It Good To Be Alive #42

It is good to be alive...
when you have been having a well earned sleep in and a noise wakes you up and you realize that it is Geese flying over and your window is open so you can hear them really well. You turn your head and you see your Hubby (or wifey) heard them too and is now having the exact same reaction as you. You grin at him (her) and doze off holding hands, for another few well earned moments of snooze time.

Moon In My Room

Daughter #1 has a moon in her room. It is pretty cool actually. She got this nifty moon for Christmas last year and basically it is a model of the moon with a light behind it. When you turn it on the moon moves from crescent to quarter to half to quarter and then back to crescent again. It is surprisingly realistic. She looks at it nightly before going to sleep and eventually it turns itself off. I can't understand why anyone would want the full moon in their room....

The werewolf syndrome is hard upon me. Last night was the full moon and once again I couldn't sleep. I checked my back this morning to see if I had any hair growing there, but I couldn't see very well! I sat at the computer last night and stared at that huge honkin' white globe in the sky. It was lovely and the blue cast of shadow and light was affecting everyone, even the alpacas who were fighting at midnight and got the scare of their lives when Duffy, our big outdoor dog, went running to investigate what all the squealing was about. It disturbed me at the computer, and I went to see too. Once everyone had settled back down, I was seriously tempted to go out and light a fire in the fireplace on the deck, and sit in that blue light for all of eternity. But somehow I just didn't have the energy. That's what a full moon does to me. It makes me not able to sleep but meanwhile my body needs rest. So I'm not sleepy buy I am tired.

Hubby and I have been at it hammer and tongs all week, especially Hubby. He has finished all of the paneling in Daughter #2's room and is currently working on our room. Last night I helped him finish the ceiling in our room. Today we will carry on with the ceiling in our upstairs bathroom and then out over the stairs. Once we have this done then we will work on the walls in our bedroom. There is a little plumbing to be done and then we have to wait till payday to buy some more materials. But it is good to see progress.

Hubby and the girls are back to school on Tuesday. We are gearing up and nobody is happy. We are all grouchy and cranky. We snap at each other for the most stupid reasons. Somehow we can't seem to help ourselves. How can the summer be over that soon? It doesn't seem possible.

I've had very little time to blog this week, but one of the things I had to do was to go to the dentist and while I was in that town I went shopping for the Daughters school supplies. It is hard to buy things for school because it just makes everything that much more real.

The dentist did save my tooth and now I have this very smooth white lump in the back where there was a nasty hole. He drilled and hammered and grinded and generally did nasty things and I thought I would be there forever. Let me tell you my knuckles will never be the same. They are permanently white from the stress of it all. But the most embarrassing thing happened while I was on that chair.... I had to pee. No I didn't wet my pants. But OH MY GOD did I ever come close. I left the house early in the morning and never drank any tea or anything at all for that matter as I was seriously scared of this very possibility. I invariably ended up peeing in one of those desperate "find the bathroom quick" scenarios. I seriously thought I had it under control, because, when I first got there after driving an hour, I politely took off my coat and hung it up then asked where their bathroom was. I knew I should pee as it was grossly early in the morning when I left home. The receptionist was polite about it and gave me the key and told me their bathroom was down the hall. I was back in short order and I waited with Daughter #1 who was there to have her teeth cleaned and get a referral for the orthodontist. She got called first and I went in 45 minutes later, but I felt pretty good. There were no fore warnings that the bathroom would be calling me in short order.

The dentist got down to it right away. Now, I am claustrophobic and I hate dentists chairs and I can't stand those nasty contraptions that look like they are a mini rubber hammock that they hook over your mouth to keep chunks of tooth falling down your throat. But there I lay in an uncomfortable position with a little blue sheet over my mouth and my mouth stretched open so wide that the dentist could have driven a bulldozer in there! Then slowly I started to notice that there was a definite uncomfortable full feeling in the bladder region. OH NO! I was sure I would be in that dratted chair for another eon and I needed to pee. I crossed my legs and my knuckles began to turn whiter as I was determined to outlast the dentist. 15 minutes went by and then another 15 and then every minute after that felt like one of the ages from J.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings (which we have just watched on TV these last few free nights of summer vacation). Finally I admitted defeat and raised my right hand to the dentist indicating that I needed a sec. I managed to say "bathroom" which sounded more like "atoom" but he got the picture... That's when I discovered the evil mindedness of dentists. The bugger wouldn't let me up to go.... he said, "I'm almost done." I felt like saying, "so am I", but I didn't. No matter it would have been really embarrassing to walk down the hall with the rubber sheet draped over my mouth and my mouth open wide enough to drive a bulldozer in.

