Our International Moose Incident

Yesterday, while Peter was out in the field combining, he noticed two moose running like crazy across the field, over a fence and off into the west. He radioed us all to get our attention. Unfortunately, the boys and I were on our way out the door to voice lessons and karate, so we had to miss the whole thing. Apparently, what happened later was quite spectacular.
Not long after Peter alerted us, my brother-in-law, John T., was walking in the field and he happened to notice two moose heads bobbing up and down inside a large water tank that surrounds one of the gas wells on our land. He alerted somebody - not sure who - and soon the whole countryside was out here, cheering for these moose and trying to help them out. They were as mad as heck as you can well imagine, so it was not too easy to get close. Some brave soul eventually managed to cut a chunk out of the tank and free the moose.
Today, we went and had a look at the site of the event. It looks quite peaceful now, with a nice square-shape cut out of the tank and not too much evidence of a struggle. Nobody has seen the moose since. They probably decided there is better swimming somewhere else in the world.

"Oh, there's nothing halfway..."

A couple of weeks ago, I went to "Music Man" camp with my two elder sons while they auditioned for roles for the November production in Maple Creek. It was quite fun, really. I sewed 6 vests and an apron on a serger, and moved a number of buttons. They have stacks of old costumes at Camp Shagabec, where they always hold their music camps, and every year a number of seamstresses get together and try to adjust them for the current performance.
Daniel will be a salesman in the beginning train scene, then he will be the bass singer in the quartet for the rest. Joseph has several roles - he will be the train conductor at the beginning, the constable for most of the rest, with brief stints as the farmer in the Iowa song and a townsperson in the Wells-Fargo song. He also gets to dance and sing in "Shipoopi" which will be fun.
After I finished all my sewing, I moved to the kitchen, where I mostly sat and watched the professional cooking staff do their thing. Thank Heaven they liked just having company in there, because I wasn't much use for anything else. I did get to clean windows at the end, though.
Now we're off to Maple Creek every Sunday afternoon from now till the performances in November.

Playing in the dirt

Give me a pile of manure and another pile of gravel and I'm entertained for weeks.
Peter brought me over a pile of manure not long ago and I've been busy spreading it wherever I take the fancy. I made a new flowerbed out front and I've been preparing a row of soil for a lilac hedge we will be planting in the fall. The day before yesterday I dug all the grass out from around our present hedges, put manure around each tree, and yesterday I set up irrigation hoses for them. Now I can sit in the kitchen and drink coffee while watering.
I also plan to set up another flower bed so that I can plant some perennials in it this fall.
As yet, Peter has not brought me a pile of gravel. oooh! I can hardly wait!

those musical types!

Two of our boys had the great opportunity this summer of performing in a Gilbert and Sullivan musical, directed by a young man and a young lady from Maple Creek area. A local family hosted the out-of-town performers for the eight days of preparation for the performances.
On the way home from Eastend, after the first performance, some of the participants were listening to music on an i-pod, and when some music came on that they found inspiring, they pulled over to the side of the road and started dancing in the road allowance. This was about 11:00 p.m. on a Thursday night.
The parents who were hosting the performers, saw the vehicle pull over and were alarmed. "It looks like something dreadful has happened! What are they doing?" So they pulled up behind them, and their son jumped out of the van and ran over. When the parents caught up, their son informed them: "They're . . . dancing."
My boys, of course, were right in there, enjoying the whole thing.
We have many happy memories of our week and a half of preparation for this musical, and especially of the people we met.

FVPD

We had a kind of comedy of errors in Fox Valley recently that led to the successful arrest of a wanted man.
Police had discovered a stolen vehicle by our sodium sulfate plant and searched the building to find the man who had driven it there. They discovered a number of stolen articles in the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Ron B. was driving from his farm to town with his wife and daughter in the vehicle, when they came upon a lone and rather desolate man in the rain. They thought maybe his vehicle had broken down, and they offered him a ride to town, which he gladly accepted. While they were driving along, Larry H. from town phoned Ron to mention that there was a wanted man named _____ on the loose somewhere in the neighbourhood of their farm and would they please keep a look out for him. Ron said "We just picked up a guy. What's the name of the man they want?" Larry said, "It's Larry _____". So Ron turned around and asked the man in the back seat what his name was. (does this seem like a good idea to you?) He said, "Larry." Then Ron said to Larry H., "Can you please call the police?" Larry said, "Okay, just take him to the Valley O." ( local restaurant) Ron dropped the wanted man off at the Valley O and warned Audrey, the manager, who was there all alone, "Keep him here until the police arrive - he's wanted." So Audrey took a long time cooking his dinner, then sat down and made small talk with him until the police arrived. The police came after a while, handcuffed him and searched him and discovered a gun.
The only thing we can figure is that "Larry" must have been so desperate to go home (jail) that he acquiesced in all this. Now that it's all over and no one was hurt, we laugh.

