Five weeks and counting . . .

Here we still are, three weeks later, and an adventurous day it was! Peter and Joseph were gone to Maple Creek, cutting meat, Mark and Elena went to Swift Current with all their family, David was working for the Richmound RM picking rocks, Justin is not well, so that left John Sr. Gabriella and I to look after the farm. I remembered after several hours of doing laundry and making Lasagne that I had forgotten to check the stock tank. It was dry as a bone and there were a number of cows waiting patiently for water. So I turned the water on, then noticed a cow or two wandering around in the yard. Fast forward - help my Father-in-law mend fence, run back inside, check Lasagne, switch laundry, run back outside, stock tank is running over, turn off hydrant while wading ankle deep through muck in my sandals, eat Lasagne, do dishes, switch laundry, run hydrant again, cow knocks the pipe off the hydrant, barnyard gets flooded, turn off hydrant, run to town for Divine Mercy novena prayers, hurry home, pile laundry on bed.

Peter and Joseph came home after that, so things settled down nicely. Now to spend a nice quiet evening catching up on the pro life books!

Glug, glug . . .

Our slough has overtaken our lagoon. That means we have no plumbing in our home - we have to drain the sink very slowly after washing dishes. So, for the last two weeks, we have been living at Peter's parents' house. They have been very hospitable and accommodating. I've been enjoying getting up in the mornings and visiting with them over breakfast. Can you smell the "however" coming? However, I used to think that homeschooling and cooking dinner at the same time was a challenge. Homeschooling and cooking dinner in someone else's house is infinitely worse! I'm never sure whether I should just be cooking dinner, or collaborating with our hosts' dinner plans, or expecting that they will just cook for all of us. The last seems a bit . . . hmm . . . unreasonable. At the moment, the boys and I are reading "Euthyphro" and "Ion." Diverting! Peter has borrowed more pipe from someone so that we can pump our lagoon water SOMEWHERE ELSE. Finally, the run-off seems to have slowed down so that we can make some headway, so we may not have to live in two houses for long.

Help! I'm drowning!

Earlier this week, I got a phone call from the boys' regular voice teacher. She had asked me to accompany her students in this year's music festival and I did agree. She was going to leave me some music "for my practicing pleasure" in a green box in the United Church and could I please pick it up when I was in town?
Well, I should have brought a truck with me that day. There was an enormous pile of music there. There were only 5 voice students who needed me, so I thought maybe I'd get away with not too much. However, I do enjoy a little musical challenge. You can imagine my delight when I went to the boys' voice lesson, with another teacher, and was asked if I would accompany her students also.
Well, we went right home and I got the music right out and started practicing diligently. 2 1/2 hours later I hadn't quite finished running through everything once!
Do you know, the very hardest of it all, including the classical, Broadway musicals, folk songs and sacred - is the music from "Shrek." The notes are not at all difficult - it's the one AND two rest rest AND four that gets me every time.
Excuse me, I have to go. I'm a little busy until the end of March.