And We're Off to the Rodeo!

You know, I've discovered that I really quite like the rodeo.  That's not something I ever thought I would say.  Ever. But I really do. It's pretty exciting, and fast paced, and sometimes really intense! I never ever understood baseball or basketball, or god help me, football.  As a spectator, they are all so slowwww and boring. But rodeo is just one awesome thing after another, bam, bam, bam. And if there is a lull there are cowgirls and rodeo clowns to keep you interested. The eye candy ain't too bad either...

Last year my daughter was having a serious crises of identity, clearly unsure whether she fit in in the redneck culture.  This year she decided she wants to grow up to be one of those cowgirls who gets dressed up in the shiny glittery shirts and belts and rides around the arena with a flag.  Lofty life goals that one.

Seriously unimpressed with the noise

I could regale you with a play-by-play of what went down that day, but if your not there it's really not nearly as exciting as it is in person.  Partner #1 watches the National Rodeo finals every year and it just doesn't hold the same weight. You don't get the crowd, the noise, the atmosphere, and the "Holy Crap! Did you see that!" you do when you're there in person.  I am sure there is someone sitting there reading this laughing at me, because I sound like a complete yuppy.  Yes, I am lame.  Yes, I am aware.

Also, I had an observation about the wide spectrum of spectators present. Maybe more of a theory?  Basically rodeo goers break down into three categories: 1) You have your Average Joes, who are obviously just there to enjoy the atmosphere and the spectacle. 2) You have your out-and-out bedecked, bedazzled rodeo goers who look like they went to the nearest costume shop and picked up what they think rodeo stars wear.  3) And then you have your try-too-harders.  These are the girls in the cowboy boots and miniskirts/cut offs.  These are the boys with their jeans tucked into their artificially shiny boots, in their plaid button ups, obviously sweating their butts off because they are completely unaccustomed to wearing actual cowboy regalia. 

The clear observation I made, aside from the categories, is that the ones in the bedazzled costumes are the ones who are actually authentic! They are the ones who probably know their way around a horse and could tell you the difference between a bull and a steer.  It's the try-too-harders who are trying too hard to look authentic that come off as complete wankers. It was very strange indeed. 

Obviously, it's not a science.  But seriously, if you get a chance to go to a rodeo, take a look around. Observe your fellow rodeo goers, and you will see, I am not entirely crazy. 

I shared this theory/observation with Partner #2 who pointed out that there is also a distinct difference between actual working cowboys and rodeo cowboys. You learn something new everyday! Also! Did you know there are ranches out there solely dedicated to producing animals for the rodeo!?  The meaner the better apparently.  How do you breed for meanness??  Actually, maybe I don't want to know that....

In other news, we had a miniature version of our tadpole party.  Still 14 kids were there! It was pretty great.  Unfortunately though, since our neighbours and local friends are in the dark about our family configuration (as far as we know), I can't post any pictures from the party.  It's not like I can ask permission to post pictures of their kids on my blog and then refuse to tell them what the blog is about lol.  Oh the joys of cultural ostracism! But we busted out the kayaks and had a table full of containers and butterfly nets and the kids had a blast. 

And that was basically it for this last week.  Currently, Isabella is in Vancouver visiting family, and tomorrow the rest of the family is going to a big Canada Day celebration in the park.  For the most part it will be a quiet week, which is just what I need right now. 

Wicked Cool Natural Entertainment

We have several creeks running through our property, one of them is a man-made dyke running straight through the middle of one of our fields.  For the last couple of summers Partner #1 has built a sandbag dam to flood the field in order to irrigate it.  Super fascinating, I know, but what that means for us is that we have this awesome 2-foot deep pond totally chalk full of tadpoles and frogs, as well as our insect friends like dragon flies and water skitters! There are several places where you have to be careful where you walk so as not to squish hundreds of little tadpoles!

Last year the kid's grandparents bought each of them a kayak to use in the ponds and they have taken to using them as tadpole collectors.  They also got some butterfly nets recently and have had much better luck catching frogs now too.

Really, it's about the coolest thing ever. I often find myself envious of our kid's awesome childhood. How awesome is it that they get all this wicked cool natural entertainment to enjoy!? Who needs a play ground when you have a pond!

Oliver's head for proportion 

One of a million clouds of tadpoles

Using her shoe to catch frogs....

What a weirdo

We are planning a pot luck "Tad Pole Party" here soon and inviting a lot of the local kids and some of our fellow home school families to come armed with butterfly nets and buckets, and we'll just spend the afternoon catching critters and kayaking and splashing, all the while teaching our kids about ecosystems and frog metamorphosis like the true geeks we are....

Admit it, you're jealous.

