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.)

Harvest Time...

was not not easy this year. Or so I hear (having remained safely inside for the duration).

Rain, rain, came again and soaked everything in one long soggy day - it was like the flood waters hadn't been receding for the past two months.

Anyhoo, at long last, the bales were completed this past week when a string of warm and windy days dried everything up again.

There was an impressive number of bales, which I would share with you if I remembered it. Suffice to say...the herd should make the winter.

The channel runneth over

Just a little clip for the multitudes who are interested... Sam the Dog is standing about where the culverts run under the road. There should be no water visible at all from where I'm standing.

At least it's picturesque... :)

The aftermath

Chris took the camera along to Yorkton after the flooding....

No one was seriously hurt, but the local Dairy Queen was destroyed. Now I have constant Blizzard cravings...

July 1 - Canada Day flash floods

Happy Belated Canada Day everyone! Clearly, I'm a very negligent blogger - a lot has been going on.

Our little family put headed out to the Western Development Museum in Yorkton for an afternoon of thrills and excitement with the cousins.

Thrills included being victimized by mosquitoes on the tractor/wagon ride through the trees (fun). Excitement was provided by Dexter ALMOST going in the bouncy castle with his older cousins (several times) and, more importantly, fudgecicles for everyone.

As the ice cream was being sucked back, the daily arrival of afternoon storm clouds was underway.

But, hang on....these looked pretty dramatic. That's it...party's over! Everyone packed up and headed out.

We had Dexter and the twins, Matthew and Nathan with us as we drove home to the farm. We could see the storm hit behind us and watched the light show in the rear view mirror...spectacular!

Brother-in-law Brent called to check in...said the roads were rivers in town. Between 4 to 6 inches of rain came down in less than an hour.

Somehow the farm seems to miss the major direct hits. We're always on the periphery.

An action-packed afternoon did end with a lovely rainbow...for us at least. :)

State of Emergency declared in the garden

Mom says there's never been a year like it. The garden is a write off.

- Record rain fall has turned half of it into a rice paddy...too bad we forgot to seed
- The brand new rototiller remains idol...would just get stuck
- Weeds are rubbing their pollen-laden leaves together in glee
- Potato bugs have infested the few brave potatoes that are struggling forth
- Peter powered the bugs last night
- It rained and washed the powder away
- New potatoes were planted today...trying again
- Bulls have trampled the carrot patch

The only hope remains with the cluster of raised beds across the road. It's looking promising and Chris and I did some seeding yesterday. A little sun would be appreciated.

Looks like we'll join the masses in the checkout line at Superstore this year...

Time to go fishing.

Updates

Well, our little highway is open again, the waters have receded and are obligingly flowing UNDER the bridge.  Yay!

The swaths being mowed in the yard are gaining ground, although the front yard pond is still flourishing.

Unclear as to the outcome of the birds nest.  Peter made it out there to investigate a few days ago, but the nest was empty.  No clear indication of foul play or successful hatch.  We'll never know for sure.

There are, however, other VERY protective blackbirds around the yard.  Go in the wrong area and some severe dive bombing is sure to occur.  Sam has a lot of grief during the day.

Mosquitos are still ruling the roost, so to speak and continue to torture everyone all hours of the day and night.

I am trying out a new Insect Defend Patch.  It appears to be a dose of B1 Thiamine that you wear like a nicotine patch to deter bugs by radiating whatever you radiate while wearing it.  I know you're waiting with bated breath to see how it works.  I will be sure to update you ASAP.

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!

Closed!

Well, they finally closed the highway this morning.  We went into town last night and the car was NOT pleased with it's swim through the flood zone and apparently the highway department is finally in agreement.

Our neighbour Ron, on the eastern shore, informed us of the closure this morning and claimed that the beavers were eating a hole throught the asphalt.  I, like an idiot, believed  him, until Mom clued me in that it was his hilarious way of saying that part of the road is now being washed away.  I'm quick.

So, onto a 10 minute dirt road drive of a detour.  The couple of farmyards on the way must be all a twitter with the traffic-packed roads.

The channel down the road continues to rise.  The two culverts going under the road are so far underwater that a local beaver (really) chose to portage rather than be battered around with an underwater passage.

Peter reports early morning hilarity with Sam (the dog) chasing down an overly-confident fox who found his escape route thwarted by deep water.  He had to dig deep for untold courage to come shockingly close to the truck to make his break for it.

But seriously, states of emergency are popping up all over the place.  Highway 1 near Alberta is closed due to flooding, seeds are not even being planted.  Bummer of a year all around.

