Oh, my friend... I have wanted to talk to you "one more time", no less than a dozen times in the last few days! You would be so excited to know that all the art supplies that we ordered are pouring into the workshop, you would love the new colours of paint and sprays, you would have been so encouraged to know that all the classes were full...

Just last night, we were talking about the fact that no one can fill your shoes. But, my dear sweet friend, we ARE NOT QUITTING! Everyone feels the same as I do - if we stop creating art, we loose the memory of you. We will not remember what to do when the canvas "goes south". We will not remember where the horizon line is supposed to be. We will not know what to do when our colours get muddy. We have to keep creating, to keep fresh in our mind the lessons that you taught us.

We will miss you asking if we trust you - just before you scribble all over our canvas. We will never forget you telling Jackie that her canvas was f****** ugly. (Insert hysterical laughter) We will miss your comments on our work and your suggestions. Our art will be ugly... it will not be as polished as it would have been had you been here... we will probably swear a lot... we will lament the fact that "it does not look right" and dozens of times a day, someone will say that they wish you were here!

BUT WE WILL KEEP CREATING!! We will not forget your teachings, oh wise one! We will create in your memory. You will be with us, guiding our hands, wiping our tears and laughing at our antics. You will be with us.

FOREVER!

I Am NOT ALLOWED To Go Back To The Auction!

   Early Saturday morning, Ellen and I headed out to the Odd and Unusual Sale in Picture Butte - I think that the phrase "The early bird gets the worm" should be rewritten to say "The crazy, early girls get the birds". There were a LOT of birds at this sale - and a few llamas, a donkey, several miniature horses, a pen of 22 white pekin ducks, lots of cute goats and an ENORMOUS boar (pig) that Ellen fell in love with (??????). I guess there is no accounting for tastes! LOL. And sooooo much more - the pens were full and busting with odd and unusual animals. Limited by the fact that whatever we bought had to fit underneath the topper of the truck, sadly we had to leave the freaking giant pig behind and focus. Weirdly, Ellen is still going on about that pig!

   It was hot! After driving most of the way to Picture Butte in drizzle, the sun came out and the day turned muggy and hot, bad conditions for the hundred boxes of poultry that were sitting out on the pavement. Ellen and I wandered around and marked down the numbers of the boxes that I was interested in - two boxes of quail, one box of bantam hens and the number on the box that contained a mother duck and her fuzzy little ducklings! The sale started right on time and within minutes I was packing away a ox of hens (whose number was NOT on my list). That should have been an omen!

   In the next two hours, I made many trips back to the truck to deposit my latest treasures. Ellen wryly commented that it was a telling state of affairs that the auctioneer knew my number by heart! LOL. #945. #945. Again with #945. Seven boxes later, I realized that at some point I had to go home and explain this all to Mike - who had NO IDEA what a run away I had been on!

   Ellen did not buy the pig. There was no room in the back of the truck for a 500 pound hog! (Because I filled the whole thing!) I ended up with 6 quail, 3 Ameraucana chickens, 2 booted bantam chickens, 3 mixed barnyard hens, a Khaki Campbell duck and her 4 ducklings and 5 Bearded Belgian D'Uccles chicks (only two weeks old). HOLY CRAP! As I was filling out the cheque in the auction office, I was running a script in my mind about what I was going to say to Mike. All possible scenarios ended badly. Not that Mike cares about my poultry fettish, but because most of the critters I was paying for would need pens, coops, cages, nest boxes, roosts... and this is where Mike comes into the picture! You can see my dilemma - it is haying season, how do you ask your husband to stop cutting green feed and start building pens? See my angst? And fear!

   All the way home, I kept praying, "Please let Mike be in the field when I pull in... PLEASE, let Mike be in the field when I pull in." NO SUCH LUCK!! As soon as he saw me pull up to the greenhouse, he was walking towards me and asking what I had done. Then I opened the back of the topper. Held my breath. Closed my eyes. Sent a prayer up to God. Waited for what came next. Opened one eye to see why there was a timed delay. Saw the look of SHOCK on my dear suffering husband's face.

