Fire!

Dialing 911 after daughter #1 told me she had lit the woods on fire was not the way I expected to spend the day yesterday when the spinners and weavers came to spend the day at my house to learn how to use a Weavette. I had been pleasantly enjoying an afternoon of teaching bias weaving on a hand held pin loom when Daughter #1 came to me to inform me that she had been to her "Fort" (which is a few logs pulled together with a piece of tin over it and a circle of stones to signify a cooking pit) and caught the woods on fire. I looked out the window and witnessed flames shooting 40 feet into the air as the "fire" had spontaneously combusted up the side of a spruce tree and was threatening a grove of beetle infested dead pine trees...... ACK!!!!

911 was called in a jiffy and the spades and buckets made their debut in a hurry let me tell you. Marjorie (a gem) and Daughter #1 jumped to the frey and tried to put it out. Daughter #2 and her friend got buckets of water and tried putting it out too. With horror I watched and asked friends to move their vehicles so the soon to arrive fire trucks could reach the flames and slow the fast moving fire.

Suddenly sense hit..... what were my girls doing in a forest fire? I, in short time, got them out of there with a few good yells and grabbing a shovel I proceeded into the flames, myself. Keep the fire from drifting into the forest (the real forest) and keep it on our property where the firefighters could fight it was the game plan. Keep the flames out of the trees. Keep the flames in the grass and away from the paddocks and house. Keep us all safe.

The smoke was choking and the heat was awful. My face felt like it was going to explode. The spade put out the flames but there was nothing to be done about the smoke and then suddenly I was blind.... I could hear sirens wailing... they were a long way off. How to get out of the smoke. Move to the right..... turn back on to the smoke.... there.... out of the smoke.... choke, choke, choke....

I was never so glad to see firefighter in my life. I remember someone telling me to sit down and drink water. I remember directing trucks around the house and down to where the flames were burning their way through the grass and debris. I remember crying and hugging and then I had to deal with Daughter #1 who had hidden herself in the upstairs skeleton of our house. I wanted her to know that it was ok that mistakes happen and that everything was going to be ok. But I wanted her to know that this was serious. I wanted her to know that I loved her and I always would no matter what.

She took it all well though I know in her heart she is horrified by what she did. It was a valuable lesson with a small cost.

Life has returned to normal.... there is a big black patch out my living room window. The yellow wagon that Daughter #1 received as a Christmas present when she was one year old and which she had been hauling rocks to her "Fort" in, melted in the fire. Daughter #1 retrieved a melted blue wheel with an axle in it and a whole lot of pine and fir needles in it. It is charred beyond recognition and Daughter #1 laments for it. My spinners and weavers, I'm sure, will never forget their lesson on the Weavette..... I'm glad we are all safe.

Sun Glorious Sun!

It's a brilliant day! The sun is shining and the weather looks terrific. WOW I'm stoked.

Soup

It's still snowing. I'm disgusted....

Yesterday, I made lentil soup. I haven't made lentil soup for a long time. I thought I would try something different. It turned out really good. Even Hubby went back for seconds. Here is what I did...

2 boneless chicken breasts
2 - 3 c red lentils
2 cans of tomato soup
1/2 c cream
4 coarsely chopped tomatoes
1/2 c rice
minced garlic to taste
onion powder to taste
I also used a Thai spice mix that I have in my spice rack

Cube the chicken breasts and in a four litre stock pot and brown them in a teaspoon of oil. Add a litre of water and the lentils and bring to a rolling boil. Lower heat to simmer. When the water is reduced to about half add two cans of tomato soup and the tomatoes and rice. Raise the heat slightly and bring to a rolling boil again then add all spices. After about 15 minutes reduce heat and add cream and simmer for five minutes. You may have to stir it to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

I served it in bowls with croutons and a slice of jalepeno havarti cheese on top which slowly melted and it was a really nice soup for a cold snowy spring day. Give it a try. Bon appetite!

Tubular Man!

Wash your face with snow in May and all your freckles will go away. Here it is snowing in May and I mean snowing. The ground is white and all the trees have a coating of white and it looks like Christmas not the Queen's Birthday. Hubby jumped out of bed this morning with a grin on his face and headed right out the door to take pictures of this winter wonderland. He thinks that this late snow fall is 'like totally tubular, man'! His co-workers headed down the river this weekend with their tents expecting a great weekend fishing, drinking and telling stories. He thinks this snow is terrific since it will give him one more thing to tease them about. Nothing makes me grouchier than someone who is cheerful about snow in May..... mind you he does have freckles!

I am driven to distraction with level 2 homework.... I started what I thought would be my project but lay awake half of last night worrying that I was not happy with it. I started the wristlets for Dad and discovered that the fibre I wanted to use is crap. I mean.... well.... not crap, just not top notch quality fibre and a project of this caliber should be the best of the best. So I will finish the wristlets but not as my project. I sat up till quite late last night perusing my binders looking at all the blended yarns I have spun this year and I have to say I am very proud of my work. I finally decided to blend a Rideau Arcott/Merino wool with silk for a fibre that I can use to make a doll shawl and even a purse. I was thinking that if it turned out nice I might do a real one (human sized) for sale. The thought of actually getting time to spin to finish a project is like totally tubular man!

