Crazy Cute

There were some crazy squirrels out and about at the farm a little while ago. They were of the crazy squirrel variety - you know, the ones that like to eat everything and destroy even more...so my dad set up some live traps to try and catch the sneaky little things before they did even more damage.

Then I came by and from a distance saw something in one of the traps. As I got closer...I could see it was a raccoon. A cute little semi-baby raccoon. That was all cute and little and was sitting with its head in its paws.

I felt so bad for it - and as I got closer I cooed over its cuteness and awwed over the fact that it was stuck in this trap.

It looked up at me with the worlds saddest puppy dog raccoon face and my heart melted.

And then it started making the WORLDS SCARIEST NOISE.

Yeah. It started HISSING and GROWLING at me.

WHO KNEW THAT RACCOONS COULD GROWL??????

Yeah, not me.

So todays lesson? Raccoons seem cute, sweet and innocent - until they pull out the CRAZY.

Country Girl Vs. City Girl

For the vast majority of my life...I have lived in the country.

It's where I feel comfortable. It's my home. It's lovely.

Sure, I was born in the city. Well - let me rephrase that. I was born in the "city" - I'll use that term loosely - as the place I was born is preeeeetty small (now it's BOOMING and it's population is above 70,000) and its demographic is just...weird. The saying goes that this town is "nearly wed or nearly dead"...and being a town with a university and a college - as well as about 178 nursing homes..it rings fairly true.

That being said - I moved outside of this "city" when I was 5. Returned when I was 17 for some schoolin' and have bopped back and forth since. It's not like it's THAT far away - my parents farm is only 20 minutes from the university.

Recently though, I've been staying at my cousins house in town..and it's a little bizarre.

When I lived in town before...I lived in residence on campus - which is unlike anything else in itself.

Then I lived in a house where our backyard basically merged with a giant field.

Next I moved to an apartment on the 7th floor of a building where all you could see was other apartments, where we generally kept our blinds closed as to not end up being creeped by people like the characters on Friends.

Now though - I'm in a very residential area.

It's friendly - it's cute.

But man...it's weird.

I'm so use to being like...la la la...I'm standing on my deck and can't see or hear anyone...whereas at their house...I'll go outside to sit on the deck...and there is someone else on their back deck looking at me...a kid in the yard nextdoor eating bugs and an old man duct taping his house back together (True story. Really happens. Not even joking a little bit.)

When I was little...we had two neighbours - both of who were (in city language) probably a block or two away from us. Down LONG rural driveways on the opposite side of the road. Unless we biked to see them in the summer - we couldn't just be all HOWDY NEIGHBOUR! Infact we never saw them unless we made the effort to see them, or yanno, saw them driving down our long backroad.

It's odd to get into your car first thing in the morning and wave to everyone else in suburbia as they also head off to start their day. Or collect the mail and bring in the recycling bins as everyone else on the street is doing it too.

To actively know stuff about your neighbours - when you've never met them.

And then get UBER creeped out because they probably know stuff about you - EVEN THOUGH THEY'VE NEVER MET YOU EITHER.

This city living thing is okay - but I'm not convinced it's for me.

Give me some neighbours I can wave to when we pass on the road, some fencelines and trees seperating us...not being able to know what anyone else is having for dinner without asking...and hanging out your laundry without wondering who is watching you...and I'm good.

AKA - A few acres, a cute little house..and neighbours off in the distance.

Yeah - I'm down.

Smashing Walls Is Fun.

For years, my family has been talking about re-doing our kitchen. Back in the day, before my father deciding to move to the country and take up farming, he was a cabinet maker. He designed peoples kitchens, made cupboards and made their kitchens lovely and beautiful.

We use to live in a cute little house on an adoreble little street in a city not too far from here. When I was little..my Dad re-did the kitchen and made it absolutely beautiful. From the little I remember, and what I've heard about it...it was their dream kitchen, absolutely perfect in every way. And shortly thereafter...we moved out to this here farm. Typical. To a farm where the kitchen hadn't been redone since sometime in the 60's and was redone poorly then. It's a typical farm house...where everything was just sort of a jumbled mess. Complete with the ugliest linoleum you ever did see on all of the floors. Oh, and when we first moved here there was a woodstove in the kitchen. It was big, black, constantly covered in sawdust. When it felt like it...it shot little burning specs out of it onto the worlds ugliest linoleum - which in turn, caused my mother to scream, run and stomp them out with her slippers. Leaving lovely little burn marks all over the already hideous floor. It was far from their dream kitchen.

So, after twenty years of maternal nagging waiting...the kitchen is finally being redone. Again.