Our Cursed Garden

So we have had some bum luck when it comes to our garden at this place. The previous owners of this place didn't have your standard garden set up, they built mounds, long strips of raised dirt. Apparently, this enables you to plant a couple weeks earlier then your neighbour because your plants are slightly up out of the cold lower ground.  But by the time we got around to planting our garden the first time, the soil was really rather dusty and depleted, and so much of our water ran off the mounds and our plants were kind of stunted.

Not that that really mattered because that first year the sheep got in our garden and mowed everything down! We waited and waited for the sheep to be moved to a different field so we could put our started plants in the ground until we couldn't wait anymore.  And of course they got eaten. And then because we put everything in so late, what didn't keel over and die from the sheep was stunted and never reached maturity!

That was year 1.

This year, we cajoled and pleaded and whined and dug our own post holes (Post Hole Champion, right here!) and managed to put a fence in! Well part of a fence.... enough that nothing can get in our yard anyways, and it's the greatest! We even expanded the beds, put in a few extra ones, brought home loads of started plants (because the yard is sheep proof now!), got experimental with some planting techniques, filled or herb garden to the brim and wouldn't you know it hailed, twice in two days....

If your not an avid gardener, hail equals death to gardens.  We started a whole bunch of melons several weeks back, all excited that we could put them in on time this year and actually yield some fruit, and they are all destroyed. Our giant rhubarb leaves look like Bonnie and Clyde's get away car, completely full of holes.

And this wasn't small chunks of hail, these were huge, marble sized.  I realize that there are bigger out there in the world, but I don't know that I have ever seen bigger (Cue sexual innuendo...) Standing at the window watching the spectacle and it was like someone was throwing snowballs at us.  Chunks of our roof came off! I half expected to see chips taken out of my windshield...

                                             

Our poor Balou took shelter under the truck but the water puddled underneath.  So she managed not to get pelted, but still got soaked.

The weather forecast never said anything about hail.  It is predicting storms for the next 3 days, so we may have more hail to come.  I don't even want to go outside to try to assess the full extent of the damage until this string of storms has passed.  There are several things out there that we are certain are destroyed, but there may be some things that survived. We still have peas and kale and sweet potatoes to put in too. At least we'll have those!

Maybe next year will be our year! Then again, maybe there is a curse on our garden...?

Post Hole Champion

I feel like I have entered into a whole new level of redneckery.... I dug post holes, like for putting in fence posts. Did you know there was a name for it? And guys, I feel like I have found my calling. Seriously, I am really good at it! My hands might be covered in blisters and may not ever relax out of this claw seizure, and my back may be in a permanent hunch, but it was worth it!  Looking down at your shovel that has disappeared down a 4 foot hole only as wide as your foot is long, is oddly satisfying.... I did that. I dug that awesome hole. I am sure I felt like this at some point in my childhood.

We are putting in a fence around our yard. Last year, we couldn't plant our garden until mid June, because the lambs kept getting in and eating everything! So most of our crop were these sad little stunted things. We even had watermelon which made a valiant effort, but the first frost got them before they could really get anywhere. This year however! We started a bunch of our plants indoors ahead of time and we're putting up a fence. I cannot wait for things to really get going. It is going to be so nice having a real garden this year!

Just a little tidbit, did you know people round here measure the depth of the snow by how high it reaches on the barbwire fence?! "Geeze, Snow got 2 strands deep this year".  If there were a redneck dictionary, you would find that in there....

This post is just a little quicky. Mostly I just wanted to share how proud I was of my new found career choice.  I held myself back from taking pictures though. I couldn't imagine looking down a deep dank hole being as interesting for you as it definitely is for me.... However, I did take these handful of gems I thought I would share!

An Atheist at a Christian Conference

As some of you know, (unless this is your first time here, in which case welcome!) we home school our kids.  If your thinking to yourselves "Why ever would you do that!?" check out my past post Home schoolers? What are ya, Hippies?

So this last week, we packed up our gongshow and headed down to the Okanagan for the Christian Home Educators Conference (CHEC). No, we are not religious.  Until this last year, there was a huge homeschooling conference down in the lower mainland but due to some lack of interest from vendors and volunteer shortage, they didn't put one on this year, which was a real shame.  So that left us with the only other option in BC, which just so happened to take us to my old hood! Ya win some, you lose some, I guess.

Just a little history on myself, I have extensive experience with organized religion that has caused me to very strongly believe that it is not for me, at all, not even a little bit.  In fact, I have a very healthy critique of the whole institution in general.  However, not all my experience was negative, I met and have remained friends with some really remarkable and good people. Because of this history I found it incredibly difficult to remain objective during this whole conference, and I had to walk out of one seminar because of how wildly offensive it was, but I did manage to glean some wisdom in the end and actually found myself enjoying the keynote speakers.

