Well let the bells ring and the trumpets blare, the loons are back in town! I heard my first official mournful call this afternoon. Those sounds are the sounds of spring having sprung. Of course I shouldn't be altogether caught off guard, what with the whole local environment being warm, and the ice melting itself off the lake. That should have been enough. But it wasn't.
The whole bird sanctuary is coming back into full activity now, yesterday after I arrived home from the city I took the little hell-houndicus for a walk in the back forty and I heard Tits. (Not the mammary glands, the owls. You see, they hoot, so they are hooters, so consequently they are Tits. A collective, kinda like the Borg. You had to have been there for that one. It involved rum. Need I say more?) Anyway like I was saying, yesterday Tits was just a hooting away. Today a Loon. Tomorrow, who knows. Isn't it wonderful.
This afternoon on my little jaunt with the little dog I noticed that she was pretty involved in some piece of detritus which she had picked up along the way. Now knowing dogs in general, I do not like it much when they carry something around in their mouths and then fling it into the air and then try to roll in it, long ago I have discovered that this is a bad sign. So after ordering her to spit it out. Me: "Drop it!" Her: "Pfft." Me: "Ughh, that's gross. No! Don't touch!" Her: "Sniff. Munch." Dead frozen frog. And she's supposedly a German Shepherd. And here I thought that only the French were into the frogs legs.
Oh I have a bit of culinary activity to report. I am making something today which will culminate in a finished product tomorrow. Tada! Okay so it may not be a big thing to the world in general, but to me that is huge. My, Chef Boy Ardee, talents usually are limited to a half hour preparation time, anything more than that and I lose interest fast. I have ADHD when it comes to cooking. Short attention span. But today I prepared the dough which has to be refrigerated over night, then tomorrow I will be rolling, stuffing and baking. No matter how it turns out, it is a step above and beyond the call for this Dora Domestica.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
More Deconstruction Happening
Okay just a quick note then I am off to shower off the stink! Today was quite proactive in the land of deconstructing, today we pulled off ALL the gyprock from the hall and the *soon to be bathroom*. It's funny how the place already looks about a hundred times better even though a lot of the walls are down to the bare studs. I guess my aversion to wallpaper runs deep.
Okay so here is a quick version of what is happening with the room which will soon become a bathroom.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Oh What A Wuss Bucket I Am
Here's the thing, after sitting in my office for fifteen years, all day, every day, I have become a world class wuss. Hard to believe eh? I mean who'da thunk it, sitting and typing on a computer and talking on the phone doesn't get you into shape or keeps you in shape.
Today I spent four hours out in the bush with the hubby cutting up wood and stacking it. At one point I pulled the cord on the chainsaw and it recoiled badly and I now have a booboo on my forearm. Then I had to do all this leaning over and cutting the actual logs and my lower back is aching. So after being out there for a half hour I was doing some serious sweating (which lets face it, is not exactly a news flash for those who know me and mine, our family is known for its internal heating capacity, I believe if someone could invent something to capture the heat coming off of our bodies we could heat a small town of 10,000 without even breaking a sweat...but I digress) and because today is cold and shitty I started to get cold right away. So I was either freezing, when I had to stop and sharpen the chain, or I was sweating when I was cutting and stacking. So after four hours I was done. Hubby came in and grabbed a bite to eat then went back out. Thank dog for him, otherwise I would either freeze to death in the winter, or pay mucho denaros to keep the shack warm.
In the meantime we have purchased our windows to replace the existing, let the cold and winds blow through, windows. It is going to be a big job, a big, big, big job, so I am thinking that I should have been training all winter by doing weights and running for hours so I will be even a modicum of helpful when it comes to replacing them. Seeing as it took me almost three hours just to pull the gyprock off one wall, break it up, and stick it into garbage bags. Oh and I took down the ceiling tiles and pulled about five hundred staples out of the ceiling, but I don't think I can count that.
Today I spent four hours out in the bush with the hubby cutting up wood and stacking it. At one point I pulled the cord on the chainsaw and it recoiled badly and I now have a booboo on my forearm. Then I had to do all this leaning over and cutting the actual logs and my lower back is aching. So after being out there for a half hour I was doing some serious sweating (which lets face it, is not exactly a news flash for those who know me and mine, our family is known for its internal heating capacity, I believe if someone could invent something to capture the heat coming off of our bodies we could heat a small town of 10,000 without even breaking a sweat...but I digress) and because today is cold and shitty I started to get cold right away. So I was either freezing, when I had to stop and sharpen the chain, or I was sweating when I was cutting and stacking. So after four hours I was done. Hubby came in and grabbed a bite to eat then went back out. Thank dog for him, otherwise I would either freeze to death in the winter, or pay mucho denaros to keep the shack warm.
