The Alpacas are going... hopefully on Saturday. I had an interested party come and have a look at them and decide right off that she wanted them and so she is coming to pick them up on Saturday or Sunday depending on when she can get help with them.. so that's one thing taken care of. I'll be so glad when they are gone since hay is now an issue. We are down to our last half bale and I really didn't want the headache of having to haul in hay for those ruddy animals. Daughter #1 has decided to sell her horse too. I look out around the paddocks and think back to only a short while ago when I thought this was all so ordinary. Who knew then that I would be selling off our stock and making such monumental changes in our lives. It feels in some ways like the world has come and gone... like it has been eons since this all started to happen and in other ways it feels like I've blinked my eyes and there is something else in front of them when they reopened. I keep asking myself how I could have been so blind to have not seen this coming... I guess I was too busy living in my own little world of spinning, weaving and my little world of wedded bliss. (snork)
Michael still comes and goes at will, though he has not arrived yet today. He has moved the trailer to a friend's property and does as he pleases. I assume that includes all that goes with having another woman... I try not to think about it and since I don't have a vehicle... well I'm not going back and forth and I don't have availability to find out. That's probably a good thing since I still have wonderful visions of chit a la flambe. He has managed to finish the paneling around the pantry and is now working on the stairwell. It's amazing what one can accomplish when one has the incentive. I guess his incentive is me gone and him in the pants of his chit.
Anyway, I guess that's enough of the bitterness for one day... it will only turn me grey and wrinkly anyway. Who wants to be an old dried up prune...
The weather has definitely changed to more fall-like temps. This morning the crows that nested at the end of our property in a very large pine tree returned for their last visit before moving on. As you know for the last few years I have watched the comings and goings of a particular pair of crows. Each year they return to our land early in the spring around the end of March. They spend the next few weeks courting each other by picking up sticks and straw and bits of wool from the ground and displaying their wherewithal for making a really nice nest. Then they disappear for a few weeks as they are busy house keeping and laying and caring for their eggs. Then I start to see them again once the eggs hatch and they start to find food to feed their newly hatched babies. For the next while you see them sporadically as they raise their babies and get them ready for their inaugural flight. Sometime around the early part of June there will come a day when if you are up early enough you will get to watch the proceedings as their babies take flight for the first time. I have watched this each year for the last six years and it has never failed to entertain. This year they had one youngling that took a full extra day to learn to fly after all the others had successfully taken to the wing. That meant that I was able to see what happens in that case.
Each year, usually the parent crows will fly to a high tree close to the nest and then they will begin to call to their young encouraging them to take a leap of faith. Slowly each youngling will dive off the edge of the nest and try their wings for the first time. They will fly to the tree of one of their parents and then join their parents calling to the others remaining in the nest. Each one will take their turn and once all younglings have flown to a nearby tree the parents will once again move off to another tree and begin the process of calling to their young again. Things generally go smoother once they have all taken their first flight, and soon they are swooping from one tree to the next. The whole process takes about two or three hours. Then the whole family moves off and disappears for a few months. At that time there will come a day when the some of the family members will once again return to where they were born and spend a morning flying about and looking at the old digs. Then they leave and you don't see them any more until the next year.
This year the process was slightly different... this year we had a reluctant youngling. All the younglings took their inaugural flight except for one, who made it abundantly clear that he was just not ready to take such a leap of faith. And so he was left in the nest while all the others were flying from tree to tree until they were so far away that you could hear them calling in the distance... finally they disappeared altogether and let me tell you that did not please the one that was left behind. He called and called frantically and I felt so sorry for the wee bugger that I almost wanted to climb a tree nearby and act as his parents would have done. I was tempted to at least makes some cawing noises to encourage him... but I didn't I decided instead to wait and see what would happen. Along about mid day I noticed that the mother (or father) returned to the nest to see how her youngling was doing. There was a great ruckus in the branches when she returned and then all went quiet. I never heard another sound till the next morning and then finally the mother (or father) started the process again... She/he flew to a nearby tree and began the process of calling.... it took a long time but finally the reluctant youngling took his leap of faith and sailed through the air to the tree next to his mother and then you could hear them calling back and forth fit to burst. They sounded like they were laughing and yelling and shouting for joy. I watched as slowly that mother/father coaxed and cajoled the youngling to fly about and once he was strong enough they flew away not to be seen by me evermore.
This morning I was sitting at this computer quite early and I heard a great ruckus outside the house and when I looked I noticed a pair of crows swooping and swirling around the house here moving from tree to tree and looking all about them... I'm sure it was the mother and father who came back for their last visit. They are gone now... they stayed around for about a half an hour and then moved on as they do each year. I will not see them again.
Next year there will be another family living in this house. They are a sweet family and they have two young daughters and they remind me of us when we first moved here. I hope they will be kind to the family of crows... I'm sure they will be.
Meanwhile I am consumed with finding a house in Nfld. I have two houses that seem like they might be ok. One in particular is an older home in need of some TLC... it is full of nooks and cranies and is exactly the kind of house I like. It is a sweet little cottage that was owned by a fellow who lived there until the day he died. You can see that the house was not just the house of an old bachelor, there had to have been a Mrs. too at some point since there are frilly things and niceties that men don't think of. But from the looks of it, it is in dire need of some upgrading and that is just up my ally. The only thing worrying me is the crawl space which my guy wasn't able to get in to see and he thought there might be some moisture but wasn't sure since he was looking through the windows. There is also a possible problem with wiring... older wiring requiring some overhauling. All things that might be able to be dealt with if not too problematic. The wiring would probably have to be redone no matter where I went unless I am buying a newer home. But somehow that does not appeal to me since that negates the whole concept of living on the coast in an older style salt box type of traditional Newfoundland home. I mean that has always been something that I wanted to do... maybe because I have such great memories of my grandparents home... actually this house looks somewhat similar to their home. As a matter of a fact, it was probably built about the same time as their house. Still the work that would need to be done to get it up to the standard that I would want might be prohibitive.
There is another house that needs less work and has a gorgeous piece of property but has not got the layout inside that says "interesting". It also does not have enough bedrooms for all of us to have a bedroom each... that means that the daughters would have to share... an unhealthy prospect for sure. Either that or I would have to give up my bedroom and sleep in a closet under the steps like Harry Potter!!!! : ).... I can't see how to make it work for us... so I will have to wait and see what happens. Today I have a contractor meeting the real estate agent to look at all the things that I have questions about on house number one. He will look at the basement and the attic and the kitchen and the wiring and he will give me a call later and let me know what he finds. That will be the deal breaker. If he comes back and says it is a crap hole then I will have to get serious about looking at sleeping like Harry Potter or coming up with an alternative idea. If he says house number one is doable then I have to get an idea of how much it will take to upgrade the house. Then based on that I will make an offer... and go from there. I may have to fly down toward the end of August to finalize the deal and get the ball rolling on the improvements... then fly back and get the daughters and mom and dad. We have decided that traveling via train is the best way to go... We will take the train from Edmonton and travel across to Nova Scotia to my sister's house where we will stay long enough for me to buy a vehicle and then we will drive to Nfld... and on to a new life.
So the alpacas can go... the horse can go... the crows can go... and Sir Arsewipe can go to la chit a la flambe. I've got bigger fish to fry.
Oh!!... Here comes Sir Arsewipe now....
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