Tuesday, February 28th - will March come in like a lamb? I expect so...

What an absolutely crazy week. After SO much snow we spent the past few days with very spring like temperatures. Not so great for skiing or snowshoeing but not so bad if you're waiting for baby goats to be born. We'd much prefer it not be so cold for those wet little bodies.

Black Bart, minutes old - my first goat delivery!

On Friday, Lloyd took Ben and Bill to the University to have their horns debudded, before they start growing.  He was only gone about 20 minutes when Leah decided to give birth. I'm so glad I was home. She only had one kid but he (yes, another boy) was a big boy and she struggled a bit but between the two of us we made it through.  He's bigger than the other two little ones who are almost two weeks old now.  He's healthy and happy and has a great mom.

Billy getting a cuddle from friend Margie

 Unfortunately poor little Billy the kid  can't say the same thing. He was always a little smaller then his brother but it became obvious to me on the weekend that he was getting thinner and after some time observing I realized that she isn't letting him feed. The bigger one, Ben,  is doing just fine but poor little Billy is being pushed away every time he goes near his mom. She did feed him at first but I don't know if it's because he's smaller that she doesn't think he'll survive or what.




So I've taken over nanny duties and he's being fed every four hours and seems to be doing really well. I take the milk from his mom and put it in the fridge and warm it up and put it in a bottle. He struggled a little at first but now he's got the hang of it so I'm hoping he'll be okay.  Poor Amelia, is a first time mom and maybe it's just too overwhelming for her. Time will tell.

Our strange weather has made for some beautiful skies

 Lloyd is still working on tiling the kitchen in the garage and the end is in sight. He expected to have it finished this past weekend but we came out to the barn on Sunday morning to be greeted by a good 4 to 5 inches of water on the floor. Most of the day was spent trying to pump that all out. The snow melting so quickly combined with the ground still being frozen combined with the fact we never finished banking the ground around the sides of the barn made for a perfect storm - no pun intended.  The job was made much easier by the fact the weather was so nice - sunny and mild enough to not need a coat as we worked with a couple of sump pumps to clear out the melted snow.  Fortunately the animals pens were actually pretty dry so it was not so bad. As our friend says, "That's farming". It's so true, every day brings a new challenge but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

We have one more little girl to give birth and we hope if she has twins that at least one of them is a girl. If not, we will still only have the three girls for breeding next year. But it will make for a goodly amount of milk this year. Lots of cheese in our future!

We have a busy week coming up. We're both attending a seminar on starting a new business on Thursday and then on Friday we're attending Winterlude, at Island Hill Farm. We've been to a couple of these in the past and this time I'm helping out in the kitchen. Looking forward to that.

Tuesday, February 21st - what a roller coaster week it was

Today it clear and the sun is threatening to come out and the big news is there are no storms predicted for this week!  Kids on the island only went to school one day last  week because of the weather. Three large dumps of snow in seven days was just a little more than our road crews could comfortably keep up with.  But it appears things have quieted down for a few days.





We ended up postponing our Valentine's Tea until Wednesday. Unfortunately the change in date and the previous as well as expected coming storm lessened our numbers but there were still eight of us. By all accounts a very nice time was had by all. Only when you get a group of people like that together does it become so obvious how small the island really is. Turns out pretty much everybody was either related to somebody or at least knew them or there family. It was almost like one big family reunion. Needless to say this made conversation easier as people caught up with those they hadn't seen in a while. 

Lloyd had gotten home in the morning and stayed up to blow the snow out of the bottom of the lane that had been unceremoniously deposited by the snowplow. Our neighbour, who usually keeps us up and running, wasn't home so we had to resort to desperate measures - like the little snow blower.  It's a lot slower process and took him until almost 11:00.  I always say everything happens for a reason and in this case I was so right. He was having a coffee before heading off to sleep when he realized that one of the goats, Amelia, appeared to be in some discomfort. It became obvious at approximately 11:15 that she was about to give birth.  Great, just before guests are due to arrive. 

