, eleven or whatever.  Then type what you see in the squiggly letters.  It is a bit of a test, for sure.  If they are not clear just hit the refresh button that they give you and try again.  I am sorry it is so complicated but once you get the hang it goes rather easily.  Once you have typed in the two words, hit publish.  It should work. 

We had our first frost last night.  It must have been a very light frost.  It hit the top of the truck and the deck, but the garden, including the green beans and yellow beans, is still fine!  Hard to believe.  The potatoes, on the other hand, look a bit wilted.  The tubers will be fine though as they are deep in the ground. 

Time to start emptying hoses, picking up flower pots and tidying up the yard.  In the meantime, I have to make this infernal jelly.  Bye for now.

We are home from the fair.  This was one of the best weekends I have had in a long time!  It was great fun!  It was also very relaxing.  Nothing to do but tend to our 3 rams, visit anyone and everyone who went by, eat good food and watch some interesting herding and exciting heavy horse pulls.  We came home each night worn out so slept well.  It was fun to get up in the morning and head in to the fair for a good breakfast.  Here are some pictures which pretty well tell it all:

Yes, we won first and second for the ram lambs, first for the mature ram.  Our first place ram lamb also won Grand Champion Ram, beating out his father for the prize.  Ben, our big guy, won the reserve Grand Champion Ram.  We also won first and second prize in the Showmanship event.  That is where we walk the rams in a ring and show them at their best to the judge.  We learned a lot and really enjoyed the whole experience.  As you can see, Saturday was hot and sunny.  A perfect day for a fair.  Here are some pictures of the heavy horse pull:

 

 

 



 

I'm having a lot of trouble with my internet server tonight so I will post more pictures tomorrow.  At any rate, this gives you an idea of the beautiful animals at the heavy horse pull.  I will tell more about it tomorrow as it is all quite interesting.