And of course..the project that probably should have been redoing the cupboards and floor and what have you...has turned into this whole big production. Including redoing all of the wiring, moving plumbing, moving doors, windows, walls and instead of simply doing the kitchen..we're now ripping apart the entire laundry room, downstairs bathroom AND kitchen. And because we're farmers...this can't be done during the busy season (February --> October) so if it's ever going to be done....it has to be done..now. When the thermometer sometimes gets up to the single digits..on the negative side. When the wind is blowing a cold brutal wind, and there are a couple of feet of snow covering everything up. Did I mention that as of right now..you can see the outside..from inside. Where there AREN'T windows or doors? Fuuun tiiiiiiimes. Especially since we no longer have a sink. Or running water in the kitchen. And our stove and fridge are currently beside the dining room table. And our living room is filled with so much crap that you can't see the floor kitchen stuffs.

Did I mention that it was a balmy -8 today? Warmed up real nice so that my Dad could smash through yet another wall on the outside of the house!

I'm a real good helper, in case you weren't aware. I kinda like ripping things apart. And smashing. The smashing is just some plain old fashioned fun. But now that we're getting back into this whole BUILDING stuff thing..and putting things back together. Well...it's not quite my forte. Not like the smashing anyways. Unless you count smashing nails into wood to put something back together. Then I'm really good at that. Sometimes. Sorta. Kinda. Maybe. Okay, not really at all. Okay - so I'm REALLY good at putting them in on an angle. All crooked like. And bent in half. That and smashing...those are the things I excel in.

But at least I try?

And I'm sure I look mighty cute with my tongue sticking out of my mouth in concentration as I do.

Pro To The Ductive

Today I've been working away preparing a presentation that I'm doing next week. Evidentally someone thinks that that it'd be a joke and a half to label me an 'expert' in my 'field'. Field being farming and marketing and all that jazz. Which you may be so inclined to be like..what are you talking about? You're a TEACHER foo'. You didn't pay thousands and thousands of dollrs to go to school for five years to be an expert at farming now did you? You majored in history and PSYCHOLOGY. That's not even close to plants, dumb dumb. Alas, I just can't help it if they just see my supreme level of awesome despite these things.

So this agricultural symposium that's being held next week was all like....YOU SHOULD COME AND SPEAK ABOUT THINGS YOU KNOW - and we'll give you FREE LUNCH.

And I was like...Uhhh...lemme think about it for a - OF COURSE I'LL DO IT! I'd be HONOURED!

...because who doesn't say yes to free lunch?!

I neglected to tell them that I'm anything but an expert...and am now frantically putting together a presentation about blah blah blah that's filled with erm ahh oooh's that will wow them them into letting me stay for lunch. But as of right now...it's basically an empty powerpoint. I think that I typed the name of our farm in there somewhere. Maybe. And I did one little drawing on my notepad of me killing a powerpoint presentation. Okay, maybe three. But other than that...I'm at a loss for what to do. Completely and utterly unproductive.

Okay. That's a lie. I did break into my mothers facebook account and change her profile picture to this lovely little picture of her doing a belly flop in my cousins dining room on new years eve.



Tell me that's not productive. I dare you.

Firewood Frenzy

Today I participated in such a Canadian stereotype.

And no, I did not use a serviette after eating poutine on my chesterfield.

Instead...I climbed into my long johns and collected wood for the evaporator.

Translation: I turned myself into a lumberjack to get some wood for the fire to make maple syrup in the spring.

After fighting off a blinding headache this morning...I was back to my normal self this afternoon, so I spent the afternoon running around the farm helping my brother to collect firewood for the spring when we make maple syrup. My brother Ben and I are what you call...umm..opposites. We're not EXACTLY a like in such obvious ways. He's good at building things and machines and fixing things. Whereas...I'm good at..uhh..breaking things for him to fix.

So, I jumped in and did my best to help. I used my massive strength to carry huge trees as if they weighed nothing. I scaled rock fences in search for more wood like it was nobodys biznaz. I stacked wood like I've been doing it since I was a baby. I even drove a MANUAL TRACTOR.

Okay, I may be slightly exagerating. I used my strength to carry huge trees as if they weighed as much as...huge trees. I huffed and puffed and pulled and tugged until I got them out of the brush and into the open where they could be cut up into smaller more manageable (but still H-E-A-V-Y) pieces. I may have also been distracted picking up what I thought could have been a-okay firewood..which I quickly got the 'Erin, we're looking for FIREWOOD, not MATCHES' look from my brother as he pointed further down the field to where some giant dead trees awaited us. I may also have not so much...SCALED...as stumbled and scrambled up, around and...uhhh..down rock fences. Where the rocks may have beaten me up like it was nobodys biznaz. I stacked wood like someone would if they had no idea what they were doing...and let Ben take over that job and took to lifting it off the trailer and handing it to him instead. Hey, it's important..if no one handed it to him..he'd like, have to do it HIMSELF or something.

