Sunday, 28 October 2012
This week at the Rescue
It was another super quick day at the rescue this week. I cleaned Evan's stall again, and then hung out with him for a bit. I even got him to eat right from my hand! He's getting more used to humans, slowly but surely. I then swept the aisle of the barn, which needs to be done regularly, especially when there are animals in the stalls (as that means that hay and/or straw is being hauled in to the stalls, and you can't help but lose some of it in the aisle on the way there). I didn't mind having a quick day this week, as I had some other running around to do in town before heading home to see Jordan before he left for work.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Fall at Lone Pine Farm
We are now well in to fall; I can't deny it any longer. The leaves are changing colour and falling off the trees, the sun is feeling weaker, and we are expecting that the highest temperature next week will be around +5 C.
As the weather gets cooler, I start thinking about soup more often. I made another big pot of Butternut Squash and Sausage Soup, and this time I tossed in half a green pepper we had in the fridge. It was tasty :)
Our neighbour has three Black Angus cows, who will likely be going for slaughter soon. Zim doesn't usually notice them, but this past Wednesday, they came right up to this side of their field, and Zim went NUTS. I had to stop him from crawling under the fence twice! There's a field between the road and the cows, and the cow field is kind of hilly, so often they are out of sight, or can't be seen from Zim's eye level.
One night last week, Jordan was outside with Zim and I heard a quiet "pop" then small, hard objects hitting the logs on the side of the house. Jordan came in and said that the lightbulb we had outside exploded. Luckily, he wasn't standing near it at the time! So last weekend, we picked up two motion sensor lights. We ran in to some problems trying to install this one, so I talked to my friend and coworker (who is also an electrician), and she gave me some very helpful hints for installing it. So Wednesday, I put it up :)
The furnace/fireplace is coming on more and more often, and the heavy cast iron top holds the heat for a good while after it's turned off. The cats have taken to hanging out on top of the fireplace, where they enjoy the residual heat.
This past weekend, Jordan and I worked together to install a soffit to increase the air flow in the roof to try and prevent ice dams from forming this winter. Between the existing soffits, this new one, and the vents Dad and I installed, we're hoping we won't run in to any problems.
Zim and Doodle were also on an extended, 5-day playdate last weekend, and I'll have some photos in the next post.
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| The chicken coops and a grain building |
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| Our silver poplar |
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| With a cheese breadstick from the store |
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| Mmmmm sausage and green peppers |
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| "What are those?!??" |
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| Shedding some light on the situation |
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| Even the cats know it's fall; they're spending more time on the fireplace |
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| Soffit |
Saturday, 20 October 2012
This week at the Rescue
This was a fairly light week at the rescue.
I started by cleaning the pig's stall in the barn. He's getting less nervous - he came close enough this week that he touched my hand! He'll be used to people in no time :)
Then I mixed up the food for Darcy and Fin. They are both on special diets, to supplement the grass and hay they are getting right now.
I was lucky to work with Bob and Lorraine again this week. They went to walk two of the ponies, Applesauce and Chilli Pepper, while I had a quick visit with Darcy. He is gaining weight, and was happy to see me :)
I then decided to try and catch one of the ponies, Holli. She is very nervous and skittish. Bob and Lorraine gave it a try, but were unsuccessful, so I decided to try my luck. With Lorraine and Chilli acting as wingmen, I slowly walked up to her, and mirrored her movements when she would try to escape - if she stepped left, I stepped with her. I held out a treat in my hand, and when she finally reached out to take it, I was able to grab her halter and clip the lead on. Success!!!
She walked pretty good. I think that because she is so small, I was not terribly nervous about catching her, whereas I would have been scared to catch a full-size, skittish horse.
Last weekend, Nicola held a bottle drive to raise funds for winter food. She posted the total raised on the PGER site: $607 in empties and $270 in cash! Hooray!
