The farm

Dan and I went to my parents this past weekend. He was working for Dad on Sunday helping him with a job that had to get done that day. It sucks working on Sundays but he was working with a fun team of guys who made the day go fast. I got to go to Amy and Joel's with mom for Amy's birthday and just hung out drinking wine (man I love that stuff!) for most of the day. Like my dad said, we left in the evening with a car load of agrarian plunder. My sister, Cass, is taking 2 hens and 1 rooster from mom to see if she can get any eggs. We decided that since we're halfway (?) we would take them to our place along with another rooster for us to keep.
So the chickens!!! What a group of stupid chickens. I have changed my mind on what rooster I want. One is far more subdued than the other. I wanted the slightly smaller but more colourful rooster but he just seems so dumb to me now. All he does is frantically follow his hens around. There is definately one hen that wanders more than the other. I think that the colourful rooster would be better off staying with Cass's hens anyways. The other rooster has nice detail on him, is bigger (better for the freezer when he ends up there) and seems to get along better with my hens. Not that there is much getting along that is happening. The two groups seem to totally ignore eachother. They hardly even eat at the same time. They sleep on different perches and stay on opposite sides of the coop. Wierd, eh? I was silly and really wanted to see how mom's chickens would do outside so the first evening at our place I decided to let them out an hour before sunset just to get a peek of the place. That was dumb. The plan was to open the coop up, and let my chickens find their way back in (they were out all night) and then feed them all so that mom's chickens get the idea that they are fed at night. The trick here is to not have the goat inside because then there won't be any feed left. The first problem was that Mozz finally broke her red collar (that used to belong to Chloe, I think Hannelle gave it to her). The plastic just wore down from many pulls. So I had to find a spot to put Mozz where she couldn't get at the feed. After a few different rooms, I finally found one that she couldn't get out of but she BAWLED the whole time! The second problem was the actual chicknes. They weren't making any move for the grain that my chickens were already in and eating so I tried to shoo them in. Those chickens do NOT follow any kind of direction. You can't chase them because they will run to the side instead of in front of them. You can't lead them because the smallest pebble will distract them from the food that you are dangling in front of them. Chloe decided that these chickens are far more fun to chase than ours so she ended up making the problem worse by chasing the dumb rooster and adventurous hen all the way to the neighbors. So, I put Chloe in.It didn't take as long as it could have to get them in finally but I was steaming by the time it was all finished. Tuesday we were at Dan's parents for supper and so no anmials got out that night. Mom and I decided that part of the trick was not feeding them too much. You want them to be hungry for that grain. (James also told me that since they aren't laying yet, they won't really want that much food) So Tuesday I only fed them a bit, which they had to fight over with Mozz. On Wednesday I got another collar for Mozz, tied her up outside, planted lots of stuff in the garden and had a really successful evening. It felt good going to bed that night. I did let out the chickens again an hour before sunset and Chloe wasn't as interested as she was the first time. They were hungrier so they pretty much went in by themselves. Like I said, it was a good night.The ducks haven't hatched yet but I heard from Jim that muscovies actually take 32 days to hatch and not 28 so I'm not too anxious. Oh, and they seperated the nest into two nests and are now sitting separately. Hopefully when they hatch I'll be able to get some pictures here.
Work time! Gotta go. Have a good week!

Congratulations Mike and Meg!

Here's some pictures of the wedding. I'm no good at taking pictures of weddings and these pictures don't give near enough of an example of how nice that place looked. They had beautiful decorations and lots of notice to detail. They even had a symbol for them: M . M Cute eh?

Here's a quote that they had read at their wedding and was also in their program that I really liked and appreciated:

Ultimately there comes a time when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of Love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that together we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people thing, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling.

-Madeline L'Engle

Isn't that great? There's already a few conversations that that brought up for me. One last picture:

Okay, one more: This is Dan and I with the brother and sister-in-law of the bride (Aaron and Paige).... new friends!

Did someone ask for pictures?

I am sick of not posting pics. I love opening someone's post and seeing all those pics and I have so many things to take pictures of. I'm going to search around for the patch cord for my camera so that I can plug it in to any computer at anytime. Maybe then you'll get pictures more often. In the meantime I have taken my camera with me for the last couple of days planning posts to do with each picture I take. Since that would obviously be wayyyy too much to write/read I'll just post a few things after some pictures. Here we go:

Here's Mikey and Meggy! Mikey is by himself waiting for Meggy to come down. She's the one wih the darker head of the two girls. See the eggs though?! What's going on? One day three of the eggs had been rolled/pushed out of the nest and Friday I saw that they had kicked out 4 more! Does anyone know why? Is it because I've bugged them too much or is this natural selection?

