Tim the Tool man or Red Green??

Tim the Toolman/Red Green?

Somedays I have to check my marriage licence to see if I really married Dave or if I married Tim the Tool Man or Red Green? (Red Green is Canada's answer to Tim the tool man, only actually funnier if that's possible)

If you've been following my post at all since I started you've noticed that my hubby is a bit handy around the house and farm. And...if he can't do it, he'll figure out how to do it with sometimes hilarious results (case in point...blog dated Aug 19 Another Hot Day). It just amazes me how one person can have such an imagination or different ideas in one brain. Really he should have been a scientist or something. I think his talents are going to waste on the propane truck. I mean honestly...how many men do you know will build a barn from scrap wood, no design (except in his head), nothing... and that is not a carpenter and it will actually exceed building codes!

We were at a friend's house Saturday night and our friend was having problems with something in his minkpens (they're mink ranchers). Well Dave just started rattling off different ways to fix the problem. From just using duct tape (Red Green special) to having someone come in and fix it by doing this, and turning this around, and splitting something etc... I could just see Dave's brain working a mile a minute. I could also see our friend's brain just bog down with information overload!

But living with Red Green/Tim the tool man can also be costly. Thank goodness I work at a hardware and building supply store. I get a half decent discount on some things. Because on the mornings he's off I dread to hear "Honey darling, can you bring me....." I think "oh no, not again...what is he building today?"

In the long run I think it's cheaper living with Red Green since he saves hundreds of dollars every year in electrical, plumbing, heating, car, tractor, snowblower and electronic repairs.

J. checking out the young pigs newest pad.

His latest feat was rewiring the barn. The pigs didn't have enough light or so he thought. Well at least he also added a light bulb at my milking stand. Right at butt height! This way I don't need a flashlight to shine at the goat's butt to see if she's in heat or not. It also lights up well to trim the hooves.

My new lightbulb!

Like Red Green would say "If the women don't find ya handsome, they can at least find you handy!" (mind ya, I find my own Red Green handsome AND handy!)

Charlotte and Wilbur looking cute.

Well I have finally decided what to do with my goats and should I, or shouldn't I buy the other goat.

Febe

I'm going to stick to my original plan of just breeding Alpines. I didn't buy the other one I was that I was hemming and hawwing about. I didn't have to room at the moment and it wasn't in my original plans. Raising a purebred goat is just as easy as raising a non-purebred goat, yet I find it's easier to sell them and you can get alot more money for them. Then you can also find out if their mothers, grandmothers etc... were good milkers, temperment etc...

I'm also not going to switch to Nubians. This is just from my personal experience and from a few others that have raised both, Nubians are cute as a button and very friendly, but very, very stubborn and are one of the hardest goat breeds to tell if they are in heat.

Whisper

I have been lifting Whisper on the milking stand now for 2 weeks so if I ever breed her and want to milk her, she'll know what to do. Well she still doesn't have a clue. The other Nubian I had was the same way. It took FOREVER for her to get the idea of getting on a milking stand. So every day I have to lift Whisper who is now 78lbs on the milking stand (Dave is usually not around when I do this or he'd do it himself). No wonder my back has gone kerflewy!!! I don't know....Maybe it's just I pick the wrong Nubians. But I'll stick to Alpines like I had originally planned. We will be keeping Whisper as a pet though. I still can't figure out if she's in heat or not. A friend of mine is getting a buck in the summer and she said when the time comes I can let Whisper stay at her house for a month.

Saturday Dave and J. came and picked me up at work. They had a trailer load full of bags of shavings from the coffin plant. They bag them or box them for us. It's so nice of them. It took us a while to find a place to store them in the barn. It's kinda full with hay and some of Dave's gadgets. But we finally found a place to store all of it. It had to be done by Sunday since it was giving rain for today.

Sunday was a beautiful day. Wow! We haven't had such nice weather in a while. J. and I put the goats out in the pasture. He had to dig the door out first. Then we walked around the property just to see how much snow we've had. It's really beautiful...but it can go for a little while now. I've seen it enough for a few weeks anyway.

Our backyard looking from the forest behind our house.

I cannot believe it!!!! I might have convinced Dave to let me have bee hives!!! I don't like cooking with sugar because it's so unhealthy and the price is going to skyrocket (or so I've been told) but it's so expensive to buy honey. Soooooo....why not raise your own? I have to find someone who does it around here so he can show me the ropes first. This is not something to get into lightly. I mean, when it comes time to harvest the honey I might be petrified. So I want to go through the motions first. It would also help with the gardens around here. I have noticed in the last few years, how so few bees there are. This is not good!

