Okay....the mosquitos are really, really disgusting

I hope for this to be my final moan about the skeeters.  I feel I have made my point....right after this.

I when outside to secure the chicken coop last night and wondered...what is that sound? Stood still and realized it was a generalized mosquito whine thrumming through the air. All around. Everywhere. No escaping.

C.R.E.E.P.Y.

I wanted to get inside fast before I crawled out of my skin.

Did the chickens cooperate?  No.

They busted out of the be half-gate across the main door.  Scooped up one errant escapee...the rest were too stunned to bother.

Went around to the chicken yard to herd the later-nighters inside and they wouldn't budge.

Had to forceably pick up a dozen or so chickens and not urge them through the door...SHOVE them through the door.  They were quite fine roosted up against the coop, thank you very much.

Just when you want to get the hell back inside you meet with a chicken sit-in.

Happy summer everyone!

Break in the weather

To celebrate the third day of no rain (apart from brief overnight showers), TWO mowers are going full steam ahead today.  

That's Mom in her jaunty pink camp and Dad working the backfield.

Take that, you crazy-growing-lawn.  Take that!

Energizer Mom

With her attempts at gardening thwarted, Mom has now refocussed her not-inconsiderable energy on deep cleaning the house.

We are hiding downstairs listening to the roar of the vacuum.

Think of us.

Rough Day in the Coop

There was a wee Candillo family outing to do the Chick Check this evening.

We refilled the water and marveled at how fast the chicks are growing....the usual.

Just about ready to leave when I noticed one belly up in the back of the corral.  Yup, definitely dead.  That makes two.

Chris lifted it out with the pitchfork...a brief eulogy was completely disregarded as it landed in the burn barrel.

We're looking for patterns in deaths.  The only thing so far is that Dad was doing the Chick Checks prior to each discovery.  We're not pointing fingers...yet.

Forensics are inconclusive.

Cloud Bursts and Bug Guts

Just a little shout out to the short-lived, but fierce cloud burst I drove through this afternoon.  

The intense rain and wipers made short work of the bug guts encrusted on the windshield which was already impeding visibility.  Much easier than the squeegee.

Thanks!

Getting things done before the rain...

May long weekend ensures it will be rainy.  And so it is...

Before it hit though, the farm gang took full advantage of the beautiful morning.

I headed out to check the chicks (I had forgotten the other morning and had to redeem myself) while my boys were still in bed.  All was well...no squished chicks to report.  Just thirsty.

On the way back I was invited to go on the morning cattle check with Peter and Dad.  Sure...why not?  So we drove around...confirmed there were cows in the fields, a few people teeing off on the golf course, the water level is too high in the lake, the ducks' nest is no more (whether due to hatching or attack is unclear), the juice is flowing on the electric fence (Peter gets to test that) and three carloads of people had arrived to fish in the channel going through our sections.  Oh...and witnessed the first few minutes of a new calf wobbling to his/her feet.  Awww....  All this by 9:30 in the morning.

Returned to find Auntie Nicole and the boys had surfaced...they headed out as I headed in to eat.  After tidying up, I pulled on my coveralls (hugely attractive) and went out again.

Chris and Dexter took a ride on the quad to check out the fishing action, came back and fired up the rider mower.  They were set for the morning.

I was issued some pruning shears and took care of a maple stump that was getting right out of control...didn't stand a chance. 

Next on the list was flipping the hay in the chick corral.  They've gone from ardorable fluffy cute chicks to molting toddlers with a dirty hay issue.  After a panicked few minutes on their part, the poop was flipped and out of sight.  Tick that off the list.

Dad was planting in the greenhouse (former, really...as the recent windstorms ripped the plastic siding off of it, it's now a raised bed garden).  I pitched in with watering it to the point of looking like a rice paddy.   Apparently that is just perfect.

As the rain arrived, I hustled over to the main garden to gather some of the prolific rhubarb already taking over part of the big garden.  A request for crisp had been made...must do something with all the growth. (Add "Search for other rhubarb recipes" to my list).

