Come From Away

We have a long skinny strip of land that goes up away from our property. When we moved here it was being farmed by a local potato farmer. Soon after arriving he explained that the deal with the previous owner was not working out for him and he wanted to no longer trade services. This suited us fine because we were thinking that we wanted the land as a pasture and he said that he would plant it for us with hay.

We had a survey company come and mark the proper borders for the land as we want to start to put up our pasture fence. Thinking that this is going to be a fairly large task, we wanted to ensure that there was no dispute over the borders. Now that we have the official borders marked, it is clear that he planted part of it with hay and continued to use a strip up the side and across the back.

The part that is hay is now three foot tall grass, but the part he was using must have been planted with a “cover crop.” This is when they plant fast growing seeds that will grow up quickly and stop the topsoil from eroding due to winter winds. They then till these plants back into the soil come spring as a form of “green fertilizer.”

We now have about an acre of wild flowers that grow up one side of our pasture. It’s really something to see!

(Photos in this entry by the beautiful and talented K)

Peace ALL

Try to develop a good heart, a warm heart, a compassionate heart. This is very important for society as well as for one’s own health and peace of mind. To reject belief in formal institutionalized relgion is perfectly alright, but to reject a good heart is destructive to oneself and others.

— The Dalai Lama

It is time to fill the world with strong and powerful deeds. It is common knowledge that no great captain in the world has ever destroyed all of his enemies and lived with a sense of satisfaction. If one enemy is killed, two more will appear. It is important we cultivate love and compassion to all the sentient beings which is the way to bring peace to all. Not understanding the suffering inflicted on others is opposed to compassion and hence peace. Even our enemies are the same and want happiness. It is important to understand and differentiate the sin and the sinner. It is time to overcome negative feelings towards others and start doing good deeds when the world is already filled with too much negative deeds.

— The Dalai Lama

Penn & Teller have a great show called BULLSHIT! I highly recommend it!

It is described as follows:

Veteran producer Mark Wolper, Executive Producer Star Price and renowned master showmen Penn & Teller deliver a high-octane, weird, wacky, entertaining journey through some bizarre territory that no one else is brave enough to touch, with this Showtime reality series.

By their own admission, Penn & Teller have been dying to do a show like this. Confirmed skeptics and pro-science atheists (they refer to God as “an imaginary friend”), these magicians are big fans of the art of debunking.

Whether demonstrating how history’s most perplexing magic acts are performed in their sell-out Las Vegas show and TV specials, or producing their own series that pulls the wool off the public’s eyes, Penn & Teller’s mission is to expose the truth to an otherwise desperate and gullible public.

In Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, the crusaders utilize principles of magic and trickery, as well as good old fashioned “hidden camera” sting operations, to smoke out these nonsense peddlers and reveal how they operate.

They also call upon the scientific community for back-up. Penn & Teller have discovered that the evidence debunking bogus operatives exists in countless books, scientific papers and government-sponsored exposés – research that nobody else has presented to the public with such zeal, passion, and conviction.

As our increasingly anti-intellectual, anti-science culture moves on each day to new crackpot subject matters, Penn & Teller are there to aggressively shoot down whack-jobs and fuzzy thinkers, no matter where they originate.

Their attitude of serious, sober contemplation can be summed up in this quote about their current Las Vegas stage program: “We have been doing magic together for 25 years and are so sick of it we could spit. So, in the new show, we are moving into the field of religion and will be performing real miracles!”

No matter how popular a form of bullshit is – and regardless of what deep pockets or beloved figures support it – Penn & Teller are pit bulls for the truth, poised to tear down these myths in the most jaw-dropping fashion possible with their trademark wit and off-center comic sensibilities.

Beware faux miracle workers, yogis, dervishes, televangelists, zealots and cult leaders. Penn & Teller have you in their cross-hairs with a new series that strives to spark controversy, headlines and water cooler fisticuffs!

I was going out to get the mail and I noticed a hen in the ditch.

She was a big brahma hen. They are huge, gentle things that let you pet them and produce nice, big brown eggs. She was clearly eaten so a quick head count was taken and we are missing a few hens! Even some of them who had names are missing… There’s no trace of them at all, not even a pile of feathers…

Some quick barn repairs seem to have stemmed the tide. I can now understand why a farmer might shoot a fox or coyote.

Technorati Tags: chickens, country living

We had the most spectacular lightning storm. The sky was just blue for minutes at a time.

The next morning, we had a damaged component on the computer and our credit card machine was dead. The credit card machine has been changed and we are now waiting for a new component for the computer.