  The whole afternoon, he help build a pen and enclosure for momma duck. I knew that he was as hopeless as I am. A sucker for any baby animal. I gotta love that guy! All he said was that I was NEVER ALLOWED TO GO BACK! By next Saturday, he will have forgotten!

 

 

 

Saturday Adventures

      Every Saturday during the summer break, I have been going on an adventure to the Picture Butte Auction Mart. It is an early start to the morning, we have to be in Picture Butte before 10:00am - the small animals and poultry sell first in an outside ring and shortly after the small animals start selling, the indoor ring starts up as well, with the larger offerings of pigs, cows, goats and the occasional surprise. Peyton has enjoyed coming to the auction with us and she wants to buy everything!! I am SO glad that the auctioneer has turned a blind eye to her frantic waving of our bidding card - she has tried to buy a baby calf, sheep, a miniature goat... she wants ALL THE ANIMALS!!

      Last Saturday, Megan, Peyton and I headed off extra early, snacks and strong black coffee in hand. (I still can not believe that Megan came with me when I invited her!) We were at the sale almost 45 minutes ahead of the start. I had noticed that Jersey calves were being brought in for this day and I wanted to have a little look around before the circus began. For a regular Saturday sale, they had lots of "smalls" consigned - Peyton pretty much stood on her head to peer into the boxes! It was not long before she spotted several boxes of baby muscovy ducks and she was DETERMINED that she was going to bid on them.

     Peyton was also convinced that we needed to buy two little bummer lambs that we noticed inside one of the stalls. I have never seen her as excited as when we told her that she could wave her card "for real" and buy the box of chickens that she wanted and the baby ducks that she had fallen in love with. The auctioneer didn't take her bid at first, but once we made him aware that she was really bidding, he acknowledged her, until she owned three ducklings and six assorted-breed chickens! Peyton could hardly contain herself! Then, some tears were shed when she realized that while we were loading the ducklings into the back of the truck, her little lambs had been sold to someone else.

   In the end, we came come without a baby Jersey calf or the miniature lambs - but there is always next Saturday!!! And guess what? Megan had so much fun that she wants to go back to the auction next week - she really enjoyed herself and was upset that we missed the little lambs. The ducklings cost us a whole $12.50 - not a bad price for a day's entertainment and a summer's worth of fun for one little girl!

   Poor Mike, he does not know what is coming home next! Soon we will have a petting zoo!

THE FIRST PICKING OF THE SEASON

    Three years!! I can not believe that it has been three years since I quit journaling in this form and tried my hand at Project Life - a commitment to take a photo a day for each of the 365 days in a year. I LOVE IT! I would never stop Project Life, (basically a diary with photos), but I just can't fit enough words on the SMALL journal cards! Go, figure! I also miss the quiet time when I used to sit and reflect on the day and the crazy projects and my crazy, busy family. Tonight, I noticed that weird button on the top of my Safari page and just had to look and see when the last time I recorded something - 3 years ago.

     So, here is my photo for the day - the unusually warm spring has catapulted strawberries into my life, roughly three and a half weeks earlier than normal. Lots of strawberries, judging by the blossoms and fruit. Two years ago, I recorded the harvest as it went in the freezer - a couple hundred pounds by the end of the season. I have a feeling that this year is going to top that record. 

     I am not ready for strawberry season. (Understatement of the year.) I don't think that we are ready for haying season either - it is ahead of schedule, as well. All I can hope is that by starting summer harvest so early, there will three and a half weeks at the end of summer, when we are all caught up and HAVE NOTHING TO DO!!! LOL. I am already planning it in my head. Cold beer on the veranda, swimming at Gladstone's, summer BBQ's, birds singing... yeah, right. About the time we get caught up around here, Mike will be onto another project! 

Where Did April Go?