In the meantime we have purchased our windows to replace the existing, let the cold and winds blow through, windows. It is going to be a big job, a big, big, big job, so I am thinking that I should have been training all winter by doing weights and running for hours so I will be even a modicum of helpful when it comes to replacing them. Seeing as it took me almost three hours just to pull the gyprock off one wall, break it up, and stick it into garbage bags. Oh and I took down the ceiling tiles and pulled about five hundred staples out of the ceiling, but I don't think I can count that.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Destructo Strikes Again
Today was a gorgeous beautiful sunny warm day, and what did I do? I spent the entire day ripping apart a room which was once upon a time a small spare room and will sometime in the future become a brand spanking new bathroom.
So with hammer and crowbar in hand I took down mouldings, ripped apart a built in bed, and pulled up flooring and under flooring. I kinda like the whole aspect of deconstruction, unfortunately this room, like every other part of the place so far had a minimum of a hundred nails to each foot of space. Its like this whole place is made of nothing but metal. Tomorrow I will start on the gyprock, but first I will be going outside and enjoying some of the sun before I miss it all.
There had better be some sun!
So with hammer and crowbar in hand I took down mouldings, ripped apart a built in bed, and pulled up flooring and under flooring. I kinda like the whole aspect of deconstruction, unfortunately this room, like every other part of the place so far had a minimum of a hundred nails to each foot of space. Its like this whole place is made of nothing but metal. Tomorrow I will start on the gyprock, but first I will be going outside and enjoying some of the sun before I miss it all.
There had better be some sun!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Evolving
Ask me what time I got up this morning. Go ahead, I dare you. The answer may surprise you…I don’t know. That’s right kiddies, I have no idea what time I actually woke up this morning. And to top it off, it is the middle of the freaking week. All I know for sure is that when I got up the sun was already high in the sky, the birds were singing and life had started without me. For those of you who have no idea why this is a spectacular I’ll give you a hint. For the past eon my work day actually started at 6:30am, and that was after an hour drive there. Which means that my life pretty much revolved around my watch and the fact that I had to be in bed early so that I wouldn’t feel like a great big pile of shit during the day. Oh and it also meant that coffee wasn’t a beverage to enjoy while reading your emails, it was a necessity without which I wouldn’t be able to function, or maintain a façade of civility. In my opinion coffee has saved more lives than seat belts.
Even during my vacations I would rarely allow myself the luxury of staying up late and sleeping as long as I wanted to with the fear that it would take me forever to get over the fact that life had just dealt me a shitty hand when I got back to work. So today as I was stepping into the shower at 11:30 it dawned on me that after being off work for over six months I have finally evolved into a different person. The kind of person who doesn’t have to wear her watch and look at it constantly to ensure that her schedule hasn’t strayed too much. The kind of person who can sleep until the sun is in the sky and she doesn’t feel guilty about that fact. The kind of person who can actually contemplate watching a movie at nine o’clock at night and keep her eyes open the whole time it is on. The kind of person who’s life isn’t being dictated by time. This perhaps is the best gift of all.
All I can say to those of you who are still in the nine to five rut, or as in my case, the way too frakkin early to way too frakkin late rut, I feel for you.
Speaking of evolving, the other day the hubby and I were out in the back forty where we decided to cut up a tree for firewood which the beavers have thoughtfully cut down. Waste not, want not, right? Normally this would not be an issue, but the problem with this particular tree was that it was cut down a couple hundred meters from the trail. Which meant that we had to decide what kind of work we wanted to do in order to get it out of its resting place, and into a place where, at our leisure, we could throw it into the wood stove. We finally decided that the quickest and easiest process would be to cut it into three long pieces, run the quad down to it, throw a sling around the pieces and then drag them up to the trail one at a time.
Sounds easy don’t it. Did I mention that we were a couple hundred meters from the trail? So we walked around a bit and decided on the flattest route to and from the tree, then we cut out a couple of small impediments, trees, branches, brush, etc, so the quad could get through, and then we went to work. I bumped my way down the “flat spots” to the tree and we slapped the sling around the first section. Then leaving the quad in low gear, and four wheel drive I commenced to pull it up the hill. I managed to move about four feet before the plans had to change. Did I mention that where it wasn’t muddy there was still a lot of ice under the forest debris? So I got off the quad and waited for hubby to cut the section in half. I then took another run at the hill, and after a couple of tiny setbacks to the process, I managed to power my way up the hill. It ended up taking me seven runs to get the whole tree up to the trail.
