Little Orphan Lamby

Earlier this spring we had a ewe sheep die of natural causes, no need to be alarmed; however, she left her tiny couple week old lamby behind.

At first I was kind of excited about the prospect of having this adorable, fluffly little thing to feed and take care of every day, but the responsibility eventually starts to wear on you.  So naturally, like good parents, we pawned the responsibility off onto the kids.  It was now "their" lamby...

A month or so old here. Isn't he adorable!?

By the time we went on vacation in July, Lamby was several months old and subsisting mostly on grass, so we figured it would be safe to put him back with the rest of the herd and hope for the best.  Sink or swim. Eat or die.

Spoiler alert, the lamb makes it.

Since then, we have moved the sheep to a field much nearer to our house and the prodigal lamby has taken it upon himself to return. He just shows up in our yard one day, demanding food.  Now we are bottle feeding him again and he has made himself quite at home. At night I think he returns to his regular flock but comes in every morning for his feeding and a couple pets.  If you show him any attention though, he follows you around, everywhere, Baaaaing away.  I was leading our guard dog back to her kennel and he is trailing right behind us, baaing  "Eat me, eat me! I'm adorable and tasty!"

Not the smartest lamb in the yard...

But it is pretty darn cute a sweet having this thing hanging around.  Plus he is always thrilled to see you!  Just start calling me Mary.

Isn't this just.. awwwee

The Duckling Conundrum

We got Duckies!  I am super excited! Sort of... Well...

Okay, here's how it happened.

Partner #1 went to town unsupervised.  He's not going to appreciate that comment, however...  So when he came home and told us there was a surprise in the back seat my immediate reaction was "Noo not another puppy?!".  That might seem a strange reaction, who says "Noo!" when they see a puppy?! I do, because we currently have 12 and another may unravel my fragile mental state. But nope, not a puppy.

I open the back door, see a small-ish box, "Is it a kitten?!" Oh please oh please let it be a kitten! I like cats. I used to like dogs too but, nope.  Not a cat either.

Open the box, Oh my god it's ducklings! The 3 cutest damn ducklings you have ever seen!  All huddled up in the corner peeping in terror as this giant lady-thing grabs one of their siblings and hugs it close, practically shrieking "Oh my god! DuckIEEES! Oh they're so CUTE! Awwwwe!"

Now the double edge to this super cute sword is that we have absolutely no set up for ducks?! No predator proof pen.  No pond.  No flippin food! And really no idea how to take care of baby ducks whatsoever!

But gosh darn it, they are so cute!

So several weeks earlier, I had conveniently noticed a kiddie pool in our old barn (odd thing to find in a barn...), so we drug that out, filled it up with water and threw a calf shed over it with a heat lamp, which we happened to have from when our chickens were chicks.  Then promptly started researching duck care and maintenance.

We have had them for at least a couple weeks now and you know what I have learned about ducks? They stink! Like really smelly.  Especially when cooped up in a poorly ventilated calf shed with a heat lamp on 24/7 just fermenting the place... I am legitimately concerned about them developing respiratory problems.  They are going to be wheezing like senior citizen ducks before their 6 month birthday.

We have all the materials now to build a duck house and a wicked plan to make it super cool! Thanks to a plumber friend of mine, we even have a bathtub coming to convert to a pond! I had the genius idea of draining the tub on the downward slope of our yard onto a sort of tiered garden of fruit bushes.  Viola! Ultra fertilized irrigation system! Genius right?

It's okay to be impressed, I am impressed with myself!

Now it is just a matter of actually building the darn thing! Time is a high-priced commodity around here with very little of it to go around, let me tell you.

In any case, the ducks are doing really really well.  Despite their temporary accommodations, they seem to be super healthy, growing incredibly fast! In all my research I discovered a way to sex the little things, see whether we'll have laying birds or meat birds.  I'll spare you the details, but I did managed to discover that one is definitely female!  So yay!  Can't wait for duck eggs!

My plan was to write this blog when we actually had the duck house built, but I couldn't wait! I was too excited! The tub comes on Friday, so hopefully I can write an update post soon on the house building progress.

In the meantime, enjoy this terrible picture of me but adorable picture of this duck!

Also, that white thing to the right is a calf shed, in case you were wondering....

Memoirs from the Looney Bin

** I think this is one of the longest blog posts I've ever written.  I am not even going to apologize for it, as is my urge as a Canadian, because I read back through it, and I found it pretty hilarious.  So instead I'll say, you're welcome**

So recently we decided to take a family vacation, like crazy people... All 7 of our crazy circus plus 12 dogs.

