Poor Little Fella

Our poor little guys, they are sick :( nothing is worse than seeing your kids under the weather. Calum has had a sore throat for the last four days, his voice is raspy! At first he was telling us that he just had a frog in his throat and wasn't sick! I think he actually did think there was a frog in his throat because he told me the other night when I was laying with him not to get too close because he didn't want the frog to get me too!! I had to take him to emergency Saturday night because he wasn't able to get very much air into his lungs and it was making him very anxious. It turned out it was because his nasal passage was so blocked and since he liked breathing through his nose he was having trouble breathing! All is well and we now know what to look for if it happens again!

Armin has hand foot and mouth disease but seems to be on the mend. His poor little hands and feet are all red with a little pin head rash. And a few larger water blister looking things. His mouth seems to be the most sore, with canker type sores inside! He definitely hasn't been himself but at least today he is up and playing with toys and walking around without saying owwie!!

With yesterday being Father's Day I really want to acknowledge three truly remarkable fathers in my life!! I couldn't ask for a better companion in my life to help raise these precious little kids!! Jared truly is a wonderful father, our kids love him to pieces and are always his little shadows! Yesterday he played basketball and car racing on the play station with Calum and then he took Emry out on the quad to drive through all the cows!

I am also very thankful for my own dad, for all the love and support he gives me. I love his phone calls, though they aren't nearly as often now that I am working!! But I love talking to my dad and I love knowing he is just a phone call away if ever I need him!

And lastly, I am very thankful for my father-in-law! He taught me so much and I am thankful I had the opportunity to live with and learn from him while we were building our house!

I am very blessed and even though we have had sick little guys I am still thankful!! I am thankful I have been blessed with patience, though I can't wait until they are back to their busy, normal selves!!

A Parade, Moving Cows, Dinner and a Show!!

Saturday was quite a busy day for us!! It started out early for Jared! He went out in the morning to get things lined up and ready to move cows down to the sand!

As a family we drove up to Vulcan where we met up with my sister and her extended family at her Sister in laws house to watch the annual Spock Days Parade, and in following with tradition it was pretty lame! But the kids got enough candy to give them a steady sugar high all day!! Armin loved the wuuu-wuuu trucks, thankfully because there were about ten if them that finished off the parade!!

After the parade we headed to Buck and Arren's to pick up the cattle trailer and truck! Once home we had lunch and Jared went out to finish getting a few things ready before Dave and Char got to the farm to help! With only one truck and trailer and 43 cows plus their calves to move it was going to be a long afternoon, and we didn't start until 3:00pm! The first two loads took about an hour so with five more it was going to be at least three more hours! However, with Jared's brains, he developed a system that moved the process along much quicker than first anticipated! While Dave and Char took the loaded trailer down to the sand to unload Jared and I stayed back and brought another load of cows into alley ready to be loaded! It worked like a charm, until the last load! While Jared and I were pushing the last six cows and their calves into the alley one cow went wild! Well, she had been wild the entire time but she always managed to stay back. While Jared and I were moving them towards the gate into the alley she would circle around and then run toward us, usually when a cow did this it would just dance back and forth and then turn back toward the other cows, this cow would come toward us dance a little, snort and then come toward us some more! Well, actually she only did this to me!!! And finally I had to let her get by me. She desperately wanted to go through me and as I was frantically trying to back out of her way my feet just wouldn't move, thankfully she decided against going through me and just missed me as she went between me and the fence only six feet away!! My heart rate was definitely accelerated after that!! Once Dave and Char got back with the truck they came and helped us and it went quite smoothly! We were finished by 6:30, just enough time for Jared and I to get cleaned up before our babysitter was to arrive at 7:30!

Jared and I went out for a quick supper at our favorite burger joint, Five Guys Burgers and Fries before our movie started at 10:15! We went to the Internship and it was really funny!! It was fun to be out and have a good laugh! Despite how late it was we had a really good time! The kids had a blast with their babysitter, Christie from just down the road! It was a great busy day! I love spending time with my family, especially my very best friend, Jared!!!