But the driving the tractor thing...I did. That, I'm not exagerating. It wasn't that the particular tractor was EASY or anything..I'm just AWESOME. And maybe a little bit that the gears had picture guides on them. If all cars had gears that were 'turtle', 'person' and 'car' on them for 'slow', 'medium', 'fast' - I'd TOTALLY know what to do. For those of you who know me..you know that this is kind of a big deal. I had a hard enough time learning how to drive an automatic car...the thought that I could ever be driving a tractor..let alone a MANUAL one..that's HUGE.

It didn't hurt that I had a teacher who actually had some patience and understanding and despite the fact that this stuff doesn't come naturally to me..he sat there patiently showing me how to work the clutch and explaining it to me in lamens terms why it works and how it works and making sure that I was getting it. Those are the best kind of teachers :) It's just funny to watch as we grow up and become responsible adults who can work together, and better yet..teach each other how to better ourselves. As I watch my brother grow up..I see so many qualities in him that I admire..and I see so much of my Dad in him and it just makes me really happy to see the person that he's becoming.

It really was amazing to me how much we've grown up...that we can work together and get things done..and amazingly..still be on speaking terms when we're done. It's not often that we work so closely together in our daily lives, even though we're both here working away on the farm. Our skill sets are just so different that we're both busy doing different things that we're good at..but spend little time actually working together to get something done 'round here. So when we do work together..I think that a lot of time we're destined to clash because we ARE so different in a lot of ways that it's harder to see where the other person is coming from..but today really showed me that perhaps we are..growing up. It also showed me that I'm REAL glad we don't heat our house entirely with wood. Man, that's just crazy talk...getting enough just for the evaporator in the spring is hard work. I did one afternoon of it..and I'm pooped. I'm gonna sleep SO GOOD tonight!

So, I'm proud to say that not only did we collect a bunch of firewood to go in the woodshed..but we did made a dent in filling it up, he taught me how to drive a TRACTOR..and despite working with machinery, chainsaws and EACH OTHER...we both have all of our limbs and are alive and well.

A-Mah-ZING.

Bonhomme

Even though I've been being a huge slacker around HERE, and I'm currently, for all intents and purposes..basically unemployed..it doesn't mean that I'm just sitting around doing NOTHING.

Take this morning for instance.

I was VERY productive. I watched Ellen. I ate toast..AND I let the dog out to pee.

Okay..and I did some accounting stuff. But that's boring. And frustrating. And I'm now updating here instead of pulling my hair out trying to figure out why cash register tapes from JULY don't correspond to the numbers they should and wondering how there can be so many screwed up things and why the heck asparagus was rung in as garlic. Those two things don't even come CLOSE to being the same...unless you make some garlic asparagus..mmm..yummah.

Now I'm dreaming of asparagus with a garlic butter sauce instead of doing anything productive..

Okay, I let the dog out to pee again..the productivity vs. lazy scales are balanced once again.

To be fair..I also signed up for a sweet seminar that's happening in December. All about organizing festivals and creating events...I'm such a huge dork..in the most AWESOME way.

I got super excited when reading the agenda which talked about developing networks, themes, leadership and success tips amongst other things! Life is a never ending exciting roller coaster of fun folks!

AND the email that said that while the public has to pay a grand sum of twenty-five dollahs..me, being the awesome specimen that I am...gets in free..SCORE! I'll just leave out the part where the business contributions made to the program last year by my dad MAY have had something to do with the free registration (AND LUNCH!)..and I will maintain that it's purely my awesome nature which granted me this glorious gift from the gods...I mean. Free lunch AND seminars on event planning? What more can you WANT IN LIFE?

Also. The guest speaker at the seminar? Her name is Mrs. Bonhomme. You know, kinda like the snowman at CARNIVAL. If that isn't a cherry on the cake of AWESOME..I don't know what is. Since reading the outline..I have not been able to think about the seminar without picturing a snow(wo)man being merry and jolly while speaking about events. Kind of fitting to be talking about events and festivals..when the Bonhomme de Neige is the mascott of the biggest festival in Quebec.

So you know that now..not only am I excited about a seminar for event and fesitval planning..but am basically counting down the days until I get to meet Mrs. Snowman and find out all of her insider tricks and tips.

It's going to be a holly jolly seminar. Details to follow...after I meet Mrs. Snowman herself. I just have to remind myself not to call her Mrs. Snowman to her face. Good thing I have 25 days, 14 hours and 26 minutes to prepare myself.

Not that I'm counting or anything.