Actually, it started out 7 humans, 12 dogs, and a bull and we came home with 7 humans (we double counted just to make sure), 10 dogs, a chicken, and 12 chicks... But we'll get to that part.

Partner #2's family was having a bit of a reunion so we decided to take the whole fam-dam-ly.  Make a do of it.  This thing was a camping trip reunion though and we didn't want to camp, so knowing that the kids were going to be disappointed, we scheduled plenty of other fun things in an attempt to lure them away from their family. (Wow that makes me sound like a kidnapper...)

Maybe I will just break our gong-show of a week down for you day-by-day so you may participate fully in the madness. I was thinking of ending this blog with a "And the moral of the story is..." but I think in reality this blog is going to be the introduction of the memoir I am going to write when I am finally admitted to a mental institution... Many more family road trip vacations, and that joke is not far from reality....

Day 1
Taking a vacation when you live on a ranch is damn near impossible.  Aside from all the animal's food and water needs, you have to make sure that their fencing is adequate enough that they wont escape when you are gone. Because really, who is going to fix that for you? We decided to take all but one of our dogs with us so she could guard the house, so fill up a giant dish of food and a trough of water, and check! dogs are taken care of.  Our biggest concern was our garden.  The same garden that we have had so much trouble getting started in the first place.  We finally get it to the point where it is all happy, and healthy, and producing beautifully, and we decide to leave it unattended?! Are we crazy?? If you hadn't gotten that impression by now then the answer is yes, yes we are.

So we asked our neighbour for the biggest favor ever.  After spending a substantial amount of money on irrigation equipment, we got our garden set up so that all one has to do is throw a switch inside the house and the whole garden is watered within an hour or so.  Seems pretty straight forward, but you are forgetting about the guard dog.  Our genius plan?  Prepackage frozen hockey pucks of ground beef for our neighbour to chuck at the dog while she makes a mad dash the short distance to our front door... Very Acme villain.  Like I said, biggest favor ever.

So we left the house, biting out nails, praying that our garden didn't dry up and die, our animals didn't escape and die, and our neighbour didn't get attacked and die.

Yay! Commence vacation! Let me just interject here with a little fact about myself:  Loud noises freak me out, well stress me out, set my anxiety a-fire lets say.  Not 2 hours down the road, I am having a major anxiety attack because 6 people and a dog crammed into 1 vehicle is more noise then I can handle. Partner #1 left the day before with his truck and stock trailer, a bull, and the rest of the dogs.

Partner #2's mom is the greatest. In a recent email to my friend I said "[Mother-in-law] loves me because I love her cooking, and love telling her how much I love her cooking, so she loves cooking for me".  So although I had just driven 5 hours and my nerves were completely fried, she saved my sanity temporarily with her awesome cooking. I'm so easy to please. 

Day 2
This was family reunion day.  This day held it's own unique blend of anxiety, because it was to be one of the first times we have really been out publicly as a weird poly family unit.  The fact that it was all family (some of whom openly don't approve) just added to the fun.

And in that regard it turned out alright.  Everyone was polite and friendly with nary a pitch fork or torch in sight.  I call that a win!  Though after we left, who knows?

The kids had the greatest time.  We had a hard time pulling them away, in fact. Pretty much every kid there had a bike or some sort of riding implement so they just bombed around everywhere, like a miniature biker gang.

Then it was back to Partner #2's mother's house for creamed spinach and some of the most amazing ribs I've ever had.  In all honesty, I think I could write an entire post on how much I love her food. Maybe I should write a sonnet...

Day 3
This day we had every intention of leaving Merritt early, and partaking in some fun in Kelowna.  However, Partner #1 had needed to get some work done at our ranch down there (part of that being dropping off the bull) and in typical ranching fashion every thing that could go wrong did.  So we didn't end up leaving until late, and only made it into Kelowna in time to show up at our friends house for dinner.

Now imagine rolling up at your friends house, which is built for 4 people to live snuggly-buggly, with 7 people, 9 dogs (because we were down to 9 at that point), your mini van, and your miniature semi truck and 30 foot stock trailer...

I was really hoping at that point that they knew what they were getting into.

