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April 9, 2005
The Great Outdoors
While Bev was visiting last weekend we spent two and a half days working in the garden and feeding the neighbour's animals. It began Saturday morning with a present from Bev: pansies to brighten up the front entrance. She also showed me (with only 3 casualties) how to transplant tulips to fill out the centre of these old planters we hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet. |
Another update delayed… I've had connectivity problems for over two weeks now, and my current upload speed is a whopping 0.5 k per second. If that sounds ok to you, read that again. That's "k" as in kilobytes. Dial-up really rots my socks! But the end may soon be in sight – I finally heard confirmation that two-way broadband satellite may be available here as early as July. Keep your fingers crossed for me. In the meantime, given my current struggle just to perform my job, I've stopped trying to get online in my spare hours. Instead, I've spent more time outside in the past three weeks than I have in the 7 months since the last four-wheeling trip. (The next trip is coming up soon, by the way.)
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Thus began an entire day's work to take the wire off the posts and haul them down. I was very grateful when Rob showed up to help because I was much happier just hitting the switch on the winch in Mechano's warm cab after several hours of back-breaking labour with wire cutters and a rake. I think you can get the gist of it from these pictures, but feel free to post a comment with questions and I'll elaborate later. (Amazingly, my photos are uploading at a more "normal" speed tonight, thank goodness.) |
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Last Sunday ended with a covered (but not yet buried) septic, and Bev and I filled a third of the pickup with pine cones raked from the front drive. Rob showed us a few pictures of his trip to Moab for Easter Jeep Safari, and then hit the road early to avoid another snowstorm in the Coq. We cleaned up and Richard fired up the new barbecue again, this time for prime rib on the rotisserie. A very nice end to the day. Bev and I had a more restful day on Monday, exploring the neighbourhood, holding baby goats, getting eggs for her to take home, and generally taking it easy until I dropped her off with Richard for the drive back to Vancouver. I was so tired I crawled into bed for a nap as soon as I got home, but I've been out just about every evening since then. One more week, and all the pruning and weeding will all pay off - the first daffodil bloomed this morning. |
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I've got 15 photos I want to post (out of over 60 taken during the weekend between Bev, Richard and I), so I'm going to let these creatures speak for themselves. I'm kicking myself that I didn't bring the camera outside with me yesterday, as I let all the llamas and Daisy and her lambs into our yard, to crop the grass. (Had anyone caught me on camera trying to get them back OUT of the yard again, that would have made for a funny photo.) The following animal images are taken around Jonathan's property, not ours. (Make sure you read on to see what we got done here at home!)
It may look like we spent the weekend at a petting zoo, but we actually got a tremendous amount of yard work done in between visits to the new goats and introducing Bev to the llamas. Sunday morning everyone was up early, and after a full day Saturday the idea was to quit by noon and take a relaxing drive into town. But first, Richard wanted to get the septic tank covered. That's the gigantic hole in the ground right on the path to the back yard. The ideal covering material seemed to be railroad ties... which we happened to have a large supply of, holding up the old bird pens that surround our barn.
What a difference removing those pens has made to that back corner. In addition to the ties Rob and Richard cut up to cover the septic, Jonathan laid claim to most of the rest of them this week, and took down some more of the chicken wire. The rolls of it we set aside were spirited away by another neighbour this morning. And this afternoon I raked another patch of four foot tall brush into a good bonfire starter. The small chicken coop is still standing, however, despite being pulled right off its footings. I'm looking forward to seeing it fall, but that's a job for another weekend.Posted by anita at April 9, 2005 11:38 PM
Comments
So...all the pens are gone now? If so, excellent! That's totally going to open everything up.
The babies are so cute!
Posted by: wandering coyote | 04:54 10 April 2005
The pens aren't gone yet, there's a lot more of it behind the barn, thankfully out of sight. But getting there. And the plants are showing more green every day, even in a matter of hours with the mix of morning showers and strong western sun. And I figured out what the striking light gray tree is in the back yard, the one with the sticky red buds: chestnut. Found hard spiky shells in the grass on the north side of the tree where I hadn't raked yet. I'm familiar with horse chestnuts with more fuzzy shells, so these long dangerous spikes make me hope that these will be REAL chestnuts. Hurrah, a nut tree after all! And yet another tree to watch for blossoms, I think.
To tally up, that's 3 apples, 3 cherries, 2 currants bushes, 1 apricot, 1 crabapple, and 1 chestnut. And 3 ornamental crabapples, several grapevines & wisteria (can't tell one from another yet), dozens of lilacs, several patches of iris and wild rose, mint, onions, and chives, poppies, lupins, yuccas, lavendar, tulips, daffodils, pansies, and hard to forget, 2 very sharp yellow-flowered hawthorns. (Which means they are neither of the indigenous varieties, which my research indicates should flower white. Hm.) And lots and lots of weeds.
The llamas unfortunately prefer grass and leaves, but Jonathan is getting a breed of small, big-horned sheep from the Caribbean that are neither fussy nor tall enough to eat my trees. I hope they take a special liking to dandelion!
Thanks for the help identifying plants, everyone! There are more surprises ahead, I'm sure. And more weeding, always more weeding. :P
Posted by: Anita | 17:44 11 April 2005
What a wonderful time I had with both of you! (after beening snowed out of the Coq. on the trip up there, making a 3/4 hour trip into over 6 hours thru the canyon) A comfortable sleep on your new mattress, touring your oh so comfy home & my fave breakie of bacon & eggs, getting to know all of your 4 legged neighbours and getting down & dirty on your back fourty. Amazed at the amount of work the two of you have accomplished in such a short time, (is the front door window straight yet? Substance for the soul, Anita, you do know that Rick learned his skills in the kitchen and on the barbie from you know who. Rotis. chickens & prime rib - non better than Rick's!! Fabulous!! The free-range eggs I brought home - to die for. (from the neighbour with the pet Canada goose) Rick, sorry about the burnt cookies, but as all good mothers, I did eat every last delicious bite. Newborn lambs and baby goats just hours old - how thrilled I was to be a part of that. Gardening - yes, also very enjoyable as I don't have that enjoyment at my home anymore - not too much digging & raking on the river. Tearing down bird pens - loved it - especially finding all that antique barn wood which I intend to have my dining room table made out of real soon, only lost 4 of the gold balls when Karen & I went out last week. The fresh air, birds singing, owls flying by the window as you watch tv, the wide open spaces, mountains so close, white-tailed deer running thru the back forest, feeding the ever hungry animals just steps away - what a wonderful life. Thx for sharing it with me. Will send up all the shovels, hoes, rakes, clippers, etc., which David & I picked up at a garage sale, with Colleen & Jorge when they come to visit in a couple of weeks. Don't forget, gather some more eggs for me. Looking forward to your next posting.
Luv ya.........Mommsie
Luv ya.......Mommsie
Posted by: mommsie | 08:31 08 May 2005