Here is my most wonderful garden fence. I've thought of so many ideas for this fence already. I'm planning on planting nasturium for one side. I think that would look nice and, of course, is useful since people say you can eat the petals in salads. I want to plant the cukes all by the edge of the fence so that I can tie them up and then save space in the garden. Maybe for giggles I might try to train the vines to grow in the shape of a "D and N". Wouldn't that be cute. hee hee. Mom says good luck.

The fence looks so much better in person than this pic shows. And the soil!! Oh, it is so beautiful. I was rototilling the garden the other day and there is one section that I've done a few times already so it was sooo soft. Honestly, i think it's nicer walking on freshly tilled soil than beautiful beach sand. This pic shows the fence but also the soil. Look how deep the rototill went down.

Here's my first wide row. Mom and Dad lent me a book (I still have it) and this guy says to plant in wide rows and harvest it all season young or old. I can't wait. Actually, my spinach is read so I'll be eating that all week. At the end is the spinach and then is the lettuce. You can't really see the brocolli because most of it has been eaten down by rabbits and chickens but boy do those onions look good, eh? I found little stools (in the eisle on the right) in a garden shed at our place and they actually come in handy. They are great! Here's one last picture. My beautiful rototiller:

two posts in one day?!!

That's right, I'm in the blogging world today.
Really, I just have more time to kill. Maybe I should do a post of things to do when you need to kill time:
- Go to Redeemer. This is always a good one. It's generally open and the computers are private... plus they have good washrooms.
- Go out for a meal. This usually kills lots of time but ends up being pricey.
- Walk around WalMart or the mall or something. This one can also be pretty pricey.
- One that I'm going to try out later today: Go to the library. Usually my empty time is when the library is closed but tonight I think I'm going to have an hour or so alone (while Dan is at a tool party and I'm waiting to go out with the other girls). This also leads to the next point...
- Read a book in the car. I should find some more good public places to do things like this. I'm a fan of reading the newspaper and doing the crossword so I should check out some parks.
- Go to Hannelles. This is a really good one too. It's another home for me. If I know I'm going there the next morning I'll put off taking my shower until I get to her place so that I can use her girly soaps etc. Plus she's got a really good hair straightener. I can cook, read, use the internet or watch a movie there. The only problem is the time thing again. I would usually be there first thing in the morning when she would obviously be sleeping and I feel a tad guilty getting her out of bed early.
- Go to work early. I'm using this one tomorrow morning. I don't start till 8:00 but if I'm there at 7ish then I can slowly get started instead of being swamped right away.
- Drive the back roads. I like this one but feel guilty about burning the gas. There's a customer of mine who has the life that I want. He's got a gorgeous house, great gardens (veggies and cut flowers and perennials etc.), raises chickens (just enough so that when he butchers and sells them it pays for the whole process and they have yummy large organic free range chicken for the year) and just today I heard him talking about a catering thing he did. Anyways, he told me where he lives (they sell cut flowers and some veggies at a stand at the end of their house) and I've done the slow drive-by peek while trying not to be too creepy.

Wow, I didn't think I had that many options of things to do when killing time. I bet I could think of more too.
I just have a few more things to say that I forgot to put in my last post.
- Another really great thing about Monday was that Caleb mowed and swept the lawn of all the grass cuttings. Do you know how good that feels? I'm not usually the one that has to mow the lawn (because Dan says that he really wants to do it) but I do have to see it long a lot and when it is cut the grass clippings are so long and heavy that they make brown marks everywhere. It felt really great going to bed knowing that my house was clean (even the sink that mom scrubbed white), the grass was cut all the weeds around the trees whacked :) and there isn't even grass everywhere. thanks caleb!!
-Mike and Meghan (good friends of ours) are getting married on Friday. I'm super excited for them and I'm getting really excited about the wedding. They stopped by at work today and a co-worker of mine said they look really happy together. We named two of our ducks after them. The male duck is Mikey and the female duck with the black head is Meggy. Mikey and Meggy are going to be parents next week. cute eh?
-crap, there was one more thing but I forget what it is now....