Anyway, since it is such a nasty snarky day and we can't get outdoors to do anything even remotely fun I thought I would do some writing on this blog.... I might even update the NPSW blog.... now that would totally be tubular! I've come to the conclusion that getting depressed over the weather is pointless since we are in the grip of Murphy's law and we don't have a lawyer. I expect the weather to suck until our house renovations are done or we have run out of propane and we freeze our arses off. Either way that won't be before June so I might as well put a smile on my face and a sweater on my back and sox on my feet because the earliest that the summer temps. will be here is late June some time. I think it is important to keep your chin up at such times because how can you face the tube when your not watching where you are going. Totally tubular man!

This is the kind of day when even the birds want to warm up by the fire. We had a late snowfall a few years back and Hubby was out burning brush (snowy spring days make a great time for burning brush). Anyway the poor birds were gathered around the fire trying to get close enough to thaw out their wee bums. Sparrows and Finches, and Juncos and Chickadees all half frozen. It was totally tubular man!

Well I'm off to 'chill man!' and prep fibre for the PROJECT.... totally tubular man!

'Totally tubular man' brought to you by your neighbourhood surfing Californians who don't freeze their arses off in spring or any other time of the year.... maybe I should move to California!!!! Totally tubular.... man!

Life Is Returning To Normal.... Except For The Snow!!!

The mess is starting to get better. The living room is looking better.... the bathroom... well, I've given up on that.. that will always be a mess. The kitchen.... better, not great but better. The paddock they're coming.... the deck...ugh.... lots of work there. Best of all Level 2 homework has progressed. I have now finished two of the three remaining questions. In addition I've gotten my Bibliography done and printed reams of pictures of women with spinning wheels and pasted them into my binders, which are becoming works of art really.... at least that's my opinion.

The only thing that ticks me off right now is the forecast. Sunday we are going to have snow. Daughter #2 has her birthday on Saturday and so we are heading into FSJ for a shopping trip since her last pair of jeans are about to lose the knee. Her runners are about to fall apart and her toe is out. She is truly in a sad state of affairs. Size ten feet and Lard only knows how tall.... she outstrips me in height. The towering offspring.... that's what she is!

Daughter #1 is coming with us and I have laid down the law.... the first fight and we are turning around and heading home. Mostly they are pretty good but Daughter #2 gets on Daughter #1's nerves that's because Daughter #1 has inherited a quiet nature.... while Daughter #2 is exuberant.... this causes much conflict. We shall see....either way we are off today to shop....shop... shop... with brunch at Humpty's....I'll blog tomorrow about our purchases.....

Mess

I'm a mess. My house is a mess. The yard is a mess. The animal paddocks are a mess. Life is a mess.

There is not one surface in my home that you can see. Every one of the surfaces are buried alive and you can almost hear them moaning and groaning under the weight of the mess. I'm a mess. Tootsie just jumped on me with dirty paws and messed up my nice white tee shirt. I was dressed and ready to go and vote but I'm now a mess. My hair is a mess because I didn't wash it this morning I just brushed it back in a pony tail and was done with it. Life is a mess because I stayed in my jammies until 1 p.m. like what is that all about? The animal paddocks are a mess with poo all over the place and no green grass because everything is covered in old hay from the winter. Right! Everything is a total mess.

What am I doing about the mess? I have no energy to even think about the mess. I'm too busy trying to not pee in my pants every time I have a coughing fit. Yesterday I had a coughing fit so bad that I had wetness at every nasty spot on my body. WTMI (way too much information??? Then read another blog. Get over it. I've got a cough and I'm not feeling all that great.... maybe that's why I'm in such a crotchity mood. The worst thing is.... I'm getting nothing done. With TC, TCMM, and TCH, not here this week I thought I would be able to get our lives back to normal.... at least a little normal.... clean anyway.... but there is still sawdust everywhere and junk everywhere. The saw dust is getting cleaned up slowly but the junk is the age old story.... what do I do with it??? There is no shelf to put it in and there is no cupboard to put it in and so on. The kids come in through the door and drop everything in the front porch and Hubby comes in and drop his stuff all over the place and all I want to do it lie down. I hate coughs!

What I want to know is why can't I lie down when I get sick but everyone else gets to lie down and nap and snooze. Mike got sick when he had his surgery so he had a perfectly legitimate excuse for staying in bed. Daughter #1 slept for two days when she got the flu. Me on the other hand..... I keep cooking and cleaning and doing and I can't stop.... so my cough gets worse until yesterday I collapsed and started to cry.... I was so tired I slept all day till four o'clock and the kids and Hubby had to eat canned soup for supper. Life is a mess.

But I swear I'm going to clean it up..... even if it kills me!!!!

Stop The Excitement!! (Or Maybe Chaos???)

Chaos and I seem to be old friends.... I think the excitement is more than I can handle....