I started by cleaning the pig's stall in the barn. He's getting less nervous - he came close enough this week that he touched my hand! He'll be used to people in no time :)
Then I mixed up the food for Darcy and Fin. They are both on special diets, to supplement the grass and hay they are getting right now.
I was lucky to work with Bob and Lorraine again this week. They went to walk two of the ponies, Applesauce and Chilli Pepper, while I had a quick visit with Darcy. He is gaining weight, and was happy to see me :)
I then decided to try and catch one of the ponies, Holli. She is very nervous and skittish. Bob and Lorraine gave it a try, but were unsuccessful, so I decided to try my luck. With Lorraine and Chilli acting as wingmen, I slowly walked up to her, and mirrored her movements when she would try to escape - if she stepped left, I stepped with her. I held out a treat in my hand, and when she finally reached out to take it, I was able to grab her halter and clip the lead on. Success!!!
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| Walking down the driveway |
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| What a pretty girl :) |
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Our first power outage
Hi everyone, Mandi here.
This morning, as I was wavering between asleep and awake, Jordan was getting ready for work. I half noticed the lights go out, and I thought, 'oh, either Jordan's really good at turning off all the lights at once, or I managed to doze off...' before Jordan poked his head in to the bedroom to inform me that the power had gone out. I looked to where the clock's little red numbers usually glare into the dark, and sure enough, I saw nothing but black. The wind whipped a number of pinecones free from the nearby trees and scattered them across the tin roof, making a racket that made me wonder if it was hailing outside. Ah, so there's a tree down somewhere.
Okay, I've been waiting for this. I anticipate that we will get quite a few outages this winter, as we're about 15 minutes out of city limits. I had a half-formed plan in the back of my head, so I called the power company to report the outage and they confirmed that they were getting calls from others as well. That's a good sign (to me, anyway); I suspect that their service may be a bit slower for one customer than for the 1000 homes that were affected by this morning's outage. Plus, if it was just out, then there's likely a tree down on our property, which could be a real can of worms (Is it across the driveway/road? What has it taken out for fencing? Is there gas for the chainsaw? Not that I would be dumb enough to remove a tree down on a live wire, but... there will be work to be done after, I'm sure).
I usually listen to CBC radio in the morning, and while I have batteries for the radio, I don't want to put them in and drain them unless it's a real emergency (such as a winter storm or forest fire). Luckily, I can get the radio on my cell phone by plugging in my headphones to act as an antenna, so that was how I discovered it was about 1000 homes in the dark this morning.
Another problem was, you guessed it, light. We don't have a lot of windows in the first place, and it's now full dark out at 5:30 in the morning. I keep a flashlight next to the bed just for situations like this, and I was able to use it to feed the cats and find my headlamp (which you may remember from this post) so I could still use both hands. Zim, our pooch, didn't seem phased by the dark, so I let him out, and he came back in without falling off the deck :)
I was able to get ready for work without any major mishaps, other than putting the headlamp on a shelf to brush my hair and then nocking it off the shelf, which turned it off and plunged me into darkness without any hope of finding where I had put down the flashlight. So I used my phone (which I was able to find by following the sound of the radio, and I managed to grab it without knocking anything else over) to find the flashlight, which I used to find the headlamp. I tucked the flashlight into my back pocket in case of future mishaps, but luckily, it wasn't needed again and I put it back beside the bed before I left for work.
The best thing about our house in a power outage: our 'furnace' is a propane fireplace that is capable of running without any power. The fan that moves the heat throughout the house is powered, of course, but the thermostat remote control and the receiver are both battery powered (and I have extra batteries for both). So the fireplace stays on longer than usual, which burns more fuel, but we will not freeze; if anything, the house gets warmer than usual, as the heat doesn't reach the thermostat as efficiently without the fan.
The worst thing about our house in a power outage: our well needs power to run the pump, so we lose our water. This is a relatively minor inconvenience when we have water on hand, but we don't yet have any ready to go. Once we get some water on standby, we'll have a different 'worst thing': if it's well below freezing, we are in danger of frozen pipes both under the house and in the well-house. I haven't yet thought up a way to prevent this, so we'll have to do some research (as this is a common problem on most rural northern properties, it's likely that someone has an preventive idea, I just have to find it!).