The dentist finished but by then I was cross eyed and my Uvula was floating. I wonder if he noticed? I hopped out of that chair, let me tell you and passed the receptionist, grabbing the key off the hook at a run. I couldn't get the annoying key in the lock of the bathroom door fast enough, and worse I thought I wasn't going to get my pants down fast enough either. Daughter #1 thought there was something wrong with me as I passed her so fast too....

Anyway, that is the kind of thing that happens when the moon is waxing. This week the moon is waning.... hmm... I wonder if things will go wrong or right.

Update On House Renovation

Yesterday the electrician was back for a day of work. At least now we are able to turn on lights in the downstairs bathroom and Daughter #2's bedroom and the studio. This is important since the days are shortening and by 8:30 p.m. lights are good. Being able to see where you are going is always a bonus and relying on starlight just doesn't cut it in our house. But with the electrician came a problem.... he tore stuff up that we had just finished putting together. Two steps forward and a whole bunch back again. Hubby and I have spent the morning trying to rectify the mess that the electrician made. Argh.

This is Hubby's birthday and while we really wish we could spend the whole day off in the bush picking berries we really can't afford the time. We have opted to work till 3 p.m. and then head off for a late afternoon of berry picking. Hubby has chosen this as the activity f his dreams for his birthday. Go figure... I like berry picking but that's not my idea of fun let me tell you.

Work on the house has been progressing slowly. I do what I can but I can't lift sheets of plywood and I can't climb ladders too high. I have an unbidden fear of ladders. I tend to stick to trim and paint work and a little framing. Hubby is working on Daughter #2's bedroom today. The goal is to get her into her room before the end of the week and try to get one of the bathroom's finished. I'm not sure this will happen.
Up to date we have the toilet in the downstairs bathroom working and the shower is in place but is not hooked up to any water source or the sewer. The vanity is in and the plumbing is good but the sink was too large and so that has to go back to the store and we'll pick out another. There is a door in the downstairs bathroom and it and one wall has some paneling. Left to be done is hooking up the sink and tub to water and sewer and finish the paneling in there, and then put in the new flooring.

Let's see... the upstairs bathroom has all facilities working but doesn't have any paneling done on three walls and has no door and no flooring (just sub-flooring). It also doesn't have any lights but the electrical boxes are there they just have to have fixtures attached. The closet off the upstairs bathroom is not touched. It needs paneling, electrical, lights, shelves, and door.

Our bedroom has some paneling and the pocket for the door in place. That's it, so we need to install the ceiling and finish paneling and build the closets and that's no small task, then we need to put in our door and the door between the bedroom and the bathroom. We need to cut the door to he balcony and install the window in it, then reinstall the door.

Once all of that is done we need to install the paneling in the studio, install the strapping on the ceiling and install the ceiling tiles. Then we need to panel the stairwell and install the ceiling up over the steps and finish the wall and doors for the laundry closet. Somewhere in there I am hoping to strip the floors in our bedroom and restain and clear coat them. Then back downstairs we need to level the floors and install the new flooring. I have to finish the doors for the pantry and strip and finish the doors for the studio. Outdoors i need to stain the deck (the front one) and stain the facia boards. I also need to install tongue and groove wood on a small portion of wall above the logs under the veranda cover and then stain them. Then we need to cut the office exterior door and install a small door light and it needs a good door knob (the one that is there now sucks)!

In the kitchen we need to install the old shelves and place new counters in there. I think new doors for the old pantry closets are needed.

After all of that is done we need to install all the trim and believe me that will be huge. I'm woodburning and trying to do some as we go but it will be many hours of work yet.

