So Kev was bored tonight :-)

Click here for a laugh! Starring Elizabeth the (late) sheep, Alison, Iain and Claire :-).

K.

This made me laugh this morning! An e-mail from our local Freecyle group ...

Belleville Freecycle

Offer: BELLEVILLE fresh snow

125lbs of fresh, untouched snow - all you have to do is go to a my
house and pick it up off of the driveway...

_._,_.___
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And for those of you who have not discovered Freecyle, hop on over to this website and find a group near you! Wonderful way to declutter your home and bless someone else at the same time. We have received craft paints, scrapbooking supplies, and shingles for our chicken coop; and have decluttered birthday supplies (saved for a rainy day and lost for several years :-) ..), computer parts, and you name it. This movement started in Arizona and is a Really. Good. Thing.

Quick farm update ...

Spencer has moved on to greener pastures in search of more beautiful, woolly women. He has been purchased by a Shetland farm north of Guelph. My ewes are very happy he is gone. All is now peaceful. I'm positive he covered Latifah; she did the whole mellow-kick back-smoke a cigarette-thing after the fact ;-). The two 2007 lambs? Your guess is as good as mine. I think he covered Jasmine. Maybe. And I'm not sure Kivu ever let him anywhere near her. Weirdly enough though, she was the only one that looked sad when he left. Too little, too late, Kivu :-).

The girls are in their small winter pen now. The big snow the other day resulted in some serious shoveling; Alison and I had to shovel the pen out 'cause the snow was getting too high. One more snowfall like that and the girls could have walked out over the top rail! I strategically situated their hobbit house sheds to open to the north-east; the majority of the winds on our property come from the south, south-west, or east. Once a year we get a good nor'easter that blows snow inside. In theory. However this is the second nor'easter we've had this winter so far (and it's not even officially winter!!!!).

My awesome neighbour and hay supplier gave me some bad news. Beef prices crashed in the fall, so he's overwintering more cattle than usual. Which means, of course, he'll need more hay than usual. This is an industry-wide issue in this area, combined with a lackluster (if any) second cut due to the drought. Hay might be quite dear by the spring.

So all is peaceful and quiet, and the girls will spend the winter quietly eating and ruminating and hopefully growing babies due some time after March 27, 2008.

Woo hoo! Preview for the new Narnia movie, Prince Caspian :-).

My very first skeins :-)

Really, very little about these is truly mine. Yes, I did the spinning. However, Ann-Marie dyed the wool, and after spinning plyed and washed it.

(But I'm still pleased. If you should chance clicking on this photo and enlarging it, you will see some areas of fine fingering-weight (sock wool), areas of chunky weight and areas that are barely spun and somewhat embarassing. I am not consistent. Ann-Marie was very encouraging though, and said it was fine :-) ...)

Alison babysat at the MacKay's home last night, and was treated to a very brief 10-minute introduction to spinning once Ann-Marie was home (cut short by Kev coming to pick her up!). She is very eager to try more!

Answered Prayer No. 1 (From July)

Remember this post?

My friend's sons have now been home for a week, two years from the start of the process! The transition has not been easy but they are thankful that at last, their boys are home with them.

Please pray for our friends, the Waldinspergers ...

They have been trying to get a neat ministry off the ground. It's a combination emergency housing for abused women and children, and therapeutic riding operation. They have built the emergency housing portion, and are living in it until they can afford to put a house up for themselves. They've only been in it for about 6 months.

Yesterday they came home to find the house on fire (I believe faulty fireplace; modular housing). Please pray that they were well insured and that God will bless them with something even better once the house is rebuilt. And they would not be discouraged from their vision despite this, only one of many setbacks they have faced.

Thanks.

Update Dec 5: The house is a write-off and insurance will completely rebuild. Insurance co. will also move a trailer onto the property and attach to septic/well so they can stay on property to care for horses. We will be puppy-sitting for two weeks until their trailer is set up :-) ... an un-housetrained 12 week-old chocolate lab pup.

Lots of family news and I'm getting behind :-)

Kevin will be headed to Chatham again in a little over a week. Our friends Al and Rosanne Baker are officially moving to Chatham, so Al needs a little time to move his family. For those days, Kevin will be doing the morning show out of UCB Chatham-Kent, which is 89.3 FM on the dial. Apparently the Chatham station can be heard into the U.S., and as far as London and on some days Waterloo in south-western Ontario.

Alison had quite the monumental day on Saturday. First, she came home with two new sets of glasses. She has been wearing the same pair since we moved to the County, and they were now quite smallish on her now 5'1" hundred pound body. Courtesy of UCB and their benefits and perks, she now has a funky pair of black glasses (we call them her "serious musician specs") and another set that are sort of a coppery brown.

But even more exciting to her; it was announced in her class early last week that there were some job openings at a small barn near Northport. The owner/instructor was looking specifically for a couple of grade 8 students to work two hours a week, in return for a free one-hour riding lesson! Alison has been praying about riding lessons for two years, so she is very excited. I was excited because Alison has had a few lessons from Mary previously; she is a British woman with a lovely accent, a calm demeanor, VERY strict but kind, and very fussy about proper horse care and teaching solid basics. She also runs a very safe, organized barn, so it's the perfect place for Alison to start. She will learn the right and safe way to do things. During the summer holidays, should she be asked to work more hours, she will be paid for her time.

This has been a great exercise for Alison at 13. Mary wanted a complete resumé, written references, and a proper interview. The character reference that Janna Cylka wrote for her was truly beautiful. Alison is pumped! She works from 10:00 until 12:00 every Saturday; eats her lunch there and then has her riding lesson. Of course, we just realized that she has grown out of her riding boots AND hat; small problem, but not insurmountable. She has actually grown INTO some of my old breeches and my riding jacket :-)!

Claire has to wait another week for her glasses, unfortunately; she couldn't decide which pairs would be suitable the first visit. Hers should be ready the first of next week, and she is also thrilled! She is getting one set with therapeutic bi-focals (as per her current pair, but at half strength) and one set with NO bifocal as her eyes gradually strengthen. Once everyone's glasses are in, Mom, I'll post some photos!

And on the "thanks be for benefits" topic; I filled my first prescription on our new drug plan and paid $2.99. Even the pharmacist was impressed. Very thankful!

Major goings-on at our church. Too much to go into detail here; suffice to say that the physical church on earth is a poor type of the bride of Christ :-D. We are currently pastor-less; our senior pastor has moved on to a larger church in the Toronto area, and our youth pastor had previously been let go due to lack of funds. Kevin preached this Sunday and is scheduled to do quite a few of the advent/Christmas services. He will actually receive an honorarium for this, which is cool. The church will be looking for an interim pastor, I believe. More also going on (it's never that simple :-)) ; but God is still on the throne and things will work out in the end.

AND we have ANOTHER snow day; buses in three counties have been cancelled due to snow/slush/sleet/rain/snow (take your pick; it's all out there!). I can't believe how early the weather has gone wintry this year. The last couple of days have been more typical of mid-January or February. The good thing is, school has REALLY interfered with Christmas preparations, so we will attempt to head into Belleville later this morning for Alison's orthodontic appointment and to let the kids shop. We decorated the house yesterday so we definitely feeling Christmas-y.