The most amusing thing about this morning: I got up earlier than usual to deal with the outage, so I had about 20 minutes to spare before I had to leave the house. So I pulled up a chair in front of the fireplace and crocheted by headlamp :) May as well make the best of an odd situation!!
This morning, as I was wavering between asleep and awake, Jordan was getting ready for work. I half noticed the lights go out, and I thought, 'oh, either Jordan's really good at turning off all the lights at once, or I managed to doze off...' before Jordan poked his head in to the bedroom to inform me that the power had gone out. I looked to where the clock's little red numbers usually glare into the dark, and sure enough, I saw nothing but black. The wind whipped a number of pinecones free from the nearby trees and scattered them across the tin roof, making a racket that made me wonder if it was hailing outside. Ah, so there's a tree down somewhere.
Okay, I've been waiting for this. I anticipate that we will get quite a few outages this winter, as we're about 15 minutes out of city limits. I had a half-formed plan in the back of my head, so I called the power company to report the outage and they confirmed that they were getting calls from others as well. That's a good sign (to me, anyway); I suspect that their service may be a bit slower for one customer than for the 1000 homes that were affected by this morning's outage. Plus, if it was just out, then there's likely a tree down on our property, which could be a real can of worms (Is it across the driveway/road? What has it taken out for fencing? Is there gas for the chainsaw? Not that I would be dumb enough to remove a tree down on a live wire, but... there will be work to be done after, I'm sure).
I usually listen to CBC radio in the morning, and while I have batteries for the radio, I don't want to put them in and drain them unless it's a real emergency (such as a winter storm or forest fire). Luckily, I can get the radio on my cell phone by plugging in my headphones to act as an antenna, so that was how I discovered it was about 1000 homes in the dark this morning.
Another problem was, you guessed it, light. We don't have a lot of windows in the first place, and it's now full dark out at 5:30 in the morning. I keep a flashlight next to the bed just for situations like this, and I was able to use it to feed the cats and find my headlamp (which you may remember from this post) so I could still use both hands. Zim, our pooch, didn't seem phased by the dark, so I let him out, and he came back in without falling off the deck :)
I was able to get ready for work without any major mishaps, other than putting the headlamp on a shelf to brush my hair and then nocking it off the shelf, which turned it off and plunged me into darkness without any hope of finding where I had put down the flashlight. So I used my phone (which I was able to find by following the sound of the radio, and I managed to grab it without knocking anything else over) to find the flashlight, which I used to find the headlamp. I tucked the flashlight into my back pocket in case of future mishaps, but luckily, it wasn't needed again and I put it back beside the bed before I left for work.
The best thing about our house in a power outage: our 'furnace' is a propane fireplace that is capable of running without any power. The fan that moves the heat throughout the house is powered, of course, but the thermostat remote control and the receiver are both battery powered (and I have extra batteries for both). So the fireplace stays on longer than usual, which burns more fuel, but we will not freeze; if anything, the house gets warmer than usual, as the heat doesn't reach the thermostat as efficiently without the fan.
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| Mander on the toasty fireplace |
The worst thing about our house in a power outage: our well needs power to run the pump, so we lose our water. This is a relatively minor inconvenience when we have water on hand, but we don't yet have any ready to go. Once we get some water on standby, we'll have a different 'worst thing': if it's well below freezing, we are in danger of frozen pipes both under the house and in the well-house. I haven't yet thought up a way to prevent this, so we'll have to do some research (as this is a common problem on most rural northern properties, it's likely that someone has an preventive idea, I just have to find it!).
The most amusing thing about this morning: I got up earlier than usual to deal with the outage, so I had about 20 minutes to spare before I had to leave the house. So I pulled up a chair in front of the fireplace and crocheted by headlamp :) May as well make the best of an odd situation!!
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