Track and Field

The Champion Elementary had their track meet yesterday and I was able to take around the Grade Three girls. I loved being able to go from event to event with Emry by my side! She did so well, and really tried her hardest! She placed first in ball throw, throwing 15.71 meters!! Her relay team also placed first, she was the last runner for her team and really finished off strong! The only downfall of the day was I didn't think it was as hot as it really was...Ooops!! With the coolish breeze I didn't think I was burning as bad as I did! The girls all had sunscreen on, but in my rush to get out the door that morning I totally neglected my sun safety. All I can say is, I have never had such s bad burn before, wow, does it ever hurt! The worst thing about my burn is that it is only on the tops of my arms from my hand to just above my elbow, the back of my neck, my ears and my face from my cheeks down! So when it fades to a nice tan it won't be even at all!!

Despite my horrible burn it was a great day with my girl! She really did a great job!

The night before the track meet I was laying with Calum to put him to bed and I told him he would get to go to daycare the next morning. In a very serious voice, even with tears in his eyes he asked me if I could delete him from daycare! It made my heart break!! But I know as soon as we get to daycare he has so much fun playing with all the new toys! I talked to one of the ladies who works at the daycare and she said the boys were both a pleasure to be with!! When the preschoolers and toddlers combine for an hour in the afternoon Calum and Armin always find each other and lock themselves in a big bear hug!! They are such pals and I hope they always will be!!

A Day of Rest?

Sunday's are supposed to be a day of rest from our labours...I guess with cows there really isn't a day of rest!  Not for Jared anyway!  After much of the day debating whether or not to go out and add a wire to the fence around the dugout to keep last years calves from going under, Jared finally decided he better do it!  Oats were just seeded into the field they kept getting out into and they are starting to come up, Jared didn't want to see them ruined before they were given a real chance to survive!  So we headed out with the kids in tow and put a third wire around one side of the dugout to keep the calves on the right side of the fence!  It took some time, but the kids had fun playing on a huge block of cement that had been used for a cistern long, long ago!  I enjoyed taking pictures of the calves that became so curious they suddenly had me surrounded!

Silly cat, instead of having a cattle dog, we have cattle cats!  They follow us everywhere!

I liked the composition of this photo...the "old" buildings all in a row!  They are really are old, but still serving a purpose! 

This is one of my favourite cows, I love her colouring and her fancy hairdo!

A very handsome man, if I do say so myself!!

These two are two peas in a pod!

Grandpa Glen just gave Armin this hat, it is actually from the University of Alabama.  My dad always wanted to get Armin one since he was born.  Dad finally made it back to Alabama, the only place he could buy this hat with an 'A' on it!  Armin loves it! 

I thought Calum was going to cause the majority of my grey hair, but I think more may come from this curious little guy!

 After we were all done we went in the house and had an ice cream float, we invited "Nama" over to share in a yummy orange float too!  And after more debating, Jared decided he better feed the calves a few bales since more rain was in the forecast.  At 10:00pm Jared phoned my cellphone and woke me up from a dead sleep after dozing off while laying with Calum, to see if I could help him outside.  He needed to go through the gate to move the bales he dropped over the fence for the calves, but he wasn't going to be able to go through without the calves getting out!  They had a taste of fresh green grass, and there was an abundance of it just outside of the gate!  So Jared opened the gate and shooed the calves away while I drove the tractor through, and as soon as I was through Jared closed the gate!  Once Jared had the bales moved a good distance away from the fence and the strings cut the calves were happy and I headed back to the house where I got ready for bed and was again fast asleep before too long.  Only I was rudely awoken by the sound of the tractor just outside our window, he decided with the rain that was forecasted he better move the few bales we have left out of the super soggy bale yard and onto some grass!  It was a long night for him and he was tired this morning!

It never seems to end, and as much as he loves the cows I know there are many days where he feels like it is totally not worth it!  Three years ago when Jared bought his road bicycle he had every intention of going for rides at least once a week and sometimes even riding it to and from work.  But here it sits in our basement on his trainer, where he has taken time to ride it once inside for exercise!  The time he took off from work last summer was totally devoted to baling, we did take a weekend to go to Kalispell, which was fun but not near long enough!  This year we were booked to go to Radium with Dave and Char and Jason and Lalainia, but it is during the time when John Deere starts to get busy for harvest and Jared really felt that he should be home to look after the cows while Dave is gone so he wouldn't have to ask Buck to check in on them!  Maybe one day it will get better, but as of this moment it really isn't worth the added stress to our lives, I miss the fun and carefree Jared, the one who could just drop what he was doing when there was no breath of wind and go out to the lake!  As much as he loves each and every cow and as much as he loves being out in nature with them, I see how it is wearing him out and it worries me!