Happily, there was a period of sun and wind today.  Not even the mosquitoes could hold their own...yay.  

However, the popular fluff was in fine form...some hit Mom in the back of the throat as she careened around the yard on lawnmower. 

Never misses a chance to mow down a swath or two...

Spring shots

Nice shots of the farm. This was pre-monsoon in the first week on June.

Lovely lilacs

Dexter leaving.

Running into Grandma on our walk

Rolling bedding plant nursery.

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.

True Blood - Saskatchewan Style

The local population is facing a very real fear of exsanguination.

Merely stepping outside your house or car results in being blanketed in swarms of huge, thirsty mosquitoes.  Gross.

So, rather than enjoying the lovely (if somewhat soggy) summer weather, we are huddled indoors slapping at buzzing infiltrators.

It's that, or go outside and come back in feeling like an itchy raisin.

Decisions, decisions....

Blub blub...

Record-setting rainfall here this year.  The most in a million years or something like that.

The house is now waterfront property with the appearance of a pond in the front yard and our little highway is awash in flood waters by the bridge to the 'big' highway.

Mom can be heard muttering "this is stupid" as she crams the bedding plants into any non-mud dirt she can find and laments the yellowing of leaves as she careens around the yard in the golf cart (she just sped by the window inspecting the north-east corner of the yard).

She tries to find Chris to help push her out when she takes the lawn mower into too-soggy land - she's trying to avoid Dad's stink-eye for not having heeded warnings to stay away.  But "goll darn it" the grass is like hay already!

Meanwhile Dad is doing a "told you so" to the local watershed committee from which he resigned in protest several years ago.   He was ignored in his insistence that the local lake's water level was being kept way too high...lining everything up for a big mess if wet weather continued. 

Well guess what?   There are reports of sandbagging underway to try to protect waterfront cabins and the do-hickey to drain the lake into the channels is WIDE open, but nowhere close to keeping pace with the water rising.   A lot of eye-rolling going on.  Never mind the long-disappeared beaches, now the potential for uncontrolled general flooding is very real.  

Four more days of rain expected.  Strap on the water wings.

At least one segment of the population is very pleased...the mosquitoes.

Tropic of Toronto

When I was a citizen of  Toronto, from time to time I would realize that for Canada, Toronto was a southern destination.  I think it's the same latitude as Denver, or something like that. 

Really....western Canada STARTS level with Thunder Bay, which (for Torontians) is the North...and a great deal of the east is the same.  Southern Ontario doesn't know from cold!

Why do I reflect on this today, you ask?

Because we're going to have a high of freakin' 6C today!  Likely have snow this weekend, just like Calgary's been having.

So, I would tease my fellow Torontonians when they cringed at an unseasonable 12C in May.  Remind them of the the rest of shivering Canada and point out that they were living in the Tropic of Toronto.

Not that I minded.  I loved living in the tropics (apart from heat and smog emergencies...not so much). But it was NICE to have more that 10 weeks of gardening weather, patio weather, where-something-other-than-parkas weather.  Nice, I say.

Sure clean air, breath taking horizons, no traffic jams are great....but so is summer.

Happy weekend everyone.

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!

Never too cold for the first dip of the season

We are fortunate enough to live less than 5 minutes away from Good Spirit provincial park, so we loaded up the kids to go play in the playground and get the season's park pass - this being the iconic May Long Weekend.

It was a GHOST town.  No one taking money at the gate, empty parking lot, no one in the playground...it was that gross of a weekend - everyone had given up.  Poured on Saturday, huge winds on Sunday, overcast morning on Monday...but it cleared up a bit, so we went.

So, the boys were happy for a little while in the park, but inevitably, the beach beckoned.   So the adults huddled in  a sunbeam and the kids had a blast.

Finally pulled the plug when Nathan's lips were blue and Matthew ASKED to put his clothes on.

Remember being a kid and not caring about anything but playing??? 

Ya, so do I.... :)

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!

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...

Holy tornado Batman!

...okay, so not quite, but my god it's windy!

Power's been off and on all morning (which brought an entertaining interlude of trying to explain electricity and lack of responsive switches to the kid).

Drove though dust clouds and even dodged some tumbleweeds (really) on the highway.

Got back from the daycare drop off and noticed pieces of the greenhouse flying around the yard.  Reported the destruction to Dad who told me he was dismantling it this year anyway...now he's got a head start.  Cool.

Stay tuned for sightings of Dorothy rolling by outside...