On my forth trip down, while I was running through potholes, over huge rocks and squeezing around trees and stumps suddenly the picture of my mom flashed through my head and I started to laugh. You see she has one of those four wheeled scooters which a lot of seniors are driving around these days. It really has been a godsend for her because she isn’t very mobile. But the thing that struck me as funny is that she is afraid to drive the scooter on sidewalks because they are too uneven. So there I was going over a particularly shitty spot, the kind where one second you are looking straight down from the top of a big rock, and not knowing if you are going to do endos, flip sideways, or get stuck vertically and not be able to move. Oh I know that seniors get a lot more cautious as they get older, mostly because they are no longer indestructible, but I am hoping that if I ever get to the point where I have to drive a scooter to get around, after what I’ve been taking my little ATV through, I certainly hope that a bumpy sidewalk isn’t going to be too challenging for me. I’d like to evolve into the kind of granny who would be able to take her scooter and drag a log or two from the woodshed to the house.
Even during my vacations I would rarely allow myself the luxury of staying up late and sleeping as long as I wanted to with the fear that it would take me forever to get over the fact that life had just dealt me a shitty hand when I got back to work. So today as I was stepping into the shower at 11:30 it dawned on me that after being off work for over six months I have finally evolved into a different person. The kind of person who doesn’t have to wear her watch and look at it constantly to ensure that her schedule hasn’t strayed too much. The kind of person who can sleep until the sun is in the sky and she doesn’t feel guilty about that fact. The kind of person who can actually contemplate watching a movie at nine o’clock at night and keep her eyes open the whole time it is on. The kind of person who’s life isn’t being dictated by time. This perhaps is the best gift of all.
All I can say to those of you who are still in the nine to five rut, or as in my case, the way too frakkin early to way too frakkin late rut, I feel for you.
Speaking of evolving, the other day the hubby and I were out in the back forty where we decided to cut up a tree for firewood which the beavers have thoughtfully cut down. Waste not, want not, right? Normally this would not be an issue, but the problem with this particular tree was that it was cut down a couple hundred meters from the trail. Which meant that we had to decide what kind of work we wanted to do in order to get it out of its resting place, and into a place where, at our leisure, we could throw it into the wood stove. We finally decided that the quickest and easiest process would be to cut it into three long pieces, run the quad down to it, throw a sling around the pieces and then drag them up to the trail one at a time.
Sounds easy don’t it. Did I mention that we were a couple hundred meters from the trail? So we walked around a bit and decided on the flattest route to and from the tree, then we cut out a couple of small impediments, trees, branches, brush, etc, so the quad could get through, and then we went to work. I bumped my way down the “flat spots” to the tree and we slapped the sling around the first section. Then leaving the quad in low gear, and four wheel drive I commenced to pull it up the hill. I managed to move about four feet before the plans had to change. Did I mention that where it wasn’t muddy there was still a lot of ice under the forest debris? So I got off the quad and waited for hubby to cut the section in half. I then took another run at the hill, and after a couple of tiny setbacks to the process, I managed to power my way up the hill. It ended up taking me seven runs to get the whole tree up to the trail.
On my forth trip down, while I was running through potholes, over huge rocks and squeezing around trees and stumps suddenly the picture of my mom flashed through my head and I started to laugh. You see she has one of those four wheeled scooters which a lot of seniors are driving around these days. It really has been a godsend for her because she isn’t very mobile. But the thing that struck me as funny is that she is afraid to drive the scooter on sidewalks because they are too uneven. So there I was going over a particularly shitty spot, the kind where one second you are looking straight down from the top of a big rock, and not knowing if you are going to do endos, flip sideways, or get stuck vertically and not be able to move. Oh I know that seniors get a lot more cautious as they get older, mostly because they are no longer indestructible, but I am hoping that if I ever get to the point where I have to drive a scooter to get around, after what I’ve been taking my little ATV through, I certainly hope that a bumpy sidewalk isn’t going to be too challenging for me. I’d like to evolve into the kind of granny who would be able to take her scooter and drag a log or two from the woodshed to the house.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Beware The Ides Of March
Well it is only about four hours from the end of this particular Ides and so far I haven't found anything to "beware of." Today was another spectacular spring day in the land that is east. It was sunny and warm and felt like a little bit of Nirvana. This morning the lake was having massive indigestion, so much so in fact that I actually had to grab my camera and go and video the noise it was making. I'd attach it here but it takes wayyyy too long to attach a movie clip. Just think of a rumbling stomach when you've eaten for too much and multiply that by about a thousand, then you will get what it sounded like.
