Thanksgiving

I am trying to keep this blog up to date a little more, just as a record for me. I have looked for other journaling solutions, from online diaries to video logs but all have issues, the online diaries don't seem to salve my need for rambling on and on about nothing in particular, as for the video logs, wow, they are a lot of work, and although I have managed to surround myself with a beautiful family and friends the star of the show is not to photogenic and I am not sure I am ready to unveil that on an unsuspecting public. I have a few vlogs I follow, mostly sailing or RV'ing types of folks, and maybe I can develop some kind of vlog that will showcase the places we go and see so that I can have that for when my eyes get to weak to look back at this journal here.

There that has salved my need for nonsensical rambling. It is hard for me to believe I actually used to find enough stuff to write about multiple times a week, but I guess it is a process, and I actually think you do more stuff when you have a blog entry in the back of your mind so maybe it will come back.

We are getting our doctors and dentist visits all up to date around here, winterizing what needs winterizing and our family RV storage lot is gradually filling as those who don't flee the snow bring their rigs back for their winter hibernation. We have our rig winterized but we are hoping we managed to bust it out of winter sometime next month and head for warmer climes. Brenda has a couple of dentist appointments that we have to stay north of the Medicine Line for but mid November we are hoping for a weather window that will allow us to escape.

Yesterday we celebrated our Canadian Thanksgiving here at Dogpound North with the girls, it is always great to see them and especially the grandchildren. Here is the requisite Thanksgiving Dinner shot.

I won't bore you with all the great photos of my grandchildren I got, those of you who are on Facebook with me have already seen them all, but here are a couple of my favourites from the day.

Auntie Becky and Alle horsing around 

Max seems to be thinking "I wonder if it is just my super canine hearing or are these guys extra loud today"

Looking out the window it is looking like winter has returned to DPN and I hear it is out in full force up at the Buffalo Creek Ranch in East Central Alberta as well, so it may very well be province wide.

Getting Ready

Well despite my good intentions here it is almost 2 and 1/2 months since my last journal entry. When last I wrote we were heading to Vancouver Island to visit our good friends John and Gina, and planning on visiting with Renè and Jeanette along the way. All that went according to Hoyle and we had a great visit with them all. We went to dinner at Fort Langley with Renè and Jeanette and then once we were back at their place we headed over towards the ferry terminal. We originally planned to just roll up to the locked gates and spend the night right there, but along the way we came across a Bass Pro Shop in Twassen and decided that looked like a better spot to hole up for the night. We were on the early ferry the

She fits and didn't actually take up the whole ferry

next morning so were pulling into John & Gina place around 9ish. Our rig was a tight fit, but with some help from our new neighbours, and rolling across their lawns we made it into our spot at the Resort on the Lake near Westwood Lake. It is a nice place with friendly folks and some great walking trails that Maya and Max just loved down by the lake.

We spent a great ten days hanging out here, picked a few berries, told a few stories, shared some laughs and met Brenda's long time online friend Angela and her husband Don, RV'ers who spend their summers on the Island and their winters in Arizona.

Then it was back to Dogpound North, but first we had to navigate the forest fires that BC has had going on all summer.

Fires along the Trans-Canada Highway just east of the Rogers Pass

I snuck out one day to see our nephew riding a bull up at Sundre. It was a learning experience for Justin as just after this shot the bull won the battle and drug him around the arena a bit before he got loose.

Early September is birthday time for the Tomasir kids so we headed in to spend a little time with Kash and Everly at their birthday bash. A good time was had by all and Grandma got some snuggles in, tell the truth so did I but there were no camera's spying on me.

Kash and Grandma

Everly and Grandma

 The rest of September was taken up just fiddling around here at Dogpound North, got a little road work done, fill in some sunken spots around our fire pit and closed up the big burning pit we used to get rid of our old barn. Then it was time to take our rig up to Allandale to get a few warranty things looked after. One of our solar panels must have taken a direct hit from a meteorite or something as it was shattered, so that was replaced under warranty as well. Allandale did a pretty good job, but Heartland the manufacturer of our Road Warrior is pretty slow getting parts out to their dealers so it was there a lot longer than was the plan.

Dry Island Provincial Park along the Red Deer River

Last weekend Lacey and Clayton brought the girls down to have one last visit with us before we head south for the winter so it was great to see them one last time as well.

Alle

Ella and Alle monkeying around

We got the rig back today and other than the 50 mph winds that blew me home from Red Deer that went well. Tomorrow we start loading it for our southern migration, so we are hoping to be south of the Medicine Line and looking for warmer climes pretty soon.

Sunset over Dogpound North last night

Still Kicking

It has been the best part of a month since I updated the journal, so I thought I would let you all know we are still alive and kicking here at Dogpound North. There haven't been a lot of exciting things happening here other than fence building and the seemingly never ending task of hauling away broken tree branches from our late summer snow storm last year.

Not to sure but I think I have moved about 100 loads like this so far.