Billy the kid on the left, Benjamin Button on the right aka Bill and Ben

Lucky for me that he was still awake and could take over the midwife duties. He sent me inside to retrieve a couple of things just as Brenda arrived so she took over the fetching and carrying for him.  He stayed out there and looked after things while I greeted visitors. Once all was well and mother and babies were well taken care of, he was finally able to go upstairs to get a bit of sleep.

The good news is we have two healthy little babies, the not so good news is they are both boys. But gosh are they cute - both look like almost carbon copies of their daddy, who is also very cute, even as an adult.  Now we are waiting for the second one, who we estimate should be Leah, sometime in the next few days.   It was good on Amelia to provide some entertainment for my party as we all trooped out to the barn to see the babies before everyone left to go home. It's never boring out here on the hill!

I recently obtained a little part time job and yesterday was my first day. It should have been last week but the weather kind of interfered.  I'm now a merchandiser for Carlton Cards. I have three stores I'll be looking after restocking, ordering and keeping track of their card displays. I had a few hours training yesterday and I think it will work out just fine.

I finished just in time to meet up with a few of the girls at Meghans for some snacks and a glass of wine before leaving to see a movie. We saw Lion, which has been nominated for an Oscar. We could see why, it was an excellent movie, made all the more special because it's based on a true story. Often the true stories are much more amazing than anything that writers can make up. Very inspiring and well done.

Tuesday, February 14th - Happy Valentines Day..

... or should we say, Happy Blizzard Day. Wow, February has certainly made up for the not so bad weather we had in January. Last Friday was a snow day with some 20 cms of snow falling. Just about finished cleaning up from that one when we were hit with a major blizzard yesterday. Lots of snow being blown around by 90 km/hour winds made for a pretty messy day. We knew there was no way Lloyd was going to be getting to work at midnight last night so he was home, safe and sound. We were fortunate not to lose power in those strong winds so all was well.

The wind is still pretty gusty out there this morning so not sure if I'll be able to have my Valentines Tea. In a perfect world the schools will be cancelled today and we can simply postpone our tea to a little later this afternoon. I had scheduled it for noon as Brenda would have to leave by 2:00 to pick up her school kids on the bus. But if school is shut down, we can move to a later time. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Or we may just have to put it off till tomorrow.

Thanks to Friday's snow, we were able to get out to do some snowshoeing on Sunday afternoon in the woods behind our friend Sharyn's place. Her husband has cleared a trail back there and it's quite lovely.

Just what our tired feet and legs needed. Brenda and I helped out as volunteers at a fund raising gala hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation at the Delta on Saturday evening. It was a really nice evening and we were very busy from 4:00 until we left shortly before 1:00 am. It was a long evening but an enjoyable one.

The other big news this week is we have obtained all the equipment we need for our kitchen. We were pleased to negotiate a price for almost all the things we need. The only thing we didn't yet have is a gas stove. We found a suitable one on clearance at a local furniture store so we're all set now. All we have to do is finish the tiling and get the stuff moved in. We also need to run some plumbing but that will have to wait for spring when the ground thaws. One item on our wish list that we really didn't expect to get until somewhere down the road is a convection oven. But boy did we get one. Trouble is it's massive and💘 will take quite a bit of planning to move. It's actually two large ovens stacked on top of each other. It's going to take quite a bit of planning to make that happen. But it opens up all kinds of possibilities for us. So much to think about that sometimes it seems a little overwhelming but it's all falling into place so it appears it's meant to be.

James had a busy week. They had a parade night at Cadets last week and he received his four year service ribbon and his biathlon pin.

Then on Friday the cadets traveled by bus to Sault Ste Marie to participate in a biathlon competition there. He tells me had had a great time and did well. This was only his second competition but I'm sure there will likely be more in his future.