What a weekend.
Instead of planning a long weekend of relaxing and gardening I thought I had overbooked the weekend and would be pooched out by the end. Most holidays do actually end that way I didn't want that for my may long weekend. I worked the closing shift on Friday and Saturday. Both nights I planned to go out after work with friends. I don't usually go out late anymore (something to do with getting up early in the morning?) so by the time I got home both those nights it was around 1:30. One-Thirty!! That's crazy. I can't do that anymore... two nights in a row. Between those two days Dan went on Aux. so I didn't see him much and neither of us got any of the house cleaned. We planned to have all our friends over on Sunday night so getting the house cleaned was a must. Since Dan was sleeping off his night shift on Sunday morning and I had a plant sale that I REALLY wanted to go to, I'll admit it, I forfeited my day of rest. I skipped church, went to the plant sale (bought some really neat heirloom tomatos; they'll probably die to pay for the sin of buying on Sunday) and Dan and I cleaned the house all day. I won't say that I forfeited the day as a day of worship because sometimes I feel like I am more honestly worshipping in a hen house or garden than a sanctuary. It was a cool day but when our friends all came over, the hardy few of us made sure we all went outside anyways and had a campfire. It turned out to be a pretty good evening. I even managed to get to bed shortly after midnight.
Monday really took the place of a Sunday for me. What a great day that was. I'll have to remember it for the "what was your favorite moment this year?" question at New Years. One couple had slept over, Dave and Brenda, and we all had a big breakfast. They left fairly early to begin their busy day of landscaping (oh, new home-owners) and so Dan and I started our landscaping. My seeds STILL haven't come in so I wasn't in the veggy garden at all. Instead, I decided to try a bit of cleaning in the flower gardens. My flower gardens are always neglected and there are a ton of them on this property so I just have to pick and choose what I can/want to do. I got a good start on it by noon when Mom and Dad W. and Caleb came over. What great in-laws. I couldn't ask for better. I have a hard time not talking about how great they are to friends who don't get along with their in-laws. They brought a weed whacker (?), a sledge hammer and all the other tools in Dad's work van. For the last month or so I have been planning on putting up that chicken wire fence around the garden, right? I had just imagined some metal posts and wire wrapped around it. Nothing fancy. Wrong. Get Dan and Dad together working on a project and it turns fancy pretty fast. It started by digging (really deep) corner posts in. They even used the nice 6x6 clothesline post that came down this winter. They figured I still didn't have enough metal posts to support the wire (its chicken wire!) so they found a way of rigging airplane cable (?) stretch really tight between the posts. Of course the first had to reinforce the posts by digging supports in for them. Then after all that was done, we rolled the wire around and tie-wrapped it to the cable and posts. What a work of art. It's awesome! Mom helped with the final touch by looking around our place and finding a really great picket gate that was mounted on the corner post (another post had to be dug for the gate too... a lot of digging). It looks so great. Afterwards we sat around the fire, having a BBQ and watching the chickens inspect the fence. There was even a little bit of scratching around the edges. The garden looks smaller now. More permanent and stable though. And the best part is, I now have 5 perfect spot to place a wine glass or beer bottle when I'm out in the garden. A picture is definately needed and coming.
The second really great thing that happened on Monday is that I got a scythe. Look it up. There's quite the internet community about scythes. I visited our neighbors who haven't quite moved in yet and found a scythe in in their back old chicken coop that they are burning (terrible.. it's a really good coop too). They said I could take it so it's snatched. Now I just have to figure out how to peen it, sharpen it and get a whet stone.
After a day like that, I thought work would be dreadful. It was great. It flew by and I was looking forward to seeing my fenced in garden all day.

mornings.