And as you can see it isn't done yet.

Way back in May Mom and I took a trip up to our friends the Pohl's place near Ponoka where they had a Farming with Horses day going on, coincidentally on Mothers Day. They were plowing, disking, and harrowing in preparation for seeding about 5 acres with oats. There were a bunch of teams there and it didn't take long till it was looking pretty good.

Nope Ben and Beauty didn't fall into the Lady Clairol, Ken borrowed this team for a bit.

Doing a little plowing

 

 

 

We did get out and visit some little people in the last month though.

Hmmm, not getting in the house like that though!

 

But Grandpa I am still pretty cute.

 And Max and Maya are enjoying the summer here and all the green grass to roll on.

Mid June Rebecca and her cousin Leighanne took off on a little bike ride to raise some money for MS. They rode about 178 km's over two days along with about 800 other riders and managed to raise about $650,000 total. Good for you girls.

It has been a pretty nice spring here in the north country and just the last few days we have been getting a little moisture which makes digging those fence post holes a whole lot easier.

Once again we have resumed our monthly lunches with our eldest granddaughter Claire and yesterday we tracked down the Perogy Boys food truck and gave them a whirl. There are a bunch of different trucks rolling around Calgary and if it weren't for the fact that we need to try out some of the others we certainly would be back at this one pretty soon.

Two of my favourite girls.

Today was Father's Day here on the farm and I celebrated by getting a few more fence posts dug in and mowing all that nice green grass. That made it a great day in my books and Brenda cooked me up one of my all time favourite dishes, Fetticcini Gigi so that made it even better.

An Unexpected Early Sunrise

 Two days two blogs, maybe what my Inuit friends are saying is true. The earth has shifted.

After Brenda's trip home to deal with her brother Brent's passing she was back down here getting ready for Christmas. She always like to do a lot of baking to get ready for the season, so that means I have to get out my tasting hat to make sure it is all OK to serve to company. As usual everything passed the taste tests and if company hurries there might even be some left to serve to them.

This is a big Christmas for us as early Christmas morning Santa is delivering our presents to the Sky Harbor airport in the form of our granddaughters Ella and Alle, oh yeah, and their parents too.

Ella, Alle and mom, Lacey along with Claytons legs

The weather was a little cooler than I was hoping for their visit but these are tough Canadian girls and were running around in sun dresses and shorts for most of the week while everyone around them was bundled up in their winter gear.

On Boxing Day or the day after Christmas for our American friends we just chilled at home. Ken and Verna Pohl came over in the afternoon with their wagon and Ben and Beauty and took the grandkids and I for a ride around the neighbourhood. The kids loved the big horses and enjoyed the ride.

I hadn't packed a helmet for the girls so riding the horses here at Dogpound South was going to be a non-starter, but luckily Santa Claus got that covered. They were sure happy with their upgrade as back home in the North Country they were wearing an old motorcycle helmet and this is definitely a more styling look.
.

Gotta a little growing to do to fit those stirrups

 The day after Boxing Day we headed out to Goldfields for a little dancing and a look around.

That blurry look is natural for these girls, they never slow down.

Goldfields townsite

 The kids enjoyed the gunfight with the little one clapping enthusiastically when the shots were fired and the gunfighters were falling down. We even ventured out on the train ride, rumour had it that the local " Canadian Rubber Band Bandits" were out in the hills so it would be a safe journey. In fact those same rumours said a local hero was going to try to lead them out into the Superstitions and lose them in the dark out there so they would never again harass the peaceful citizens of Goldfields.

Keeping an eye out for bandits

The rest of the week was filled with eating out and hanging out at Dogpound South. I for one sure enjoyed the kids visit and marvelled daily at the amount of energy they had. They were up with the sun and went steady till long after it set.

This little fellow was watching the activities all fluffed up from the cold.

Meanwhile these Canadian girls had captured the ice cream truck for some treats

And a little tomfoolery

Sisters

 

They love our dirt

Walking the tightrope

Burning off some energy and helping Grandma get the dog hair off the beds and into the house.

But even the best holidays have a little computer work involved

Sadly New Years Eve I had to run them back into Phoenix to catch a plane home, and no matter how I tried I couldn't talk them into staying with us and letting their folks go home alone.

We haven't been doing much trail riding as Brenda's knee is still pretty painful. She has worked hard to get the flexibility that she needs back and has been successful at that, but the swelling just won't seem to go away so it is still difficult to build up the strength she needs to ride and control her horse properly.

And probably a good thing as over the last month or so both Blue and Willow have been on the injured reserve list so Brenda's Wink horse is our only sound mount right at the moment.

Back to the title of this entry. My Inuvialuit friends up Inuvik way tell me that the sun rose on January 4th this year. Doesn't sound all that odd to most southerners but as long as I can remember and that is a long, long time, I am sad to say, the sun has always risen on January 6th, after a month of no sun at all. In the summer though they get 56 days when the sun never sets at all so it seems a fair trade I guess. Kind of makes you wonder if this old earth is really spinning out of control or what.