Right after that the hubby went into town and I went out for a nice little walk with the hell hound then decided to do some trail clearing, so I packed my trusty little chainsaw, an ax, a spade and my hedge cutters and headed back into the bush. I spent a few hours cleaning up fallen branches and old rotten trees which happened to have landed where I decided the next section of my trail was going to be. I dug a couple of channels with my spade to allow the water a quicker run across the existing trails. Then I fired up the chainsaw and cut out some smaller trees which were impeding the way. Last but not least, I then actually managed to start the hedge cutter (it has a tendency to not like me much) and I cut out some underbrush and a few branches here and there. Altogether a rather enjoyable little jaunt in the trees, in the sun, with my trusty sidekick (who abandoned me once she got bored and ran home).
On the way home I started to brood about my backyard, which happens to be a field, and when I say field you may be thinking that I am exaggerating and really what I mean to say is a very big backyard, but you would be wrong. My back field is about three, maybe four acres of lawn, and ever since I moved into The Shack (working title) that has kind of picked my butt. Not that I happen to have anything against fields per se, as long as there is a purpose for one. Like if you happened to have a flock of bovines that you needed to keep fed a field would make sense. Or if you were an avid golfer and you wanted to make yourself a little mini putting green, or twelve, a field would make sense. Or even if you wanted to build it so they would come, then a field of dreams would be your ticket. But what I have is this big assed field which has been deforested of all happy forest type growth, and in my opinion, looks like shit. And before you get all "what's your problem Ms Treehugger" on me, my reply to that is pffffttttt, it's my party and I can be a tree hugger if I want to be.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so I have this big assed field in the back which apparently the previous owner was so taken with that she would go out all day in the summer to cut the grass. And don't get me wrong, I don't particularly have an issue with cutting grass, what I do have an issue with is the waste of a great opportunity to make the coolest backyard ever. So my brain has been planning to go and find some trees in the back forty and replant them in my field and make it into a little Utopia of live growing things. Of course I wouldn't regrow the entire field, I'd like to leave a big chunk of it so I can learn how to become Gardening Gert, but I would like to see at least three and a half of the four acres returned to its natural state. (Well the state that I say will be natural at least.) I figure this will do a couple of things, a) it will be pretty. b) it will provide some shade and shelter for little beasties around here. c) it will give us a windbreak to protect the road getting covered by all the snow which gets windswept across the field and dumped onto the the hill, and d) it will give me more privacy so I would be less likely to have to see, or worse, speak with the neighbours. Maybe I should have started with d)?
So depending on the state of the weather tomorrow I will be taking my handy dandy pink surveyors tape and tramping all around to look for suitable type trees to replant. (And when I say I will replant them, what I really mean is the hubby will. After all, why does he think I bought him that backhoe?) I guess that means that those trees will have to "Beware the Day After the Ides of March." Mu-hahahahahaha.
Right after that the hubby went into town and I went out for a nice little walk with the hell hound then decided to do some trail clearing, so I packed my trusty little chainsaw, an ax, a spade and my hedge cutters and headed back into the bush. I spent a few hours cleaning up fallen branches and old rotten trees which happened to have landed where I decided the next section of my trail was going to be. I dug a couple of channels with my spade to allow the water a quicker run across the existing trails. Then I fired up the chainsaw and cut out some smaller trees which were impeding the way. Last but not least, I then actually managed to start the hedge cutter (it has a tendency to not like me much) and I cut out some underbrush and a few branches here and there. Altogether a rather enjoyable little jaunt in the trees, in the sun, with my trusty sidekick (who abandoned me once she got bored and ran home).