In the meantime, Peter was weed whacking the yard, Nicole was doing her random junk-hauling and Julia was puttering in her corner of the garden.

And then...the deluge began...and that was the end of outside time.

Now crisps have been made, Dexter's nap has been had, blogging ensues and surfing for acceptable cartoons is underway.

Happy Soggy Long Weekend Everyone!

You gotta be fast!

I was on Chick Check this morning.  It's the very arduous task of making sure they are

1. still there,
2. have food  and
3. top up the water.

Once the incubating phase is over, they will be split into two groups.  50 to Team Peter, 50 to us - Team Candillo.  Part of the summer fun is to see how many survive out of each group - farm excitement. But for now, it's one big (little?) chick herd.

I opened the coop door to a flurry of excited chirping. So far, so good.  One little guy was motionless in the straw, but upon nudging, turned out to be a sleeper-in-er.

Plenty of feed, so I took out the water - a big inverted jug with a basin screwed on the bottom - to refill it.

Upon my return, I was about to place it back in the corral only to notice a squished chick right in the middle of the circle marking the water jug's spot.  Poor little guy wasn't fast enough.  You gotta run!

Chick count...99

Must speak to Dad at lunch - He-Who-Installed-the-Chicks.  Which team's count does this one come out of?

PS.  I was very stoic and dealt with the remains all by myself - coop is right next to the burn barrel.

Growing like crazy!

With scorching almost 30C days, the garden seeding is well ahead of schedule.

This is sure to be tormenting Mom as she is city-locked with her grandson Andrew in Calgary as his mom Karen and new step-dad Mac are off on their honeymoon.  Everyone makes sacrifices for mom.

The peas have already poked their tender shoots forth, the rhubarb is borderline monstrous and we had our first feed of asparagus today...yum!

The seedling plants have been released from their basement dungeon and installed into the lap of luxury in the back of the red pickup truck to acclimatize to the great outdoors.  No need to move them in and out...just drive the truck into the garage if need be.  Genius idea by Dad.

Peter's been rototilling like a crazy man, Nicole mowed for 8 straight hours today (yes, on a rider lawn mower), and there was a potato planting fest this afternoon.

Even got some mushroom huntin' in...Dad 1, Michele 0, Peter 12.  He's like a truffle pig...very skilled in finding the morels. I found mosquitos and I think I grabbed a stinging nettle.  Not so skilled...

Lucky Log

With the Human Brick (see previous post) gig now over, a big outting is being called into play being a Human Log.

This involves sitting in the truck to 'block' the road to encourage the cows to go through the right gate when they're being moved into another field.

I can do that.

The 'lucky' part of log duty yesterday was  visit from a 2-day old calf.  I was moved to actually get out of the truck to do some arm waving to urge wayward beasties the proper direction.

Clearly I was very effective as the wee little brown calf wobbled his way right over to me and let me pet him!

Eventually he curled up in the ditch by the truck to wait for his mama and he let me come over and scratch his ears.

So cute!  I liked being a Log.

Useful as a brick...

Uncle Peter took off on a road trip last week for Phoenix, leaving a huge vacancy in the farm labour force, thus Chris and I were called in off the bench.

My morning, I was briefed on my duties in assisting the delivery of some bales to the field that still didn't have quite enough grass for munching.

I lounged in the truck waiting for the tractor to appear and enjoyed the morning.  Eventually the tractor came chugging along...

As it got nearer, I leapt into action, donned my rubber gloves, freed the electric fence wires off a post and held them down for the tractor to roll over.

I returned to lounging.

The tractor completed it's circuit, I held down the wires, it left the field and I reattached the wires and headed home.

I donned on me that the basically, I had been a human brick...holding down the wires.  Huh.

I pointed that out to Dad...he agreed...and shortly thereafter, we were fired.

Dad claims it was because the grass had started growing enough, but Chris took it pretty badly.  He got 'sick' the very next day and wouldn't get out of bed.