Hmm I think that is it. I wonder if we will be done by Christmas. Forget the fact that we haven't mentioned the stonework on the outside of the house. Scary eh? But what is done looks terrific. We just have to keep going. Eventually it will all be finished and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about. In the meantime have a look...

The newly installed downstairs bathroom door... from the outside looking in..


And from the inside looking out...


The paneling in the downstairs bathroom...


Here's the trim work that I installed in the bathoom..


The recently refixed pantry....


We closed in under the steps so that dust from upstairs wouldn't drift into our food...


This wall needs to be done in the upstairs bathroom as I had to put in the shelf to give us privacy...


We are currently working on our bedroom...
This is the door to the top of the steps with the laundry area which still needs to be enclosed.....


and this is the door way into the upstairs bathroom... my next job is to build the closets there.


The dining area never looked this good....


Neither did the living area.... guess we are getting somewhere with the reno after all...

All Beautiful The March Of Days... again!

We have had two weeks of wonderful weather. Each morning I rise and take my tea in hand to sit in front of this monitor and there I tap away in that early morning, low slanting sun. Hubby sleeps in and so do the Daughters and eventually I will return to bed for a nap before really rising for a day of work. It is my quiet time. It is the time when I get an opportunity to think about what lies around me both outside the house and inside the house. I watch the animals to see if there are any problems and that includes all that animals from cats and dogs, to sheep, chickens, alpacas, and Honeydew. I watch birds and I watch mice scurry through the brush and I watch chipmunks and squirrels. I check out the spiders like Agnes and Waldo. Agnes is the big spider living outside the front door. And I kill flies that pester the daylights out of me.

It is also my time to notice the changing season. The shade of gold that is in the grass today is usually a little richer than the day before. The leaves on my tomato plant are a little drier and a little more curled. The flowers in my basket are not producing new buds they are just trying to support the flowers that are already there. There are fewer birds singing in the morning and more dead flies in the humming bird feeder. The sun is a little weaker and the east face of the poplars is a little whiter and brighter. The pines begin to drop about 50% of their needles as they too prepare for the winter snows. Everywhere there is scurrying and you can be sure that the little guys are storing grain and cones and whatever dogfood they can glean from Duff's bowl. The bumble bees are a little more bumbly and the honeybees are sleepy while the hornets are desperate for something to eat and a lot more dangerous than usual.

The crows have flocked and are starting their trip south and the warblers and hummingbirds left a week or more ago. The sparrows are around but fewer and fewer all the time. No robins hunt worms in the mornings and the owls are quiet in the evenings. Last night I sat out on the deck with our friends and I didn't hear one Night Hawk. The Asters are blooming and the Fireweed has turned to fuzz and those are the last flowers of the season. It is fall for sure. Last night once again I sat out under the stars and watched the great and glorious night sky. It was a perfect night for star gazing.

While it is sad to see the birds leaving, the motion of the seasons feels right somehow... like you are being carried by a current that drifts along lazily. It is like amniotic fluid that feeds you without your even knowing you are being fed. It fills you and lifts you and keeps you sustained. It makes you feel nostalgic and hopeful at the same time. The year ahead is pregnant with possibilities. It is up to me..... and to you to to make the most of them.

All Beautiful The March Of Days

Sometimes I think to myself that I have to be one of the luckiest people alive. I love the outdoors and I can't imagine living where I was surrounded by concrete. I am a bit of a loner and really enjoy being on my own that's one of the reasons that I was so happy to move to this rural setting. I mean HH is not the biggest metropolis with just over 1000 people I would have to say it doesn't meet metropolis standards at all, but when we moved from town to where we are I was as happy as a pig in sh--! I love the fact that I can strip down to the buff in front of a window that has no curtains and not have to worry about a neighbour seeing me. They are all too far away to see anything. I love the fact that I can get up in the morning and have a cup of tea on the deck with nothing on other than a wee nightie. Nobody is going to see me and that in my books is great.

