Alison was quoted last week in the County Weekly News

A friend of hers did an assignment for a journalism class, then her teacher asked her to submit it to both local papers. So, just for fun, here is one of the articles :-). If you double click on the photo, it will enlarge and her quote is in the top right corner.

A short school day here today; second fire of the season (why do the fires keep putting me to sleep???), then I'll take Iain in to Sonrise for French, Music and Phys Ed. Other than my time spent picking up Claire for her guitar lesson in town, I will be at Rosehaven Farm Store skirting some of my fleeces. My awesome husband has actually taken a day off next Wednesday, so I will be able to get to a Spinning Guild meeting :-). Hurray!

Feeling prepared for winter ....

We just got given a very old, but working, freezer, which is now ensconced in our garage happily freezing two lambs and 1/4 cow for the winter. We were able to get a really good price on 1/4 of one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_cattle

Supposedly the meat is divine, but we'll wait and see. All I know is the only time I've had a t-bone steak since we moved back to Canada was at a friend's party a couple of years ago, and we have three packages now!

I managed to locate our first firewood supplier by looking through my old day planners. They had taken a couple of years off, but the nephew is back in the county and really trying to make a go of his business. He is a GOOD supplier -- was able to custom order my wood from what he had available (beech = good, hardwood maple = good, ironwood (aka eastern hop hornbeam, not the ironwood of the South) = EXCELLENT! We had lousy softwood last year from a neighbour (but were in a pinch so we were grateful :-) ...) plus some donations (thank you guys!) but it was a patchwork kind of season. We just had our chimney cleaned and this is the first year it has actually been dirty; too much low temp burning wood. And oh, the ash build-up with softwood!

School is going well all around. Claire is LOVING grade 9 (do they make Grade 8 really boring on purpose I wonder???). She has a great Venture class, and the subjects she has been worried about are not an issue at all so far. Alison is enjoying her classes, although doesn't get any anatomy this term in science and the rest of her favourite subjects are next semester. They are looking forward to trying out for "Romeo and Juliet" next month. Alison continues her Saturday job, and is also helping out at Blumen for Taste of the County, a big "eat local" promotion that is county wide. Both girls are presently getting their passports ready for possible trips next summer.

Iain is having a great school year as well! I've chosen pretty much the perfect curriculum for him in every subject we do at home ... his attitude is getting better and better and (YAY) he really is getting interested in what he's learning. Not sure what about institutionalized school killed his desire to learn, but it's so good to have it back :-). It has also been awesome that he can attend Sonrise Christian Academy for their home school program. The new teacher they have is awesome, and Iain came home last week saying that he LIKED soccer (let's not talk about his public school phys ed experience, where if you're not skilled, you are ridiculed by the other kids and in some cases, even by the teacher :-( ). They are also using amazing (and very boy friendly) curriculum for French ... Iain spent over an hour last night studying it for fun!

Life is good ... and fun :-).

Sigh.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/09/22/ottawa-.html

Those of you who pray ... please do. The woman who was killed left a 7 month old baby (she was a single mom)and is the niece of my good friend and neighbour (just around the corner).

And since I just received my first ever request to become part of a jury panel in town, please know that I in no way want to be part of a jury in this case. I checked out a different news article than the one above, and a certain sentence, if true and not sensationalized ... well, I am not that strong.

I am grateful that the pair decided to break in to some place in Quebec, and got caught. Not so bright of them.

Please pray for Karen, my friend, her daughter Julie (who went to school at the same time as the one fellow charged) and Steffany's family and son.

Sigh.

Music to my ears :-)

There has been a resurgence of all things musical at our house. Any given minute I may hear Iain on his electric guitar (currently working on Viva la Vida), Claire singing or on her acoustic (she saved up most of her earnings this summer, and a portion is paying for 20 guitar lessons), or Alison learning great music on the piano. I'm grateful that this generation's music is amazing, even though I'm not, as a good parent, supposed to love my kids' music. Hello? Coldplay? The Frey? Even some of the alt bands' commercial stuff is awesome. Alison is also learning to play the djembi and playing with the worship team, and Claire continues to sing, as usual. Iain has been writing songs like crazy since he learned a few chords on the guitar as well. I love it :-). Life is good.

Anybody else on ravelry?

I have a few of you already; I'm kkaci if anyone here would like to add me :-). (I love private blogs!)

In honour of Mary Travers, dead of leukemia, age 72

Busy Fair weekend ...

with no fair photos lol. We were graced with the gift of a little guy over the weekend; an 18 month old cutie patootie who was the epitome of sunshine and butterflies. Our whole family is wildly in love with him. And I thought an 18 month old would be difficult. I realized at some point this weekend that B. was about the same amount younger than Iain, as I was younger than Bev. Mom, you didn't let on how much fun it was when there were older kids in the house as well :-). B. is currently transitioning to a forever home, and is future mommy and daddy will be blessed.

I finally actually submitted something to the fair this year. Managed to wash and block them the night before; bought tapestry needles and sewed in the ends at a cafe in Picton just prior to drop-off; they were actually still damp when I submitted them lol. I guess they dried by judging time (or else that's why they placed 2nd :-P). Kev will finally get his Father's Day socks!






The ribbing pattern is called More Fun Than Cables and can be found here, although I didn't actually use this pattern but modified my own toe-up circ needle pattern instead.