The Nursery is Ready...

The tree nursery that is!!!  We had the opportunity to order trees through the shelter belt program, and since it was the last year to do this we really took advantage of it!  In total we ordered 450 trees and it took us all of the May long weekend to plant them!  It was actually the first long weekend Jared has devoted entirely to doing personal work for just us...well maybe not an entire weekend!  He did take some time to feed the cows!  I guess they do take priority!!

It was a lot of work to get ready for the trees, weeks in fact!  After a long day working at John Deere, Jared would come home and do his daily cow chores then he would spend the rest of the daylight hours and even some hours in the dark, cleaning away the junk pile in our back yard.  It was soooo much work, and even though the junk pile has to stay behind our house at least we will have trees to block it and next year we are going to put a nice fence in to block it from curious boys who like to climb and explore!  Anyway, we had dug up some established poplars from Buck and Arren's that John had started a couple of years ago.  We were able to put them all behind our house as a wind barrier from the wicked west winds we seem to have more often than not!  The only problem with those established poplars is we HAD to plant them that night after digging them up!  We finished at 11:30pm!  Emry was so helpful that night since we totally neglected our kids!  She took them in the house, gave the boys a bath, got them a snack and put on a show!  Armin fell asleep on the couch and when Emry thought it was getting pretty late her and Calum wandered out to see what we were doing!  They came out just as we were finishing up and together the four of us stood and watched the Northern Lights!  I hadn't seen them for so long and the kids really thought they were spectacular!  It was a special moment!

Before trees were planted!

The next morning we were up bright and early to get a good start on the rest of the planting!  We put a row of Red Osier Dogwoods behind the poplars to the west of our house.  A row of poplars and dogwoods to the south of our house behind the barbed wire fence in the bale yard.  We put willows inside the fence line to the south of our house, up to the septic field and then a row behind our house and a row to the north, with a row of dogwoods behind!  Jared also ploughed a garden behind our house, not a huge one, but one that will generously suit our needs, with dogwoods surrounding three sides of it!  I am envisioning a nicely enclosed garden with a cute little gate and picket fence at the front.

Armin loved helping daddy!

It seemed like everyone was in on the planting fun at some point during the weekend

The after!!

The future sandbox area!

With the trees we had left over we planted in the old garden plot behind Myrna's house and when we are totally ready we will dig them up and plant them.  We want to put a row of poplars along the road to the east of our house, there were some there years and years ago but they all died out from the drought in the 80's.

It was a loooongg, long weekend, but it was lots of fun and so rewarding, and in the years to come we will most certainly enjoy the results of our labours!  I only wish it would stop raining for a couple of days so we can seed grass in our yard and actually plant our garden, today was going to be the day but alas we cannot, it is much too wet!  I am looking forward to the changes our yard will take each year and the many memories we will make!

A Very Soggy Zoo

On Thursday I was able to go to the zoo with the Emry and all the grade 1 - 4's of the Champion School! Emry was excited that I could go with her. I was the leader of her group along with another mom, Maria! In our group we had seven kids, including my nephew Gilbert! We also had four Mennonite kids, who were totally enthralled with all the animals! It was quite sweet to see!! They were also completely entranced by the airplanes coming in for a landing!

It was a light but steady rain the entire time we were there, luckily most kids had an umbrella or a poncho!! Regretfully I didn't have either so I did eventually get soaked through. But it happened gradually so I really wasn't uncomfortable, I didn't notice how wet I was until after when Emry and I were doing our grocery shopping!

The animals at the zoo were a lot more lively than I have ever seen them before! The hippos were swimming and it was quite neat to watch! They would heave themselves into the water and then they would kind of glide before sinking to the bottom. Then they would push off on the bottom and sort of climb the wall until their head poked through the surface and then they pushed against the glass and did a sort of back glide! One hippo even yawned for us and it was quite amazing to see! Their mouths were huge and their their teeth massive!

We also got to see the gorillas being fed! The big silver back sort of guarded all the food until he got what he wanted then the others would come out! If one came too close to where the big guy was feeding he would charge at them, scary!

It was a fun day! I really enjoyed being able to go around with both Emry and Gilbert, they are both such a joy to be with!! And even though it was raining there were smiles all around!!