Guess who's back!

Today was (and still is, I suppose) pretty awesome.

I took they day off work today, just for fun.  We started the day by heading in to town, where our first stop was a construction materials store.  We had heard that they have supplies for finishing log homes, and we weren't disappointed!  They have all we need to prep and stain the logs, and they have chinking supplies as well. It looks like we may get that accomplished this summer!  And they have some stone façade stuff that we'd love to use on the basement.  And to top it off, they sell metal roofing too - it's too bad we didn't know about this store last summer!!

The rest of our shopping was good too - we were able to find everything on our list today.

After we got home, we were sitting in the living room when I noticed a swallow checking out their nesting site. I remember them coming back in May last year, and I'm curious as to their usual return date and how these two years compare to that.  Then I headed out to grab some items from the longhouse, and I hear the Sandhill cranes (I took a video in 2012 - see below)!  Into the evening, we noticed a large crow picking at the grass near the large garden.  And just an hour ago, we were out checking out the homesite, and the dogs treed a partridge!! So it's been a busy day for the spring critters here today.

As well, we got five eggs today, after getting four yesterday and an average of 3 or 3.5 daily since mid-January.  Which is both good (more eggs!) and bad (none of the girls are currently broody).  But all things come in time, right?  We'll have naturally hatched chicks this summer :)

What else is new?

We still have Dash. There was an adoption event at a pet store in town that was held to support the Rescue, so Kim and I took Dash there for the day. Another pup from Nicola's was there too (Ashley) and despite our best attempts to finish Dash a new home, she came home with me.

Who can say no to that face??

We're okay with that. She's a sweet gal.

We're starting seedlings this weekend; we'll be growing lots of sauce tomatoes, peas, carrots and cabbage this year.

There is still about a foot of snow in the open areas of the yard, including the garden.  But there are large rings of grass around everything that sticks through the snow, so it won't be much longer before we can see the gardens and start checking for rhubarb.

I spent Easter weekend at Hal and Cathy's with Kim, others in her family, Doodle and Zim.  Zim was less than well behaved, but we had a great time nonetheless. The chickens I took down at New Years are doing great, and still laying regularly. Everything was green and in bloom, including the daffodils, saskatoons and cherries. There are calves, and a few more to come, and seedlings in the sunroom as well. It was a great peek at what's to come up here as well, though without the cherry and saskatoon blossoms!  We'll be working on that this year - I'd like to pick up some sour cherry trees (pie filling!) and saskatoon bushes (syrup!!) so we will be getting some more fruit in the next few years.

And, just in time for the snow to leave... We got the snow stops installed on the roof in the past week, so we *shouldn't* have any more problems with the roof once we get it fully finished. We'll be starting the soffits soon too, and it will be nice to have that job done, even if I am not particularly excited about actually doing the work. I am still roof-ed out after last year's roofing insanity.

So, folks, let's try this conversation thingy again - what are your plans for the upcoming season?

In which Zim is confused and I am amused

Two quick items:

News: Phoebe is officially off her nest! She's been out and about for four days now. I hope we can make it back up to five eggs daily, but I would imagine that it's someone else's turn next. The next hen who goes broody will be allowed to keep her eggs, and hatch us a new batch of chicks.

Story: I just got home from agility with Zim, and I let Smash out of her kennel and took the pups with me to fetch today's eggs. Zim got quite a way ahead of Dash, and turned around and laid down in the path to the barn. Ask Dash wandered closer, Zim perked his ears, dropped his head, and stared at her intently. Aha! Classic signs of a doggie ambush. As Dash reached Zim's usual pounce threshold, she suddenly veered to her right, broke through the crust on the snow, sank to her chest and started bounding through the snow to reach the fence and crawl through the grass under the trough. Zim raises his head with a look of surprise and watches her go, then looks at me as if to say, "Well would you look at that! Where's she going?!"

Just another fun-filled evening around here :)

Our rooster crows in the evening

My guess is that he crows because the heat lamp is on...?  It's 5:42 pm in this video, which was taken in mid-February.  There are no odd sounds outside that would encourage him to crow...

Hey, it's Spring!

Hello!

I've got a few minutes (I'm supposed to be doing the dishes.... Sound familiar Mom?) so it's time for my monthly-ish update.

Dash

Last post, I promised you fine folks some news about Dash.

Mmmmmmmm peanut butter.....

More please!

