Sunday Round Up ( Jan. 24-30)

 Last year (like the Christmas before last) Hubs got a retro arcade plug and play game. Which has Pac Man on it. After Dad showed him a few times, Pac Man is about the perfect skill level for a 4 year old. He would have played for hours if we let him. Needless to say it disappeared that night, to come out another day. But it was fun to watch how much a game that we grew up with could still be so much fun, to someone who's never seen it.

Meow meow, somehow managed to worm her way into the house today.

Actually I kept seeing her sitting in front of the goat barn spying on them through the crack in the door. It occurred to me she's not actually that interested in the goats, she's probably after their heated water. Which means the dog water is either frozen or Jasper's being a jerk again, and won't let her anywhere near it.

So she got let into the house to make sure she had access to water.

Speaking of the Dog's guess who's also in the house tonight?
The temps have dropped drastically again. But with all the melting in the last week all the melting has caused some massive humidity. When Maggie met me in the driveway tonight she was soaking wet and covered in frost at the same time. Considering the temps are suppose to drop to minus 29 tonight our buddies are getting treated to a rare night inside. No Coyote duty tonight. Yippee!!!

Actually the whole week has been pretty wrecked, since everyone has come down with one heck of a cold!

Poor little monkey spent an entire day miserable on the couch.

(it's so strange when he goes from 60 to 0 instead of the other way around)

My only big project around here this week was the start of the operation de-clutter the kitchen. I've decided it's time for a massive overhaul, where everything in the house MUST have a permanent home or be re-homed! So far these are the donate boxes just from the kitchen cabinets. We're closing in on 2 years here, and most of this stuff has sat untouched in the cupboards the entire time. I don't know if it's just cabin fever, or if it's the fact we have "normally" moved at least once in every 2 year span up until now. The moving always forced a de-junking, and without it I had to wait for the urge to purge.

- Not bad so far-

Crazy Melty

My heart was singing today.
The sun was out.
We hit + 5.
Everything was melting.
I was hopping town to town running errands and getting my work done for the week.
But I made time to splash in a puddle.
(Hubby was not to impressed since he was walking beside me during said puddle splashing, and may or may not have gotten a little wet)
But a puddle. a PUDDLE!!! I was so happy how could I not jump in it?

Sunday Round Up (Jan. 17-23)

Okay so I'm a day late with this one...

But it was kind of an interesting week around here.

* The weather finally broke, and we've seen plus side temperature a couple of days.

* The Goats are nuts for this weather, running, jumping and butting heads at being released from the barn (two weeks straight in there would probably make anyone nuts)

* Maxxie the Beagle has also spent the last two weeks cooped up in the house, we've been throwing her out the front door and she comes straight back after her business. Of course when it warmed up on Saturday I was leery about continuing the practice, but gave it a shot anyways. After 3 minutes when there was no scratch at the door I went to call her. She was on the range road down past the driveway. No amount of whistling or calling would bring her back. All of a sudden she took off like a shot right in the direction of the highway. By the time I got my boots on and ran all the way to the highway she was across it and in the Buffalo paddock across the road. CRAP! Someone was watching over both of us this time. She responded to my whistle finally, and thankfully there were no cars coming when she mad her mad dash back across the highway for me. Maggie had come out to see what all the commotion was about and actually herded Max back to the house. After getting knocked into the snow a few times by a dog 20 times the size of you running full steam to the safety of the house suddenly seems like the best idea "you've " had all day. So Miss Maxxie is back to going in her dog run during outside time. Beagles and their noses, shesh!

* Our land finally made us some money! Hopefully not the last. But we got a cheque this week for the seismic work that was done. It was good feeling to have some money back, since it seems like most of the time we just are shelling it out to live here.

* After a week of crazy kids I found its great therapy to take a 4 year old outside and chuck him into snow drifts. Watching him have to fight his way through snow is not only amusing but a great way to exhaust him! Yup, another mother of the year award for that one I''m sure.

* But the biggest news around here was the final demise of  Evil Cat. I hadn't seen her or even heard her in about 3 days. That's pretty normal around here, she seems to disappear as soon as the weather warms up, so I didn't give it much thought. But Chris borrowed my Van for a run to town, and before he hit the highway he realized he was out of windshield fluid. He popped the hood to add some, and made a bit of a gruesome discovery. Guess who had crawled onto the engine block to take a final nap?!?!
Hey after all the havoc that cat has caused around here, I'm not even going to pretend I'm sad. The only gross part about it is I'm not sure I haven't been driving around with a dead cat under my hood for three days. Ewwww.

* And my MIL is nearly done the first "goat coat" from the sweater pattern I sent her this week. Apparently she's knitting them in bright orange and bright green. No chance of losing a kid in the snow! I can't wait to see them.

Freaky dog

The other night I was off to put the goats "to bed". It was already dark and I was actually kind of relieved when Maggie decided she was going to accompany me on the round of chores.

I fed the goats first, and they were happily munching away on oats and hay cubes. So I snagged their water bucket and headed off to refill it. I noticed that Maggie was no longer with me, but I wasn't too concerned.
Although, I wouldn't leave her alone with the goats for extended periods of time (mostly because I think she'd find a way to help them escape). I've watched her before, and the only thing she wants them to do is stay together. So the worst case I figured was she'd herd them all to one corner of the barn.

A minute later, I realized something wasn't quite right. There was two goats standing at the barn door "yelling" at me. And Maggie was nowhere in sight.

The dog had kicked all the goats off their food and was busy chowing down.

OATS AND HAY CUBES????

Since when to Dogs eat these things?

Oh right it's Maggie the chow hound. I'm not always sure she even tastes what she's eating.