Day 4
If you have been reading my blog for a little while you may have come across my post "When Roosters Attack!", and so you may be aware of my lack of fondness toward the male poultry breed.  Well our friends "rooster situation", lets call it, has kind of gotten out of control.  I believe it is just because they haven't gotten around to dealing with the unwanted things as of yet. Which, whatever, we all get busy.  So four am every morning 8 or 9 roosters start having a macho cock-o-doodling pissing match, trying to outdo each other, until the long hours of the morning/early afternoon, everyday...

By the time we left the next day, Partner #1 was offering to shoot, slaughter, and gut all of them. He is such a generous man.

It was also Partner #1's birthday and we met up with his parents to celebrate in a pretty awesome park in Kelowna. Following this, we managed to pawn off the baby with the Grandparents for the duration of our trip, which I would later come to realize, was a god send.

That afternoon was when the magic happened, my favorite part of the trip anyways.  The part where we left all the kids with our friends kids and went on a wine tour!  It even started off at my favorite winery from the days when I lived there. Five adults, all half cut, playing tourist, it was perfect.  We followed this up with a really delicious Mediterranean dinner and then a soak in the hot tub. Perfection right?

Day 5
We took our show on the road again.  Left our friends to recover.  I felt like we came in, dropped a bomb, and then left.  We should have left the box of wine we acquired on our tour as a consolation prize...

Instead of them getting a parting gift they actually gave us one - a whole dog kennel full of chicks, and one hen on loan! With all those roosters around, our friends really did not need any more chicks.  We wanted more but really don't have the set up for them, but we aren't ones to turn down anything free. So into the van they went! Sure made for a cacophonous drive home.

And we went to the waterslides!  I learned something new about Partner #1 as well; apparently, he is a watersliding machine!  He was putting our kids to shame, just nonstop go-go-go! It was pretty awesome.

A little piece of advice for your future watersliding adventures, follow the rules!  I have discovered that their rules are not arbitrary, they are implemented on a basis of experience. If the signs say you must remove your eye wear before riding the slide, you should probably remove your eye wear.

I can offer this advice because I spent half of day 6 of our vacation acquiring replacement glasses after scoffing at the rules and promptly losing my eye wear... The water park employees were nice enough to shut down that particular slide and allow me to search to no avail (Kind of hard to search when you can't see!) and when I mentioned to the life guard "I never thought that actually happened in real life!?"  he said it happens damn near everyday... Serves me right for being cocky.

After the waterslides we made our way over to our friend and fellow sheep farmer's house for a night.  For probably a year and a half now, this friend has been talking up a sushi place in one of the smallest and dingiest towns I know.  Needless to say I have been a little skeptical, but he did say that if we were ever there he would prove it to us.  So not 5 minutes after we arrived, Partner #2 and I were in his truck, having left all our exhausted kids and Partner #1 behind, to go try out this amazing sushi place.  And oh my god it was good.  So good.  Since moving to Quesnel I have more or less given up on finding a half decent sushi place. Whereas once upon a time, top notch sushi was almost a weekly occurrence for me, it is now a treat enjoyed maybe once or twice a year. So having my yearly sushi treat be so unexpectedly fantastic just added to the treat-factor.

Another piece of advice I can offer because I have experienced it, if you ever get a chance to try Goma-ae, do it. Don't ask questions, just trust me.

Day 6
Spent the morning emptying my bank account for a new pair of glasses and visiting old friends.  Then back tracked, picked up the family and headed home.  We met Partner #2's mom in Kamloops to get our baby back, who was thoroughly convinced that we were going back to Grammy's house or oddly enough, the water park. No amount of trying to explain would weaken her resolve and periodically she would scream GRAMMY HOUSE!! or WATER PARK!! for the entire duration of the drive home.

By the time we got to Williams Lake, so about an hour from our house, I think she finally started to realize that refusing to believe something isn't true, doesn't make it any less true and she proceeded to have a level 9000 melt down.  I'm talking on a scale of 1 to Chernobyl, she was Fukushima.

Needless to say, we were all very happy to get home.

Once we got home, we took stock of the place and watered everything that looked a little droopy.  Our garden looked great, sheep stayed in their pen, only a couple things died, and our neighbour is still in one piece! Pretty successful as far as I am concerned.

So all-in-all I suppose it wasn't that bad, maybe not on the brink of being committed bad; however, I do want to make mention that I left several things out in an attempt to not sound like a complete grumpy, old, vacation ruining, wet rag.

Now I am home, in my own bed, there are no roosters competing to be top cock out side my window, and I have a box of various wines to bring me back to sanity!

That's how all family vacations should end - with an abundant supply of alcohol.

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!