With our morning schedule, I end up having a couple of hours to kill most mornings. I drop Dan off at work and then have nothing to do from 7:00 till 9:00 or 10:00 (depending on when my shift starts). For a while I went to Tim Hortons and took my time there, then I would go to WalMart (who knew that they open already at 7:00?!!). But that started to get expensive. Besides, it's a massive WalMart that has everything and it kinda makes me sick. I don't mind going in there if I need something and its convenient but I'd rather stay out of massive stores like that. Lately, I've been going out for breakfast by myself to kill time. At first I felt kinda silly (loner?) but hey, i'm a customer, I can spend as much time there as I want right? They have a couple of news papers so I pick one up, have my 1 egg with bacon (or ham) and brown toast. An hour passes pretty quick that way. I go through the headlines (most I already heard on the drive from the CBC) and then check out the crossword. I didn't have a pen today but it looked like a good one. The only problem is the waitress seems kinda pushy. She memorized my order after the first time I went there so that was nice but she gives me my bill right away so I feel like I should leave. Eventually she stops refilling my coffee too. So now I'm on my second hour to kill before I start work. I've been reluctant to come to Redeemer now that the halls aren't filled with students. I feel really out of place here now. I just rediscovered the computers upstairs though. It's out of the way, people don't see me and they are open all hours of the day. How perfect is that?
Although about 80% of my day yesterday was pretty bluesy I ended up going to bed pretty happy and content with the day. Not that it was a bad day. I just felt kinda down in the dumps. I remember even waking up sad. Since life has been busy lately, Dan and I decided that we were going to visit with only one mother on mothers day this year instead of trying to split the day between two families 1.5 hours away from eachother and our home. We went to church with mom and dad Wikk. in the morning and spent the afternoon there. It was a good time just hanging out. We had coffee and pie with Oma and Opa Wikk (of course she made the pies..mmm) and followed that with an amazing lunch of steaks. Larissa and James came for a bit and we all hung out for a bit. I called my mom (Dad W. first armed me with a full glass of wine so that I wouldn't get homesick) and it sounded like everyone there was having a good time. It's too bad we missed that gathering but it would have been too much. I'm sure there will be lots more. I hadn't been home over the weekend so Dan and I left at around 4:00. While Dan took a quick nap I had a slow wander around the property to see what was new and growing (definately the grass, onions and spinach). Mozzerella was quite noisy whenever I was out of sight so when Dan got up we both took a lawn chair and a glass of wine and sat back behind the barn. We just sat there, chatted a little bit but mostly just watched and listened. I don't know how long it was. It could have been 10 min. but it also could have been an hour. I think that was my favorite part of the day. Soon enough the two male ducks started getting rowdy since one of the females came out. They were diving and flying and the whole works. They even flew across the road so I had to go chase them back. It's like the male ducks just sit around all day waiting for their girls to come out. What a surprise it's going to be when they both come out with a little flock. I hope the males don't end up killing them. After all that, I didn't have any Sunday-evening-blues at all. I even woke up looking forward to today too (which can sometimes be hard at 5:30). I think its going to be a good week too. I'll do a bit of gardening tonight, work a full day tomorrow, dinner at Larissa and James's on Tuesday (I doubt they can top mom and dad's pork chops from last week) and then a day off on Wednesday. What a good start, eh? It doesn't end there, either. Thursday morning I have a breakfast date with Meghan and Friday I don't start work till 3:00. Saturday I don't start till 1:00 that leaves lots of time for puttering around both mornings. Of course its the long weekend this weekend so we've already got a couple of fun things planned for Sunday and Monday (a party both days!!). So I'm looking forward to this week.
And I've almost filled up my two hours already. A little bit of googling and I'm off. See ya!