I look out my window and I can't see any sign of people at all well except for Hubby's pile of brush which we will be burning in the late fall when there is snow on the ground. We are about 6 kms away from the nearest town and while that is not a great distance it is actually just about right to avoid community living while being close enough to a community to partake when the mood strikes.

Today we are having a party for Hubby who turns 46 on the 31st. I did start out trying to keep it a secret but with the house in such slings I had to do some cleaning up and I knew he would start asking questions so I told him with the intention of getting his opinion on what I should cook (pork or beef) on the barbecue. As it turns out I ended up having to do some of both since the grocery store didn't have enough of either. I wanted to have something special to do in an effort to celebrate Hubby especially because a week ago he asked me right out of the blue how old he was going to be. He couldn't remember if he was going to be 46 or 47..... that's scary. I knew that it was time to make a big deal of his birthday. We rarely have a party for the dear guy since his birthday falls at the end of the summer when there is no money to support such an event. But this year I am scrounging together enough to make a big deal of the man who brightens my days.

We have about a dozen or so people coming if they all turn out and maybe a few who will come later in the evening. It is a perfectly spectacular evening for a party. It has been hot all day like middle-of-the-summer hot. 27 degrees is really hot these days. We suspended work on the house today and just cleaned the deck and made the living room not embarrassingly dirty. Hubby is gone for a shower and I will be heading there soon too, since we have to be somewhat presentable for our guests.

I know that summer has come to a resounding end when we celebrate Hubby's birthday. I will miss summer but I am looking forward to the tramps through the forest in a few weeks as I start my daily walks and I look forward to the quiet evenings of autumn when we sit by the lamp light and read while the girls work on homework. I also look forward to a steady paycheck and plenty in the pantry. What I do miss this year is the work of the garden. This is not the first year that we did not have a garden. Last year we didn't but the animals were using it and they were so new that we did not resent them using our garden area for living accommodations. I really really want to plant spuds and peas and carrots, beets and beans next year. So the alpacas will have to move over. There will be no house renovations next year and so I hope to have more time for the joys of gardening and more importantly harvesting.

Soon we will be experiencing regular frost in the mornings as we take the girls to school.... you know, days where puddles are frozen over and the trees will be dropping their leaves. This also means getting back to spinning and weaving and knitting. I will have to organize my Knock Out Knitters again for regular Thursday night knitting and I look forward to that. I will also organize spinning and weaving meetings and maybe somewhere in there, I might get another paper making day. Fun fun fun.

The Sears Christmas Wish book is out and time to start thinking about the dreadful time of the year (Christmas). I actually intend on being ahead of the game this year. Ha ha snort! That's a joke... ok?

Well it is 5 and our guests will be arriving in short order so I had better get into the water and make myself presentable...

Hole In My Head

I have a hole in my head. It's one that shouldn't be there. Yesterday I was sitting in the living room minding my own business, chewing my lunch (which by the way was not crunchy, chewy, or hard in any way whatsoever) when I suddenly felt something hard in the side of my mouth that felt like it was in the wrong place. I gently swirled my tongue around separating the hard thing from my lunch and discovered that it was a filling.

Oh No! This just couldn't be! I felt a stomach dropping sense of dismay and realized that the dreaded fear of the DENTIST was about to overtake my system with a resounding EEEECK! I have a terror of dentists. It is not the dentist fault and I have to say that I have never had a bad experience with a dentist other than having your mouth stretched to the point where you look like a deranged Brat doll when you leave his office, and the scattered drilling fiasco when the deadening agent has not quite taken affect, otherwise my trips to the dentist are no more horrifying than anyone else. No my fear of the dentist is completely unreasonable.

That is why when 16 yrs ago, while on a trip home to Newfoundland, I lost a chunk of a tooth and had to have a root canal on a tooth that was vastly overdo for some servicing, and when the dentist completed the work he had said I would need to cap the tooth in Ontario, which is where I was living at the time, because the work he had done needed to cure before it was capped, I decided in all of my great dental wisdom (aka fear) decided to ignore that suggestion and so for 16 years I have had an uncapped, root canaled, stuffed full of lead tooth in my head that was a time bomb waiting to go off. And go off it did in a very timely manner this week.