We went down a day early and stayed with some family in Merritt who very kindly agreed to take 3 out of 4 of our kids for the weekend! Coincidentally, it was my Grandmother and Uncle's birthday that weekend, so I happened to have a lot of family out that weekend and my lovely cousin offered to take Isabella for the weekend too! Woo hoo! A weekend free of children?! For 2 whole days?! And it isn't even Christmas yet!

Despite being a vacation of sorts the whole weekend was a complete whirlwind of conference, seminars, and more then a few "Did he really just say that?!".  Followed by late nights catching up with old friends and family, and really early mornings making sure we took full advantage of the continental breakfast at the hotel.

To finish off our time in Kelowna, Partner #2 and I went to my family's house to celebrate my grandmother and uncle's  birthdays! It was the first time many of my family had met Partner #2 so that was .... nerve wracking. But I think things went well. My beautiful cousin was trying out for the Canadian paralympic sitting volleyball team so several of us went out before dinner to help her practice. (Since that night, I might add, she went to her auditions in Montreal and totally made it on the team! Brazil 2016! Congrats Tessa!)

We spent the next 2 days in Merritt recovering and visiting. I think I spent the majority of the time sleeping as much as I could. And then it was back home, back to reality. Back to milk cows, and chickens, and not-started gardens, and school, and for me more job searching...

Another little side story, on our way out of Merritt, we stopped at this really great little coffee shop/bakery called Brambles (I recommend it. If you do go, get a morning glory scone. Soooo good) and while we were there the lady behind the counter said she reads my blog! It was possibly one of the most flattering moments of my life! I couldn't believe that someone recognized me! And in typical Natalie fashion, I made a complete ass of myself, told her I was starstruck but starstruck for me... It doesn't even make any sense! I am groaning internally.

Anyways, this lovely lady at Brambles (Whose name I've since learned is Katie, because while making an ass out of myself I completely forgot to ask her name :/  Hi Katie!) she recommended another blogger who is utterly awesome and I endorse her completely. Her site is called Renegade Mothering and she is fantastic, witty, cynical, hilarious, sarcastic, and best of all r-e-a-l! If you are like me and you gag at all those "Children are the most wonderful blessing" posts, your love Renegade Mothering.

One more little update, our 1st milk cow Beullah had her calf on Saturday! A sturdy little heifer calf. I was thinking, since we have yet to name her, perhaps I should open up the comments section on this blog for name suggestions! Here's a picture to help you come up with some ideas :)

Dolly Parton and Her Big Teets

We got a milk cow!  We had one before, her name is Beulah, but when we got her she was dry and needed a break from milking.  So we bred her this last summer and she is expected to calf any day now. But in the meantime we bought another milk cow, one that is producing milk right now! Although, when we bought her we weren't expecting to have to milk her... Apparently there is a discrepancy with what the term "dry" means to dairy men versus cattle men.  Or simply that it means two things and Partner #1 and the dairy farmer had their definitions transposed. When we asked if she was dry, we meant "is she producing milk?";  when they said dry, they meant she is not pregnant at the moment.  So we brought home a dry, not-dry Brown Swiss milking cow.... meaning she is making milk, but not currently making a baby... You keeping it straight?

So we got her home late one night last week, and as we loaded her off the trailer, we're standing around scratching our heads, hmmm, her bag looks kind of big...? (Bag is a technical term by the way. If your are also a mom like me, you may feel the twinge of mild indignant offense at hearing that term too. If you don't know the sign language for 'milk', you should look it up. When applied to breast feeding, it is also mildly offensive...But not in any serious way).  Turns out when we bought her, she was producing 15 liters of milk A DAY at the dairy farm! Unless you have a family of 20, and are a pro at making cheese, no one needs 15 liters of milk a day! All 3 of us, being complete amateurs, managed to get 4 L out of her that first night. But she needs to be milked twice a day, so we began collecting around 8 liters of milk every day.

So we named her Dolly.  After Dolly Parton.  Because she's got huge teets.... You have Partner #1 to thank for that gem.

Turns out when you have no idea what you are doing in that department, hand milking is a 2-3 person job. 1 person to milk, 1 person to hold the bucket, and 1 person to hold her rope.  It doesn't help that she had never actually been hand milked before, only machine milked, and because we didn't know what we were doing we were (/are) very slow, She started to get very impatient and probably a little sore. Poor thing. We have had to start hobbling her because she wont stop kicking and more or less dancing around, making things even more difficult then they already are.