Still Kickin'

Well I see it has been a while since I last put some words together for those few folks who still check in on us from time. It is not that we are doing nothing, just probably nothing that is all that interesting for our readers. I go swimming most weekday mornings and try to average 16-20 (10-12 miles) kilometers a week. Most weeks I make it but last week was a washout,  between a cold, muscle spasm in my back, and a flooded basement I didn't get much swimming in, but I am back up to 16 this week.

Brenda's knee is story all by its own. She has been feeling like she is not making enough progress so we headed down to see the doc a couple of weeks earlier than scheduled. They took an X-Ray and that indicated maybe they should investigate it a little more throughly. Scheduled an CT-Scan, but we didn't like the timing on that so we jumped ship and had a private clinic do one for us. That got us back to the doc a little quicker and with the CT-Scan confirming what he had suspected from the X-Ray he said she is not to use her leg for about 6 weeks. Not a happy camper I am here to tell you. They say she has a crack in her femur and are hoping that keeping the weight off it will allow it to heal as there is no displacement. Now those who know Brenda know that sitting around is not one of her better developed skills so I am constantly nagging her to stay off it, often to no avail. Oh well, hopefully my nagging will help it heal.

June is usually a pretty wet month around these parts and this June is no exception. Over the last few weeks we have accumulated about 7-8 inches of rain and even as I write this it is coming down hard.
 During one of those rain events the sump pump in our basement failed and within a couple of hours we had converted our always dry basement into a wading pool with about 5-6 inches of water. A quick trip to town and a new pump and the incoming water was once again diverted back out. That only left us to mop up. Luckily our insurance covered this type of failure so within a day or two they had the carpet ripped out, all damaged contents logged and hauled out and had stripped away the drywall and a battery of industrial fans and dehumidifiers howling away in our basement drying it out again. We have taken two good sized dumpsters full of building materials and other assorted flood damaged stuff out of the basement so it is looking pretty empty down there right now. Eventually we will replace the carpet and the drywall and things will quiet down around here again as we shut the fans down.

Everything is drying out, at this point the tear down is completed. You can see the maps on the walls, Dad had collected road maps from around the world and wallpapered some of the walls in the basement with them but the bottom half had to go with the wet drywall, to bad but we'll probably keep the top half.

Other than watching the rain come down and trying to keep up with the grass mowing we have really not done a lot of anything this last month. What with Brenda's bad leg and the wet weather it has been a difficult to get up much ambition for a camping trip, but we are planning on heading out next month and at least get a little mountain time in and maybe a ride or two for Blue. Wink and the rest are just hanging out getting fat on our over abundance of grass.

"Who us? Fat?"

But it has not been all rain, we had some great days and these folks came by to make sure Grandma and I didn't float away.

And we have managed to keep the grass from overtaking the house, although that means everytime there is a couple of hours of sunshine we roar out of the quonset with the John Deere's and cut as fast as we can.

And I have been able to keep an eye on the neighbourhood youngsters as I head out in the early mornings to go for my swim as well.

It's Spring............

It is spring here at Dogpound North, we are down to just some 3 or 4 foot drifts around the yard and most of them should be gone by late June or early July. Just kidding although we are having some nice warm days we are still getting some wintry days also. Oh well, that IS spring in Alberta. We usually get most of our snow in March and April so I am hoping this year is a little different than usual cause we have enough snow already.

We are into week 4 of the rehab of Brenda's knee and although she is not convinced it is going as well as it should, all the professionals we see think she is doing great. Might be a while before she starts running marathons or riding Wink, but she is doing a lot of her usual stuff. Tough to keep her down.

Last weekend we snuck into town and picked up a stationary bicycle from Claire's Mom Melissa, thanks Melissa, and while we were there we kidnapped Claire and took her out for lunch. She is a delightful young woman and managed to put up with her old grandparents and keep us entertained and caught up on the goings on in her life.

And then once we got home Clayton, Lacey and their girls popped by to have a visit. Major score three granddaughters in one weekend.

As the snow melts around the country the wildlife is starting to move around a bit more. These moose are hanging out just a couple of hundred feet from the house here.

Today was another snowy day so I thought I would head out into the West Country and see what was moving about. Along Alberta's Eastern Slopes there are some wild horses that have been out there for a long time and seem to be pretty well adapted to the country. Likely some of them are descended from horses that were either let loose out here or escaped from local ranches, but some of them probably escaped from the local First Nation folks over the last couple of hundred years. I managed to find a small band and get a few photos.

Hiding in the trees

Took over an hour to get these guys to let me see them without trees between us.

Lookout

Although the rest of the small band keep grazing while I was watching them the guy in the photo above never really took his eyes off of me the whole time I was there.

Along the way I crossed paths with this fellow and it looks like he is complaining about the spring weather also.