A BEEHIVE OF ACTIVITY

And so, after convincing her that the Kindergarten she is enrolled in is an appropriate choice to start her in her journey to becoming a vet, Grace has happily begun, and is well settled in to, life as a student.  She loves riding on the bus and greets her driver with a "Good Morning" each time she boards, and an "I'll see ya in the mornin'" as she leaves at night.  Her Driver, a tidy and clean shaved, older Gentleman whom we've known for years from our community and as a frequent performer at our local Caleighs, is a meek and friendly individual and always has time for a brief chit chat as Grace boards the bus, which in itself has earned him status as her friend.  After her first day of school our neighbour, also a bus driver and friend of Grace's driver, asked Grace what she thought of her own Driver.  In all seriousness she informed him that "He doesn't at all look like he used to", fully knowing Grace's ability to string a good yarn he probed further as to why this would be.  "Well" she said "he is much older then I remember" then sticking her fingers above her head and rumpling her hair she said "he's started spiking his hair and he has a loooong white beard" this time indicating the length by cupping her hands at her chin and pulling them right down to her toes.  Her description proved to be a good tickle for our neighbours funny bone as he considered his friend through Grace's eyes. 

When Jamie's Mom met Grace's bus Driver while running errands one day, she came around to asking how her Granddaughter was getting along on the bus.  He told her "she sure likes to sing", to which Jamie's Mom laughed and agreed as this is very common knowledge to us all.  After hearing of her serenades on the bus I asked her what type of music her Driver plays for them, "well he plays Good Girl by Carrie Underwood a lot", "Oh really" I said and, knowing that Grace loves to sing this particular song in decibels that would make Carrie blush, I somewhat warily asked "do you sing with it?" "Yup" she answered casually, then worried that she may be disrupting the bus I asked her what her Driver thought of this "Oh!" she answered quite proudly, "He sings Ima Good Girl with me".

FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

My little girl has morphed into an independent thinker (at least that's what her teacher calls it!) and if ever I offer my assistance to her, or go ahead to do something such as zip her coat, she quickly reprimands me with a "Mom, what aw ya thinkin', I can do that cause I'm in Kindagawten now."  When going to bed at night, Grace always asks me to pray for her, now that she is in Kindergarten however, she likes to pray for herself.  A few nights ago I was sitting up in her loft bed listening to her sweet little girl prayer, asking that God help her to sleep well and and have happy dreams, as she thanked Him for Jesus I allowed myself a moment of overwhelming pride, then my bubble was more so obliterated then burst, as she asked God to "please make Mommy look less like a Baboon when she wakes up in the morning".

"Bethany The Screaming Bird" as Grace has dubbed her little sister, is living up to her name.  Not much concerned with learning a decipherable language, she is more interested in pointing, screaming and garbling like some sort of Prehistoric Linguist, and is capable, should her mood and the occasion call for it, of gesticulating and acting out her message Mime style.  She can get some words out from time to time, generally to back up a demand such as "Two hands baby" to indicate that she wants one for each hand of whatever I gave her, or if someone gives in to her hysterical shrieks and gives her what she wants, she turns her tears off like a faucet and says "Happy Baby".  Bethany is scared of nothing and possesses the opinion that virtually everything must be tasted at least once.  While even an iron stomach would get queasy over some of the things she's tried, it's the fearlessness that gets her in the most trouble.  We are all very cautious that the only animals she has highly supervised access to are our most quiet souls, as Beth has no problem toddling up to our largest livestock either for a chat and a kiss on the nose, or a carefully planted swat on any spot that might jiggle, ripple, or better yet, make the unsuspecting animal jump.

Bethany is a huge outdoor kid, she loves spending as much time out and about as she can, and better still, to get to do the things that her big sister can. A couple of weeks ago Grace, and her 11yr old cousin, were playing on the tire swing and offered to watch Beth while I made supper.  This was perfect since Beth had already began screaming and pointing over my shoulder at the swing as I tried to haul her off to the house.  About a half an hour later the girls came in carrying a somewhat bewildered looking, but not particularly upset, Bethany, and explained that she had a bunch of little hairs on her hand.  Upon first inspection she looked as though she had squeezed a Caterpillar and had thousands of it's hairs on her hand, assuming it was some sort of fungus I took a warm cloth and wiped it off, which prompted an instant scream as she pulled her hand into her body as though it was on fire.  A closer look showed that whatever the hairs were, had actually embedded in her hand and then broke off when I wiped them, so she then had thousands of tiny splinters.  The girls explained that she had her hand in a rain spout and when they took her away from it she kept casually showing them her hand.  I asked them to look inside to find out what might have been in the spout, they brought the piece she had her hand in back to the house and showed me what looked like several nests made by an unidentified bug but composed of thousands of these coarse hairs.  Not knowing what to do, in the middle of making a late supper and Bethany The Screaming Bird in near hysterics by this time I called my mother who suggested I call Poison Control.  The wonderful lady on the line immediately calmed my primary fear that we do not have any poisonous bugs to worry about on P.E.I and suggested that I try Duct Tape over her hand to pull out the splinters. Confirming my long time opinion that Duct Tape can solve anything, I informed her that she was a genius as she recommended we soak her hand in a sudsy bath and watch for infection.  In the end we were able to calm Bethany with a soaking bath and thankfully after watching a small red patch on her hand for a few days, she seems no worse for the wear.  It has been a couple of weeks since this has happened and she still has some splinters showing under the skin, but for the most part they are all out.

While it would seem that our sweet bundle of joy has manifested herself into something of a more feral nature, she is full of love and humour, and while she keeps us hopping, we're aware that this is a sign of good health, and like her Big Sis, she keeps us giggling.