Remember the blog post last week that hinted at the end-of-summer money blues that most teachers experience in August. Well we are in the depths of those blues as we speak.... We have enough to cover our bills but THAT"S IT, no more money than that. (sigh) A trip to the dentist means money. A crapped out root canal means lots of money. Our dentist has the money police for a receptionist. You can not go to the dentist without a slap up the side of the head if you even remotely look like you might forget to pay on the way out the door. (Frankly I'm more afraid of her than I am of the dentist! and she is a petite little young Chinese woman who looks like she might blow over in a good wind!!) So I sit and wait in fear and anxiety while the date of my appointment which I called and requested right away after the chunk of lead, and I might add some suspiciously enamel looking stuff came out of my mouth, looms closer.

Meanwhile, in my mouth, I have a sharp edged nasty and gross looking black tooth that would make the worst pirate proud. The day the filling fell out my tongue looked like it had been scored a hundred times by a little razor that just so happened to be in my mouth right where my tongue wanted to sit. Ouch! By night I was in such agony that I could not speak properly. While this may be a blessing in some ways it hurt a lot and I was beginning to wonder if I would make it through the week until such time as I was able to get to my dental appointment and my tongue was swollen and looked like a chunk of raw meat. Nasty, I say, just plain nasty.

I was at my wits end when Hubby told me the story of his seniour officer in the Canadian Rangers using his leatherman to file the tooth of his girlfriend on a camping trip when she had a chunk of tooth break and fall off. I was desparate and by this time willing to pretty much try anything and so out came the leatherman that I had given Hubby for Christmas a few years ago.... damn it all there was no file. That is when Daughter #2 stepped up to the plate. She had been watching as her mom had sat on the edge of the bed in tears because of the pain and inability to do anything about it. Remember a few weeks ago I told you all about her magic bag that she carries around just in case she meets up with a dragon or fairies??? Ah yes, the wonderful bag! Daughter #2 had been listening to my frustrated and rather garbled swearing as my tooth continued to slash my tongue and she heard when my frustration hit all new heights when the leatherman did not produce a file. Out came said bag and out came a nail file that I thought I had lost 6 months ago..... Great now I could do something about the razor that was wreaking havoc with my tongue. I stood in the bathroom wih Hubby holding the light for me (we still have got lights hooked up in either of the bathrooms and proceeded to file down my tooth. A few minutes later I hit my bed with a nicely filed tooth that was as smooth as a baby's a--. Problem. The tooth has been filed so smooth that I'm not sure the dentist will be able to do anything. So there may be a little dental surgery in my future to remove said offending tooth. Gee I wish there really were a Tooth Fairy!

Under Starry Skies

I love August. The days are glorious and not too hot. How about that! I finally got a day to see something other than my own back yard....

Yesterday we went to Valleyview to pick up my new sheep. Hubby and I built a box on our friend's flat bed trailer (We've got to get one of those!) on Monday and then yesterday we hit the wide open road and headed out to Valleyview to pick up the sheep. We left at 8 a.m. and 15 hours later drove into the yard with sheep in tow.

We had a great trip. It stared out in cloud cover for pretty much the whole way but that was good because driving with the sun in your eyes can be seriously nasty. We stopped for snacks in Pouce Coupe on the way there and it started to rain shortly after. That was something I wasn't too happy about but Hubby had it under control. The Daughters and Tootsie the wonder chicken herder were with us. They kept themselves occupied by listening to Daughter #1's iPod in the back seat. I must say they were excellent co-travelers and did not fight too much and generally stayed polite which is amazing considering that they were cooped up together for long hours. Anyway, I digress, the trip gave us all an opportunity to see parts of the country that we have not seen for a while. It was nice to hit the highway because I realized very quickly that the colours of fall are everywhere not just my backyard and while any intelligent person would deduce this fact, it still is a bit of a shock when you see it. The turn of the seasons is irrefutable my friends.