Although, I've notice since she heads for the feed shack as soon as I'm done to make sure I haven't dropped anything. It's the hay cubes she's after.

Weirdo Dog!

Haybale jumping

Not such a hot idea!

During the snow storms I've been bundling up Nathan like crazy and taking him with me to feed the goats, if the wind isn't too brutal.

The plus side to this is is he makes the perfect weight on the sled to hold down all the loose hay that needs to be dragged from one side of the yard to the barns on the other. ***Note to self: next year if you buy big round bales put them near the barn, dead grass is the least of your worries in -40 weather***

The downside is, super snow pants and having nothing but your eyes exposed makes you superman against the cold. Heck you'd stay and play outside all day if mom let you.

So the other afternoon he insists I help him up the hay bale while I'm tearing it apart. We have 5 sitting together, so the game soon became jump from one to the other. Land in a puff of flying snow and repeat!

Meanwhile I'm raking apart the bale thinking..." I wonder if I should allow this? is there a chance he could slide between them? No, Your just being the paranoid mom."

About 5 minutes after I had this internal dialogue. Guess what happened?

Yup, he slide right in between two. Luckily, he's old enough to have some self-preservation instinct.  He threw his arms out and held onto anything he could keeping his shoulders and head above the crevasse he was sinking into.
I couldn't reach him from where I was standing, so I jumped down, ran to the other side. Where I could grab him by the back of the jacket, a scruff of the neck kinda hold. He was jammed in pretty good. But my heartbeat was pounding, and I'm sure the adrenaline was pumping. A few good tugs, and I had him, and I was tumbling backwards into the snow in a cloud of snow and hay, with the flailing of legs and arms.

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll be nominated for mother of the year for that one..

spring? soon????

Look what arrived in the mail (Thursday)

The chicken catalog from the hatchery we ordered from last year.

I was so excited.
Not really about getting chickens. I'm still not sure if I want to do more this year. Especially not meat birds, since we still have something like 14 birds in the freezer.
I'm seriously thinking about doing some exotic bantam breeds, and then trying to hatch chicks...well see...

But what I was really, REALLY excited about, was the idea that you can start ordering chick...as in SPRING is around the corner. (knock on wood)

Actually our weather finally broke tonight. One of the weather networks actually reported us a 1 degree tonight. 1 DEGREE - Like on the plus side. Not the minus.
Of course its about 4 days overdue from when the said we were suppose to get it, so I'm not going to hold my breath, when they way it suppose to be like this for the next 5 or so days.

But doing chores tonight wasn't half bad. So no complaints.

A pattern and a confession

Last week I mentioned how I was going to sign up for the goat hypothermia class with Kathy at HMFF?

The class was up and rolling as of Monday. Today we received an e-mail detailing the pattern for Kathy's ever so cute little lamb/kid coats.
Which I promptly forwarded to my MIL

*Gasp*

Why?

This is the confession part...

I can't knit

*double GASP*

Yeah, I know. I have all these great plans that may or may not include getting animals like sheep, alpacas, and angora rabbits. Maybe even some angora goats.
All fiber animals.
And yet I myself can't knit.

Growing up I can remember my mother knitting me exactly one sweater. I also remember getting yelled at if you talked while she was doing this. "BE QUIET I NEED TO COUNT!!!"- My super crafty mother got right stressed out by knitting. In fact after she finished the sweater, I don't recall seeing her ever knit anything else.
This is probably why I have no idea how to knit.

I was absolutely in love with a Patons pattern  called Sally Secretary Monkey. I bought it and begged my MIL to knit me one. Which she did and I got got for Christmas. Awesome gift!

My favorite part is her little high heels.

Anyways, I can't knit. I've made my confession I feel better.
Okay not really.
One of my goals for 2011 is to learn, at least be able to knit a scarf by the end of the year? We'll see.
I don't suppose you could just raise fiber animals for the fun of raising the animals and barter/sell/trade all of the fleece/fur/wool???
Yeah, probably not really the point.

But right now I've talked my MIL into making me a couple of little goat coats. Because I've learned 2 very interesting facts from the workshop so far.

1) Kids can get hypothermia at any point in the year. They go from being inside Mom at a comfy 103 degree F. temp. to being dropped on a barn floor at whatever the temperature outside is sitting at.

and number 2 has nothing to do with why she needs to knit them for me, but it was an interesting fact about goat coats I thought I'd share.
2) They need to be made from Acrylic yarn. -because you can't use real wool. A baby animal can't smell even slightly like another animal to a new mom.
Something I totally wouldn't have thought of, pretty interesting huh?

just one more website to get addicted to

The Canadian Goat Network is a newly created Socialgo network, with a layout much like facebook.
With different forums, upcoming events, and goat breed groups.
It's just starting up, but already there's a ton of great advice, articles and a recipe for making brie cheese.

The Canadian Goat Network

Meet Your Maker

The event name made me laugh.
Its an event where food producers and food buyers can find each other, put on by the Capital Region Local Food Initiative.

I'm excited they have such events already taking place. Too bad we don't have any "real products" yet!

Keynote speakers
A local lunch
Six speed networking session to connect growers, processors, buyers and distributors
and capital corner- meet face to face with financiers.


Sounds like an excellent way to spend a day and build some connections. Hopefully they will be having this event again next year, when maybe we'll have some sort of product to actually market...

more whining

I'm sure about as tired of hearing about the nasty cold as I am living in it.
But seriously its -27 C right now. With wind chill its -38.
I feel like I'm never going to warm up again

It would be nice not to have to be dressed like this every time we go outside. Just sayin'
We're definitely about function over fashion now!