We have another lamb. This one is black again..... I'm sick of black. They will all be eaten. Black means food. White means wool. I promised daughter # 2 that I would keep Palmer our first lamb. She also asked me to keep Quill I will think on that one and I will of course keep Reece. But the rest are food. This mornings lamb has been named Temp. Temp is short for Temporary!!! Get my drift? Two sheep left to lamb and we will see what happens.

The renos are on hold. Nothing else can be done till the windows arrive and the siding is finished. We are getting the upstairs siding from a local saw mill. It is tongue and groove pine and is what is on the dormer that is already there. They came yesterday and pretty much finished the tin. There are a few pieces of flashing left to go on but that won't be done till later. The reason they didn't quite finish the tin is because we had a bit of an accident yesterday. TCMM fell off the roof! We are very glad that things turned out alright in the end because he didn't seriously hurt himself. At least he was walking and talking well. So let me tell you the story.

They arrived in the morning and all were happy that the weather was co-operating because for the first time in a few days we were not having wind. Wind is not a good thing when you are trying to take huge honkin' sheets of tin up on the roof!!! Think kite with a human attached! All went well till just after lunch when it clouded over and the sky started to spit. I had just nestled into a deck chair for a snooze when the spit started to turn into a shower. I promptly cleared the deck of chairs that would get wet and brought in the house all my spinning equipment. I then went to check on how things were going in the front where TC, TCMM, and TCH were working. I noticed that they were still on the roof except TC who was clearing away equipment and putting tarps over the Saws and such. I noticed that the window in TCMM's truck was open and mentioned it to TC. I turned away because Fadder was coming in the driveway. TC went and closed the window in the truck and that's when it happened. TCMM decided that it was getting too wet to continue to work safely on the roof and told TCH to go down. TCH followed orders and got down off the roof and then TCMM started down. He slipped on the roof over the front veranda and grabbed the metal as he started to fall. TC saw him start to fall and went to try to catch him or at least break his fall. Too late because TCMM hit the ground and I'm not quite sure what happened then in all the confusion. I know TC's knee got hit with a hammer somehow and when I got to the scene TCMM was on his feet and limping and bleeding from his hands. He insisted that he was alright but I wanted to look at his hands. Several of his fingers were cut badly but not deeply as luck should have it. The tin entered his hands at an angle as he slid down the roof so there was a flap of skin on each finger that was cut. The limp seemed to be getting a little better. One finger I was sure would need stitches. But our local clinic did not have a doctor yesterday and so we would have had to drive 50 minutes to the nearest emergency. He insisted that he did not need that. So we tried to clean him up the best that we could with cold water (my hot water tank has died) and peroxide and paper towel. Obviously band aids were not going to do it since they are so totally inadequate for such an injury. I kept thinking this man should be seen by a doctor. Finally TCH convinced TCMM that he should go get looked at. I offered to drive him in Fadder's car, but no, he insisted that he would drive himself. You can't make someone do what they don't want to so off he went to get his truck going. That's when we discovered that when TC rolled up his window with the electronic button TC hit the lock and now TCMM with still bleeding hands could not get in his truck because the keys were inside. I drove!

We got to the clinic and I stayed in the van while TCMM went in to get fixed up. 15 minutes later he was back with TC's wife who happens to work at the clinic. That's when I discovered that TCMM hadn't mentioned he had hurt his ankle. We also discovered that he skinned out his knee too. His hands were all bandaged and I was ordered to take him home as his working day had now ended. I dropped him off at his home and left him to try and find his extra set of keys.

I got home to find that the sun was splitting the rocks again. (My Grandfather would have called yesterday a day of hot blasts and wet asses! Which means hot one minute and raining the next.) I informed TC and TCH that TCMM would not be back to work and they were up at the tin again. It wasn't very long after that that TCMM who lives only a short distance away from me comes in the driveway walking!!!! I am now thinking this fellow is all kinds of an idiot! He should have stayed home, off his hurt foot (he was limping quite pronounced by now) until his wife came home and then they could have driven over. There was a half hour of farting around with a hanger and the window of TCMM's vehicle and then success at last he broke into his own vehicle. We wouldn't make very good car thieves!

He packed up his gear and seemed to want to get chatty... so I sat on the deck and chatted before he left for home. TC and TCH were working inside by this time doing the insulation. The day ended fairly quietly which was a good thing because I don't think I could take any more excitement. I will be glad when the renos are done. I will miss these guys, they have become friends. But I won't miss the accidents (lets hope this is the only one) and the mess.

TCMM is a very lucky man. It could have been a whole lot worse. I thank God that it wasn't. When I think about head injuries and back injuries and what might have happened it scares the wits out of me. Good people don't deserve bad things to happen and TC and TCMM and TCH are all good people. I'd hate to see them hurt.

TC may be back between now and June for small bits of work like flashing around the crawl space and vapour barrier and some insulation but for the most part everything has to wait till the windows get here. Hubby says he may work on the vapour barrier as then we can sleep inside again.... albeit on the floor on mattresses but inside all the same.

In the meantime I am going to try to get over this cold that has decided to attack me most unpleasantly and work on level 2 homework..... that's enough excitement for me!