Summer in October

A late season hot spell (aka Summer 2010), has come and gone. This was marked by a resurgence of mosquitoes. Yes, really. They had to have the last say. We'll show them...c'mon Winter! (Oh no...did I just type that out loud?)

I dazzled even myself with a few early morning walks to enjoy the sunrise. I include a couple shots of the view and the beaver showing off one early morning.

(Sunrise walks sound impressive, don't they? Please do not focus to much on the fact that sunrise will shortly be occurring just before lunch. Thank you.)

All is well

Just got back from my yoga class...all stretched out and mellow.  More successful than last week.

I made the commute into Canora and pulled up to an empty studio with a couple fellow yoga-ists standing in front.  Missing instructor.  Hmm...

Now in the old days, I would have taken this opportunity to head to the nearest coffee shop with a trashy magazine and hang out for a couple of hours.

In these new days, the only option for hanging out was at Wong's restaurant, home of battered diner seating and hideous fluorescent lights.  It's quite popular though...whether it's due to lack of options or wonderful cuisine, I don't know.

I drove home.  Back in time for the bedtime rodeo.

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. :)

Blisters in fine form

Still basking in the happy glow of a nice excursion.  Apart from the blisters...

Impressed even ourselves

My sister Lisa and I impressed ourselves today.   We skied just over 7 km!  There's a great little place nearby called Good Spirit Lake with a groovy network of trails....and we went from one end to the other.  It took us the whole freakin' afternoon, but we did it.

As we were trudging along, I was pondering what little critters were leaving all the marks on the path, when I looked up, and what did I see?  A moose.  I'm pretty sure a huge beasty on long spindly legs that can disappear behind a twig is a moose.  And just to be sure, it pranced by again. Finally...after hearing reports all the time, I see a moose.  Yay!

That, along with some birds, was the wildlife quota for the day.

And the husbands and kids flourished in our absence too.

Bring on the Olympics!

Good day

I had one of those long, computer afternoons where my eyes began feeling like little radiating squares in my head.

Chris left to get Dexter and I went for a lovely ski.  Yes, I, Michele Wiwchar, instead of being able to head down the street to pick up a Tango Palace treat, actually strapped on the skis.

It was a glorious, mild day, and I am slowly getting better at dressing appropriately for any particular outing.  As a quick climb up the stairs will wind me, actually skiing could be potentially debilitating.

With Sam the dog trotting along behind/beside/around me, I made it almost to the corrals (yes, we have corrals) before turning back. 

Got back in, tidied up and dutifully reported to the garage door to herald the arrival of Dexter, right on time.

It was a good day. :)