What we have discovered about Dolly, is she is kind of a wing nut (again, technical term) and more or less like a big dog. We closed off a couple fences to contained her to our yard area and for the first little while just trotted around sniffing things! You almost expected her to lift her leg and start peeing everywhere. We guessed that she had never been on grass before, so she was like a machine just mowing the place down like it wasn't ever going to grow back again!

So then! Only a few days after getting Dolly, Partner #2 and I were due to leave on a trip to Kelowna and Merritt for a home school convention and to visit some family. Faced with the prospect of having to do a 3 person job by himself, as well as all the regular ranch chores plus the rest of Partner #2 and I's regular chores, Partner #1 decided that purchasing a couple of orphaned bull calves was a good idea! That way they would do the bulk of the milking, we can still get what we need when we need it, and for the duration of our trip, Partner #1 didn't have to worry about milking her every 12 hours.  So now we have 2 of the most adorable Jersey calves meandering around our yard. And the greatest thing is that they have both been bottle fed their whole lives, so they are super friendly and you can pet them, and their super curious and kind of follow you around.

The unfortunate part is that, true to ranch form, these two will be sold off more then likely to be made into meat, so naming them or otherwise getting attached to them is not highly recommended.  I learned this lesson the hard way this spring when I named our first lamb of the season and he ended up meeting a very unfortunate and horrible early death. As much as I would like to think I live on this happy, sun-always-shines, and nothing-ever-dies, Ole' McDonald farm, the reality is I live on a working ranch, where sometimes unpleasant things happen. However! Don't let that burst the warm and fuzzy bubble that I am sure reading about the happy little calves has cultivated! It is still pretty wonderful.

I realize this has been a rather long post. I feel like I haven't written anything in quite some time. Really nothing exciting has happened in quite some time, with the exception of this recent adventure to Kelowna, and the arrival of Dolly and calves. Lambs are popping out left, right, and center; the garden is soon to go in; calving is still in full swing. Same ole', same ole' I suppose.

Just a little side story, Partner #1 has a system where when a lamb is born, he spray paints the lamb (with safe livestock paint, don't worry!) with a number that matches the mom's ear tag number. That way it is easy to identify lost lambs, or to find the mother if she abandons it, or for just record keeping for next year. Anyways, last night we had one lone lamb born so I went out there to spay paint him.  This was my first time doing this by the way, so don't judge me, but I ended up holding the can way to far away from him, so now his whole right side is just one big red smudge.  And when I tried to paint his left side, I didn't do much better, although it is sort of legible. So I told Partner #1, if you see a lamb out there that looks like its been recently massacred, that one belongs to #43.... Against my better judgement, and perhaps to the lamb's detriment if you are superstitious, I named him Alfred Hitchcock.

Also, if you haven't had a chance, or just plain haven't yet, check out my last post, Meet Owen!, about my little cousin and his amazing family.


More things I've learned since moving to the ranch:
23) Even in cow town Williams Lake, if you go to Starbucks in cow sh** covered boots, you're going to get some looks...

Meet Owen!

I want you guys to meet my cousin Stephanie, her handsome husband Peter and two adorable sons, Owen and Ollie. I realize that this particular post is not about my ranch life or even about polyamory, but I want to introduce you to this family because they are in need of a little bit of assistance. 

You see, Owen was born a fighter. He was not given a fair chance from the get go, but he is the toughest little man you will ever meet. Owen has no official diagnosis and his family is still waiting for further genetic testing, but a litany of birth defects still hinder Owens everyday life; such as, "a smaller than normal skull, a blocked nasal passage and small windpipe, one lung larger than the other, sleep apnea, obstructive apnea, a heart defect, bowel and urinary issues, and hip dysplasia".

Even still, now a bright eye'd, 4-year-old with a devilishly handsome smile, Owen is doing well and thriving. 

However enormous his struggles and successes have been, Owen and his family still struggle with some basic day-to-day things. Because he needs 24-hour care, Stephanie needed to quit her job limiting the income of her modest dairy farming family. As Owen gets stronger and bigger each day, his family wants to make his world more accessible for him. What that means for Owen's family is a wheel chair ramp for their house, a paved driveway for said wheelchair and a wheel chair accessible mini van. Even though some of the equipment needed for Owen's care is provided by the hospital, majority of the cost falls to his family to come up with. 

Recently Jessica Kerr of the Delta Optimist came to visit Owen and write a piece about him and his family. You can check it out here. 

Here is a link for a YouCaring fundraising account to help Owen's world open up for him.  As I write this $3,655 has been raised but their goal of $20,000 is still a long way off, so I urge you to take a look, donate if you can,  and please pass it on!

Thanks everyone!