On the way home I started to brood about my backyard, which happens to be a field, and when I say field you may be thinking that I am exaggerating and really what I mean to say is a very big backyard, but you would be wrong. My back field is about three, maybe four acres of lawn, and ever since I moved into The Shack (working title) that has kind of picked my butt. Not that I happen to have anything against fields per se, as long as there is a purpose for one. Like if you happened to have a flock of bovines that you needed to keep fed a field would make sense. Or if you were an avid golfer and you wanted to make yourself a little mini putting green, or twelve, a field would make sense. Or even if you wanted to build it so they would come, then a field of dreams would be your ticket. But what I have is this big assed field which has been deforested of all happy forest type growth, and in my opinion, looks like shit. And before you get all "what's your problem Ms Treehugger" on me, my reply to that is pffffttttt, it's my party and I can be a tree hugger if I want to be.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so I have this big assed field in the back which apparently the previous owner was so taken with that she would go out all day in the summer to cut the grass. And don't get me wrong, I don't particularly have an issue with cutting grass, what I do have an issue with is the waste of a great opportunity to make the coolest backyard ever. So my brain has been planning to go and find some trees in the back forty and replant them in my field and make it into a little Utopia of live growing things. Of course I wouldn't regrow the entire field, I'd like to leave a big chunk of it so I can learn how to become Gardening Gert, but I would like to see at least three and a half of the four acres returned to its natural state. (Well the state that I say will be natural at least.) I figure this will do a couple of things, a) it will be pretty. b) it will provide some shade and shelter for little beasties around here. c) it will give us a windbreak to protect the road getting covered by all the snow which gets windswept across the field and dumped onto the the hill, and d) it will give me more privacy so I would be less likely to have to see, or worse, speak with the neighbours. Maybe I should have started with d)?
So depending on the state of the weather tomorrow I will be taking my handy dandy pink surveyors tape and tramping all around to look for suitable type trees to replant. (And when I say I will replant them, what I really mean is the hubby will. After all, why does he think I bought him that backhoe?) I guess that means that those trees will have to "Beware the Day After the Ides of March." Mu-hahahahahaha.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Happy Daylight Savings
Well I just have to say that I do not ever remember having enjoyed a DST (daylight saving time) change date as much as I enjoyed this one. There were many attributes to this day, first and foremost - I knew that I did not have to get up early tomorrow morning and drive to work in the pitch dark. That was always what I hated about this time of the year the most, you spent all winter hoping for the time you could get up and be able to drive to work when there was even a little bit of light in the sky, then wham! Along comes DST and you are back to having to go to work in the middle of the freaking night again. Then there was always that feeling of being ripped off an hour, and it seemed like you were never, ever going to get used to it. I know, I know, it is only one hour, but when you have to get up at 4:30 am, an hour means A LOT. Then the next best thing was not really knowing whether or not I had to change the clocks last night, or had to change them tonight, because it doesn't matter! Because I live in the sticks, and I'm not punching a clock. I love that...a LOT. Then of course there was the whole beautiful day thing going on today. I went for my walk in the back forty and it was warm and gorgeous. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, a warm breeze was blowing. The best day ever! And although things are still a tad bit damp, and a tad bit muddy a body can actually see where things are starting to dry up a bit.
After my walk I was down hanging out by the side of the lake this afternoon and could see that the ice is definitely rotting out all over the place. That is soooooo cool (or warm as the case may be) even the dog broke through when she jumped on the ice. She was not too taken with her polar bear swim though. Not that it stopped her from doing it again. Which comes to the next part of my good day, I am thrilled to announce the we have zero snow in our yard. Well okay that isn't exactly true, we have zero snow approximately six or seven acres around the shack, however we do still have quite a bit of snow in the shady areas of the acreage. But the immediate vicinity of the house is all grass (and rocks and such, but no snow). And my trail, which I cut late last summer, is completely clear of snow and only has a couple of small areas which are occupied by puddles. Happy days are here again.
So Happy Daylight Saving Time to everyone. A celebration of the world's most useless invention.
After my walk I was down hanging out by the side of the lake this afternoon and could see that the ice is definitely rotting out all over the place. That is soooooo cool (or warm as the case may be) even the dog broke through when she jumped on the ice. She was not too taken with her polar bear swim though. Not that it stopped her from doing it again. Which comes to the next part of my good day, I am thrilled to announce the we have zero snow in our yard. Well okay that isn't exactly true, we have zero snow approximately six or seven acres around the shack, however we do still have quite a bit of snow in the shady areas of the acreage. But the immediate vicinity of the house is all grass (and rocks and such, but no snow). And my trail, which I cut late last summer, is completely clear of snow and only has a couple of small areas which are occupied by puddles. Happy days are here again.
So Happy Daylight Saving Time to everyone. A celebration of the world's most useless invention.
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