Fall is upon us, we've finished with the straw and are hoping that the frost will stay away until Jamie is finished digging potatoes so that we can get some more second cut hay.  We have Isabelle The Jersey Girl living with us for the winter in hopes that she will eventually "get married" (as Grace says) to one of our bulls and produce a calf early next summer at Avonlea Village where she acts as a member of the petting farm and Dairy demonstration.  She currently has a calf on her and provides us with upwards of 5 gallon of milk per day which we separate, save the cream to make butter, and feed the skimmed milk back to several calves.  This drastically reduces our grocery bill since we typically go through about 12 litres of milk a week, plus a bit of cream and the butter we both eat and bake with.  Not to mention the occasional treat of Homemade Ice Cream.  Jamie is concerned he will double in size before she leaves our farm, but it has allowed me to stock pile butter in the freezer to do us over the winter. 

CREAM READY FOR CHURNING

THE END RESULT IS SOOOO WORTH IT!

JAMIE PLAYING THE ROLL OF MAINTENANCE GUY

Jamie is currently working off the farm driving a Potato Harvester for a grower in our area, this is his 10th season with him and once done with the potatoes, he plans to run a combine for him for the Corn and Soy Bean harvest.  He handles the morning chores here at home, which aside from Isabelle doesn't take too long with the cattle still on pasture, then the girls and I do the chores and milking in the evening.  With Grace in school I've been able to utilise Bethany's nap time to get some muchly needed Horse time in, I've started my own mare "Pixel" back to work and have begun training my 3yr old filly "Fuse", as well as putting some time on Grace's pony.  At this point my primary goal is simply to put a couple of rides on Fuse before winter, and to really focus on Hiccup so Grace can get the time on him she has been wanting, with the hopes of trail riding and a few fun shows next summer. Pixel, at 12 years old, has had alot of gaps in her training with my taking time off to have the girls and to train other projects, so I'm also hoping to fill some of them in and polish some of her work off.

JAMIE IN HIS ROLL AS POTATO DIGGER GUY

FUSE GETTING USED TO WORKING WITH A SADDLE ON

PIXEL BEING HER OVER EXUBERANT SELF

FUSE

FUSE LOVES TO STAND ON THE BRIDGE, FUTURE CHAMPION TRAIL HORSE??

 

The rest of my time has been spent canning, freezing, pickling, processing and of course making mounds of butter, have a look below at what else we've been up to.

FUN AFTER A VERY RAINY SCHOOL DAY!

BETH'S TURN

THE LOOK ON HER FACE WOULD MAKE YOU THINK OTHERWISE BUT SHE WENT DOWN IT ABOUT A DOZEN MORE TIMES

LOOKING A LITTLE DISHEVELLED

BIG SIS AFTER LANDING IN THE PUDDLE

 

ONE OF THE MANY CRUISE SHIPS THAT PASS THE FARM

THE BEST WAY I'VE FOUND TO CUT CORN ON THE COB FOR FREEZING

A SINK LOAD OF PARSLEY FROM THE GARDEN

HOMEMADE SPAGHETTI SAUCE FROM JAMIE'S PARENTS TOMATOES

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

TILLY AND FUSE

As a bit of a P.S., I thought it only fitting that I share the events of Grace's day yesterday as it was a dramatic spiral of bumps, scrapes, bruises and mousetraps. As we waited for the bus yesterday morning Grace was chasing our puppy Max in the driveway when she tripped over her feet and landed promptly on the gravel which rendered some fairly significant road rash to her forehead and cheek, and so began her day. Upon arriving home she decided she would like to ride Pixel for a change and as she was grooming her thought that she would like to clean out her feet, which would have been an excellent idea and great practise for her, except that she picked Pixels front foot up, panicked and then set it back down on her own foot. With her screaming and pulling on her leg like a snared animal, and me shoving Pixel off of her foot, I would have imagined she would have learned her lesson and kept her foot back, but when we replayed the entire event for the second time, it produced a resounding "Awww, I'm never gonna do this again!". So after an explanation as to what had happened and how to prevent it, and a bit of sympathy didn't convince her to get back in there and try it again, I had to pull out the "If you want to be a Cowgirl you gotta Cowgirl Up" pep talk which prompted her, with success, to try again. Her ride went superbly for about 1/2 an hour and she was all smiles until somehow Pixel stirred up a nest of Bees in the grass. Seeing Pixel stiffen up with a look that said, "I really want to bolt, but I know I'm not supposed", I told Grace to rein her in and I pulled her off, telling her what was up. Considering Grace's two main fears are Bees and the potential to be run away with on a horse, this was not happy news to her and she decided a swing on the Tire Swing was a safer bet until the Bees settled down. As I put Pixel back out to pasture I heard a resounding shriek from the yard and ran back to find Grace in hysterics and holding her arm, which apparently had been stung by one of the afore mentioned Bees. Previously in the day Bethany The Screaming Bird had arrived in the Hallway holding a set Mouse Trap that we had placed in the Bathroom in hopes of catching an unwanted house guest. Appalled that she was trying to eat the Peanut Butter it was baited with, and terrified it would snap on her fingers, I grabbed the trap and set it on the Bathroom counter, which is where it sat until Grace went to brush her teeth last night, and I was abruptly reminded of it's whereabouts as it closed on Grace's elbow and the shrieking once more ensued. Needless to say, bedtime was a welcome event in her eyes so after a good snuggle, a song, and a lengthy discussion about why she didn't have to worry because a mouse would never be in her bed, she fell fast asleep.