Dash, or Smash as we call her, is a border collie cross from the rescue that we have been fostering since mid-January. She is just over a year old, and when Nic picked her up in November, she was horribly underweight and malnourished, plus she had lice and mites. She has settled in well her after some proper bonding, and for the first bit Zim was overjoyed to have someone to tousle with. (Now he's starting to get tired of her puppy-ness; she loves to wrestle, and lately there have been a few incidents involving serious growling and a yelp or two. We'll intervene when there is yelping, but if no one is getting hurt, we leave them to sort it out - both of them can use the socialization.) Dash is ridiculously smart and eager to please, which makes her easy to train. We've been working on sit-stay, 'don't bolt out the door when it is opened', 'be calm when you are in the kennel', and 'the world is not going to end just because you are in a vehicle'. We've also been socializing her with Doodle and Pongo, and it is going great. She's still nervous when she meets new people, but she's getting better with that as well. Her #1 skill is chewing, but since we convinced her not to chew the coffee table, she's only chewed bones and toys, as is proper. She's terrible at catching (toys and food will bounce off her forehead, then she'll look for them when they hit the floor) and she's not enthusiastic about fetching either. She also has a slight obsession with the cats - Mander will sometimes let her chew on him (she likes to do that nibble/scratching thing on them) but Molly won't have anything to do with her... which just makes Dash more interested in her. But she's been good with the chickens, and she is eager to come when called.

Snoozing on her back

Dash is up for adoption - if anyone is nearby and interested, get in touch with Nicola at the rescue: http://www.pgequinerescue.com

Zim

For Christmas, Kim got me an obedience class. Zim and I have been going since early January, and Zim is doing great! We finished our first class (which was actually the second level - we were able to skip the first level because Zim is well trained already and I've done clicker training before with Molly) and we're now on to our second course, which is agility. Kim and Doodle are in the same class (we planned it that way, of course) and Doodle and Zim are both doing wonderfully!

Creating

Our aforementioned obedience class was previously on Saturdays, so I haven't been doing much around the house or property. This weekend, I've been busy: last night was a sewing night, and I mended one of Kim's dresses, made a new wallet, and stitched 4 flannel squares to use as hankies. This morning I've made two different kinds of muffins: pumpkin and oatmeal raisin.

Hankies

New wallet, and the old one - it was definitely time for a new one

Pumpkin muffins!  These are the best muffins EVER.

Oatmeal raisin muffins

A few weeks ago, I made a treat bag for training Zim out of some 'lining' (possibly polyester?) a large snap ring and a large snap lid from old canning jars. It has a drawstring top and a loop to which I have attached a carabiner to clip it on my belt loop, and no seam edges on the inside for treat dust to get stuck in. It works AWESOME and I am quite proud of myself for coming up with the pattern and putting it together.

When I want to close it, I just tie the drawstring...

...and when I want it open, I undo the drawstring and fold the top down over the snap ring.

Last weekend I picked up a body pillow to help me sleep. We bought it at Sears but they don't sell covers for them. They had some sheets on sale, though, so we picked up one and I made a pillow case for it, complete with a pocket to cover the open end.

At the end of January, I held another book repair session; this one was for the school district.  At the end of the session, one of the teacher librarians came up to me with a box, handed it to me, and asked if I knew what it was.  It was a tacking iron, used for repairing torn pages.  She had found it in the supplies cupboard at her school, and told me I could have it if I wanted it - of course, I said yes!  For a lot of my small sewing projects, it is incredibly handy, and means I don't have to pull out and heat up the big iron.

This means that I actually iron the things I'm supposed to when sewing, which makes the whole project easier.

Chickens

The chickens are doing good. Phoebe is still broody, and has been since the middle of January. We continue to evict her from the nest box when we are in there, but she doesn't stay out for long. Foghorn got a bit of frostbite on his comb, but it looks like he is healing well.

Spring?

It is now officially spring. We've had some lovely, sunny days, and it was quite warm two weeks ago, with highs up to 7 or 8. It has cooled down again, and it's supposed to be cloudy and cold this week, but I am confident that Spring will show up eventually. Our road is still ice, but the snow banks are slowly shrinking and there's a thick crust on top of the snow.

A gift!

My friend Buttons knit me a wonderful toque that fits over my ponytail and keeps my ears warm (follow the link to see the toque in progress!). She also included a pair of fleece socks her friend had made - they are super cozy, and I am thinking of making a few additional pairs for myself.

Thanks Buttons!  I love it!! :)

Upcoming

We don't have much in the works at the moment. We will soon be planning the garden and starting seeds. The greenhouse made it through the winter, and we still have the seed trays and the starting station thingy I put together last year.

Well, on that note, there's the usual weekend stuff we should get to - fluffing the chicken bedding, doing the laundry, and doing some training with Zim and Smash.