Well I guess that's enough for tonight.

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Is it Easter?

I've been wondering if it's an early Easter here? I seem to have to go on an egg hunt every night when I go in the chicken coop! It's not that they hide them all over the coop, they just cover them up with the hay. They never used to do that. I've had to take all the hay out to find all the eggs. Animals can be so strange. So after I found the eggs, I replaced the hay.

As for the goats...what kind of animals poops in their water? I've talked about this before, but it still amazes me that they do it! I mean, goats are intelligent creatures, aren't they?, so why would they crap in their drinking water? Personally, I think they do it to tick me off! Tonight I just peeked and their bucket was still full, so I yelled to Dave that I didn't need water. Then I went right in the pen and they had pooped in it! I just hadn't seen it. Strange thing is that they won't do it in the summer with the automatic waterer. Weird, just plain weird.

Febe is getting very big. I think this year she may have triplets or very big twins! Last year she wasn't this big in this stage of her pregnancy. This could be interesting and exciting!

I have a chance to buy a pregnant doe, but I'm not sure if I should. I want to but I don't. I really want to just get purebred goats and this one isn't. I could trade a piglet for her, but also, I really don't have the room and for the first few months I would have to seperate her from Febe and Whisper because Febe would beat the heck out of her and I don't want to cause a miscarriage in either one. But I could use the extra milk this spring. Man, it's a hard decision. I have to pray on this one a bit longer.

I put my back out this week. Well really I put it out a few weeks, but it seems better, then Sunday it went out again. I guess lifting a 75 lb goat on a milking stand doesn't help either.

Ahhh...what to do , what to do....

We had the second week of our church small groups. It was interesting. I'm learning alot more about the Bible. I'm in a good group also. Dave is in a different group, this way, we don't need a sitter for J.

Well I guess that's about it for this week. I'll just have to think on this for a while longer.

Have a Blessed evening

Lisa

Beautiful day.

Today was my day off and it was beautiful out. Nice and mild. The goats were out all day long. They still have a hard time getting around in their pasture since it's still full of snow. But they have trudged through and made a goat path. I still don't have to put the electric on since they aren't trying to get out. I have strange goats. They don't try to escape or jump. Strange. I did see that when the snow melts, we will have to fix the fence by the road. The snow was so heavy that it pulled the insulators off the posts.

We had someone come and divide the pig pens today. They're all together and Charlotte is due at the end of February so we cannot have them all together when she farrows. They aren't happy being seperated. Even though they can still touch noses and see each other, they don't like it. We might have to put Wilbur back in his old pen in the other barn. Out of sight out of mind. They are just so huge. They're about 500lbs each.

J. went to a friend's house for the afternoon, so I got a chance to clean our pig pen without interruptions. Oh! I got all those boots from Sears today. We found him a good pair in the bunch and it wasn't the most expensive either. So I'll have to return the rest on Tuesday.

Well that's about it for today. Church tomorrow and I'm leading worship.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Sears fiasco.

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with farming, but it's just so funny!!!!

Why is it that if you need any winter clothing in the winter, you cannot find some? That is my problem at the moment. J. has outgrown his winter boots and I have been looking since the beginning of December for some and I can't find any!! So I have to order from Sears. I don't want to since they are so expensive. But you do what you have to do. So let me begin my "little" story...

Saturday night after searching for boots and not finding any, I went online to Sears to order some. Since it's so hard to "see" the boots and the descriptions are crappy and I'm not sure what size he'd be since, I did find a size 3 at Payless shoes (which is the size he wears) and they were waaayyyy too big, I ordered 545$ worth of boots!! Ok, I kinda got carried away. But at 70$ a pop it doesn't take long to add up.

Anyhow...I digress. With Sears online you usually get a confirmation email within a few minutes of placing the order. I didn't get that email and I found that strange...but it was late at night so I went to bed. Sunday morning still no email. So I called Sears. After telling my story to no less than 5 people and being shuffled around I was told that the order was waiting "credit authorization". I'm like "huh?". So I was told to call a certain number but they said that since it was Sunday it was probably closed. I called anyway. They were open but the person I was to speak to was not there. Sigh.... Dave said I had way more patience than he did.

So the next day I called and got everything sorted out. I guess if you don't use your Sears card for a while they knock your credit limit down to 400$. So I got it to where it used to be. I was told to call back Sears and give them a authorization number to get my order on it's way. So.... I called back Sears, got shuffled around again and FINALLY got a person that knew what I was talking about. There was just one glitch...The order had been deleted because it had been more than 24 since I had placed the order!!!I was so ticked off to say the least. So I hung up, got back online and ordered the boots again! This time I was so upset I only ordered 236$ worth.