Aw...

Day 1 - Don't tell Mom...

My sister Karen is getting married this spring (yay!) and preparations are ramping up, so Mom and Dad have gone to Calgary for a few days to go dress shopping, get fitted for a tux, hang out, etc.

So we are stunned to be bumped from our full-service living arrangements into fending for ourselves.  Oh. My. God.

Day 1. I bravely headed into the kitchen this evening to reheat the leftovers Mom left for us.  Yes, I can manage that.  I put the rice and broccoli dish on the stove to warm... Pyrex, low heat, no problem. 

I seem to have a burner dyslexia.  Not for the first time, I checked all the settings and noticed that I had left that particular element on scorch instead of warm.  So, I diligently take it off and walk away to set the table.

One step away and...BLAM!!!!!!  An explosion of Pyrex all over the kitchen.   Oh. My. God. 

No physical damage done to anything but the dish and food, unless you count my near heart attack.

Of course, Dexter has to rush over to investigate and is none to happy to be turned back..."I want to see!"

Not only is the dish ruined, but what the hell are we going to eat?!?!  Pull out the toaster - suck it up everyone.

NOW I'll be scouring the local emporiums clutching the surviving lid trying to find a suitable replacement for the 30 year old favourite casserole dish.  Fun!

Fingers crossed that tomorrow's re-heating experience goes smoother. :)

On the plus side, I did remember to mist the seedlings being nurtured in the basement.  Please God, let the heliotrope survived the four days.  Can I do it?!?!

Stay tuned...everything is completely under control.  Honestly.

Solo chores today

Balmy -25 today.  Peter was off to a curling bonspiel in Norquay, Dad on the tractor dropping bales and Chris was on Dexter daycare commute.  I was called up for chore duty.  So as Chris and Dexter headed into town I trudged over to the snow mobile.  With a whiplash roar (it goes from 0 to 20km instantly), I was off.

First, pass by Sam's buffet by the turkey coop, then off through the bush to the hay yard and corrals.  Dismount, pick up the pail of grain to give to the red bull.   Open gate, trudge through snow and head to trough.  Expecting bull to be quite keen on the grain, I looked around to be prepared to for potential nudging out of the way.

Bull is waiting by other trough.  Oops, sorry Bull, my bad.  Head over to correct trough and deposit grain.  Bull waits politely as I exit pen.  Not sure why this guy get extra rations, will inquire.

Remount and lurch out of hay yard and off to two spindly trees on the way to the water troughs.  These are the markers as to where to drop mineral block which have a tendency to look like another pile of poo in a field full of them.  Need a marker to keep an eye on the block so as to know to replace it when needed.  It's essentially a mammoth, 20kg prenatal vitamin.  All the ladies will be birthing starting in the next month or so.

Heave vitamin on the ground, remove mitts and try to get plastic off.  No problem. Reach out to remove paper label.  Turns out it's a very tenacious sticker.  Who STICKS a massive label to a lump of food?  THEY do, clearly.  On my hands and knees picking at stupid shredded label for some time.   Lose interest. Some of the ladies will be getting some extra sticky fibre too.

Roar off to the two water troughs, dismount and for the next 1/2 hour try to get fires lit underneath to (obviously) melt water and ensure the herd staggers through another day.

Clearly, I am not yet skilled at this particular task as I run through a great deal of the diesel and an obscene amount of matches trying to get decent blazes going.   How hard should it be?  Probably not as hard as I'm making it..

Ready to head out when I realize I forgot to chop the ice.  Can't leave it all to my timid little flames.

Forget freaking workout boot camps!  Want a work out...go chop something.  My GAWD am I out of shape.  Just lifting the freaking ax and putting no effort on the descent was exhausting.  Chipping relentlessly away, I finally did it, flung the ax in a drift and headed home.

Back past Sam's buffet, park and dismount outside the shop and staggered inside.

Now here I sit, sporting the latest in towel turban fashions updating the blog.

Must get to work.

Happy day, everyone. :)