spring

So I've been without the internet for over a year now and the whole time I've been saying that it doesn't get any easier. I still think it's a bit frustrating not having all the information of the world at my finger tips (and now I have library books overdue and fines) but, I think..... It's finally getting easier. Part of it is probably the fact that everyone now accepts that email is not the way to get a hold of me and if I am not heard of for a while, it means I haven't found a place to blog. I also think another big reason why I don't care so much right now is also the same reason that my house is a huuuugggeee mess: It's SPRING!!! or summer... or at least gardening time!
Last summer I said that for sure i'm going to cut the size of my garden down this year. I said that all the way up till the end of winter when the gardening itch started getting really strong again and here I am with a huge garden and lots of plans for it. I think my plans are always way bigger than what happens. Oh well. For example, on Sunday I figured from Mon - Thurs I could get my onions, potatoes and corn planted. That's a laugh. I even bought a few perennials that I figured I could get in before the forcasted rain on Thurs. (that actually happened last night). Well, Monday, after work, I was going to get going on the onions when I realized that there were dozens of sunflower plants coming up just where I was going to plant the onions. So I transplanted as many as I could to the right spots and in some containers and then I tilled the rest under. I still have dozens more coming up all over the place from last years giants. So that was it for Monday. Tuesday I planned to actually plant the onions now and then even get a start on the potatoes. No gardening at all happened Tuesday because as soon as we got home we ended up going to mom and dad's for a dinner that couldn't be beat. mmmm. (Pork chops, cauliflower, potatoes, wine....). Last night I did get in the garden and I planted 2/3 of the the onions but ran out of steam to finish it. The problem with the big garden is that I end up planting way too much. I get tired of doing the one job and so I have to push myself to finish it and it ends up being a chore. And on top of it all, i don't end up needing or wanting that many. So, when I got tired of it last night, I decided to quit instead of make it a chore. Besides, mom says that a person could have a great garden if they put 10 min. of quality time into it everyday. And I did more that 10 min. by that time. So it rained last night and all those onions are getting a great start and the soil will probably be all mucky tonight when I get home but that's okay. Maybe I'll actually get to the potatoes yet.
Even though this post has been all agriculture so far, i'm not done. I have a great duck story yet... or at least I think it is:
So our two female ducks have disappeared during the days and are only around for a few minutes every evening just before sunset. This is a sure sign that they are nesting!! I first started noticing that one duck was gone at the begining of May so I figure it's eggs will hatch sometime during the last week of May. The second duck I think started sitting on her eggs the next week. The only problem was that Dan and I could not figure out at all where they were sitting. We have a tree line on one side of the property that is full of bugs and yummy grubs and the ducks are always walking through there so I figured they had nested down somewhere hidden in there. The problem is that would be a great place for a racoon to find a big meal. This is the same time a year ago when 2 of our chickens got eaten by a coon so I was slightly worried. Well, on Wednesday when we came home from our dinner that couldn't be beat we saw all four ducks standing around by the door of the barn. Wierd, it's almost like they wanted to get in. And then we noticed the females peaking in through the broken barn board (remember Mozzerella's escape attempt?). In fact they actually climbed in through the hole! We thought that was funny since most of our animals are always trying to get out of that barn. So we went in to chase them out anyways. We clearly watch BOTH females go in but when we went in could we find two? No. We looked for about 10 min! It's not a huge barn and the ducks aren't that small. We shooed one duck out and looked and looked. Finally, we put a ladder up to the hay mow to see if, by some wierd chance it figured out how to fly through that hole. After searching around in the old stale mow, there she was sitting in perfectly sheltered, safe pile of old dry straw. She had lots of down around her and wouldn't move. There it was. There was her nest. Can you believe how brilliant nature is? Instinct is amazing. What a super smart duck! Sure, racoons can still get up there but they havn't since we've been living here. It's warm and dry and safe. The only problem now is, what happens when the ducks hatch? How are they gonna get out? Sure theres a hole but can they fly? They'll try to follow there mother and fall right through the hole only to encounter our dog who gets super excited when she discovers any other animal that moves. I figure we'll keep an eye on the nest and when we notice they hatched we'll catch them and bring them down. And also put the dog somewhere else for a while. But on the other hand, if nature was brilliant enough to find that spot for a nest, I'm sure this will figure itself out too. Maybe I'll just put lot of straw under the hole for them to land on. The second female was trying to get into the barn like anything so I figure she's nesting up there too. I looked around for a while up there but didn't find a second nest. Could they be sitting beside eachother on the same nest? We'll see. Oh, these kinds of things make me so happy.
Mozzerella has calmed down quite a bit. The routine is keeping her in the chicken coop (with FOUR locks on the door) until we get home around 5:00. We let the chickens and the goat out at that time and tie the goat to a tree. She's got a 50 foot lead so has plenty of room but keeps all the grass on the 50 feet cut down within a few days. It's hard finding places to tie her up to where she can't get tangled up, reach any tulips or be scorching hot. Good thing we've got lots of space. She goes back in the chicken coop when the chickens go back (around 9:00). Four hours of grazing is good, right? She's got hay in the coop and doesn't eat grain anymore. In fact, neither do the chickens. I kinda stopped feeding them. They look fine still but only produce 2 eggs a day for 3 chickens. I think I'm going to buy some layer mash and feed them every other day. maybe. I don't really need to so that would be an extra cost. The goat really looks like she lost weight now. She's definately not looking skinny but healthier. If any of you think this is cruel and the animals need to be fed more, tell me. I'm just trying things out, right?
So that's it for the agrarian news. There isn't really much else that I find interesting right now. Work is work. I'm working about 35 hours a week now (almost too much but I don't want to complain) and working the same schedule as Dan which means that we drive to work and back together everyday. We leave the same time and get home the same time. I really like that part. And getting up so early really isn't that bad anymore. I actually kinda like it. We get up at 5:15 now and it's already light out by then. The birds seem really loud then too. I love the sunrise time. I would like to think that if I ever had to make my own schedule I would make it so that I always get up around sunrise (whether that's 5:15 or 7:30) and then always go to be 8ish hours before sunrise. I think we would all be a healthier society if we followed that sleep schedule. Unfortunately, clocks rule the day. Speaking of clocks, it's about time for my shift to start so, i'm off. See ya.....
Happy Mothers day to all you mothers out there!!