A Business Trip

On April 9th Karl and I headed to Alberta to some machinery auctions.  We also know a few people out there so we made sure we stopped in for a visit to as many as we could get to... time wasn't always on our side.

The first day of travel we texted my brother and his wife who was coming back from a trip to Grand Forks... we met in Princeton for a coffee... they headed home (west)... we headed east.

We got as far as Grand Forks and decided to spend the night.. we went to the local grocery store and bought us a precooked chicken and some salad and that was our tasty supper! Not sure we needed all that but it was good.

The roads were clear on Hwy #3 (Crowsnest)  but it was still chilly as you can see the lake is still froze over

Beautiful scenery!  It was so nice I didn't even knit!

Here is the AB border! woohoo!

First stop was Iron Springs... where the first auction we were going to attend - close by was my friend Annemarie in Picture Butte so we HAD to visit... she has a sheep farm and can you believe it! I never took one photo of her sheep! She has a good 300 of them!

 This was one of the tractors we were looking at in Iron Springs... but when it goes for $70,000 you may as well buy it new!   The gentleman who was selling was a Japanese fellow who came to AB in 1942   with his family and worked in the sugar beet fields ... then in 1948 they bought this farm and farmed their own sugar beets.  The fellow was originally from Whonnock BC.  If you haven't put history together here... yes, when the Japanese invaded Purl Harbor in WWII, Vancouver and surrounding area gathered up all the Japanese and sent them to other places.  One being Alberta to work in the Sugar beet fields. 

Our next stop was Granum... we had friends that dairy farm here and we hadn't been to their place since our children were very small!  Their dog LOVES to ride on the quad!  I was surprised he didn't fall off.

 Some of their cows still have horns... pretty hard to have head gates for these gals! 

haha! our next stop was Claresholm!  Connie, Cam & Bryon... missing was napping Colin & middle brother was visiting his grandpa...  (I have a "better" photo but couldn't resist using the "bad" Cam)
I LOVE the taxidermy in the background with the mountain sheep on the rock.

Sadly we had to leave and head to Medicine Hat for another Auction... the weather was beautiful! Here is the truck we were looking to get... Karl was on it for $17,000 then it quickly jumped to $20,000 by other bidders... he was asked for $21,000 but for a 1984... nope... not when we have one exactly like it at home and we bought it for $16,000 when it was only 4 years old... this one is 24 years old!  Yes it was in excellent shape but we still had to get it home to BC... so someone else took it home.

Winter was striking AB again... heard that lots of snow was heading our way and we needed to get home so that 1 of our employees (Gary) could fly out to Holland for a family reunion (Granum friends are related to Gary and they were going to the same reunion.)  Also, Charlie wanted to make a trip to MB right after we got home.
This picture was taken outside our car window... we ran into a bit of snow from Fort McLeod and Pincher Creek...

We broke away from the snow and thanks to Twitter and AMA road condition updates... and DriveBC updates we missed all the bad weather. 
We thought this was a cool picture with the clouds settled over the mountain...

We made it all the way home but the trip ended for our car in Hope.  When we went through Princeton I said to Karl "we should stop for fuel".  Karl thought we had enough to get to Hope so we kept going... I kind of worried once we got to Manning Park that we may not make it so we stopped at a Mum & Pop shop and purchased $20 in fuel.  Karl wasn't comfortable getting fuel there but we did. He thought the fuel may not be any good.
We high tailed it to Hope but before getting more fuel we decided to stop at the DQ for dinner before finishing our 1 1/2 hour trip to home.
We came out of the DQ... started the car... and it sounded like someone had put a ruler in a bicycle tire spokes... not good.  We shut it off.. looked under the hood... nothing looked out of the ordinary... tried it again and it sounded terrible still. We thought "uh oh... bad fuel."   We tried to drive it out of the parking lot but was afraid we might do more damage than good.  It was definitely not firing on all cylinders!
We called BCAA and in 30 minutes we had a guy there that just so happened to be a past Mayor of Hope :)   He gave great service and towed us to a local mechanic. 

We called up Katie and the tow driver took us back to DQ... there we waited and Karl analysed... and analysed... and analysed... and... I should have taken out my knitting!

Katie arrived and we got a courtesy ride home :)

The next day we called the mechanic to let him know who had the dead car in his driveway!

He pulled the head off and yikes! Something had definitely gone through the motor... but what? We still don't know at this point.

Again, after much analysing and deliberating... we decided to bring the car home

Getting ready to winch it on board...

Loaded and locked...  Doesn't Karl have a cute butt? LOL

Oh yeah, did I mention the head to the motor is now in the trunk? 

Whose car is following us so closely?!  Geesh tailgaters these days!

Miserable weather... but a good day to get a dead car...

She's home now... but still  has another journey.  We have a guy that wants to analyse it and possibly put another motor in her... so tomorrow she heads to his place.

A share...

source: http://www.technologyrocksseriously.com/

I got this from a friend and I had to share... I FIRMLY believe this!

Rugby #21

Jeff has been having some good rugby games!  He loves playing but boy its hard to watch!  All that teenage testosterone and hard hits!   He's a good player too!  So far no serious injuries but he can come home pretty sore!  Thank goodness his friend has a hot tub so he can soak his very sore muscles!

 Taking him down!!!

RUUUUUUUUUUNNNN!

OUCH - not a nice way to hug...

He loves this picture! that guy ain't going anywhere!

 Double ouch! (Jeff on bottom determined to take him down!)

 They catch that ball every time!  Jeff is on the backside lifting... they get great height!