Grand Prairie was our stopping place for lunch and it was a stop in torrents of rain. That's why when we finally got to JM's place in Valleyview an hour later it was a bit of a shock to see that she was suffering the kind of drought that we experienced here in the Peace a few year ago. There were grasshoppers everywhere and by the droves. They had polished off the grass and every green thing except for the quack grass for miles. There was one patch of quack grass in her garden that was lovely and rich and green and soft. Nothing and I mean nothing eats quack grass except maybe ducks! They had not had serious amounts of rain for quite a while. The sunshine actually hurt the eyes there. The grass was white it was so dead. She showed us all around the paddocks and barns and at one point she showed us one of her old sheep who wasn't too lively. She was just lying there and the grasshoppers were all over her and they were even eating her wool because they had nothing green left to eat. JM was horrified but I had seen it before because three years ago when we were hit with a draught we had a grasshopper plague like I have never seen before. It was truly the most horrible thing I have ever seen. When God gave grasshopper plagues to the world He knew how to punish, that is for sure.

We were at JM's for about an hour and a half where we had a very interesting tour of her place and then we left, loaded with sheep who have now been named as follows...
Pure bred Merino.... Queenie
Canadian Arcott/Merino.... Sally
Cotswold/Merino (black).... Lulu
BFL/Merino ram..... Ipwitch

The trip home was exhausting most of which was driven after dark. Hauling sheep in a trailer meant that we went slower than normal so they wouldn't get jostled too much. We stopped in GP for supper which had cleared away from earlier in the day and was now sunny. After we left though it meant driving into the setting sun which is never relaxing. Hubby had worn himself out by the time we got back to Pouce Coupe and so I took over driving again. It was dark and so I felt skirting Dawson Creek was a good idea to avoid traffic with a trailer in tow during the dark at night. The traffic between Dawson Creek and Chetwynd was dreadful with vehicles coming at just the right intervals to make you constantly have to flick on and off your high beams. I was glad to head north and get out of that traffic. Problem is though that I was so bleary eyed after driving that long in the dark that when we got to a police road block at Moberly Lake I decided to give Mike, who had been snoozing since I started driving an hour and a half before, the opportunity to drive us home. By this time it was really dark with no little amount of light on the horizon at all. Just before we got to the downward hill that took us into our own little home town, I noticed a strange glow in the sky, which at first I thought was the glow of our town lights. Then I rethought that since it was in the wrong place and thought perhaps it was the lights of a new drilling rig. No that wasn't right either as it had a greenish glow to it and that's when Hubby piped up and suggested that it was the glow of Northern Lights. The Daughters by this time were asleep from pure exhaustion and didn't see a thing.

It was only after we left the lights of our home town behind that I noticed how beautiful were the stars. It was glorious as the heavens were at their best. I can only imagine how the shepherds of old who slept out under the stars would have felt. We close ourselves off from the glorious skies when we go into our homes at night. But some night, if you are adventurous and have the interest, open your door and take a walk out under the skies... try to find a place that doesn't have any street lights because you will be astounded by the number of stars that are in the great dome above us. Who knows you may even catch a glimps of some of those mysterious northern lights... I think I should add that one to my "Glad To Be Alive" list... It is good to be alive when you walk out under the great dome of our world in the ever darkening night, where there are no man made lights to detract from the glorious bounty of the skies, and you see spread out before you all of the universe in cool clear pinpoints of light, gentle light, and realize how incredibly small you are. Inky blackness surrounds you and on the horizon, low in the sky are the evidence of the sun's activity with light dancing in an ever beautiful array of green streaks and you realize how lucky you are to be the reality of a one in one billionth exponential possibility. Then around you are the sleepy baaas of sheepy mom's calling their lambs to them.The still small interests of wee things intermingle with the vastly large and beyond understanding. Yes it is good to be alive......

I slept in this morning, a good thing too since I will be heading in to FSJ at 3:30 a.m. to take Fadder for tests at the hospital that requires
us to be there no later than 5 a.m. But driving in the dark again will mean another opportunity hopefully to look at the night skies and ponder the inconsequence of humanity.

As for the sheep?... they have settled in and are making friends with the others. Pecking order is being established and the little ram is still nervous of this great long necked weird looking white woolly thing (Mishka) that keeps trying to sniff him and check him out! Imagine if you had this look at you....