During the last week, Alison (and I!) also spent heaps of time on the 4H Sheep Club display. I should have taken a photo at the fair with it's 3rd place ribbon, but didn't lol. Here it was when finished in our family room:




MOST of the stages on the Fibre Processing display are Rosemary. Her show photo from last year, her fleece -- I realized at the last minute that the shearing photo was actually Loralei (you can tell by the large Blue-faced Leicester ears she inherited from her sire). The handspun was even done from her lamb fleece (and is still in process, but hey :-) ...)

I am definitely looking forward to some slowing of the pace of our lives :-). Pretty please?

And a couple of thought on fostering. Because there are so few children needing care right now in this area, our start has been slow. We haven't felt like foster parents yet, lol. We've now had three children, albeit only as relief care, and we're starting to feel a little like this is something we do! I am considering calling a neighbouring county that seems to have a higher need for foster families ... we'll see. The increased travel would make visits more difficult (although travel expenses are covered, once can't get time back lol). I did a car seat training course last week with CAS: MY, HAVE THINGS CHANGED since our guys were little (let alone since I was little and used to ride upside down drawing dinosaurs with my feet on the window ledge!). I had to borrow a carseat for this little guy ... a $400 carseat may I add, and had to drive to CAS and have in installed by a carseat technician. I have a document to show to the police should I ever get stopped for a carseat inspection. Wow. And this week I have to take the van to our local Ford dealership and have them install some hardware so it is legal for us to have a front-facing car seat installed! This van had years of front-facing car seats in it, mind you, however we were legal in the U.S. where much of that took place.

Anyway, the girls are off, breakfast and science and language with Iain beckon. Have a great day, all :-).

Lost a ram lamb today :-(

just a few weeks before he would have been shipped. Sigh. Stupid Shetland horns. I knew this would likely happen one day... electranet fencing and horns are an explosive combination. Sadly, he got caught up sometime during the night.

I'm grateful he died on a Tuesday night, because I had to place an emergency call to "Uncle Ted" and take our other ram lamb in this morning, before he jumped in with the ladies and gave me February lambs. Wednesday mornings are the only mornings animals are taken in at Aman's, so the timing couldn't have been better. I'm grateful for my good farmer friend Arnold, who will use his backhoe to bury the lamb in the back of his property (I have bedrock down about 10" at best, so there's no way for me to dispose of an almost full grown lamb here, whereas Arnold has six or more feet of good topsoil in some areas.)

HOWEVER I just took in my potential flock sire for this fall, so I now need to come up with a plan B. I do know it will NOT be a Shetland. I really wasn't thinking .... last year I traded off my Shetland ram to Bill Stearman before his horns were big enough to cause a problem. I left it too late this year.

Sigh.

No, I receive no monies for this shameless promotion :-)

This is the BEST coffee out there, bar none. And even better, it's marginally local AND 100 mile (to us). Okay, the beans came from afar, but the roasting is done here, in Kingston, ON. Even better, we can purchase it at our local Sobey's.

Eat (sorta) local; eat fresh!

Busy ... (what else is new???)

Trying to prepare house to have an 18 month old this weekend. Our house is so not toddler proof! Yikes. New rule: toddlers and babies on weekends only :-). Five sets of eyes and hands are the only way this will get done.

On the other hand, it's the county Fair this weekend, and it might be fun to have a little one to take on the kiddie rides ;-).

First lamb has been shipped to Uncle Ted's ... looking forward to finding out the quality of our lamb this year!

Alison is busily getting the sheep club display ready. Chimney sweep tomorrow. Foster parents' meeting tomorrow night. Dropping off display at fairgrounds Thursday night. Long-awaited Picton Skateboard Park ceremony Thursday night. Training night for new church sound system Thursday night. (Can you see our predicament? LOL. And at some point, our weekend visitor must come for a pre-placement visit (... but when?!?!?!). Oh yes, and two and a half cords of wood to stack.

Iain's homeschool program starts on Thursday, so he is very excited. So far our school year has started smoothly! He is really working on being focused, and some of what we are doing is just plain fun! Had a great phone call from the grade 7 teacher who will be his phys ed teacher for the program ... he is new to the school but it sounds like he is going to be just as amazing as the other teachers at Sonrise. Nice that he's a guy too! I'm hoping that on of these afternoons during school I'll be able to do some fleece washing and carding ... I have nine fleeces from July and September to ready for spinning.

Okay, my five minute window is over ... looking forward to our schedule settling down somewhat. Ha, ha. But I have been told that month long lapses in blogging are not acceptable ;-). It's true!

Cheers, all!

This-and-that

Iain's first day of school (yes, that is a cup of coffee in his hand!). The girls both headed off for a 7:30 bus this morning, and already that significantly improves our school day. We can be up, organized, and started by 8. This is a good thing.


Alison is done her job at Blumen, although will stay on call for emergencies. Here is an example of what we are eating at home now, post summer job training. This was a lunch a couple of weeks ago ... pan-seared crab stuffed mushrooms with County corn. Can I just say ... yum!



Two photos from the 2009 4H Sheep Show. I was very proud of both kids involved. Alison had to work, and realizes that the livestock portion of the sheep club may be over for her due to summer job and potential travel commitments (more about that later!)

Claire with Paris:


Iain with Babette:


Claire's new haircut (and since this photo, we have also put in a temporary colour, but that will have to wait ... STILL trying to fix her hair post-Annie!)