Today was the last day of school for the kids. They do an end of school “concert” and then they get to leave early with their parents.

Big “D” was not home five minutes before he says, “I’ve got nothing to do.” <sigh>

Hopefully, this is not what we have to look forward to for the whole summer!

There is one week of school left and the days of field trips are heavily upon us.

Last week I got to travel with L’s class to “Farm Day.” Some branch of PEI agriculture puts on a day that shows the kids how they plant trees, teaches them about farm safety, discusses the native animals of PEI, etc.

After this we went to Province House to learn about the first meeting regarding confederation and some other very interesting facts about PEI politics. They did a great job to engage the kids and we had a lot of fun.

I tried to get a picture of the enraptured and enthralled kids listening intently to their teachers as they were about to enter the building. Unfortunately, I instead ended up with the following testament to the difficulties of managing 45 excited kids.

Shhhh…

As it turns out the package had to be sent via Air Canada Parcel and was slated to arrive at 1:30AM on Saturday. Mike said that the best thing to do would be to do the AI right away. As he was going to a friends house for a party on Friday night and I was willing to drive and pick up the package, we decided that we would go ahead at 2:30 AM!

Leo (the stallion’s owner) has been very nice throughout the whole process and he was very careful to give K meticulous details regarding the flight number and the package number, etc. Obviously he does not know the scope of the Charlottetown International Airport. K called the airport to see where to pick up the package… They asked if it would be on the flight arriving at 11:30 or 1:30? Hmmm, perhaps we did not need that many details! (I have never been in such a small airport before… ) We are told to go to the counter and if no one is there, we should press the white button.

The flight arrived 30 minutes late and then the package was not on the plane. No explanation as to why. It was at the terminal in Toronto 7 hours before flight time… Major disappointment. Some tired frustration and annoyed fedupedness (yes, that is a word, just read it phonetically). I buy myself a Coke for the drive home. It sprays me with its foamy happiness in a vain attempt to raise my spirits. Much to its dismay, this has quite to opposite affect on me. I mumble a few choice words and drive home. At least there is no traffic.

The next day at 11:00AM I am happily leaving the terminal with a big white box under my arm that reads in large purpley letters, “HORSE SEMEN.” I stand tall and boldly stride through the airport like a puffed up, proud father.

Mike arrived at our place at 2:00PM to do the procedure. Here I am holding a tail once more. Apparently, Hilly has had an operation called a “caslick.” They have sewed her vulva closed so that she would no aspirate air when he was a racer. It’s not a big deal, but Mike was not aware of this at first and the poor girl has a tear that definitely hurt her. She will need to have this reversed should the pregnancy take as it will cause her some trouble foaling.

Now we wait two weeks and do a pregnancy test.

The weather continues to be cool, but this does not seem to have any affect on Hill’s heat.

Mike was back yesterday and figures that she will be ready sometime on Saturday. Hill is walking around the pasture today and “winking” at the other mares, so he’s definitely correct. I’ll take some video for the curious folks out there, if i get a chance.

Our “package” arrives Saturday morning by FedEx from Ontario and Mike will come back as soon as we are home to do the AI. Here are pictures of the donor

http://www.annabellastables.com/Matthijspage.html

After that we wait about two weeks and do a preg. test to see if she took.

Technorati Tags: horses

K has been aching to breed Hilly for a few months now. She wants a super expensive sport horse. Apparently, they are much, much, much cheaper to make than to buy and therefore the plan…

Anyway, the vet was out here a few of days ago as K thought that Hill has going into heat. I innocently and foolishly went outside to help. I thought that my duties would be restricted to fun things such as shooing off the other horses so that we could get Hill in and out of the barn without there being a lot of horsey antics.

Well…. The next thing I know, I am holding a horse tail to the side and avoiding getting my feet stomped while the vet sticks a tube in a place that she really does not appreciate. Dr. Mike’s (“just call me Mike”) next step was to dawn the shoulder length glove… Even though he was the one doing this, I still got to experience the odoriferous side effects of the next step… He proceeds to scoop poop out of the horse and tossing it onto the barn floor right next to me. (Hey, hey! Can’t you see that I am still wearing my “indoor shoes!” <sigh> ). Once this was done he inserts an ultrasound machine (and his entire arm!) to get a good look at the state of her uterus.

It seems that she was just at the end her heat, so he will be back tomorrow to give her a shot to speed up the oncoming next one. He says he will palpate her uterus to check its firmness when he is here. I think I will hide in the house until I see his truck pull away.