I can't believe that this is almost the beginning of May! Also, hard to believe that we still have snow and mud and more mud! On this weekend last year, I was on my way to a crop in Medicine Hat and the weather was beautiful - as a matter of fact, I had already been digging in the flower beds, to move a few perennials around before they got away on me. This year, not so much! The mountains are white, right down to the bottoms and the koi pond still has ice on it every morning. As much as I would like to get out there and start cleaning up the winter rubble, it is not going to happen for quite a while. I took a really cool photo of our fish swimming around under the ice. I think that Mother Nature is going to throw us a few more curve balls before spring is over! My basil plants are starting to get a bit spindly, but I dare not put them outside for some fresh air! It is still a little too fresh out there. They are going to have to get trimmed up and that has me thinking of tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. I think that possibly the seeds could have waited another two- three weeks, had we known that we were still going to be digging our cars out of snow drifts! Typical spring weather for Southern Alberta. I have been feeling sorry for all the baby calves that are across the fence from our farm, in our neighbour's field - they have had to endure some pretty shitty weather lately. I had a beautiful beef roast planned for supper the other night - until I looked out of the window, at the snowstorm that was brewing and the ice and snow falling down the windows to the deck. The BBQ looks a little forlorn sitting outside - passed over yet again, in favour of the warmth of the indoor oven. Maybe this week!

This is a visual of the sad reality of turning 50. At that point, your body just starts decaying and breaking - I was shocked to see that there were four appointment cards from different doctors waiting to be written on the calendar when I flip it over on Monday. Yikes!! But not as shocked as I was when I found out that I had been walking around on a broken foot for a couple of months. I don't even have a good story about how I fractured my foot. There is no horrific snowboard story, of how I deified death and only walked away with a broken foot and not a broken neck. I didn't fall down the stairs and live to tell about it. No. I just went to Zumba. Not training for a marathon. Didn't fall in Zumba. Nothing cool like that. Just the fact that after I turned 50 (a couple of years ago) it has been a fast downhill slide, ending in three stress fractures from DANCING? Mike says that I was trying too hard to keep up with the young'ns! But the worst part? In my house, I don't get ANY sympathy for a foot cast. When I tried to complain, he politely told me that he wore one of those casts for two and half years after his 30 foot fall. When I persisted to get a little compassion, I was told that AFTER he wore the cast for two and half years, they cut his leg off - THREE TIMES!!! I gave up and limped out to the kitchen for my own coffee. This is going to be a lonnnng month!

It is starting to look a little like Easter around here - at the beginning of the year, just like a lot of people, I made some New Year's Resolutions and then I double made them again, when I started Ali Edwards' "One Little Word" and chose the word "commit" as my word for 2013. In a way, I sealed the deal. My resolutions are unbreakable, if I have to account for them every day! I may live to regret this! LOL. One of the things that I "committed" to for 2013 was to get back in the habit of doing some of the crafts that I gave up when I became an addicted scrapbooker. Over time, my paints have dried up, I basically gave away all of my pattern books and goodness only knows where all my brushes went to - I have not made a wreath, or painted a wooden cut out for many, many years! Every month of 2013, I have to dig out old supplies and complete a craft project from a category that IS NOT scrapbooking! March was assigned to woodcraft of some kind. My wonderful husband cut out the bunnies for me and they turned out pretty good - I still have to sand the edges on the two table bunnies, but that will not take a fraction of the time that it took to find the dremel! I also have crossed off the fresh floral table piece that I wanted to complete, as I made it for my Mom for a special meal that she was planning on hosting. The next project that I plan on tackling is the quilting fabric that I bought for a baby quilt for Peyton. I had not bothered to sew it when she was born, as she received many beautiful baby quilts, but now that she is a little lady, I thought I might make her a twin bed sized quilt. Maybe over Easter holidays? I totally forgot some of the perfectly lovely crafts that I gave up for the art of scrapbooking, I feel like I am experiencing them for the first time and it feels good to give my head a break from the constant scrapbook thoughts that run through my mind. On to quilting!!