O Folio!

A few blogs ago, I was doing some advertising for the excellent trivia quiz 4marks.com puts out every Monday. I'm here to mention they also have a wonderful "facebook" called "folio." It seems to be very much like facebook in every way except for the sometimes bothersome images that pop up (on facebook, I mean.) My boys were running into problems of that sort with facebook occasionally, so we decided to cancel. Folio is great! Except that none of you are on there yet, so we can't visit so well. So, come on over and check it out. 4marks.com/folio

Gophigure!

Holy Mackerel, have we a lot of gophers this year! We notice in the country that when there is a plethora of some creature, soon there is a corresponding plethora of a larger preying creature. Hence, the years we have been overrun with grasshoppers, we expect to see frogs, etc. later. I'm surprised there don't seem to be as many large birds of prey around as usual - maybe that's why the gopher binge - but maybe we'll have some later. Hmmm - what else eats gophers?

I was reading an article in the Maple Creek Advance Times the other day about rattlesnakes. A man from Burstall area has several rattlesnake dens on his property and he likes it. He says he never has the trouble with gophers that other farmers have. I personally think I would rather have the gophers.

Renovations Part III

Well, what a disaster we had here the week before last! I am now sufficiently recovered to talk about it. Only just!
We were installing ceramic tile in our kitchen. Peter and I (yes, we're still married!) did it ourselves, with a little help from our boys. We were SO careful about how we spread the adhesive, only applying enough to lay a tile or two at a time. We stayed off the tile for the requisite 24 hours, then I applied the grout. Oooh, that's messy! Like making mud pies.
We applied the last of the grout on Thursday, the day before we were expecting four guests - the Face to face team - for a parish retreat. By the end of Thursday and all through Friday, it was becoming very apparent that many of our tiles were not sticking, some of them were cracking, and the grout was crumbling. Since we were having company and I was helping to run this retreat, we had to leave everything for Monday, and I had to put my oven back so that I could actually cook something for somebody.
While this was going on, we were also looking for a new vehicle. For the past couple of months we have been borrowing vehicles every time we've gone out - shopping, to Karate, voice lessons, Mass, piano lessons, etc. Peter made a deal on a suburban from Saskatoon through a dealer in Swift Current. "Yes, we have an eight-seater for you. Yes, you can come and pick it up on Thursday." So in the midst of everything at home (oh, did I mention calving?) Peter's brother John made a special trip to Swift Current to drop us off at the Dealers so we could drive our new suburban home.
John took off, then we discovered our suburban was a 7-seater. We have to have an 8-seater so we can take Peter's parents with us sometimes. Peter had to go and tell the salesman that 7 and 8 are not the same thing and 7 won't do. Unfortunately, our dealer was not there. We managed to get ahold of John, who was on his way home already, and ask him to come back to get us. As a result, a quick trip to drop us off turned into a day-long shopping trip for him, since we had a "few things to pick up."
We got home safely, our company arrived and we had a lovely visit - until the plumbing backed up. Oh yes, it did. What a mess!
We had to tell our guests "Sorry, no showers, and please don't flush the toilets anyone."
Happily, we were out of the house all day Saturday, and didn't need the plumbing. Peter got to stay home from the retreat and scour the countryside for an available lagoon-pumping person. (What do you call those?) Eventually, our lagoon got pumped out, the plumbing was back to normal, and we all had a good weekend, except maybe Peter.
Then, on Monday, the car salesman, who was feeling somewhat remiss, replaced the back bucket seats with a bench, thus turning a 7-seater into an 8, and sent two of his employees to Fox Valley to deliver said vehicle in person.
All's well that ends well, eh?
Now, if only we can fix the floor. . .

We're off and running!

Well, the bedrooms are done, except for the trim - baseboards, etc. Yahoo!
Now all we have to do is move the washer and drier downstairs, make our old laundry room into a storage room, rebuild the roof supports in the space above the garage and build new bedrooms in there, then build our "shop" in the present garage. We want our new shop to be a place where the boys can build things, we can set up our ping pong table and Peter can work on projects. Having all the boys home during the day is wonderful, but it requires a little more space. Our house would probably be adequate if they were going to school.
Unfortunately, everyone's run out of gas after this last stint, so I'm not sure how to get us up and running again. Maybe a whip? Hmmm...
Oh I forgot, we also got ceramic tile for the kitchen floor. Our old vinyl tile is worn right through in places.
Hopefully, with the proper inspiration (see whip above) we can get all this done before we hand down the house to our sons. (except for the trim.)