 We are patiently awaiting the birth of our first baby goats of the season. Little Amelia is due at any time. The resident computer geek has hooked up an old cell phone in the barn with the camera facing her pen. Then it's hooked up by internet to Lloyd's Ipad. Kind of like a high tech baby monitor except he can watch from work at night. So if anything's happening he can just phone me and I can get up and go out and check on things but I'm really hoping that nothing happens while I'm here by myself. I'd much prefer he was here when they give birth. The other two are due over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned...

And finally "Where in the world is Patti?"

Not sure but I know she missed James award night as she was leaving for Paris..

Tuesday, February 7th - dear mother nature, enough of the roller coaster!

What crazy weather we've been having. Today is a very cold one - minus 16' with a windchill of
minus 27'.  We received a little snow yesterday but most of it's been blown all around Not really enough to do anything with. It really was a pretty sight early in the morning before the winds picked up. Tomorrow is supposed to be more snow, followed by freezing rain and then rain and a high of 6'.  If we have to have winter, then lets just have winter... this is crazy.  I hope I didn't jinx things by buying Lloyd snowshoes for his birthday.


Things are progressing slowly in our catering kitchen. Not a lot gets done during the week and we did take Sunday off this past weekend as we went into town to price fridges and stoves. The tile is all laid on the floor and the grout is finished. It actually looks pretty darned good. Now we can start on the walls. Not so much kneeling so hopefully it will go a little easier although it's still a huge amount of work.  But we'll get there, little by little.

We met with a fellow in town yesterday who has some equipment for sale that we could use but he didn't give us a price. We told him what we were interested in and he's going to speak to his partners to come up with a price. It may well be out of our range as there's not a lot of options here on the island but we'll see.


Speaking of cooking, we tried something new on the weekend. We made pizza but we cooked it inside the woodstove. I found a rack with legs that just fit inside the fire box. Then I put the pizza stone on top before putting in the pizza. It turned out brilliantly and cooked in about 2 minutes. Can't wait to try it again. We also cooked some pork chops on the rack in there and they also turned out great. Who says you can't BBQ in the winter!


When I lived in Ontario, a friend named Judy hosted a Valentines Luncheon every year. Not sure if she still does it or not. It was always such a nice time and a great way to break up the dreary month of February.  A few weeks ago I decided I might try it myself. So I've invited a few neighbours to join me for some fancy sandwiches and cookies and tea. Nothing too elaborate but just a way to break up the winter. I'm hoping it will turn out nice and we can do it each year. I can do that now that  I'm retired, or I guess I should say semi-retired.

Next week I start a new part time job. It's merchandiser with Carlton Cards. I will be responsible for three stores, keeping the greeting cards organized and stocked up.  I have two days of training next week. It's only between 5 and 8 hours a week and that suits me just fine. I'll be working all by myself which will also suit me.  It should be a nice little bit of extra income to supplement my pension once I receive it in August.  I'll be training on Monday next week so will report back on Tuesday morning!


Of course that's just when I've gotten this whole retirement thing down.  I've finally learned to wake  up in the morning and after the chores are done, ask myself, what would I like to do today. I've been spending a lot of time out in my craft room. I have lots of odd bits of fabrics in my stash so decided I would tackle some little quilting projects to try to improve my less than impressive skills. I'm finding that little projects are a great way to practice the cutting, stitching and matching.
 

James has been a busy boy. I saw on face book that he had attended a winter fun day with the Biathlon team at the Jesuit Centre in Guelph. They enjoyed lunch there as well and it appears he jumped right in to help - that's my boy!

Tristen's school had a ski trip recently that included a sleep over. Patti went as a helper and as James had the time off due to exams, he was able to join them. It was the same ski facility he had been to with the Biathlon team a few weeks ago. He was able to take advantage of the opportunity to get some good instruction and practice on the trails before he heads out to Sault Ste. Marie for the next Biathlon competition.

And finally, Where in the world is Patti?  
I talked briefly with her last night. She had just come home from London and was heading to Paris next. Such a globetrotter!