Do you think he will feel this pain 20 years from now? LOL

Two cats and a Bird

We have been having some house cat excitement around here...

Beth, who is going to be 18 on July 21st hasn't been feeling well again.

She gets chronic urine infections due to her kidneys failing from old age.  She has certain "signs" that I look for and know its another infection.  Recently she was put on antibiotics again and it also helped get her over a cold she has had for a few weeks. She is doing a whole lot better!

Poor gal, sleeps most of her days curled up in front of the fire or on a lap she can find sitting still for a few short moments.

I took this picture at close range so the flash made her close her eyes... she was probably seeing spots after!   Not only do I "torment" with the camera... we have had a young 'un spending time at our house.

The "young 'un" being Cleo, Katie's 2 year old cat that has BOUNDS of energy! We are cat sitting for a few days and Cleo LOVES to explore and can't figure out whyyyyyy Beth and Dixie  have no interest in playing and exploring too!   I later remembered that Cleo is also part Siamese... does that mean anything to anyone? LOL

This particular picture was when I was putting away towels - the towel shelf is very full but she still managed to jump up (this shelf is chest height to me) and squish herself into the cupboard and inspect what I was doing.

Cleo has been very pro-active in many things... she was on top of the cupboard on my desk and I had painted rocks my kids did several years ago in school.  She patted them with little nudges pushing them along trying to get them to fall over the edge... at the bottom of that edge is my computer keyboard and monitor!  I snatched the rocks and put them on the window sill... she then looked around to see what else she could get into. 
Another time, She layed on her side at the top of our carpeted stairs and slowly, head first, slid from the top to the bottom of the 14 stairs.
I have found my plants knocked to the bottom of the stairs at the front door; she has run from the living room to the office at full speed and missed the office door and crashed headlong into the cat food dishes; when Karl's alarm clock goes off in the morning she jumps up and puts her face in his, meows, purrs so loud and stuffs her paw in his face to let him know Snooze buttons are unacceptable! ........ but what has had us REALLY stumped was she was continually getting locked into Jeff's room in the basement. 
Jeff swore he closed his door and when he did she wasn't in his room.   It was soon revealed to us what was happening.
... Jeff was laying in bed sleeping when he heard a commotion above him... his room has a built in box along the ceiling to cover up drain pipes, furnace pipe and gas lines - but above his bed in the over hang we have put pot lights and cupboard doors that do not latch so we have access to these pipes, clean outs and lights if they need fixing. 
Back to Jeff hearing the commotion... he looked up to see one of the cupboard doors open and Cleo slip out (its about 4 feet down), land on his bed and curl up beside him.   She could get IN his room but couldn't get back out cause he had the door shut!    He followed her trail... she would slip into the canning room (door is kept open quite frequently), jump up on the furnace, up again into the floor joists, follow the floor joists and pipes, around the corner and pop open the cupboard door!
Unbelievable!  I pity any mice she might meet along the way!  More than once she has come upstairs with cob webs all over her head... I ask "where have you been now?"

You may notice that Dixie isn't in this post... Well, she is not liking the idea that this energetic cat has entered her once layed back world.  Dixie spends most of her time in hiding other than to eat and use the litter (when no one is looking).   Every once in a while the 2 will come in contact and life gets a little loud with hissing and growling mainly from Dixie.  Beth has learned to tolerate and ignore.

On the plus side and hoping this is a sign of good things to come this Spring, a couple of weeks ago,  I put up my humming bird feeders and within 5 minutes I had a hummer enjoying a fine meal.  

It is still very cool here and today it is raining and miserable. Hopefully the sun will begin to shine and dry us out a little.  I have to admit I have been strongly thinking of putting an order in to Charlie (FIL) for lumber and building an Ark!
   

They have arrived!

Yep, the lambs are arriving! 

I had been waiting, checking, waiting, checking and finally we have some cuties!

 These characters are sired by an escapee spring ram I had last fall.  His name was Cocoa - he was brown (you could probably tell by his name)  Cocoa is no relation to these ewes that lambed.

So from #27, yes, my white ewe only has a number not a name...

I got these 2 beautiful ewe lambs on March 28th... Momma has taken to both girls - no bottle feeding here!

Another ewe I was watching and watching - thought for sure she was going to lamb right around the first one...  but she chose to wait a few more days. 

On Saturday March 31st, I went out at 2pm to check on her and she looked at me "what?"  I saw nothing out of the ordinary and she didn't look like she was even thinking of lambing.  Off I went with my mom to a book launch my neighbor invited me to. (It is her 3rd book published)

At 3:30pm I get a text from Karl who had just returned from a machinery auction...

 it read "you got twins!" 

These Shetlands are very secretive! They don't want any involvement at all! 

So I came home to find a ram & a ewe lamb who look just like their sire!

Again, happy to report Momma is nursing both babies (last year she would only nurse one of her twins)  Remember Tinkerbell?  This is Tinkerbell's mom.

She is so proud! Quite the sparkle in her eye eh? :D

Tinkerbell April 2011:

Tinkerbell now March 2012 - she is still small for her age but she has a great personality!

This is our friend and neighbor Doris... she has written 3 books in the last few years.  She has also previously written short stories that have won awards and articles for the newspaper.  She grew up in Saskatchewan on a farm and was an RN.  Her books pull on these experiences.
You can find her first book here:  Still Waters  and her second one here:  Fury of the Wind   and her most recent and sequel:  Water in the Wilderness
Picture is taken at the Book Launch