Once again...I didn't get a confirmation email! I called Sears AGAIN. The guy told me the order had in fact gone through and I would get it in 3-5 days. I was so happy. But the story doesn't end there.

The next day I got 2 confirmation emails from Sears!!!!! The first order had gone through after all!!!!!!!!ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! So Friday I am expecting over 700$ in kids boots!

I just couldn't believe it! It's just so funny. You just have to laugh instead of cry. How can one company be so, so , so I can't even think of a word to describe them. So Saturday I'm going to go to Sears and I'm NOT bringing all those boots home. I'm going to get J. to try them there. I'm also going to refuse to pay the shipping charge. If they weren't so inept (is that the word?) I wouldn't be in this predicament.

Well Dave's arm is not better and he's still off work. He has to wait for an appointment to a specialist that could take months and there's a pending strike with hospital workers, bus drivers etc... so that won't help matters any. We might have to start cutting back on things like satellite tv, internet etc... I'm so depressed.

Dave and our pastor went to the valley today to pick up some feed for the pigs. Getting it from the feed store is getting too expensive, so there's a guy that mixes his own 2 hours drive from here and it's half the price. I hate not buying local, but sometimes it cannot be helped, especially now with Dave and his arm. We bought 15 bags at 70lbs a bag for 187.50$ that's about half the price than if we would have paid it at the feed store.

I decided not to breed Whisper this year. She's still too small for my liking. Maybe next year. I'll have to wait and see.

Well that's enough blogging for tonight. I was so into my story, I forgot to call the guy that does the power point at church with my order of service for Sunday. Opps.

Have a Blessed Evening.

Lisa

Collapse!!!

Well we've had so much snow that the chicken's outdoor pen has collapsed. There's so much snow that we cannot get to that part to fix it. And it doesn't help that hubby's arm is broke and he's off work for a while. Not good. So they do have the other outdoor pen to go in,so it's not so bad. They weren't going in this one anyway, since the snow was too high and they couldn't get through the door.

I'm thinking of sending Whisper off on a month long date at a friend's house. He's got Boers, not Nubians like Whisper is. But It'll have to do for this year. Maybe next year she'll be easier to tell if she's in heat or not.

I'm actually thinking of switching breeds and just raising Nubians. I really don't want to get rid of my Alpine, but we definately cannot get rid of Whisper. J. would have a caniption fit! But I want to downsize to one breed and then I could maybe keep a buck on the premises.

I have to think and pray on this a bit longer. I really like Febe, she's a good solid milker, but she is very tempermental. I cannot trust her alone with J. Whisper is a pussy cat. Very docile and cuddly.

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa

After the storm.

We the last couple of days we have been hit with a wicked snow storm. It started New Years Day in the evening and ended Jan 2. But man in that day and a half we had snow! It was nice. They say we had 30cm, but here we had way more than that. It's also nice snowman snow. Which is good if you want to build a snowman or a fort, but.... if you want to get rid of the snow in your very long driveway it can be a pain. This was what our friend Chris calls, heart attack snow!

Our patio railing. We had cleaned it off twice that day! Notice the size of the wood. That's a 2x4 .

This is a self portrait of me, while J. was sledding in a blizzard. I was hidden under the neighbour's barn.

This is supposed to be my bird feeder. Think there was a bit of snow?

During the school break, our church rented the skating rink and we all went skating and then had hot chocolate and cookies. That was fun.

Here, J. is enjoying a cookie after a hard evening of skating and playing hockey.

We have had a small set back. Dave has broken a bone in his wrist. Not good. He did this at the beginning of December, but the doctor said it was just a sprain. So last week after much more pain, he went to see the doctor on call and she said it was broken. So off to Xray he went and, yes, it was broken. So he's off work for a while.

Since spring is just around the corner, (yes, I'm the eternal optimist) I'm thinking of incubating some eggs in the incubator. The rooster is really making his rounds, so I'm wondering if I shouldn't start the incubator a bit early this year. The only thing is that I'd have chicks in the basement for a few months. Let me give ya'll a word of advice....chicks and cats don't mix.

So maybe I should wait another month.

It's so nice out today. I've dug a path to the goat pasture and put them out. They need the exercise. Febe has it a bit easier than Whisper since she's taller. The snow is actually up to her belly. But it's so warm out today and the sun is shining so, the snow should go quick.

p.s. I guess we had more than 30cm of snow. We had 65 cm!!!

Have a Blessed Day.

Lisa